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homeofatlas · 22 days

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Wasted Days

Summary: Being in the public eye isn’t easy. Especially when you’re in love with your best friend.

Authors note: Y'all.......I'm sorry this has been sitting half finished forever and i just needed to get it done and out there. Not edited. Also yes this is lowkey based on that line from call me by your name. but not really but inspired from it.

Word Count: 3.2k

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Being somewhat famous isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You loved the fans' sweet messages, the way they encouraged you and supported you when you had bad games, and how much dedication went into the edits and the fanpages. You’d even be lying if you said you hadn’t looked up your own name on tumblr to see if their was any fanfic of you. It flattered you, all these people you didn’t know idolising you and watching your interviews. What you didn’t appreciate was how they began to read into your relationship with your best friend. Could you call it reading into when they were just calling it like they saw it? It’s hardly their fault whenever you and elisa posted pictures of your excursions or you had interviews together you were staring at her like she’s hung the moon and the stars. It seemed quite rude of them to have to point that out though, in your opinion.

The recent influx of comments asking whether or not you two were dating made your heart beat faster in your chest. Surely there must be something there that other people can see and you aren’t just making it all up in your head, right? If not then it’s blatantly obvious for the entire internet to see how in love you are with your best friend, Elisa. You honestly can’t help the way you allegedly look at her. You’ve tried to rein it in, you’ve tried to like other people, you’ve tried to not tell anyone and make it go away. But apparently no matter where you go as soon as anyone sees you interact with her it’s like you’ve got I’m in love with her tattooed on your forehead.

During your professional football career you’d been at Montpellier with Elisa for a year before she’d left to join PSG. Giving you just enough time to learn everything about the girl and fall in love with her, convince yourself she might feel the same way, and then be heartbroken about her transfer. You’d kept in contact and tried to see her as regularly as possible but with training and games and travelling it’d been difficult until one day when you got the call from your agent telling you PSG wanted to sign you. Immediately you’d said yes in every way but in formal writing.

Upon your first connection with the PSG team they’d noticed something was different about you. The way your hug reuniting with Elisa lasted longer than it potentially should have. The way she was more distracted with you around. The way she stuck to you like glue and smiled more than she had before. You’d gotten into the habit of constantly being around each other again. When you two played together there was no stopping you. You could read what the other was thinking before they did it. It was like watching one person be split into two bodies. Unfortunately none of these things made your crush on her go away or dull even a little. That old saying “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”? They had a point.

In your time away from Elisa you’d forgotten the way her eyes crinkle when she smiled and the sound of her voice without the glitchiness of the phone. Constantly being around her again made everything better and worse at the same time. You were so screwed it wasn’t even funny. Which is why it took less than three weeks for the girls to corner you and ask about your relationship with Elisa. They’d assumed something had happened in the past or you were currently together. Either way that had been your first inkling you weren’t hiding your feelings as well as you tried to. Realistically there was only so much you could do before you started to avoid the girl or be constantly dead faced. You couldn’t help smiling at her the way you did or being the one she ran to when she scored a goal. If you’re being honest, it’s her fault for being so loveable. What were you supposed to do?

Pulling into the PSG parking lot you ready yourself for the teasing you know you’ll face. Elisa posted a photo last night which showcased you two looking awfully close together while on a night out with the team. You’d already skimmed the comments and they were the same on every post which had the two of you together.

“Are Elisa and Y/N together?”

“They are such a cute couple!”

“My OTP”

Yeah, you thought bitterly, mine too. Scanning the parking lot to see which of the girls were already getting ready your eyes landed on Elisas car. Knowing she’s already there puts a pep in your step. Walking towards the change rooms weaving into corridors and making turns you come up on the hallway before the change room. You can hear voices inside speaking with one of the voices distinctly agitated. As you move to enter you hear your name. It’s Jackie and Elisa speaking about you. Deciding to wait for a moment, you want to hear what they’re talking about. You hear Elisas voice cut through the tense silence.

“Drop it Jackie, we’re just friends. I don’t have feelings for her and I never have. Plus if anything was going to happen don’t you think it would have by now? We’ve been friends for years.”

You can practically see the face Elisas disbelieving face as someone once again questions the nature of your relationship. Are you really so bad she can’t even see how someone else could see the two of you together? Your stomach turns at the thought. It never gets easier to see her with other people, or hear her refer to your love as being strictly platonic. It never feels strictly platonic whenever you shiver and she immediately throws an arm around you pulling you into her side. Or when she grabs you to tell you something when she could have called your name to grab your attention. Or when she cracks a joke and she looks at you first to see if you’re smiling. Those moments rarely feel entirely platonic.

The words straight from her mouth saying she hasn’t got feelings for you makes you want to turn around and call in sick for training but you have to get over this at some point. You have to learn your place in Elisas life, her longtime friend, perhaps even her best friend. Not her lover. The realisation never hurts less despite the dozens of times you’ve come to it.

You give it a couple more minutes letting the conversation truly die out before walking in as though you hadn’t heard a thing. As you walk in you notice the way Jackie glances between you two. You’re sure your melancholy is written on your face, everything always is. You avert your gaze before she can decipher why. Thankfully she’s quiet while you change silently you really can't handle any teasing right now. Small bits of you break off every time you have to tell someone you and Elisa are just friends. Going up to the pitch and beginning to warm up Elisas words are still ringing in your head. Day 1067 (roughly) wasted thinking of a girl who doesn’t want you back. Story of my life, you think to yourself.

—-------

A team dinner is the last place you want to be tonight. It’s good for bonding but you’re attached to Elisas side the whole time anyways. You aren’t sure you can get anymore bonded to her. You wonder how much of it is you sticking close to her and how much of it is her keeping you close. You wonder how far you’d get before she pulled you back into her orbit. Not very far, you reckon.

Sakina slides into the seat opposite of you. You’d say her grin is wolfish but her features are too soft for the term.

“So you two looked pretty comfy on instagram the last couple of posts. Anything you’d like to share with the team?”

Your eyes flicker to Elisa beside you only to find her making eye contact with Jackie a couple people down. Whatever telepathic conversation they’re having right now makes your chest burn. You’re supposed to be the only one who knows her that well. Your mouth is filled with a bitter taste and something clenches and flexes in your chest. You look down trying to contain yourself before replying to Sakinas comment.

“We hang out a lot, sue us.”

You can feel Elisa nod more than you see it.

“Plus Y/ns a good photo taker I’ve got to put her skills to use when I have them!” She says jokingly. She leans forward in her chair propping one elbow up on the table the other coming up to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear. You glance to the side meeting her eyes and smile. Yes keep your focus on me, the beast in your chest sighs and relaxes.

“Yeah but she’s been here for a while now. You’d think you guys would be sick of each other. I mean you’ve been friends for so long. What else do you even have to talk about?”

You have a feeling it's time for Sakina to start drinking water. Luckily Elisa saves you from having to answer again.

“Anything, everything, whatever we feel like mostly. Sometimes we talk about nothing at all and it’s the best conversation I'll have all day.”

See? It’s stuff like that which makes you wanna scream and shout and call bullshit on being platonic.

It's like watching everything you've ever worked for go down the drain as Sakinas eyes light up. Something in her brain seems to scream BINGO!

“So have you guys ever….you know?” She looks between you two, clearly hinting at something. “Clearly you’re great together and have been in the same places at the same times coincidentally.”

Yeah coincidentally, you think.

Elisa leans back in her chair seemingly nonchalantly, “I mean I liked her when we were younger but it was never the right time.” She shrugs as if she hasn’t just blown up the ground you’re standing on.

“I mean we were young and starting out in our careers, we didn’t know where we’d go. There was no point in saying anything at that point.” You try to recover. Jumping in so it seems like you’re also unbothered and knew this information. You might pass out. It feels like the lights got brighter than they were a minute ago.

Sakina puts down her drink and seems to take a pause before replying. She goes unnaturally still for a moment before she relaxes and looks between you two with a confidence you see projected towards crowds but rarely in spaces with her friends. You’re starting to think she’a lot more sober than she’s let on and this a massive ploy or some sick fucking prank you’re the victim of.

“So why aren’t you now?”

Oh, Fuck.

Damage control.

Act like this is the first time you’ve thought of this.

You see Elisas eyes darken and an intense look in her eye directed at Sakina which the girl seems to pointedly ignore instead putting on a vague attitude of indifference which seems to suggest she’s just come to an observation, not blown up your carefully constructed weird homoerotic friendship.

“We could never jeopardise our friendship.” Elisa answers lamely.

You feel nauseous. Someone might need to call an ambulance because you aren’t sure if your heart has beat at all in the past five minutes. You’ve got to get out of here, you need to be alone. Just as that crosses your mind, a warm palm goes to rubbing circles on your lower back. You know she’s trying to soothe you but right now she’s a match stick and you're an old crumpled newspaper. Glancing back you give Elisa a tight smile before excusing yourself to go to the bathroom, instead you walk out the front door and go home.

—----------------

You aren’t expecting to hear from her. She’s made it abundantly clear in the last 12 hours she values your relationship but strictly as friends and used to like you but doesn’t anymore? You sigh, needing a minute to shut your brain off.

So when there’s a knock at the door you’re confused about who's at your door on a thursday night at almost 11 pm, you know it’s the one person who would’ve noticed you slip away.

She’s the last person you want to see and the first one you want to go to about all of this. Being in love with your best friend is too frustrating, you think as you unlock the door.

“You left.” She’s pouting in your hallway.

“I’ve filled my quota of hearing why I’m not relationship material to you today. Thanks, come back tomorrow.” Crap. You’re tired and you just want to go to bed, it slipped out.

“So this is about dinner?”

You’ve had enough.

At 11:08 pm on day 1067 (roughly) of being in love with Elisa you’ve decided you’ve had enough.

“It’s about us. I’ve loved you for a quarter of forever and I've spent all day listening to the ways you don’t like me in front of our teammates so excuse me if i had enough and came home.”

“Can I come in? This feels like an inside conversation, not a hallway conversation.”

You hate how she’s right and how she places her jacket on the hook that’s unofficially hers. When you turn and she’s made your home hers. She does that a lot, gets into your stuff and makes it her own. Your heart was the first thing she ever did too.

The moment you make eye contact with her again, it comes spilling out.

“I’ve loved you since forever. Honestly I can't pinpoint a specific moment in time where I knew I was in love. But when I listen to music there’s montages of your smile running through my head and your spirit feels like everything good in the world. Violins and guitars remind me of you. You’re music. You’re art. I love you, I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like I didn’t.” Everythings comes out of Elisa at rapid fire. You’re left blinking at her tiredly.

Word’s have done enough today. You’re too tired to talk. You walk over to her and tangle her hands with yours. Her fingers run along the sides of yours and you’ve never felt simultaneously at home and like you're on a rollercoaster. You love that feeling best when you’re with Elisa, she makes everything down to going on a walk feel like an adventure but also like you’re coming home and taking off your shoes and falling into bed when you’re tired. Safe, you realise, she makes you feel safe. No one ever felt this much like home before. In fact, you think if there is a home where all the atoms in the universe started your’s would be next to hers.

She pulls you closer to her body and before you can register it you feel a soft kiss, tentative kiss on your lips. It feels so right. You’ve always felt like your bodies were made to fit together and now you have confirmation.

“Sorry, I had to do that, I couldn't wait any longer.”

You hum at the sentiment.

She pulls away before bumping your foreheads together and letting it rest there. You love how Elisa knows you. Kissing is great but you know there’s more way to be intimate in a moment without you being attached to each other. Sitting here in this silence with her is filling your lungs with life again. You hadn’t noticed how little air you’d been breathing before, now every breath is a big heave and you’re trying to fill all your senses with her. You can see her, you can hear her breaths, you can feel her warmth against you, you can smell her, you can taste the chapstick she keeps in her car. This is where you’re supposed to be, you’ve never been more sure of anything.

Her hand comes up to cup the side of your face. Speaking quietly she utters,

“We wasted so many days.”

She sounds like she's laughing at the irony of it all. You know her well enough to detect the hint of bitterness in her voice. You think back to all the days you spent throwing her longing looks, waiting until she looked away or turned to look back at her. Everytime she smiled or laughed or frowned and they all went into a file to document exactly what she looked like. When you were younger and she would run up to hug you after a goal or the late night phone calls or the times where the moment hung just long enough for you to consider saying something. A light on the dark sea looking for a boat to say I see you, come home to me, I'll keep you safe. You wouldn’t trade any of those moments for the world.

“No, my love,” you whisper back bringing your own hand up to clutch hers, “I haven’t wasted a single day loving you. You make me feel like I’m somebody when I'm next to you. I don’t care about how many goals or assists I have, none of that matters. I don’t need to be somebody to anyone, I want to be someone to you. You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

You love her so much it’s utterly overwhelming, you can feel your throat beginning to close up. Sometimes it’s hard for you to tell her you love her because she means so much to you. Words could never portray how essential she is to your being. All you can do is hold her and try to give her the same sense of safety and wonder she gives you. Your hands tightly grip hers. You can feel her lips ghosting over the skin of your face. Her warm and heavy presence reminds you that this moment isn’t a dream.

You feel her press small kisses from your temple to your hairline, her hand moving to cradle the back of your head. Eventually she trails her kisses along your nose before hovering over your mouth where you meet her to connect your lips again. This kiss isn’t as soft as the last. This is the kiss which tells you she’s waited long enough to have you, she isn’t going to waste another moment. Your arms creep up to wind around her neck pulling her closer to you. A deep inhale from your nose tells her you don’t want to let go just as much as her. With a small bite to your lower lip, you knew you’d been right in assuming your chemistry would translate to the physical side of the potential relationship.

Pulling away with great effort you ask her to stay over tonight.

She replies by kissing you harder than before.

Perfect, you think, you’re not going to waste one more day.

#elisa de almeida #elisa de almeida x reader #woso x reader #élisa de almeida #woso #i've been holding this fic hostage so i'll do my homework #i'm trying to finish all the ones which are half done so yall stay tuned #i aware when i did the poll it was completely different but im still gonna write

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thyandrawrites · 4 months

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On (soccer) partnerships, commitment, and why Nagi and Reo are the poster children for always doing the opposite of what the series is about

Alright fellas, this started out as something completely different, so forgive me in advance if it feels disjointed, but.

Have you wondered why in chapter 18 of epinagi, Nagi’s inner monologue complains that his “heat is being stolen away”? Or why even in the main series Nagi can’t seem to win a single match even after he and Reo get on better terms? Well, if you have, this post might be a fun read for you. If you already have answers, I might sound like I’m stating the obvious because none of this is particularly subtle or particularly new. But since both series have hit the Nagi Flop Era, I thought it’d be fun to take a deep dive into his character and Reo’s, the themes of the story, and how their codependence contradicts the entire premise of blue lock, intentionally so. I’m going to go over why stagnancy is the entire point of their partnership, and why the fact that they keep failing and failing is instrumental to the type of story Kaneshiro is trying to tell.

So, without further ado. Get comfortable, this will get long.

So, as I anticipated, Nagi and Reo are very very often written to be at odds with the themes the story functions around, and I think their regression is another instance of that. In a manga that often underlines the importance of making soccer your “reason to exist” if you’re serious about it, Nagi and Reo are the only duo repeatedly singled out as more committed to each other than to the sport itself. This, the story tells us, being the root of why they so often fail.

The premise of blue lock is that you can’t become the best in the world until you dedicate your whole self to the sport. Only that egoism will push you in the right state of mind to go above and beyond for a victory.

