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[fiona-refindjewels-blog]

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[anyway-i-love-vanderwood]

A MC that doesn't know how to handle feelings, let alone feelings of love

✿ Thank you @clearruby, who requested this via my Ko-Fi! (sorry it took a few days i’ve been swamped at work orz).

I’m splitting this in two because of the length.  Here’s the main RFA portion! Minor Trio will arrive soon.

Yoosung

You don’t get it.

Like, just saying that doesn’t really convey your complete bafflement regarding Yoosung’s behavior. He frets about your safety constantly, he is frequently expressing affection to you, and he… seems to care… what you think about him?

What the heck?

Why?

And why you?

You’re not really, uh, a particularly personable person. In fact, it was your heretofore emotionally isolated existence that had left you perfectly happy to take this weird job where you stay in an apartment alone for over a week. It wasn’t like you had friends, anyway. It wasn’t like you talked to people.

It wasn’t like you were great at this human connection thing that everyone was going on about, so why the heck was Yoosung… interested in you?

And – what the heck is this… weird warmth in your stomach whenever he checks on you at three a.m., asking about what you’re doing and how your day has been?

It gets weirder when you start finding yourself trying to… protect him? Whenever Seven starts teasing him and tricking him into thinking he’s dying, you calmly and coldly tell Yoosung that no, that’s not the case. You soothe his worries with cold, analytical logic, and while Seven calling you a robot doesn’t bother you at all…

Something about the way Yoosung defends you and calls you great… does?

But not a bad kind of bothering, it’s like…

It’s like…

Something nagging at you that you can’t stop thinking about, like wondering if you’ve left the stove on back home, but with your heart instead of your mind.

It gets frustrating, how often you think about him. How you wonder how he’s doing at school, and think about whether he got that grade he wanted on a test or not. It’s doubly frustrating when he plays LOLOL instead of getting his work done, because for some reason, it – matters to you that he succeeds?

It’s weird. It’s stupid. Why would it affect you? But it just feels all bubbly, and weird, and –

And –

You start thinking about his face –

…Why?

Late one night, you complain to Zen about this, and he pauses for a moment before saying…

“I… think you’d call that love.”

You say no. No. That’s not. It can’t. You don’t fall in love, that’s just not you, and Zen starts laughing uproariously and tells you to test it, why don’t you? When you meet him in person, try holding his hand. If your ‘weird feeling’ gets worse, then you’ll know for certain that it’s love!

Eager to prove Zen wrong, you agree. You’ll show him. You’ll show them all! …Which is also kind of strange, come to think about it, why do you care about proving him wrong? – But you have enough questions to think about for now, so you set that aside.

It’s at the party when you do it, standing in front of the setting sun with Yoosung at your side. He’s said a lot of things that made you feel that Strange Thing – that weird flutter, the feeling like your stomach is dropping into your shoes – but you can’t isolate or examine any of them until you complete Zen’s trial.

You’re alone right now – you’d told Yoosung you’d wanted to get some air, which he’d rushed to accommodate. He said it made sense, y’know, with… how you are about people, and why did it matter to you whenever he was friendly and considerate? It was dumb, this was dumb, and spurred on by some emotion you couldn’t name, you looked away from him and grabbed onto his hand.

Yoosung sputters.

Yoosung turns into a tomato.

Yoosung practically d i e s next to you, which you don’t witness, because you felt your heart stop.

It was just… nice, this feeling of his warmth under your own, and knowing that it was Yoosung’s hand you were holding – kind, gentle, wonderful Yoosung – made it all the better.

Well. Sort of better. It also made you so dizzy that you felt like you wanted to faint, and Yoosung maybe had to catch you with his other hand when you stumbled, which brought you into a position of further physical proximity which made you both emotionally collapse even more, and then resulted in you both panicking and shoving yourselves away from each other, but.

Well.

It was exciting?

(from then on, zen – who was watching from the window because DUH HOW COULD HE NOT – resolves to get you two married asap.)

Zen

Zen is stupid and dumb and idiotic and moronic and frustrating and you don’t know WHY he’s frustrating and you don’t know how to deal with him being FRUSTRATING because you’ve always been able to RUN AWAY BUT YOU CAN’T BECAUSE YOU’RE STUCK IN THIS FREAKIN’ APARTMENT.

When you’d gotten this ‘job’, you thought it would be great. Minimal social interaction, free food, and an excuse to make yourself a complete recluse. People thought you were a weird robot devoid of the ability to make emotional connections, so why wouldn’t you want a job where you could escape them all?

(ok, trying to get people to come to the party was a little… but tbqh it was fairly easy with some basic googling and some research.)