Time and time again, we see the most outstanding goals happen in what gets called the hottest place in the field. This “center of heat” comes up a couple of times, and it’s usually represented by a person. According to Ego’s philosophy, the idea is that the world’s best striker possesses a soccer-specific kind of charisma. When he enters a state of flow and pulls off a world-class play, he’ll have a ripple effect on the players around him, pushing them to reach flow too and elevating the level of the game itself. We saw this happening in the U-20 match. Ego’s not really aiming to create a national team, or to foster the talent of the new generation. He only cares about nurturing one person into that role, betting it all on the fact that once that striker awakens from its “rough diamond” shell, they will fire up their teammates & lead Japan to victory.

Because of this, ideally, everyone aiming at becoming the world’s best striker should strive to be that center of heat. To an extent, even Nagi does. His motivation is spotty at best, but whenever a game heats up, Nagi’s ego gets tickled awake the same as everyone else’s. This is not limited to the times Isagi challenged him, by the way. He reacted to Rin’s skill in much the same way.

Problem is, neither Nagi nor Reo seem to know how to become that center of heat by themselves. They only react to someone else raising the stakes of a match. Even when Nagi feels fired up, his lack of creativity & playmaking sense fail him against any opponent who is more tactical than him. In a similar way, even when Reo starts going after goals alone in the wake of his split from Nagi, he still can't see his vision of a goal through to the end, or gets outsmarted and beaten to the punch by other playmakers.

The only times they really get their head into a game is when they're working as a duo. Compare for example Nagi losing grasp of his heated frenzy when he splits from Reo to how quickly he reaches flow when they go back to playing together.

So why is this an issue? If Nagi's limit is his over-reliance on instinct, and Reo's is the lack of self-centeredness that's key to scoring, then shouldn't teaming up solve the problem and make them a powerhouse? How come, even after somewhat resolving their communication issues, their soccer still is no match to that of the blue lock elites?

Well, before I can begin to unpack the answer to that… A big theme driving the soccer partnerships is that you won’t go very far if you rely too much on the other person to carry your weight. This is the reality Bachira faces in the 4v4, when he “disappears”, swallowed by everyone else’s growth. This is also the lesson Rin learns from Sae when his brother returns from Spain a completely different, overwhelmingly superior player. The series tells us that relying on others to pick up your slack makes you less sharp and prone to noticing your weaknesses because someone else will cover your back.

For a practical example of this, Rin's style when he played with Sae mirrors Nagi's around Reo: they both relied on instinct, trusting that the ball would always come if they just positioned themselves in the right spot to score. And for a time, it did. But that's not the level the rest of the world plays at. Nagi and Reo's winning streak ends when they face an unpredictable, explosive talent like Isagi, who doesn't operate according to any predictable patterns. Similarly, Rin's playstyle gets wrecked in a matter of minutes by a Sae who got to experience the "real" soccer played overseas.

The point, then, is that Nagi and Reo never really assimilated any of Ego's lessons, instead resisting his philosophy to a fault by choosing each other. From the start, they’re not very good at being apart, given how their strength draws from being a team. Both of them are noted to only ever increase the level of their plays when they are working together, but not as much when alone.

Nagi’s the brawn to complete Reo’s brain, and their dynamic too often falls back on that codependent partnership. In fact, they default to their roles even when they're not playing with each other. During the second selection, Nagi replaces Reo with Isagi, continuing to rely on someone else's creativity and game sense, while he just follows. And in the 3v3, we similarly see Reo fall back on playing the midfielder to Kunigami and Chigiri's forward, offering up the perfect passes to make them shine and get all the scoring options they want.

But what about when they're together? Aren't they strong then? Didn't Nagi score a crazy super goal thanks to Reo's assist? What do we make of that?

You'll probably remember how Ego got a sense of foreboding from Nagi's five shot revolver. Of course, you might say, Ego never liked their soccer! He was cussing them out for playing together since day one! Of course he's a hater!

Well… Yeah. But Ego's also an authorial insert, and he's there to tell us the themes of the story, and comment on the characters growth. Or in this case, their stagnancy. Nagi's returning to his reliance on Reo's brains and Reo's willingness to entertain it are both framed as a bad thing because it specifically contradicts the idea the series is based on: that a real striker is an egotistic, self-reliant existence that doesn't bend to other people's rules, but instead dictates their own, and makes everyone follow or fall through in their wake.

There are several players this definition already applies to. Rin, Barou, Shidou and of course Isagi all come to mind. Isagi's growth in particular has been rotating around this concept. Isagi not only believes in his (meta) vision, but he also possesses the sharp-wit and the cutthroat resourcefulness to see it through no matter the odds, at times even to the detriment of his teammates. Nagi and Reo, on the other hand, can pull off some incredible plays, but it’s never enough to land them a solid victory, especially in the NEL arc. Usually, in a story, when a character fails enough times to become stagnant, the author is making some kind of point. In this case, as the narrative itself points out through Isagi first and Agi later, it’s the concept that relying on their teamwork is actually making Nagi and Reo’s soccer worse.

Sure, Nagi might've caught Isagi off guard with those feints once and managed to score, but that's still him relying on instinct over brains. If you dissect that match, you'll see that aside from the fake volley itself, which is the product of a non-replicable state of flow, there isn't a single move Nagi and Reo made during that game that Isagi didn't see through, expect, and match their pace at. This is by design, of course. It's meant to indicate that while Isagi grew, learning from stronger players and assimilating new elements in his arsenal of weapons, Nagi and Reo are still stuck playing the same way they did in the second selection. With Reo as the heart, brain and anchor directing Nagi around, and Nagi as the leg kicking the ball into the net following a momentary burst of inspiration.

The fact that this is intended as a setback in their path towards a more egotistical soccer is made more obvious by the timing. It's not a coincidence that Nagi went back to Reo the moment he got frustrated by how hard creativity and tactics come to him when he's on his own, without a "handler" like Reo (and later Isagi) taking care of all the hard parts.

Nor is it a coincidence that Reo was faced with the choice to go back to helping Nagi out right when Reo was beginning to go after his own goals, without help. Nagi comes up to him and shakes him up literally one (1) panel after Reo's dramatic, resolute decision to prove himself alone.

Had they gotten anywhere in their quest to polish their individual skills during the split, maybe their partnership could’ve aspired to become more like Isagi and Bachira’s, eventually. However, they weren’t apart long enough to master their respective strengths, or to consolidate their egos as something separate from their status as partners. Thus, when they resume playing together, they instead hold each other back.

So is their ego the problem here, then? Ever since that five shot fake volley, we see Nagi’s dissolve, leaving him unmotivated again, grasping for answers he can't seem to reach no matter how many people he asks. And surely, its disappearance is significant, much like how Reo's ever changing definition of his own ego is also significant. But I think the real issue is something else. Egos can take many forms, and Nagi and Reo aren't the only players whose so-called “protagonism” isn’t rooting for their own success. Most recently, Hiori gained an ego too, and it was framed as a good thing even though it doesn’t strictly lead to him becoming the best striker in the world.

My idea, then, is that it's less that they lack the "correct" ego, but more like they lack the correct attitude towards soccer to begin with. From the start, they're both motivated by something that is not inherent to soccer itself, but only tangential to it: the World Cup—or rather, their promise to each other that they'd win the World Cup. Because of this, I think, they center their football more around their partnership & their shared dream than any genuine passion for the sport, unlike pretty much the rest of the cast (now including Hiori. Yay!). In other words, the problem is that neither of their egos is really about themselves, yet. So it fails them because it's not conductive to "protagonism", but centered around an "us" that drags them off course.

Let's go with Nagi first. On the surface, "commitment" and "Nagi Seishirou" don't seem to go well in the same sentence. Nagi doesn't do anything excessively. He's content to coast through life doing nothing more than he strictly needs to survive. As long as he can put in minimal effort and still have time to play video games and nap, he's happy. When his teachers asked him to fill a form about his future, he couldn't think of anything he wanted to do. He's the embodiment of living one day at a time cause it's too much work to figure out his life past that. Yet, he genuinely commits to soccer.

Or does he?

Sure, he agrees to not only playing the sport, but to dedicating several years of his life to becoming pro. That’s dedication, for sure. But is it really for soccer? I would argue that no, Nagi’s commitment is to his partnership with Reo, not to the sport itself. And okay, you can’t have one without the other, but the distinction is important to understand Nagi’s (and Reo’s as well) resistance to character growth.

So, Nagi had no passion for the sport until he saw the level some other elite blue lockers played at, and got curious and frustrated enough to put real effort in it himself. But until then, soccer was simply something he tagged along in. In fact, he was pretty unenthused with the idea of playing until Reo promised him an easy life and made it so Nagi wouldn’t have to work hard for it. Nagi signs up for blue lock with the expectation that he’ll be the one to flunk out first, without being too torn up about it. Clearly, it’s not a career as a professional soccer player he has an attachment to. I’d argue it’s more the fact that he feels comfortable around Reo, and he is invested in what only their agreement can bring forth. That is, a life more exciting than any nap or game.

The excitement part is the focus here. At their core, both Nagi and Reo’s characters are motivated by the wish to escape boredom. So much so, the epinagi movie made that its tagline. Thematically, dissatisfaction with boredom is the catalyst for every choice they make. While everyone else is motivated by an ambition that is inherent—that draws from their wish to excel—Nagi and Reo are more prize-oriented, lacking the conviction that they’re special on their own. It follows that the challenge of bringing home the World Cup represents just that—for Nagi, it’s the thrill of a final boss with the prospect of an easy life afterwards, and for Reo, something hard to obtain that he’d conquer by his own merit. In both cases, soccer for soccer’s sake is not the end goal. It’s just a tool to achieve what they really want.

Neither of them ever really dreams of becoming the world’s best striker, and neither swears their entire life to soccer, either. Not even Reo ever brought up a career in the sport, past winning for Japan for the first time. This is why I say their commitment is more to each other than to football, and also why they struggle to advance in the program.

Let's think about it. The Cup was never really Nagi's dream; beating Isagi was. Yet, when their partnership all but crumbles down, Nagi keeps making choices with the Cup in mind. The boy who never fought for anything becomes determined to honor his promise to Reo even if he's not certain that Reo still cares about it. By his own admission, he chooses Isagi and then England because both of those things bring him closer to their original goal, and Nagi's resolve for that has never waned, even if for a time he thought Reo's had.

It's like he clings to inertia to avoid thinking what the sport means to him. Despite how Reo seemingly turned his back on him, Nagi doesn't want to give up on what made them partners. To him, soccer never stopped being something they shared (to a fault). That's why, I think, when they make up, a big part of their reconciliation is going back to sharing a dream. This time, with Reo helping Nagi out instead of the other way around. And I'm saying that's a flaw because his subconscious need to seek answers and help from others made it so that whenever he's alone, he doesn't have a very defined idea of how to move forward. But again, a striker should be self-reliant, and have the capacity to evolve on his own even as the match is unfolding. But Nagi didn't even believe in himself until Reo convinced him he was special, so how can Nagi have the right mindset to seize his protagonism?

Similarly, Reo’s drive is also not based on anything inherent. From the start, he doesn’t believe he was “chosen by football” the way geniuses like Nagi and Rin are. Because of this, he never bought into Ego’s striker philosophy, nor has he been a very fitting candidate for it yet. Much like with Nagi, his set up as someone willing to step away from the spotlight positions him in defiance of the story’s themes. While Nagi has the talent and instinct to become a powerhouse but lacks conviction, Reo is a born leader outside of the facility, but within blue lock’s rules he can only make it to the U-20 bench, and so far no further.

The point here is that Reo’s readiness to be Nagi’s crutch is lowkey framed as a voluntary burden he places on his potential growth, a fact that the narrative condemns.

Reo was born for success—bred and raised with every luxury to make sure he'd step into his father's shoes and be one of Japan's wealthiest and most capable businessmen. And Reo takes obvious pride in his social status, too. We can see it in the flaunted wealth of his spending and daily habits, as well as in the way he interacts with his peers. He funds his Hakuho soccer team and easily seizes captainship. Blue lock teams don't have captains, but he still rises to a similar position even within an environment designated to promote violent competitiveness and a wolf-eat-wolf mentality. Heck, he asks Nagi to call him "boss" and demands Zantetsu recognizes him as "super elite". Pride in being the best and excelling at everything he does is written into Reo's code.

Yet, the moment Ego suggests that there is no such thing as cooperation within his training program, Reo is quick to bargain—take him, he’s the real star. I will tag along and ensure his success.

Ever the businessman, right? Problem is, renouncing his pride for someone else is the opposite of the attitude he should have. Same as Nagi, Reo puts a lot of weight on their shared dream. Too much weight. Somewhere along the line, “I want the World Cup” became “If Nagi’s at my side, we will win the World Cup”. Being partners until the end became so entangled with Reo’s dream that he can no longer separate the two. When Nagi leaves, Reo’s image of that finishing line crumbles. Iirc, he doesn’t even mention the World Cup as his goal anymore until Nagi comes back to him. When asked to put into words what he wants to achieve with his soccer, Reo tells Chris that he wants to go after goals alone. It’s only later, when Chris questions what happened to his solitary resolve in the wake of Reo’s restored friendship with Nagi, that Reo is like “well, my actual dream was the World Cup anyway, so this still counts.”

That is both true and a deflection from the truth. Yes, Reo’s real goal has always been the cup… but he also subconsciously sees it as something inseparable from his promise with Nagi. He can’t have one without the other. Or he thinks he can’t, is the point. Partly because of that, and partly because Nagi is his best friend, Reo is very resistant to Agi’s criticism. The story’s trying to nudge Reo towards personal growth, telling him that the only way out of this impasse is to quit what isn’t working. However, because Reo’s meant to resist the themes of the story, the choices he makes are rarely the right ones. That is, the choices a real egoist would make in his place.

This isn’t anything recent, by the way. For this same reason, for example, winning Nagi's trust back becomes his main motivation to survive past the loss in the 3v3. By his own admission, Reo is the only guy in blue lock who not only has a safety net outside the program, but a very comfortable life to fall back on if a career in football doesn't work out for him. But when push comes to shove and he faces the chance of dropping out, Reo resolves to improve by thinking of Nagi and their shared dream.

Let’s compare that to Barou, who was similarly broken down and had to crawl his way up again. Barou goes the egoist way and finds his resolve within himself, vowing to double down on his king shtick and devour Isagi back. To Barou, the simple idea of passing a ball is akin to defeat. When he envisions a future of normalcy, with football as something to only watch on tv, Barou’s hunger to reign the field like a king rears its head again and motivates him forward. Reo, instead, never reaches a point where he embraces the series’ trademark selfishness. In fact, he does the opposite. When he vows to step up his game, he doesn’t do it because he thinks he’s the top dog like everyone else. The root of his despair is not a wounded pride, or a desire to prove himself further, to “devour” others back and rise to the top, but just the loss of his fix against boredom. Remember, chasing an exciting life is both Reo and Nagi’s main motivator so far. To put it simply, Reo doesn’t want what awaits him outside of blue lock.

That’s the seed of his actual ego, by the way. Not the Cup, not making Nagi the best, but rather obtaining something by his own merit. But because of his reliance on Nagi (and Nagi’s on his), Reo hasn’t yet reached the point where he can realize this and use the knowledge to better his plays. In that sense, their partnership holds both of them back from exploring their inner motivations and individual strengths further.

And I said that this is instrumental to the kind of story Kaneshiro’s telling because it’s meant to show us all the ways a striker can’t be. This is not a manga where the power of friendship will get you anywhere. No matter how stubborn you get about having it your way, obstacles will materialize in your path and set you back the longer you refuse to play for your own sake.

Yet, Reo doesn't want to advance in the program for the sake of becoming the world's best striker. He never did. He wants to move forward because Nagi left first, and he wants to meet him on the other side (quote, "beyond our dreams"). In other words, to return to being friends, even if he fears that Nagi might've replaced him with Isagi and "forgotten" about him. It doesn't have anything to do with soccer per se. It's more like Reo sees soccer as his chosen tool for self-determination. It was the trial to prove to himself, as well as his father, that his "worth" wasn't handed down to him by circumstance, but was inherent. He could achieve something worthwhile thanks to hard work, and not just reap the benefits of his last name.

And the thing is…If he were literally anyone else, at this point he would’ve already channeled that into individualism, but because it’s Reo, he doesn’t. Despite possessing that seed of egoism, Reo doesn’t water it. His ambition doesn't make him an egoist in the way Ego Jinpachi intended, but instead becomes something that's meant to be carried by two people, contradicting the story.

Reo’s resolve is then always a bit off from falling in line with the rules of blue lock. Even when he gets something right, he does it for the wrong reasons, stumping his development. For example, his resolve after the 3v3 is both a step forward and two steps back. The positive is that he "engraved despair". He faced his shortcomings, realized his powerlessness, and took measures to improve to avoid being left in the dust again. The negative part is that being on his own should've given Reo a taste for real egoism, a hunger for self-reliance, but it does the opposite instead: it makes him long for what he had, and put all his willpower into restoring that partnership however he can. If the issue was that Nagi's improved enough to no longer be satisfied by the level of Reo's plays, then Reo's solution is to make his soccer exciting again in Nagi's eyes to, quote, "be enough to satisfy" him.

Because of that, however, the moment he has Nagi's trust back, their partnership back, Reo pretty much stops trying to improve. His chameleon style is still a go, but it becomes yet another tool to assist in Nagi's goals. It didn't start that way.

Initially, it was what Reo intended to use to score alone, remember?

Yet, even after coming up with a style that's solely his, that focuses on his strengths and brings no value to Nagi's, Reo keeps committing to stagnancy. In different but similar ways, both do.

Teamwork and passive codependence are the two things Ego asked all the blue lockers to leave behind, but Nagi and Reo make it their job to bring typical shonen manga dynamics into a series that sets out to break from the norm. And that’s the point!

In this sense, Reo is more at fault than Nagi, who instead realizes that sometimes being apart makes you better, and doesn’t mean the end of your friendship. If I were to pin down Nagi’s role in the narrative, then I’d say he’s meant to show that talent doesn’t equal success without discipline, self-awareness and determination. So the world’s best striker can’t just be good. He needs to know what he’s doing, and when and where he can do it to make the most of every play, since nothing happens by chance on the field. Whereas Reo’s role is that of showing us the mindset of a real striker. Because Reo enters the program without accepting or even understanding Ego’s rules, Reo’s faulty beliefs get challenged at every turn, with the author basically spoonfeeding us the correct path to soccer stardom.

So in the end, since they struggle so much to even understand what they should be doing, their fumbling around makes it so the story goes more into depth about its own themes. Their job is to be incompetent, basically, but in a way that doesn’t rule out eventual growth. They just need to come to terms with the rules of the competition they entered first. So far, they’ve been content to just live in a bubble and coast through the increased stakes of the selection. If they’re serious about their dreams, however (and we’ve established that they are!), they will have to make a choice between what’s comfortable and what’s necessary. Cause, to quote Ego from epinagi chapter 2, in blue lock there’s no place for self-conscious babies who don’t want to ever get their feelings hurt.

So what will they choose? Each other again, or the only way they can make it past blue lock and thus actually chase their dreams?

#Blue lock #Blue lock spoilers #Nagi seishirou #Mikage reo #Seishiro nagi #Reo mikage #Bllk thoughts #And here it is! Sorry for the wall of text. I might go back on this and add more pictures later but rn I'm toast #I need to get this out or else I'll add 4k more lol #I am very normal about those two yes #Nagireo #Reonagi

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nonclassyparty · 3 months

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tins without labels - prologue (j.wy)

summary: Jung Wooyoung's life was always somehow intertwined with your own. from living in the same neighbourhood as kids to attending the same college; fights, bickering, bruises, teasing comments and tears. Wooyoung and you were never complete strangers but never friends either. Always somewhere in between, growing up with each other but never actually knowing one another. The relationship takes a confusing turn in your third year of college after an injury that places your football career on hold. Lonely, lost and confused, you find yourself at your first college party in the presence of none other than Jung Wooyoung asking him to show you what exactly have you been missing out on. playlist // my main masterlist // moodboard (tba) // click to donate to Palestine

pairing: jung wooyoung x reader warnings: none for this chapter i think! word count: 9.3k taglist: just reply or inbox me if u'd like to be added c: a/n: pls don't say damn when u see that i started another story. listen LISTEEEEEN. i know what u all will say..."bree should u rly be starting another series when u havent finished or started the 4757 bajillion ones that u already posted?" the answer is YES. let me explain myself briefly, this summer has been rly hard for me bc i lost someone who was incredibly important to me and i just can't write...i just can't! everything looks like shit!!! im halfway done with soot and something just isn't letting me continue. i can't write pretty on the outside or literally anything else i've started bc its all simply too sad. writing is draining to begin with despite how much i love and enjoy it but writing angst is k wording my mental health lol! so....i present to you this series, mostly dedicated to myself literally no one asked for this, i just feel like its something i need to write and always wanted to so here i go! it will be a little heartwarming series with lots of humor and coming of age shenanigans and huge chunks of it written from personal experience and i hope u guys read it and like it. i had a lot of fun writing this prologue. (p.s. i literally know jackshit about football/soccer so if by some chance someone that reads this knows their football shit....just let it go pls lmfaoo)

(prologue; when we were kids)

and I couldn't find the words, i couldn't think of what to say and all that I can do is stop and think about the days when all we used to dream about was meeting after school

6 and 8 years old;

Your mom helped you build the snowman.

An entire morning of running around your front yard, laughing and playing in the freshly fallen snow, seeing the air you breathe out in front of you that you pretended was cigarette smoke to make your mom laugh as the cold nipped at your cheeks.

The snowman was almost twice your size (which wasn't a lot, you were a fairly small child) with pebbles stuck in as his eyes and teeth pulled up in a big grin. Your mom found a small bucket in the old shed behind the house which she placed on his head as a makeshift hat and because you didn't have any carrots, there was a small twig stuck at the center of the snowman's face to serve as a long crooked nose.

(The snowman didn't have any arms, a detail that went over your head at the time.)

After admiring the big statue in the farther corner of your front yard for awhile, you finally retreated into the house with your socks wet along with the majority of your hot pink snowsuit. As you kicked off the damp clothes and exchanged them for warm, dry ones and fuzzy socks and then settled in front of the TV in the toasty living room with a mug of cocoa - you couldn't help but feel that it was a happy day.

Which is why when, in the late afternoon, once you looked out of your window to see what once used to be your snowman is now nothing but a big pile of disheveled snow with his plastic hat rolling around the sidewalk and two boys running away down the street with shrill laughter echoing after them, you simply couldn't help but burst into tears.

"Mommy!" You screamed out, running outside your front door in fuzzy socks and your sweater, as dramatic as you were. But you were six and your life still ended and began with coloring books and favorite toys, so a snowman that you made with your mom getting destroyed, surely felt like the end of the world.

Once your mom stepped out after you, about to scold you for walking outside into the cold air with no jacket on, you burst into crocodile tears as you pointed to the spot where your snowman once stood.

"Oh, no." She breathed out with a sigh before grabbing her jacket and slipping into whatever shoes were available by the door (they were your dad's old tennis shoes) and walking across the front yard to collect the small bucket from the sidewalk.

All you could do was stand and watch as you wailed so loudly after your snowman that the entire neighbourhood could hear.

"Honey, it's okay." Your mom tried to soothe you as she walked up the steps to your house, carrying what used to be the snowman's hat. "It's just a snowman, we'll make another one tomorrow!"

But you were inconsolable, bursting out in another wave of loud cries as you stomped your tiny foot and pointed to the house across the street.

"They ruined it! W-Wooyoung ruined it!" You sob, waving towards the boy's house with all the anger a six year old could possibly muster. You knew it was him, recognizing the ugly red jacket he wore this entire winter and his even uglier looking friend, Chanwook.

You weren't friends with Wooyoung. He was older than you and all of his friends were mean. You once tried to play with them when you first moved to the neighbourhood but they didn't want to play with a girl. You cried about that too.

They often teased you. Wooyoung said your crooked teeth made you look ugly!

She sighs again, "And that was very mean of him. But, Y/N, we'll just make another snowman tomorrow."

"But-" You start again, tears still sliding down your face.

"We'll build him in the backyard where we have a fence, so no-one will be able to touch him." She offers with a smile, hoping you'll finally be consoled enough to walk inside and be safe from the harsh cold.

"But I won't be able to look at him from the window." You tell her quietly, voice going hoarse from the crying and bottom lip already wobbling as another wave of tears began to sunk in. She gives you a sympathetic smile.

"We'll get him a prettier hat and we'll use two long branches to give him arms!" Your mom offers again, trying to butter you up so the tears would stop. "We'll get a carrot for his nose and big pretty rocks for his eyes!" Once she realized it was working, she continued; "And we'll take a picture of you with him so you'll always get to look at him, even when he melts away!"

You peer up at her with a hiccup, finally bribed enough; "A picture?"

She nods, holding the door wider for you to finally walk inside as you inch towards the door, fuzzy socks now soaked, "A picture. We'll send your dad to the mall to develop them."

So, you finally walk inside the warm house again, changing your socks and immediately going to your father's home office to pester him about the camera and just how long will it take for a picture to be developed.

"-Y/N, we'll just make another snowman tomorrow!"

Wooyoung heard your mom tell you as he peers at the exchange from across the street, through his bedroom window, freshly changed into dry clothes after a long hard day of playing outside with Chanwook and now, warming his frozen hands on the radiator.

When Wooyoung saw the snowman parked in the corner of your front yard, just a step away from the sidewalk, he and Chanwook thought it would be funny to ruin it.

The thing was ugly and had an even uglier bucket at the top of it's head, perfect to kick around the street!

He didn't think too much about it, if he was honest. Just saw a big lump of snow he wanted to kick at until it collapsed, so that's what Wooyoung did. It was just a silly snowman.

Besides, you were already six years old. Far too old to be making a stupid snowman. You should've been going sledding with the rest of the neighborhood kids on the small hill just a couple of minutes away from your street. Wooyoung was mature now, so his mom allowed him to go without a chaperone this year. You were always so childish, no wonder your mom didn't let you go with them. You cried over everything.

But he didn't expect you to cry over the stupid snowman!

It was just a snowman. It would've melted anyway when the weather got warmer! Or gotten ruined by someone else!

The brief fear of your mom telling Wooyoung's mom about what he'd done struck him. He'd positively get grounded for ruining your dumb snowman if she found out and then the rest of his winter break would be spent inside of the house.

You could always make another snowman. A better one. And since you're such a crybaby, Wooyoung would make sure to tell Chanwook that they won't be touching that one. Leave that ugly snowman alone.

Just so you wouldn't cry anymore.

10 and 12 years old;

"It's a shame your mother is dead, maybe if she was still around she would teach you how to act like a girl!"

Your face flushed in anger as you stared the other boy, Beomseok, his chubby fingers still wrapped around your pencil case which was how the argument started in the first place.

He was in the same class as you and a typical bully. Bigger than the rest of his peers and always using it to his advantage to intimidate and tease them. Today, he took your pencil case and when you asked for him to give it back, he only gave you a gnarly smile and started running around the classroom and eventually out on the halls, screaming taunts at you. It would be a lie to say that you didn't scream some pretty mean stuff back but in your defense, he deserved it.

Now, you both stood as if you're ready to duel as the rest of your classmates and even some upperclassmen gathered to see what the commotion is all about, your fury rising so high that tears spring in your eyes at the mention of your mom as you observe his smug smirk. Obviously, from a very young age, you were bad at managing your anger.

"I hate you!" You scream out, voice high pitched. Then you jump on Beomseok with your full weight, successfully pulling him to the hard hallway floors as your hands curled into tiny fists that started colliding with his face.

And Beomseok, for all his intimidating build, talked an awfully big game just to end up bursting into tears as your fist collided with his nose. He was bad at fighting, you notice, if he could be beat up by a lanky girl almost two times smaller than him.

"I just-" Punch. "-wanted-" Punch. "-my pencil case-" A slap. "-back!"

"Somebody help!" He screams from under you, whining under each attack but his classmates were too busy cheering you on to come to his defense.

Once you start harshly pulling on his hair, two arms wrap themselves under your armpits and pull you off of your classmate. You're standing again and are turned by your shoulders to come face to face with your teacher, screaming at you.

"Is this a proper behavior in school?!" and lots of "Your father will hear about this!"'s and "You're going to the principle's office!" as she started pulling you by your arm down the corridor that was still filled with students.

"Everyone to your classrooms! Now!" Your teacher screams from the top of her lungs as she tugs on you and you follow after her with a frown on your face.

Stupid Beomseok.

Wooyoung's stomach hurts from laughing, clapping Chanwook's shoulder who was almost sitting on the floor due to his own fit of pure glee, as he watches Kim Beomseok roll around the floor in pain, clutching his nose.

There's scratches and bruises already forming on his cheeks, little bit of blood mixed with a lot of big, fat tears. It's hard to feel even slightly bad for Beomseok, when Wooyoung heard how he torments his classmates along with the younger kids during recess. Did it count as bullying if the bully is the one getting bullied?

Maybe he finally got what was coming for him, nobody usually stood up to him and Wooyoung least expected you to be the one to put him in his place.

He deserved it, Wooyoung thinks, after what he said about your mom.

Wooyoung remembers her funeral three years ago, he remembers how much you cried and how you didn't leave your house for a month that summer. He even rung the doorbell to ask if you wanted to come out and play one time which he never did because you were a child and he was much more mature than you, you two had nothing in common. But he felt sad for you.

Your mom was nice, she always brought Wooyoung a chocolate when she'd come for a visit.

Sadly, they discovered she had cancer when you were only seven and Wooyoung was nine. By the time they discovered it, it was already too far along and your mom passed away on a summer evening while you were outside playing hide and seek.

Wooyoung remembers feeling so bad how they always made you the seeker that day because you were the youngest kid in the neighbourhood and far too easy to convince that it was simply always your turn to look for the other kids.

Your dad opened the door, smiling sadly at Wooyoung and saying that you weren't feeling well enough to come out and play. Wooyoung didn't try again after that.

The teacher is pulling you by your elbow through the crowd, yelling at the top of her lungs for everyone to head to their classrooms since class should start in a couple of minutes. You silently follow her, face twisted into an angry grimace.

Your hair has fallen out of your ponytail, long strands sticking to your face and Wooyoung is pretty sure that your shirt got ripped during the brawl.

Wooyoung might've been laughing a bit too loudly because with angry eyes and cheeks flushed, your head whips towards him just as you pass by him.

Wooyoung opens his mouth with a smile, to say something like "Good job, Y/L!" maybe. He doesn't get the chance to.

"What are you laughing at, Jung?" You ask loudly and Wooyoung's laughter immediately dies down.

"Wha-?"

And it's then, that your foot meets Wooyoung's shin in a harsh kick that makes him yowl in pain and makes Chanwook burst into another wave of laughter as his hands grab at Wooyoung who doubles over in pain.

"Y/N!" The teacher screams out again, pulling you back by your shirt and going on another rant, filled with threats of calling your dad to school and something else he can't process at the moment.

Wooyoung is too busy feeling the pain and anger that fills him up as he rubs at the place your sneaker covered foot meet his leg.

"Y/N, you psycho!" He yells after you who is still getting dragged away. You don't even bother to look back at him.

(He still collects your pencil case from the floor and throws it on a desk that a classmate of yours says belongs to you before exiting the classroom and going to his own. Wooyoung tells himself it's for no other reason but just so your dad won't have to buy you a new one. He has enough on his plate already.)

14 and 16 years old;

Wooyoung has a girlfriend.

You don't know why that's something that bothers you so much.

Maybe because you don't understand what a girl could possibly see in Jung Wooyoung to willingly let him hold her hand or...God forbid, kiss her. Ew.

That's a lie, maybe even a bad attempt at coping on your part because there's a general consensus in your high school that Jung Wooyoung is good-looking.

You didn't even think he was ugly when you were younger, when he was pulling on your pigtails and teasing you for playing with dolls. He was cute for an annoying kid back then too with his chubby cheeks and bowl haircut.

He was especially cute now, a recent discovery of yours which you have no one else to thank except puberty. It did wonders on your hormones and it did wonders on Jung Wooyoung too.

His jawline got sharper the more baby fat he lost and lips grew fuller. His boyish smile was very attractive, even his smile lines were captivating. Wooyoung grew taller as well, not by much compared to the other boys in his grade but he was tall just enough so you'd have to look up to him when you argue but not enough to be intimidated by him.

So, yes, you supposed you'd understand the appeal if it weren't for his stupid mouth and mean words more often than not, directed at you. You threw shots back as well, sometimes even started an argument first if you were feeling particularly annoying but maybe that sums up why you're so bothered.

He started dating Chaeyoung at the beginning of this summer and since you have the fortune (read: misfortune) of living in the house right across the street from Wooyoung's, you were an unlucky witness to most of their dates.

And he was so sweet to her. He'd buy her cheap flowers and ice cream, they'd walk around the neighbourhood holding hands, they'd take Wooyoung's younger brother Kyungmin to the playground in the evenings. Wooyoung would smile a lot at her and Chaeyoung would always smile back.

You even saw them kiss. Just once.

When you were folding laundry in your bedroom, you looked through the window just in time to see their lips connect on Wooyoung's front porch. You quickly looked away, feeling shy and embarrassed, not understanding why you were blushing or feeling so sad all of a sudden.

Why was he so nice to other girls but never to you? You shouldn't think too much about it, the problem isn't you. Chaeyoung wasn't just some other girl but his girlfriend. Of course, he'd treat her special.

Whatever. You scoff as you watch Chaeyoung run to Wooyoung across the quad as you adjust your sports bag over your shoulder.

She jumps into his arms and you can hear his loud, annoying laughter even to here as his arms wrap around her and he picks her up from the ground.

"What are you doing?" You almost jump out of your skin at the sound of Ryujin's voice as she nosily tries to follow where you were staring at.

Ryujin was the first friend you met since you started high school two weeks ago. She might be the only friend you have for awhile since you haven't really been trying to even get to know your classmates as you were too busy trying out for the girls football team.

You don't remember when you started actively playing football exactly. You always played it for fun with the boys from the neighbourhood (Wooyoung included) but maybe it was around seventh grade when your dad pestered you into trying out a sport because he didn't know what else to do with you so he packed you up and sent you to a sports camp for two weeks one summer, that you started actually playing.

You went there only caring about your iPad and came back saying you'll be a professional football player.

Your dad doesn't want to say it but you know he thinks it's a fickle dream that will fizzle out with age.

Thankfully, Ryujin shared the same love for the sport as you so for now, you were relieved and content to spend time with her. She was nice.

You didn't need anyone else but maybe it would've been nice if someone who was older, who you were familiar with even if you always fought, would give you a couple of words of useful advice. Regarding the new teachers and subjects and all.

High school was scary.

"Nothing." You answer quickly, turning your back to Wooyoung and his girlfriend and fully facing your new friend.

"Nothing?" Ryujin gives you a suspicious smile, eyes darting over your shoulder once more before she ruffles your hair. You yelp. "Do you have a crush already, Y/N?"

You gently shove her away with a huff, fixing your bangs, "Don't be stupid. These boys are all ugly."

A crush. As if!

She laughs at that, throwing her arm around your shoulder as she directs you both to the field where practice was held, already yapping about her own crush.

"Hey, isn't that your neighbour?" Chaeyoung nudges Wooyoung with her elbow, nodding somewhere behind Wooyoung. He cranes his neck to follow the direction before his eyes land on you.

He snorts, "Yeah."

You were standing in the middle of the football field, sweaty and red in the face from all the running, with your hands on your hips as you paid attention to what your coach was yelling towards your teammates across the field.

The school's jersey seemed far too big on your lanky form and your hair was a mess, always slipping out of your ponytail. You were much smaller in build than the rest of the team and it looked funny to Wooyoung.

He didn't expect you to be into sports, let alone a sport like football. In fact, Wooyoung is surprised that you don't burst into tears when you start arguing with the makeshift referee played by another student. It's what usually happens if you spend longer than a minute arguing with Wooyoung.

And then he ends up being the bad guy for making you cry but no one ever mentions that you sometimes provoke him first as well but can't take it when it's dished right back.

Since you're such a crybaby.

He watches with an amused grin as you bare your teeth at the referee, who is really just a senior that thought it would be a fun time but now he has to stand arguing with you. And to Wooyoung's further amusement, the older boy who is almost two heads taller than you, looks like he's about to shit his pants in front of you.

Hm. Maybe not such a crybaby when it's anyone else but Wooyoung.

"I think she has a crush on you."

He turns to look at his girlfriend with a confused look, growing further confused when she smiles teasingly at him.

"Who?" He asks and she gives him a knowing look before nodding in your direction again. Wooyoung splutters out a surprised laugh, "Y/N?"

"Yeah." She nods excitedly, giggling, "She's cute."

Wooyoung scoffs with an eyeroll, "She's a kid."

A kid who might have a small crush on Wooyoung but still, a kid nonetheless.

He'd be stupid to say he didn't notice that you sometimes stare at him a little too much but what the hell is he supposed to do about that. You just started high school, you probably weren't even aware of what you were doing. It was a childish crush because at the end of the day that's what you are - childish.

Chaeyoung giggles again, the sound is soft and sweet, leaning her head against his shoulder.

"It's kind of sweet." She sighs dreamily and Wooyoung snorts because nothing about you was sweet, "You're her handsome neighbour, the only guy who's always been close to her since she was a kid, she probably starts those childish arguments with you so you'd give her attention and then writes about you in her diary and-"

"Y/N is the last person to have a diary, first of all." Wooyoung interrupts with a snicker before looking down on his girlfriend who is teasing him, "Second of all, you sound ridiculous."

Chaeyoung lifts her head up from where it rested against him and looks at him seriously, her lips pressed together. Then she starts imitating Wooyoung's last sentence in a deeper voice that sounds nothing like him, "You sound ridiculous-ah!"

She squeals when Wooyoung pinches her at the waist lovingly and it turns to tickling her as he presses kisses to her cheeks.

As they continue to exchange kisses between hushed giggles, the conversation about you is forgotten.

18 and 20 years old;

From the moment you opened the door to greet your date, you knew that the whole night would be a complete and utter disaster.

Maybe you watched too many teen movies that romanticized prom night so much that even you ended up believing and looking forward to the glorified fantasy of it but boy, were you in for a rude awakening.

Your prom date was a boy from your Calculus class named Eunwoo.

To be completely honest, you were convinced for the entirety of your senior year that you wouldn't have a date for prom at all because not much has changed since freshman year.

You still had one good friend (two, if you count Ryujin's friend that says she likes hanging out with you) and your focus was always on football. Add schoolwork and keeping up your good grades and you truly didn't have much time left for socializing.

So when Eunwoo pulled you aside after your football practice and asked you if you wanted to go to prom together with a handsome boyish smile on his face, your excitement for that night skyrocketed.

Eunwoo wasn't exactly a friend but he was nice to you during class, maybe you were wrong but his niceness sometimes even bordered flirting. Already, you were daydreaming about a possible boyfriend to spend your last summer with before you start college.

With a date or without one, you spend the bigger portion of your senior year saving up money for prom night or should you say prom preparations.

Makeup was never your strongest suit, in fact, it wasn't a suit of yours at all. You never wore it. You never did your hair either.

Even on the rare occasion that you went to a high school party, you never wore anything else aside from jeans and T-Shirts. You were an athlete and you committed to the bit entirely, always being ready to sweat and opting for comfort of loose clothes above anything else.

But you wanted to look nice for prom, pretty. Not because of Eunwoo but for yourself. Prom is only once and you wanted to make sure you do it with confidence.

All your saved up allowance went on the hair and makeup appointment along with your dress that Ryujin helped you pick out. The dress was quite simple in your opinion, a dark red one with a square neckline held up by two thin straps that clung to your curves and flared out at the bottom.

With your hair pinned up in an up-do with two curled strands framing your face and glitter on your eyelids, you thought you looked very pretty, beautiful even. Hell, it was probably the best you looked in your entire eighteen years of life. You could even put up with the painful heels for the sake of it.

Your dad made you pose over the whole house while you waited for your date to pick you up. First a photoshoot on the stairs, then one on the front porch, then a little in front of the living room fireplace.

He seemed so excited with his camera hanging around his neck as he followed you around the house.

It was one of the moments you wished your mom was here for but nonetheless, it was much fun with your dad only as well. You were happy.

It all went to shit though once you opened the door for Eunwoo and he started laughing in your face.

"Oh my God!" He laughs, almost doubling over at the apparent hilarity of your appearance, "What are you wearing?!"

You laugh nervously, ignoring your father's glance at you from the sheer embarrassment, "What? Is it that bad?"

"No, no." Eunwoo shakes his head, wiping a stray tear that escaped while he was laughing, "It's just not like you, at all."

"Oh." You give him a sour smile, your fragilely built ego shattering completely. "I was just...trying something new I guess..."

He snickers with a headshake before offering you his hand, "Come on, let's go take a photo?"

After a small moment of hesitation, feeling your cheeks burn from the humiliation, you let him grab your hand and step out on the front porch. Eunwoo places a hand around your waist to pull you closer as you both smile at your dad's camera.

A couple of photos later, you both head towards Eunwoo's car as your dad waves you goodbye. You give him a small, almost sad wave back as Eunwoo opens the door for you. You ask him;

"Do I really look funny?"

"No, you look pretty no matter what." He answers, helping you with your dress. "It's just doesn't suit you I guess, it's not like you."

"Ah..." You say staring at the dashboard as you watch him round the car to get into the driver's seat. You glance back at your dad just to see him get back into your house and for a split second, you want to call the whole thing off and go back inside with him.

Of course this doesn't suit you. You were the girl guys dapped up in the hallways, the girl that was always covered in hoodies and sweatpants and never wore makeup. You must look stupid, all dolled up like this. What were you thinking.

Prom celebration is usually held at a hotel not far from your high school. The ballroom is enormous, with vast marble floors and high ceilings illuminated by golden, shimmery lights. It looks straight out a fairytale with colorful dresses worn by pretty princess and handsome princes in their extravagant suits. Only, you don't feel like a princess at all.

Eunwoo and you find your table and you briefly say hi to Ryujin and her date. Ryujin tells you how amazing you look and you give her the first (and possibly, only) genuine smile of the night.

"So," Eunwoo starts the conversation a few minutes after you settle down at your table with drinks, "Did you decide where you're going for college? Any scouts?"

"I'm leaning towards SNU. Their Women's Football Club is really strong and I feel like they actually get proper investments and budget." You tell him and he grins interrupting your next sentence.

"See, this is why I like you. It's hard to find a girl who knows about sports and is so chill about everything."

Your mouth stays parted, the rest of your sentence (which was really just saying that the fact the male football team was hot contributed to your decision as joke) went unsaid as his words registered. Every "compliment" Eunwoo gives you is starting to come off so backhandedly that you're beginning to realize that while he thinks he has you all figured out - he doesn't actually know you at all.

You give him a fake laugh and pray to God it doesn't sound fake enough for him to notice as you take a sip of your drink.

An hour later, your heels are killing you so much that you've completely given up on dancing. You observe Ryujin on the dance floor with her date, still going at it and sigh with the silent question of when it would be your turn. Instead, you're stuck to the sidelines with shoes that feel awful on your feet and a date that can't stop talking about how it's attractive that you're a "girl that actually eats". Eunwoo's compliments are becoming weirder by the second.

"Should I just take you home?" Eunwoo asks with an amused smile as he observes you taking off your heels for the tenth time since you sat back down.

"Ah, would you mind?" You give him an apologetic smile, feeling like a burden and a not-so-much-fun date, "I'm sorry, Eunwoo, this is unfair to you-"

"Nah, I had a fun time." He shakes his head, downing the rest of his drink, "Next time, just be yourself though, yeah?"

The weirdly phrased statement makes you pause. "What do you mean?"

"You know, you don't have to dress like this!" He laughs, playfully playing with the thin strap of your dress. You subtly move away from his touch. "It's not like you at all. I don't know if your friends talked you into it just to fit in but you shouldn't let them push you around like this."

He's so wrong that you can't speak for a moment but even if you could, you feel like trying to explain yourself to him would be far too exhausting and would lead to nowhere. Nor do you want it to lead anywhere anymore, if you were honest.

"Girls like that are so exhausting." He gives a tired sigh. "Outfits and makeup aren't the only thing in the world."

"Girls....like that?"

"You know! Like, the touchy-feely shit. Everything is about color-coordination and nail polishes with them. God forbid their hair is out of place. What a headache!" Eunwoo runs a hand through his hear before giving you an award winning smile. "That's why I'm glad I got to hang out with you! You're real."

"I'm....real?" You ask with a cocked head as your eyes start to narrow. He's too busy thinking that you like what he's saying so he continues.

"Yeah. You know, you keep it real. You're not caught up in that frivolous, girly bullshit. You're so chill, Y/N." He keeps smiling at you like he just gave you the highest form of compliment he possibly could.

But you can't bring yourself to crack a smile even if someone held a barrel of a gun to your temple at the moment. In fact, you feel like throwing up. You should've know from the start, from the moment he was so unreasonably impressed with your lack of makeup at the beginning of the year.

Eunwoo was one of those guys.

"Um," You slide your heels back on and grab your clutch, "You know what, you stay. I'll go."

"Wait, what." His brows raise in half confusion and half surprise as he watches you stand up from your seat.

"Yeah, I'll walk home."

"Wait, Y/N. Why would you walk home? I already said I'd drop you off-"

"No thanks. I don't want to get in a car with a sexist."

"What?!" Eunwoo reels back, "What the fuck are you talking about?! I'm not a sexist! I respect women!"

You huff, turning to him with a glare. "You respect women who are "cool" and "chill" and basically act like men. You should've just taken one of your dudes to prom if these are your opinions. I'm out."

So, that's how you find yourself in your pretty dress sitting in one of the plastic chairs of a convenience store with a popsicle in your mouth as you watch the cars drive by. You were too embarrassed to arrive home so early, you hyped up prom night so much to your dad - you'd rather lie and tell him you had a good time.

If the night couldn't possibly get any shittier, while you eat away at your cherry popsicle feeling undeniably sorry for yourself, you hear a familiar laugh followed by sounds of shoes scuffing against the pavement towards the convenience store.

Of course. Of fucking course, Jung Wooyoung would show up now, when you needed him least.

You try to make yourself seem as small as possible in the plastic chair, hoping he or his two friends wouldn't notice you (which in retrospect was a dumb hope, you were sitting right by the entrance in a fucking prom dress).

Ever since Wooyoung graduated high school two years ago, you only saw him in passing. He'd come home for Christmas holidays or a week or two during the summers and you'd only catch him skunk out of his house and into his dad's car if you were lucky. Unlucky, that is of course.

Maybe you were hoping he wouldn't even recognize you and although it would kind of hurt (as embarrassing as that is to admit), you feel like it would be a better option.

But since you were on a roll tonight, obviously this is just another thing that doesn't go your way.

"Nice dress, Y/L/N." You hear Wooyoung's voice speak, followed by snickers from his idiotic friends and his own attempt at stifling his laughter as they walk past you and into the convenience store, the small bell above the door signaling their entrance.

That ends up being your last straw.

You don't cause another fight or yell something back after him, no, you don't have the energy to do that tonight. Instead, you feel like you will cry.

Tears are already burning at your eyes and your bottom lip wobbles, you're not even aware that your eyes follow Wooyoung through the display of the store, watching him as he picks up a pack of beer and heads for the cashier.

He got even more painfully handsome than he was when you'd see him every day before he graduated. His hair was double toned, the top of it black and the bottom strands bleached, brushing the nape of his neck.

You think you could even see a tattoo peaking under his shirt as he moves.

Jung Wooyoung was so not your type. Not that you really knew what your type was but all the guys that you found cute in your high school years were athletes, jocks who were organized and dedicated to their routine which in your opinion showcased their maturity, got good grades and were respected by their peers. Wooyoung was really the complete opposite of that so it was hard to explain why you so weirdly hung up over his approval.

He's still laughing about something with his friends, it would hurt so badly if it was about you, as his eyes dart through the display and connect with your own.

Wooyoung does a double take before his big smile slowly slips and dare you say, eyes soften as he looks at you and his lips part as if he wants to say something.

It could all be in your head though and you're feeling even worse now that he caught you staring at him like a total creep, so you throw your popsicle in the trash and get up with a sigh, slipping back into your heels and deciding to just go home.

"Hey, Y/L/N! Wait up, I'll give you a ride home!" Wooyoung calls out after you, the plastic bag swinging back and forth in his hand.

He can hear Chanwook's hushed objection which Wooyoung chooses to ignore, instead focused on walking closer to you. You couldn't make it far since you were basically limping in your heels.

"No thanks." Wooyoung hears your response and rolls his eyes. He hasn't spoken to you in the last two years at all but he can see that nothing has changed much - you were still too stubborn for your own good.

You didn't even bother to turn back and look at him, instead you hitch your dress further up and continue up the street and away from the convenience store.

"Y/N, come on. Quit being a brat and just wait for me to bring the car around."

"I said no!" You yell over your shoulder and let out a small yelp when you stutter a bit on your feet. To Wooyoung, you resembled Bambi right now.

"I'm trying to help you!" He yells back, still following you, "Just let me drive you back-"

"Wooyoung, seriously, fuck off!" You turn to face him with red cheeks and teary eyes (maybe that's why he's insisting so badly to drive you home, you simply look pathetic), "I don't need your fucking help!"

Wooyoung reels back at your tone and harsh words and then a wave of embarrassment washes over him when he hears Chanwook and Eunhyuk laugh behind him, at the fact that he just got told off by his little neighbour.

The embarrassment is followed up by anger that prickles at his skin like needles, he scoffs and if there's one thing Wooyoung will be - it's petty; "Fine! Limp home in your stupid heels then, see if I give a shit!"

You don't give him a response and Wooyoung doesn't bother to look for it either, instead turns around on his feet and heads towards his car (his dad's car). But not before telling a laughing Chanwook to shut the fuck up.

But once he's in the car with the keys in the ignition, he stares at the steering wheel in obvious contemplation before letting out a small groan, "Fuck."

Wooyoung turns to Chanwook, "Sit in the back, please."

His friend looks at him in surprise and confusion. "What?"

"Just sit in the back, will you? Please." Wooyoung repeats, avoiding Chanwook's eyes but feeling his stumped stare.

"Wooyoung, you cannot be serious." His friend laughs in disbelief as if reading his mind, looking around before giving Wooyoung another incredulous look, "She just told you to fuck off!"

Eunhyuk is quiet in the back which is a huge relief for Wooyoung, he really didn't need to defend himself to his other friend too.

"I can't let her go by foot in the dark, you've seen her! She can barely walk!" Wooyoung says defensively to both of his friends as Chanwook moves to the back with a huff.

"And that's your problem...how?" Chanwook, like the annoying pest he is, asks.

"It's not...." Wooyoung trails off, trying to look for an excuse as to why he was going out of his way to give you a ride home. "But...but her dad would kill me if he knew I saw her and didn't drive her back. It's only right."

Chanwook smacks his lips obnoxiously loud, "Sure."

Wooyoung doesn't even need to turn around to know that his friend is giving him a very bold side eye right now.

Eunhyuk snorts but doesn't say anything else. Wooyoung is thankful for that at least.

"She probably won't even want to get in the car." Chanwook comments quietly as they reach you on the sidewalk. He ends up being ignored.

Wooyoung rolls the window of the old car down so he can talk to you, he has to say you're walking at an impressively slow pace. "Y/N, get in the car."

He hears you groan dramatically from the outside, "Jung, you're not my dad. Stop telling me what to do."

Wooyoung ignores Chanwook and Eunhyuk's snickers in the back once again, he grows even more irritated, "I'll call your fucking dad right now and tell him you're walking home alone this late. How about that?"

You turn to him with your glossy lips twisted into a scowl, "You wouldn't."

Always ready to prove a point or in this case, lie straight out of his ass, Wooyoung makes a show of stopping his car next to the sidewalk and fishing his phone from the pocket of his jacket before opening up his contacts and beginning to scroll. He doesn't even have your dad's number.

But Wooyoung is a professional bullshitter so he keeps pressing random buttons with a straight face and presses the phone to his ear before turning to you with his brows raised-

"Okay, fine!" You exclaim with an angry huff and start rounding his car as your cheeks flush a pretty pink color. Wait, pretty-? You open the door and angrily plop into the passenger's seat with a glare directed towards him, "Fucking snitch."

Wooyoung ignores you, locking his phone without another word and beginning to drive away.

There's an awkward silence in the car, only sounds being made are those of the plastic bags filled with beer that keep rustling in Eunhyuk's lap.

"This isn't the way to our street." You say and Wooyoung might be crazy but you almost sound a little nervous at that. He glances at you before it dawns onto him. Of course, you'd be feeling nervous.

It's nighttime and you're in a car with three dudes older than you who you don't know that well. Wooyoung didn't even bother telling you about his plan before he started driving. A curse runs through his head before he clears his throat,

"I'll just drop these two off at a party nearby and then drive you home." He murmurs, chest constricting a little when he sees you cross your hands over your chest, a gesture which makes you seem smaller.

"Wait, wha-" Chanwook, gosh he was really pissing Wooyoung off tonight, starts from the backseat. "Woo, I thought you were going too-"

"I will." Wooyoung interrupts him with a clenched jaw as he pulls up to the house where the party is held, "I'll drop Y/N off and then come back, it won't take more than fifteen minutes. Now get out- Wait, give me that bag right there."

Eunhyuk hands him one of the plastic bags and Wooyoung fishes through it and pulls out two blueberry ice creams out of it before giving the bag back to Eunhyuk. Which he bought for himself, of course. Not because he saw your popsicle melting on the pavement or anything.

Chanwook watches with a dropped jaw before huffing, Wooyoung hears him murmur, "Doing it for her dad, my ass-"

"I'll be right back!" Wooyoung announces loudly, far too loudly, and Eunhyuk slams the car door shut so Wooyoung can drive away.

When he pulls away, the silence in the car is almost stifling so Wooyoung offers you the ice cream, "Here."

You look at him like a second head just popped out of his shoulder before looking back through the window and ignoring him completely. Wooyoung lets out a small groan. So stubborn.

"Oh my God, just take it." He says, placing the ice cream on your lap as he continues to drive. He bites back a smile when he sees you stare at the ice cream on your lap for a long second before grasping it and opening the wrapper so you can eat it.

Wooyoung really doesn't know what he's doing right now.

He doesn't know why he bought ice creams for you, he doesn't know why he insisted on getting rid of his friends first before dropping you off home, he has no idea why he keeps glancing at you every couple of seconds from the corner of his eye and he especially doesn't have a clue why he takes the longer route home.

When tomorrow comes and he wakes up hangover from the party and probably in someone else's bed, he'll give himself the same excuse he gave the boys. He wanted to make sure you got home safely because it's the right thing to do. There was nothing else to it.

But in this moment, right now, in the stifling silence and the breeze that flows through the opened window's because the air conditioning isn't working - Wooyoung notices things that he feels embarrassed to notice, or maybe he noticed them before but never allowed himself to appreciate them until tonight.

Like, how nice your bare neck and collarbones look now that your hair is pinned up in soft curls. A thin silver necklace graces your neck. Or how the two curled strands at the front frame your face prettily. Your eyelids are painted with something shimmery which Wooyoung doesn't know the name of and your cheekbones are a soft peach color intentionally placed there beforehand.

Your glossy lips wrap around the ice cream cone and you bite off a huge chunk.

"Why are you staring at me?" Wooyoung can decipher the question even through the mouthful of ice cream as you give him a slight glare.

Because you're pretty. Is what he wants to say, honest and bare, but he obviously can't because you're you and he's Wooyoung. "Because you have ice cream on your nose."

His hands tighten against the steering wheel when he sees you quickly look to the side and wipe at your nose self-consciously. You blush a scarlet red from the embarrassment. Great, now he feels like an asshole.

Wooyoung clears his throat, "Why did you look so sad? Back there, in front of the store."

He has no idea why he's trying to make conversation with you. You two never do that, never did. The closest thing to a conversation between Wooyoung and you would be the arguments you'd have in the middle of the school hallway when he'd tease you for your braces.

Those came off as well, by the way, he can see the pearly white teeth perfectly aligned now as you speak. No longer crooked. Maybe he'd like to see them pulled up in a smile but that's borderline wishful thinking now. You smiling at Wooyoung? Yeah, right.

"No reason." You tell him quietly, slumping in your seat as you continue to eat your ice cream. You sigh with an eyeroll, "Just...prom sucked."

Likely thing to happen.

The key is to go to prom with your expectations so low that you can only go up from there but Wooyoung had an inkling feeling that having low expectations wasn't in your nature.

Besides, you were a jock. He remembers even when you were a freshman, you were already running with the popular crowd without even being aware of it, with the athletes and the cheerleaders. Prom night is sort of a pinnacle of the high school experience for people like you.

Guess it's a bummer that you look like you had a shit time.

He hums, "At the end of the day, it's just another Friday night. Nothing special. So even if it sucked, you'll get over it."

Maybe he wasn't the best at giving advice or comforting people.

You side eye him and he pretends not to see it before you quietly add, "I don't usually spend a year worth of allowance on just another Friday night."

Wooyoung cracks a smile, teasing you being a second nature even if you barely spoke since he graduated, "What? Did you expect a prince charming to sweep you off your feet so you two can dance the night away or something? I didn't know you were into that corny shit, Y/L/N."

He hears you scoff, cheeks still red as you roll your eyes, seriously annoyed, "Whatever. Forget I said anything."

Wooyoung's gives a forced snicker just to annoy you before his smile drops again and his eyes flutter shut for a moment out of pure frustration at his own stupidity, internally cursing himself. If shooting yourself in the foot was a person - it would have Jung Wooyoung's photo and name posted under it.

Why can't you just be nice to her?

The air in the car turns even more awkward and Wooyoung shifts uncomfortably in his seat while you continue to eat your ice cream in silence as you stare through the window.

He slows down in front of your house just when you're finishing your ice cream.

You crumple the wrapper in your hand, place the second ice cream on the dashboard and grab the small bag laying on your lap before grabbing the door handle.

"I hope," Wooyoung starts and when you turn to look at him, he's overcome with a sudden coughing fit which is really just awkwardness and the need to fix whatever the fuck he broke a little even more tonight, "Uh, hope you took some good pictures tonight at least because..."

He trails off, feeling like it was his first time flirting with a girl. Wait, what the fuck. He was not flirting with you. Not even a little bit. Wooyoung was simply trying to pay you a compliment. Simple as that. It doesn't have to be anything more. You don't even need to be friends to pay someone a compliment, in fact, Wooyoung is positive that regular archnemeses complimented each other at least once.

Unfortunately, compliments aren't the norm between the two of you, so whatever nice thing he says feels wrong.

Your brows raise.

"You know," He trails off, scratching the back of his neck in an attempt to seem cool and collected. He nonchalantly adds but his side glances might give him away, fortunately you're too much of a ditz to notice, "You look good."

You stare at him for a long moment, seriously it's so long that he almost changes his mind and adds an insult just so you two would be back in those familiar waters of bickering and teasing each other but then your eyebrows fall back down and a scowl overtakes your features.

"Yeah, right." You mumble and Wooyoung almost feels insulted for some reason but then you continue, "Thanks for the ride."

And then you're out of the car and already moving across your front lawn before Wooyoung can snap out of it and remember to turn the car back on.

19 and 21 years old;

"10 more minutes! Y/L/N stop arguing with that asshole and get back into your position before you're out of the game completely!"

Your coach is red in the face from all the shouting and you know what's good for you, so you keep your mouth shut as you run to your spot, thoroughly ignoring the glare your team's captain shoots at you from your right.

The 'asshole' that your coach is referring to is the referee who didn't count a player from the rival team almost breaking your leg by bulldozing into you - as a foul.

"-stole Eunha's position from her and can't even play properly." You hear a snicker behind you and don't even have to turn to know who it's directed at.

Despite it being only your first semester, you haven't made the greatest impression on your teammates (nor did you try all that much to change that impression).

So for the time being, when there was no rival team, you were the collective enemy in the changing rooms and on the practice field. A freshman who kicked their friend from the spot she had since she started college. A freshman who thought she was better than the rest of her team. A freshman who didn't know how to behave at times. A freshman that made them run extra laps because she was bad at remembering all the new rules at times.

And now, a freshman that was playing badly and fucking up things for the rest of them.

"Y/N!" A hiss from your right is heard and your eyes zero in on your captain, Jihyo, who is staring at you. "Focus."

You swallow harshly and give her a quick now before focusing your gaze to the front.

In high school, you weren't used to losing. You were a winner, it's what you prided yourself in. Failure wasn't an option when it came to football.

But turns out in college, when all the other players are as good as you, winning isn't as easy.

In fact it’s a lot harder than you thought it would be. Nearing the end of the first half the score sheet is still empty and it annoys all of the players and the fans as well. The weirdest thing is how ball is not even on your team's side of the field most of the time; your defenders did not have a very entertaining start of the game in comparison to defenders from Busan, who already look out of breath from all of the attacks to their side. Not to mention that they keep teaming up on you specifically.

You can’t pinpoint what exactly is wrong and why there was no goal to this point; half of you thinks it’s because you didn’t blend well with the team.

"Run, run, run!" Yeonjin shouts, when Sinb loses the ball and Busan’s midfielders rush to their side.

The spike of adrenaline energizes you and your eyes zero on the ball, running after it. Mina’s figure passes from your left and both of you corner the midfielder, successfully getting the ball to your side. You have it and quickly pass it to Yeonjin, seeing her signal for the ball. You watch her run off when a body collides with your own and the impact is so strong, you lose your balance, falling down.

‘What?’ You ask yourself in disbelief not understanding how you're sprawled across the grass again, slowly standing up. At first you're shell-shocked but now anger fills you to the brim when you see that it's the same girl who intentionally collided with you the first time, watching you with a smug smirk and then you're just ready to fight.

You push back at her and get even angrier when the bitch doesn't fall.

"Are you going to go tattle to mommy?" She asks with a mocking concern and you can’t hear anything; you even forget that you are in the middle of the game because your anger turns your vision red.

With a loud groan, you launch towards her and grab her by the shirt, screaming to her face that 'she's a cunt'. There are hands around you, pulling you away, trapping you and not letting you go even when you try to break free.

Jihyo's face is in front of you and you can't register what she's saying but you can see her turn red from how pissed off she is. Maybe it's better if you're not listening to her, if you can't hear anyone actually...but then-

"Hey, number nine! You better not fucking cry!"

At first, you think the loud yell came from somewhere on the field. You thought another player from the Busan team was talking shit. And then,

"Number nine! Crybaby!"

There's some laughter in the audience and it's then that you realize the voice is shouting from the fucking bleachers.

A teammate is already pulling you in the opposite direction but your eyes are glued to crowd sitting on the sidelines, the annoying voice insistently yelling. Crybaby. Crybaby. Crybaby.

The worst part is that the voice sounds so painfully familiar, you just can't put your finger on it. Who.

You're about to let it go. You're about to be the bigger person and not act like a total brute on the field, just let it go Y/N. But then-

"Hey, hey crybaby!" You stop in your tracks, head whipping to the direction the voice was coming from and eyes coasting over the bleachers. "What kind of hill did you roll down from that you don't even know how to push someone back properly?!"

Finally, you spot it. Him. In a red hoodie, making sure to stand out in the sea of blue. It's no wonder the voice sounded so eerily familiar, you've heard it screaming at you for the majority of your childhood and a good chunk of your teen years.

Because he rolled down the same hill as you with only a street separating you.

When he realizes that you've caught onto him, he gives you that smile. That grin that never led to anything good, pearly white teeth gleaming under the lights of the bleachers as he taunts you.

You blood pressure jumps so, you take a deep breath and....scream;

"Jung Wooyoung!"

#ateez angst #ateez x reader #wooyoung x reader #wooyoung imagine #wooyoung smut #wooyoung angst #wooyoung fluff #wooyoung scenarios

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coolshadowtwins · 12 days

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Barbie Princess and the Pauper.

SVSSS.

If you make SY Annalise, and SJ Erika, that fits with their backstories. The princess is the rich kid and the pauper is the former slave. (The image of SJ glaring at SY instead of singing ‘I’m just like you~’ is so funny to me.)

Then that would make LBH Julian, Annalise’s tutor. As I started writing this post, I was going to argue flipping SY and SJ around, because it would make sense for LBH to be King Dominic, but then I actually thought things through.

You have Prince Shen Yuan, who is going to be married to a foreign king to save his kingdom. He doesn’t want to do it. All he wants to do is read his trashy books, and is actually a little in love with his servant LBH, but he will for his people. Duty and all that.

Shen Jiu works in a dress shop in town. They don’t own him, technically. Not in the same way his past masters did. But in every way that matters, really. He owes them a great deal of money, so he can’t leave. And it’s… fine. It’s not the worst job, even if he will be working there forever after his childhood friend tragically abandoned him. But he gets food most days and the ladies (other than the owner) like him. This doesn’t stop him from being a angry, bitter man, of course. He’s still SJ after all lol

They may or may not sing a duet about doing what’s right, in the name of duty.

SY wants to see the city, just one time before he’s trapped in the castle! So LBH takes him downtown, where SY runs into SJ. They may or may not have a musical number about how much they look alike.

Then, like the movie, SY gets kidnapped. I don’t know who Preminger is here. I thought about it, and I can’t decide who to put there. It can’t be LBH’s family, tho, because then why is he there as a servant??? Anyway, SY gets kidnapped, so LBH drags SJ kicking and screaming to the castle to play the Prince while he investigates on the side. They may or may not have a musical number about LBH trying to teach SJ to be a Prince.

But then SJ has to go on a date with SY’s fiancé! And it turns out!!! The foreign king is YQY!!!!

YQY had thought SJ dead. He’s been practically a zombie for years, believing that he had failed SJ, and ruling the kingdom on autopilot. Why is he a king now? Uh, long lost son or something. Anyway, when he sees SJ, pretending to be SY, he freezes up. But then he convinces himself that it can’t be SJ! Because this is SY, obviously, who has very dedicated records keeping tract of the fact that yes, the Prince was indeed the prince his entire life and not a former slave. So he spends this entire date upset that he’s falling in love and betraying/replacing SJ.

On SJ’s part, he’s also upset about how much he likes YQY. He doesn’t recognize YQY as Qi-Ge, of course, but it still feels like he’s replacing him. Also, this isn’t his life. This isn’t his fiancé. Either SY will come back, and marry him and SJ will go back to the dress shop alone. Or SJ will stay the Prince forever, with the knowledge that none of this was every his, and he only got it by stealing another man’s life.

They may or may not sing a romantic duet that hides all the angst they are feeling.

Of course, SJ gets found out rather quickly after that. LBH has been caught and thrown in with SY, leaving no one to stop SJ from going to jail for the disappearance of the Prince. YQY is devastated to hear that SJ would do something like that, but more than that, YQY is elated to hear that this isn’t SY. It’s an unknown SY look alike, and how many of those can there be out there??? This has to be SJ, and now YQY has to help him out of prison.

Then SY and LBH escape, and come save the day, and find precious geodes to save the kingdom, etc etc etc. SY and LBH confess to each other, and live happily ever after, while YQY (after breaking SJ out of prison in a very illegal way) tearfully tells SJ that he is sorry and that he thought he was dead and he couldn’t find him and-

SJ, who just got broken out of prison by the foreign king that he had went on a date with earlier by pretending to be someone else, can only stare as he realizes that this is Qi-Ge.

SJ strings him along for a year until he feels he can accept any apology. And then they get married, because he is not passing up the chance to be a ruler of a country. Who do you think he is??

#this got so QiJiu heavy?#I didn’t mean to do that lol #svsss #shen qingqiu #shen yuan #shen jiu #yue qingyuan #luo binghe #qijiu #bingqiu #barbie princess and the pauper

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genericpuff · 5 days

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From the standpoint of someone who doesn't even like LO that much. Reading through this gave me a strange sense of discomfort? I think. Something about the combination of the essays, and the digs at the author in a lot of posts, and making a community based on it, and the ranting. It made it feel a lot more group ragging on something than normal fandom re-writes. I can't help but want to say something on the subject (0/3)

Gonna respond to all your asks together if that's okay, from what I can glean there's a word limit on mobile (?) so it makes it very interesting to see who's able to put all their thoughts into one big ask vs. who has to cut them up into parts 😆

So I can understand that discomfort, it's actually one that I also initially felt towards the community when I discovered it. Though even more so because when I found out about antiLO being a thing, I was still a MASSIVE fan of LO and my thought was "wow, these people are losers" LOL but then a lot of what they were saying resonated with me more as I realized the story was going nowhere (it was around the trial arc when Eris was revealed to be the 'reason' for Persephone's wrath).

All that said, I don't think I was wrong to feel off back then even though I don't feel that way now. We have our own takes and ways of approaching certain subjects, and how we feel is how we feel.

I will say that I can't, in any way, take credit for 'creating' the community. AntiLO pre-existed me by years and I was simply welcomed in as my opinions of the comic changed. I was a lot more involved in UnpopularLoreOlympus when it was born around the S2 finale of the comic. So... don't give me any sort of credit in 'owning' this community or anything of that sort, I came in during a period when criticism of the comic was becoming more common practice. I'm just also someone who's very verbose and loud in their opinions which appeals to a lot of people in this community, so I get why people might see me as some kind of "pillar" within it or like I'm the loudest person in the room, but I promise you that doesn't mean I have any sort of ownership over this part of the fandom or that I feel my opinions carry any more weight than the people around me. It's just a community, after all, not a religion.

It's true that saying I'm not making money off Rekindled doesn't mean I'm not benefiting off it in other ways. But the 'benefits' are still kinda... nothing? in the grand scheme of things? like okay great I have loads of people reading my stuff every update but like, this is still just Tumblr lmao none of this is real and as soon as Rekindled is over, I might be lucky to bring some of the readers over into my next project, but I doubt whatever I do next will get as popular as Rekindled was. All the "benefits" I get are virtually the same as what people writing fanfiction get on AO3 get or what people doing redraw videos on Youtube get. It's fake Internet points for making fan creations.

And that's okay, because that's sorta just the nature of fandom in general, throughout any niche community. People will be naturally drawn to what's familiar and what I do here appeals to the people who are familiar with LO and the criticisms of it, often people who agree with those criticisms. The Zelda community has LinkedUniverse, Pokemon has Hanamusa, Attack on Titan has communities that are dedicated to loving the anime, hating the anime, and even dunking on people who don't 'get' the anime, Undertale has every single crazy rewrite and rewrites-of-rewrites that have been spawned from its fanbase. Did you know there's an entire community of people who discuss and argue over fire alarms? I didn't, but when I found out about it, it was after listening to a video on Youtube discussing all the interconnected drama of the fire alarm community. Like that's wild and seems so stupid and pointless... but it matters to the people who are in it, and my opinion of how they operate isn't going to change how it makes them feel to be a part of that space. That's kinda just human nature, we create our own little microcosms of things to bond over so for people within those microcosms, any amount of disagreement or discomfort will feel massive in proportion.

I guess the point of what I'm trying to say is that a lot of this stuff feels crazy loud but it's really only that loud because it's occupying a single room.

The reality is that Rekindled is still a very niche project dedicated to a niche webtoon that's a part of a niche medium. As loud as it is within here, it's still only because it's such a closed community. Anyone outside of the Webtoons community has zero clue what it is. The 'attention' that I'm getting is still from other niche people who occupy a very specific interest.

And that's not even exclusive to Rekindled, despite Webtoons attempts to sell LO as a 'worldwide phenomenon', a lot of people don't know it exists and couldn't care less. Does that mean my rantings about the comic and its creator matter any less to me or the people who are interested in them? Not really. Is it all pointless? Maybe, but not everything really needs to have some bigger point. We're all kinda just here spending time talking about something we both love and can't stand. What I say about LO and do with Rekindled is undoubtedly inconsequential and pointless to people who aren't in the room. That's fine. That's why I keep it all in my own house. There are definitely people who talk about it outside of the home but that's far from what I can control.

That said, I think LO also does fall into a very unique category where it's very easy to do rewrites and redraws of it simply because it, in and of itself, is a rewrite. Rekindled is far from being the first "fix it" fic, not only of LO but also of any piece of media in general, it's not really a new phenomenon (but again, when it's loud, it can be easy to go "well clearly YOU had to influence this"). People are drawn to retelling LO or 'fixing' it because LO is based on Greek myth. If it weren't for that, no, I don't think people would be as interested in doing so. It's because we literally have a solid foundation of reference material - the myths and original poems - that we can go "hey, why did LO do this? it should have / could have been xyz". You can't really do that as much with a purely original work besides wish fulfillment of "what if xyz happened" because whatever an original piece of work winds up being is clearly what it was meant to be. We have nothing to compare it against.

But with LO, we know what it could have been because we know what it was trying to be since day 1 - a retelling of the Abduction of Persephone. That's not to say we always knew exactly what Rachel was planning on doing with it, but it's not hard to be disappointed when we see certain mythical stories being established in LO - such as the tale of Eros and Psyche, the Titanomachy, etc. - only to see them get dropped or completely mishandled.

On the one hand I could use HADES and Stray Gods as examples of popular media that don't get 'rewritten' the same way LO does because while they have their own unique interpretations of the myths they're based on, they still feel like properly thought out stories that appreciate the source material. LO, by comparison, feels like it's written by someone who hates Greek myth.

But on the other hand, those rewrites may absolutely exist and I'm just not aware of them because I don't occupy those rooms! The world is only as big as we perceive it to be.

That said, it's always sort of ironic to me when people say Rekindled is "riding off the coattails of LO" because while I can understand their sentiment - because obviously it's a direct re-creation of LO - that opinion seems to operating from the assumption that LO was ever not riding off Greek myth's coattails to begin with.

And no, I don't think my criticizing of LO on an LO-focused blog should in any way be conflated with "media isn't allowed to be bad". I've said this before and I'll say it again, I'm into loads of bad media. I'm also fully capable of enjoying a piece of media but also shit-talking it without actually feeling any sort of vitriol towards it. House M.D. is one of my favorite TV shows but goddamn some of the plots are just so dramatic and out-of-this-world that you can't help but laugh at them (and that's why we have spaces like /r/okaybuddyvicodin LOL). One of my favorite games growing up was Starfox Adventures because I had never played the original Starfox games but I had played loads of Zelda and Adventures was basically Zelda but with Starfox, and I know there are plenty of people who will go "but puff, that game is ass!" and I know! But I love it regardless.

With LO, it's not a matter of "bad media shouldn't exist!" it's a matter of observing what makes it so bad and why that's had a negative impact on both the audience it attracts (primarily teenagers and children) as well as the culture it's taking its ideas from. If LO was just some "so bad its good" webtoon that was easy to enjoy but also poke fun at, I would have zero issue. It's the fact that it's blatantly problematic in its writing and intentions but still hailed as the #1 webtoon on the platform (webtoons in and of themselves being a medium that I've lived in for over a decade so it's virtually impossible to get away from whatever is influencing the culture as a whole) while winning all these accolades for being "brilliantly written" and its creator is given a voice over Greek culture when she herself is not Greek or even well-read on Greek culture in any capacity - that's the issue and why I've spent so much time talking about LO. And if it wasn't me, it would be anyone else, because the problem has been around for ages and people have been trying to get the word out about it for years.

I don't necessarily think every 'fix it fic' is built equally. I think it's a case by case thing. A lot of people are deadass just doing it for fun and to be a part of a community, and I think that's wonderful. There are also people who try to do this but ultimately disrespect whatever the creator was going for by somehow implying that their own original ideas were inferior just by existing, or using their fix-it fics as a way to deliberately harass the original creators (ex. whatever the fuck 'art lore' is on TikTok, based on what I've seen it seems purely made for bullying budding artists and talking shit which is... gross af, but I don't think it's anywhere near the same as readers of LO calling out its highly successful award-winning creator for having zero clue what she's doing with her comic lmao). I don't think a blanket statement of "fix it fics are bad" accomplishes anything because it depends on a variety of factors like the person's intentions and what they're trying to accomplish. Many fanfictions in general could be called 'fix it fics' even if the creator 100% loved the source material with zero issue - because they're still saying "what if xyz happened instead"?

Me, personally? I'm someone who loves Greek myth and who used to adore LO. I was very discouraged and upset when I saw it turned into what it became, and I wanted to try my own hand at creating something new out of the rubble that could give me closure. It's what I choose to do with my time and other people seem to enjoy it as well. I'm sure there's loads to criticize and speculate on regarding my 'intentions' in creating it, but at the end of the day I'm sorta just doing what I want to do with my time because I have a lot of thoughts and ideas I need to get out of my head and many of them are thoughts and ideas that other people like reading about.

If you feel uncomfortable by the amount I talk about it here and the way I talk about it, that's fine. Those are your feelings. There are loads of other antiLO-themed blogs to read that might not give you that same vibe. Even I have certain icks towards certain opinions within the antiLO community, I've seen some people be genuinely shitty and I'm sure that's ironic to hear considering you're describing your own discomfort towards my stuff, but we all have different tolerances towards different things at the end of the day.

I do my part to keep things in my own house of a neighborhood that's really small in the grand scheme of things. It just feels like a big neighborhood if you don't travel. There will inevitably come a day where I'll pack my boxes and move elsewhere, talk about new things and write essays about other topics. That's obviously not today but I definitely don't want this to just be like, my entire identity or the rest of my life LOL it's just something I've chosen to spend my free time doing and I'm content with that. Maybe a year from now I'll feel differently, who knows? At the very least I'm hoping to one day finish Rekindled because no, I don't want this to actually be my identity for the rest of my life, change is a good thing LOL but what that change will bring is, for now, a mystery. Here's hoping wherever I end up at least brings its own uniquely good times like I've had here :' )

Sorry, that was a very long response with a lot of sorta aimless muddling over the topic at hand, but thank you for the opportunity to discuss it regardless ! because I do think it's important to find that 'grounding point' when it comes to stuff like this. because as much as I get riled up over LO, yeah, at the end of the day, it's just a dumb webtoon and I don't wanna go soiling myself over it LOL but I'm also just like... running a Tumblr blog with my personal thoughts and ideas, no more or no less. Even the "attention" I get is still only 200-400 notes per new episode of Rekindled, which pales in comparison to any real metrics of "success" imo LMAO again, it just feels loud because this is a niche community made up of a lot of the same names and faces; step outside of it and no one gives a shit LOL

#ask me anything #ama #anon ama #anon ask me anything

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ellzilla · 1 month

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Laughing Jack Headcanons!

I have so many things about this rewritten clown in my brain n' I don't think I've ever like Listed ALL the headcanons in one spot? individual posts but never a hoard of them, soo. Here's all on my mind rn but i've probably forgotten some! - He can't feel pain or temperature and struggles with texture. The best way to explain it is imagine wearing super thick work gloves all the time and trying to touch a cactus and then a fur pillow, only difference you're gonna feel is that you can push into the pillow. - He also can't sleep or smell, but he still yawns when he's exhausted and sneezes when there's visibly a lot of dust or whatever in the air. -Also he can't eat food or taste. If he tries, he'll throw it up along with black sludge after an hour or so. He can drink and feel the effects of alcohol, but it makes him fucking reek because he doesn't have any organs and it just kinda absorbs into his stuffing. - He's a huge kleptomaniac! He has entire tents in his carnival dedicated to shit he's stolen from people he's killed, but he keeps his favourite items in his trailer. -His skin is a combination of plastic and rubber, despite initially being made with fabric. There's a few parts on his body where left over seems are still visible. -The only part of his body that's white is his head and most of his torso, the rest has been stained black with a faint branch pattern connecting the colours together. -His makeup isn't makeup, it's just how he looks! And he hates it! -If he wears coloured clothes they'll eventually turn monochrome and won't regain colour. -Huge egomaniac! Part of his kelptomania fuels this as he hoards things that are rare/thought to not exist anymore -Only thing close to a friend he's ever had is his relationship with Zalgo and Will. -Doesn't remember how he came to be or why he loves violence. He sometimes dwells on it but not for too long or else he gets upset. -Holy items can tranquilize him/subdue him on prolonged physical and can send him into a state akin to sleep but with none of the benefits. Having a holy item nearby simply makes him mildly less agitated and a lot more tired. -He can turn into smoke and do mild shapeshifting, mainly changing sizes or stretching things by an impossible amount. -Extremely quick to anger -Loses track of the year a lot -Has no clue why he has such a familial bond with Will and struggles with it as all he's done for hundreds of years is be either an asshole or kill people, so his nice gestures and affection sometimes comes with implied threats

-Extremely overprotective and controlling of Will to the point Will doesn't feel like he has a life of his own [Will used to love it as a kid, but now he's in his mid 20's/early 30's? Not so much] -Can use his pullstring as another limb, being able to grab things or life himself up with it. -Sometimes literally hangs around by cradling/hammocking himself with his pullstring

#creepypasta #laughing jack #laughing jack headcanons #headcannons #creepypasta headcannons

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project-sekai-facts · 10 months

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if you have enough to type a full post about it, could you make one on how project sekai could be a psychological horror if you thought hard enough about it?? it sounds super interesting

Okay like, first off the SEKAI are kinda. Creepy if you think about it. Like yeah this is the embodiment of your feelings. Or a feeling. School SEKAI is a school because a lot of their issues surround school (Saki not being able to attend, the other three distancing themselves during middle school, etc). MMJ gets stages and VBS gets a city because those are good places for them to perform. None of those are too creepy honestly but then you get to Empty and Wonderland and it’s like. Yeah.

Mafuyu’s SEKAI is just fucking Empty. It’s an endless void with a few random objects here and there. And also a marionette that apparently spawned in when the SEKAI was made. Yeah the thing that triggers Mafuyu’s panic attack in Captive Marionette has been in her SEKAI this entire time. Made from her feelings so it’s justified but like that’s not the most pleasant thing. Also the fact that the embodiment of her feelings is a void and it doesn’t really change is just. Harsh.

And Wonderland like it’s just so full. All the plushies that express how Tsukasa feels and all of his childhood memories and feelings everywhere.

SEKAI created by a single person but shared by many aren’t the most private thing ever. But also just having a world dedicated to your emotions is fucked up in itself ESPECIALLY with the one-creator SEKAI. Because like, that’s you. Don’t like it? Fuck you I guess

On top of that there’s the fact that SEKAI don’t disappear after the owner dies. They’re just there now. Someone submitted this to me ages ago and it’s still sitting in my inbox because I want to wait for the 2nd anniversary fes cards to release because they go into more details about this but like. Yeah. That’s so fucked.

The Virtual Singers especially like they don’t age and don’t despawn ever. SEKAI owner dies or never accesses their SEKAI? Alone forever and there’s nothing they can do about it.

Even in school SEKAI it’s a bit unsettling that they are just locked at high school age when the L/n girls are getting older.

Also like the fact that the virtual singers are fully aware that they are different versions of the main virtual singer is kinda weird when you think about it for long enough. It could be really disturbing they should to into that.

And the environments they exist in. Street SEKAI and Wonderland SEKAI Vsingers are lucky because there’s a lot they can do and the SEKAI are really big. School SEKAI has a lot to do there, but it’s an enclosed space and I’m not sure if they can actually go to the outside areas offsite. It’s good that the Stage SEKAI vsingers like performing because it ain’t like there’s anything else they can do except sit in the backstage areas. And Empty SEKAI has nothing to do AT ALL and the girls have to bring in things to give the vsingers something to stimulate them.

Also like the fact they all take from the personalities and emotions of their SEKAI owners is so so disturbing if you think about it for more than three seconds. Like yeah this thing is based on you. It has your personality and will reflect you feelings at times. Like I know the point is that the vocaloids are basically counsellors but like. Damn. Especially for Mafuyu and Tsukasa because those Virtual Singers are just based on aspects of themselves (with a few things from their friends thrown in) which is genuinely really disturbing like I would not like that at all. Also Tsukasa has the plushies as well which are usually used to show how he feels about other people (eg: usachan being Saki as a child and him needing to cheer her up, the cat and dog recreating his and Rui’s conflict in Wonder Halloween).

(Someone sent an ask about the vsingers and who they are derived from in each Sekai hopefully I can finish it this week unless I run out of data)

The idea of the SEKAI changing and the vsingers changing to reflect your emotions and such has just always stuck out to me because sometimes they change to help you and sometimes they change to just copy whatever is happening to you and I think it does whatever it thinks is best for the situation but it’s kinda fucked to think about.

Oh and Miku can wipe your memory that’s definitely one of the creepiest things. Like the unit leaders have met multiple times at this point and never remember it. Minori and Kohane are best friends and have been repeatedly introduced to the concept that they both have SEKAI and repeatedly been mindwiped after that. They could do something with that. So how effective is this mindwiping anyway? If it’s used too many times on one person will it start to affect them (anyone here seen Gravity Falls?)

Also on the topic of memory. Remember in the WxS main story when Tsukasa straight up doesn’t remember significant parts of his childhood but Miku and KAITO do and then drop hints about these memories? Or in immiscible discord when KAITO dumps the truth about Mafuyu’s mother on her when Mafuyu wasn’t aware of it herself (also KAITO had barely been there for any significant time and this is his FIRST interaction with Mafuyu that he drops all this on her). The SEKAI seem to just know any feelings you repress or ignore or forget and I know the SEKAI is like a abstract realisation of thought and feeling so ofc it knows these but it’s still a bit. Weird, I guess. They should flesh this out more.

Oh supposedly you can die in the SEKAI. Possibly by force since there’s one card story where some of the WxS members nearly fall out the flying train and it’s treated as a genuine threat, but also we don’t know for sure. Heavily implied that you can die in the SEKAI from not fulfilling basic needs (eating or drinking), since Mafuyu considers disappearing into the SEKAI at one point and it doesn’t seem like she took those with her nor do they naturally exist in the SEKAI. Side note what happens if someone dies in SEKAI? Does it kick them out like it does when their phone dies or dows it just leave them there?

Don’t even get me started on untitled like it’s another embodiment of feelings is actually a bit disturbing thing but as far as we know you get one untitled. That’s it. Have you seen the lyrics on some of these (also out of universe note, the producers weren’t given huge amounts of information about the characters and story so like. Accuracy of the lyricw varies). Kuyamu to Kaite Mirai particularly. Like. What happens if Mafuyu actually does manage to make significant recovery? Is she just stuck with “I want to die, I want to disappear, there’s nothing left for me here” (did i get the lyric right?).

Oh my god I almost forgot about stage sekai. Endless void :( Of stages :). At least they have something to do there, I guess? Also can we talk about the audience that’s there let’s talk about the audience okay I think it might be an instance of the writing leaning on the 4th wall and maybe the audience is the virtual show audience with the little box avatar things or maybe there’s an actual audience and if so where the fuck do they go when there’s not performances? Oh and the fact that vlives are considered canon which means every sekai just has these little box people going in and out to watch them sing that’s just another weird thing.

And apparently there’s people in street SEKAI too like MEIKO talks about buying things in town and stuff even though most of the buildings look abandoned?

This isn’t even psychological horror but. Ghosts real. Only Mafuyu can see them. Okay maybe you could make that into more of a psychological horror thing.

Anyone remember when Akito’s fragment sekai gave him amnesia? Or the fact that characters have met themselves in fragment sekai.

Tl;dr I think sekai have untapped horror potential

#aka mod word vomits everything they think is even the slightest bit unsettling into one post #mod talks #asks #there’s probably more but it’s nearly midnight n im tired

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thegreatyin · 17 days

Note

Your posts about Fallen London are slowly tempting me into playing it- do you have any tips to start or is it best to play it completely blind?

i have a few tips and tricks! mind you im far from a veteran and i basically got my hand held by tumblr for most of the game so take everything with a grain of salt. you can and should do whatever you want always. i don't personally play it blind, but you may get more enjoyment out of it if you do, and that's awesome and im super happy for you. this is what i can say from experience:

take your time with it. this is like. the numero uno fallen london tip. it's not a game where you rush to the end in a week. it's a game where you do 10-minute-intervals of a marathon to the end in maybe a few months if you know what you're doing. spending money on action refills usually isn't worth it when you can just mosey on through neathly life one storylet at a time. a vast majority of the game's content is completely free to everyone, and while the monthly subscription options are pretty neat and let you play some exclusive story stuff (that can be pretty fire- cricket anyone basically defined the scoundrel's entire character) none of it is required and 99% of the time you aren't missing out on anything by just taking your time and exploring the neath at your own pace.

you need to raise all of your skills eventually! this is, uh. something im horribly guilty of not following myself. you can (and probably should) pick at least two stats to focus on for your character (most of the time these will be your main ambition stats, aka the closest thing FL has to a main story questline) but eventually you Will be expected to have them all at around the 100 range, minimum. for certain Super Late-game Story Content, watchful 200 is mandatory to start it, so if you have trouble choosing i'd recommend leveling that bad boy first. don't neglect your other stats though!!! don't be like me. don't be like my poor poor neglected shadowy and dangerous. it's too late for me. save yourself.

friends are fun and free and you are legally mandated to exploit them for fun and profit. okay you really aren't mandated to exploit your FL friends list but you totally should anyway just for goofy sillies. to be less jokey about it, while fallen london is primarily a single-player gaming experience, the playerbase is super friendly and super open to helping each other out (especially new players!). go on reddit, ask around on tumblr, get yourself a few buddies and use them as resources to gain items and stats and menace reduction i mean. valued companions that im sure you will treasure forever and definitely not backstab to publish that inflammatory newspaper article you've been cooking up.

on a very loosely similar note, the fallen london wiki is your best friend. yes, we're following stardew rules with this one. this is the kind of game best optimally played with a wiki article or three open in the neighboring tabs so you can follow along and know what is what. there's tons of guides on basically every part of FL, and it's no shame at all to reach out to either it or the wider community if you get stuck or feel lost at something.

if an in-game storylet has bold text, it will never lie to you! except for when it does. but that's very very very rare. you can always trust the bold text. it is always your friend. i prommy. which brings us neatly into our next bulletpoint,

seeking the name is ill-advised because it's the only storyline that can permanently brick your account at its conclusion. don't worry, the ease at which you can avoid this is practically comical, and the game will Always give you multiple chances to opt-out if you somehow accidentally start it anyway. most people make a dedicated alt character entirely for the purpose of sacrificing them to the well of doom. unless you're playing with your eyes closed for multiple months straight, you'll never run into SMEN without deliberately chasing it, and if you somehow get to that point honestly man just ignore this entire bulletpoint and see how far the rabbithole goes. go on. it's friendly :)

batfucking is always the right answer to any problem ever

echoes/the game's standard currency should always be thought of as a method of gaining items rather than a strict hoard of video game dollars. money-making can be super difficult in the earlygame, but it gets exponentially easier as you go further on. you shouldn't be afraid to sell anything you don't need, though personally i'd recommend keeping an "insurance stock" of the most basic items just in case. this includes rostygold, moon-pearls, honey droplets, etc. by-and-large, these are the easiest items to get in a pinch, and it usually isn't worth buying them from the bazaar when you can otherwise get them naturally through other methods around london. once you've got a good lodgings setup and feel decently familiar with the earlygame zones and their options, you should aim to have at minimum 1,000 of these bad boys on hand at any given time, then feel free to sell any excess you make for some quick cash in a pinch.

menaces aren't as bad as you may think, but be wary of specifically suspicion! the four main menace qualities you'll encounter in the earlygame are nightmares, wounds, scandal, and suspicion. when one of these menace stacks reach 8, you'll automatically be trapped in a unique location corresponding to whatever menace you raised too high and will have to spend time working your way out. some (nightmares and wounds) tend to fly-by rather quickly, while others (scandal and suspicion) tend to take a bit longer to get out of. none of these mean the end of your playthrough or your character, and some quests even require you to visit certain menace-exclusive locations! there are tons of items and ways to reduce menaces and keep yourself out of Situations such as these, but suspicion in particular is probably the only menace you should avoid maxing At All Costs. when your suspicion gets too high and you get sent to its special menace zone too often, you build up a criminal record that makes it harder to reduce suspicion in the future. fortunately, suspicion is the only menace with this gimmick, and before this record gets too high it's just as easy to keep row as the rest of the lot. TLDR, death from wounds is easy to escape from, but avoiding the strongarm of the law is substantially more annoying and inconvenient.

or you could be like tumblr user @with-bells-upon, who's apparently avoided death at all costs and apparently hasn't died once in the entire several months they've been playing. i don't even know how they've gotten this far without doing that. it's kind of impressive, kind of funny. especially since their ambition is one the few requiring you to die to proceed. this isn't a piece of advice i just wanted to affectionately call them out because what the heck

speaking of ambitions, pick the ambition that's right for you! ambitions are the biggest overarching questline in the game, and their requirements and rewards span the entire neath and occasionally even beyond. all four ambitions are meant to be started early and last well into the mid and late game. outside of a certain special situation regarding the light fingers ambition (the only ambition that explicitly lies to you in-game when describing its premise) you can't change your ambition without spending money, so choose carefully and choose well. they're all (mostly) equally rewarding and equally fulfilling adventures that will define your player character and your journey through the neath. there's tons of advice and spoiler-free summaries of each ambition online, so i won't cover it all here. just do your research (or don't, if you prefer) and follow your heart. maybe playing the world's most high-stake poker game ever speaks to you. maybe you want to commit a murder. maybe you want to commit a murder in the name of justice and/or revenge. maybe you just want a really really big really really shiny rock. all can be found in the neath, and all shall (eventually) be well.

if you buy 400 lucky weasels you get a special achievement. i don't need to say more.

make up a guy. this is another legal mandate if you're a fallen london player. you have to make up your own little sicko victorian london guy and roleplay them while you play. trust me. it's fun. it's free. they're going to haunt you forever. the scoundrel got a nickname like 4 months ago and ever since my mind has never known peace.

and probably most important of all, fallen london might not be the game for you, and that's okay. it includes a lot of reading. and grinding. and i do mean a lot of reading and grinding. particularly the latter, which tends to throw people off the most out of anything. it's a very niche game for a very niche audience and getting into it can be an acquired taste at the best of times. but when you do get into it, it's some Really good writing and Really in-depth worldbuilding and the most fun you'll ever have imagining sicko victorian guys running around building train stations and railway tracks directly to hell. take your time, have fun, and most important of all, always look to love.

anyway yeah that's my fallen london tips and tricks list isn't it really short and comprehendible

#im not really good at writing advice. hope this helps u out regardless #ask #fallen london #long post

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lovelyyandereaddictionpoint · 3 months

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Week 1-4: Yandere Apocalypse - Uvil Penz

Original Post

Getting to meet everyone was nice and all but it’s entirely different from living with them

When it comes to sleeping arrangements the Penz brother’s each had their own rooms

Naturally Marco was sharing with Aria

Willaim with Simpson

Leaving Uvil who speedily offered to room with you

“If you wouldn’t mind (Y/n), maybe you should stay with me.”

Of course Henrietta and Grant would have a problem with this

Both of them whining about the other as you let Uvil usher you away from the living room

“C’mon don’t leave me with this crazy broad!”

“Nooo! But (Y/n) reminds me the most of my baby! I need to sleep with them! THIS IS SO UNFAIR-”

With the clicks of multiple locks he decides you both are ready to turn in for the night

“Just for safety. After all you don’t really know these…strangers yet.”

“Uh thanks.”

You try to ignore the fact you don’t really know him either

But with a sporadically themed bedroom with two beds and a full bathroom, you’re not complaining

Because of your closeness with one another it’s natural as tiredness tugs at your eyes that you confide in him

“I for one, am glad you survived. I’m sorry for the emptyiness you feel but I think you’ve filled something for all of us…especially me.”

It’s nice when he says sweet things to you

And when he leads the group with grace

Or when he makes a fair meal plan for everyone to follow with the refrigerated and canned rations

…it just gets weird when he so easily adapts to the invasive demands of the group

Siphoning your time like some prized toy

“(Y/n) will not be drinking from you for at least another day…your behavior with the food rations is to blame.”

“THAT IS SO UNFAIR!WAAAAHHH!”

“Ha weird idiot, instead they’ll have to endure my ultimate smackdown…in the gaming room.”

“No to you too little brother.”

“What?! What did I do!?”

“Marco says you made Aria cry and he refused to operate the drones we have outside because of that. Thus you’ve lost your (Y/n)-privileges.”

“That’s….so unfair...”

Of course he doesn’t bother to ask you at all despite how polite he is pretends to be

But he has no problem intertwining his hand with yours while he goes around the bunker taking inventory

Or encouraging you to watch movies while cuddled up beside him

Its not so bad

It’s a great way to get used to the bunker life

With Uvil’s guidance you’ll start to get used to this new way of life

And by the end of the 2nd week you’re starting to find your way on your own

But Uvil will never let that happen

Still hovering around you and monitoring your time despite your independence

“Space? (Y/n) you’re my dearest bunker-mate, of course I worry about you.”

It’s annoying but he’s far from the worst person in the bunker

Unbeknownst to you, Uvil’s only the best at hiding his obsession with you

When he’s not by your side he’s watching the cameras intensely for everyone’s movements

3 monitors dedicated to you

What camera room?

The camera room only the Penz brothers seem to know about and none of them will confess

Not only being your most devoted watcher he’s the only one free enough to suffocate on the sheets you slept in

To touch keep the dirty laundry you share with him

Or the access he gets to your journal entries

But the best thing of all is the closeness he’s granted as your first real friend

“(Y/n) would you like a massage while we watch a horror movie? I know you’ve been feeling tense lately and I want nothing more than to help you relieve that.”

He knows a month is all he’ll get away with

Before the others start to riot

But this will be enough…for now

“I’m going to miss you (Y/n)...but it’s a small cycle. You’ll be back with me before you notice. And you’ll always find a safe space in my bed room.”

#yandere x reader #yandere x you #lovelyyandereaddictionpoint #yanderexrea #yandere #yanderes #yandere harem #yandere oc x reader #yandere oc x you #yandere oc x y/n #yandere uvil penz #yandere apocalypse #yandere original characters #yandere original character #yandere apocalypse oc x reader #yandere apocalypse bunker

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j2lx · 2 years

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When You Are on Your Period (headcanons)

Warnings: none!, it's just soft and fluffy (also naoya learnt from his ways and isn't a misogynistic piece of shit bcuz he loves reader and thinks reader is amazing <3)

A/n: sorry I haven't been posting for so long 😥😓 I've been pretty busy with school and life just hasn't really been going well but now it's mid-year break so I'll be posting at least once a week!

Characters: Itadori Yuuji, Fushiguro Megumi, Kugisaki Nobara, Gojo Satoru, Nanami Kento, Ryomen Sukuna (Sukuna has his own body in this but isn't in his OG form), Zenin Maki, Okkotsu Yuuta, Suguru Geto, Naoya Zenin x Fem!reader

Itadori Yuuji

- Pure baby. He's so confused but he's trying so hard to understand 🥺

- Does a lot of research on the internet but doesn't understand 90% of the stuff so he resorted to asking you.

- Comforts you if you're feeling down or bad about yourself because of mood swings.

- I headcanon that his hands are really warm so he always sneaks his hands under your shirt to rub your stomach when you have cramps.

- Tries to buy your pads but doesn't know which ones you use so he just buys every brand he sees (His thought process: if I get her everything, I'll get the one she uses for sure!)

- Brings you lots of snacks during this period of time since he knows your cravings.

- Buys you random things that remind him of you too! (Essentially just many many stuffed toys for you to cuddle when he isn't around)

Fushiguro Megumi

- Of course he knows what it is. He has zero experience though, and the first time you told him about it he didn't really know what to do.

- After a while he got really good at it. He cooks some simple dishes for both of you on most days, so tries to cook more of your favourite dishes when you're on your period.

- He's not a PDA guy, but he will hold your hand and hug you outside of both of your dorms when you're on your period, just to make you feel more comfortable and happy (He'll endure the teasing from Itadori, Kugisaki and Gojo for you =))

- Has a period tracking app so he knows when to stock up on your favourite tidbits and your pads <3

- He normally prefers to read but when you're on your monthly, he'll watch movies or shows with you while cuddling under a blanket, his hand rubbing anywhere that you want him to rub due to soreness <3

- Takes super good care of you in general, and is super well prepared! Has pads in his bag wherever the both of you go, and has a hot water bottle as well.

- Summons his shikigami for you to cuddle when you need the extra reassurance (also his shikigami helps you with your mood swings by nuzzling and lying down on you!!!)

Kugisaki Nobara

- This girl gets it ok. As a fellow female, she understands the pains of going through that monthly cycle.

- The absolute best at handling your mood swings and basically everything you're going through.

- Expect lots of cuddles and snacks while watching movies, especially when both of you are on your cycle at the same time <3

- She is sooooo well prepared, probably stocks up on pads and has many hot water bottles as well.

- Is always stocked up on snacks both of you like too. She somehow never runs out of them… Could explain how your bill at the supermarket goes up to a hundred dollars at times.

- She has so many clothes that are fashionable yet comfortable for both of you to wear. Those clothes literally look so fashionable and they're also looser, which means that you get maximum comfort and style at the same time.

- You never have to worry about bringing pads or sanitary pads out since she has an entire pouch dedicated to the things you both need when on your cycle. (She carries it around everyday, just in case)

Gojo Satoru

- He knows what it is, has no experience, and is the worst at this at first.

- After realising that sometimes when you have mood swings, annoying and teasing you isn't the best way to cheer you up, he starts being more sensitive to your emotions.

- Buys you pads and knows which ones you (he definitely asked you for your pussy size the first time though. I swear this man-)

- Is extra cuddly when your on your period. He'll let you lie down on him at night when you're trying to fall asleep. Anything for your comfort <3

- Buys you so, so much candy and sweets. Yeah sure it makes you feel better sometimes, but it's mostly for him to have an excuse of being able to eat more sweets. (He claims that both of you matter on your period since it's uterUS).

- Will buy you random stuff that he thinks will cheer you up. You probably have to stop him from buying stuffed toys for you every single month.

- Will try to cook for you. He has mastered making some of your comfort foods, just so you can enjoy some home cooked food made by your lover.

Nanami Kento

- Knows what it is, never had experience, but somehow is an absolute god at taking care of you when your period comes round.

- Expect home cooked food every single day. He will come home on time everyday for dinner just to cook for you.

- Monitors your diet to make sure you're getting the nutrients you need, while also letting you indulge and have some of the snacks you like.

- Will never ever lose his cool. You can cry, scream at him, say the most illogical and unreasonable things, but he will never ever scold you or make you feel bad <3

- Buys you pads, and buys the right kind. Sometimes he even buys night pads for you in case your flow gets heavier (if you don't usually use night pads).

- Like I said earlier, he never ever works overtime during your period. He wants to make sure he gets home to you as soon as possible so that he can take care of you.

- Expect him to be a lot more intimate during this period of time. More cuddles, more kisses and he always showers with you whenever you're on your monthly. He just wants to make sure you're comfortable <3

Ryomen Sukuna

- He knows what it is, seems not to care but once you tell him he will never leave you alone when your monthly hell comes along.

- He's not normally a very touchy person but when you're on your period… let's just say you're not going to be leaving his arms any time soon (unless you are uncomfortable or need to use the bathroom or something) .

- I think he's honestly really gentle with you and treats you like glass even on a normal basis, so when you're on your period, expect him to bring everything to you and for the king of curses to serve you <3

- His body is really warm so you wouldn't really need a hot water bottle or heating pad since he's like your personal heating device to use anytime you need.

- Strokes your hair and kisses your forehead a lot more during your monthly. He likes being more intimate with you when you go through your period since he knows it's not easy for you.

- Will try to cook for you since I headcanon that he is an amazing cook and that once he tries to cook something, it turns out delicious. He makes sure you get to eat the food he put his love into making.

- Doesn't really understand the whole buying pads thing, but if you ever need it, he'll be at your service, ready to buy whatever you require.

Zenin Maki

- Literally just trains and fights through the pain whenever she's on her period. When she met you that changed though (because not everyone can girlboss their way through their period like her).

- She started caring more about hers, and your monthly cycle, so expect her to be more of a beginner at taking care of herself and you.

- She's trying her best though! You probably have to teach her more about how to handle periods because she really just isn't great at it.

- Buys more pads for both you and her so that you both will never have to run out in the middle of the night or something to stock up.

-;She does have hot water bottles though. Sometimes the pain got too much and she had to use them.

- Starts cuddling you more and tries to cook hot piping food for you when you're on your period <3 (please do the same for her or else she just lives life as if nothing is happening).

- Overall, she's learning more and more about self care! Please remember to take care of her during her periods because otherwise, she'll train even harder because of her mood swings.

Okkotsu Yuuta

- He has heard of it and kind of knows what it is, but never had experience nor knows in detail what happens so he researches… a lot.

- Immediately tries making some foods that were recommended by various websites and asks you to try them.

- Not the type to ask you what pads you use, he just goes to your wardrobe (with your permission of course), looks for your pads, and buys the same kind.

- Tries to avoid any kinds of missions when you're on your period. But if he has no choice but to go, he'll make sure it's only for a day or two and he sends you texts every half a day at least.

- Cuddles you while watching documentaries and movies, but makes sure you don't snack too much so your diet isn't too unhealthy.

- Has a period tracking app on his phone so he knows when you are going to have your mood swings and when you'll be in pain. He wants to make sure he prepared for you (pads, hot water bottles etc).

- Has a really big stuffed toy of your favourite animal for you to hug when he's away on missions and you're on your period. He makes sure to spray his cologne on it so it smells like him <3

Suguru Geto

- ABSOLUTE SWEETHEART OMG. Definitely takes amazing care of you on a daily basis, and when you're on your period, it's even better!

- Another one who has a period tracking app on his phone. Makes sure to read up on articles on things that could make you feel better too! (Although he's already so good at making you feel loved)

- Really gentle and it doesn't matter how bad your mood swings are. Geto will always be there to make you feel better and he won't lash out at you even if you lash out at him.

- Cooks such good food and makes sure to cook every single meal when you're on your period. Always asks for your cravings before he cooks too!

- If all you want to do is lie down in bed and rest the whole day, he will serve you all your meal in bed and feed you by hand too.

- Has a bunch of movies recorded or bought for you two to watch while cuddling on the bed! His hands are always massaging your back, shoulders or tummy too!

- As long as you feel like it, he'll cuddle with you throughout the day, letting you know that he's not going anywhere and that you're safe in his arms <3

Naoya Zenin

- Ok let's be honest. Even if he learnt from his misogynistic ways, I don't think anyone would straight up talk to him about being on their period-

- So when he finds out about it, he gets really sad that you felt that you couldn't confide in him.

- He felt that you didn't forgive him for being misogynistic in the past and that you didn't care that he was trying to improve =(.

- When he found out, he hugged you immediately and started rubbing his hand in circles on your tummy, trying to make you feel better.

- Tries to get you to open up about it more (like the type of pads you use, the food you like to eat on your period etc) so that he can make you feel better during your period.

- Genuinely tries to make food you like so that you can feel better. He wants to make sure your cravings are satisfied.

- Lots of cuddles!!! He wants to make you feel protected and comforted, especially during all your mood swings <3

Hope you enjoyed reading!

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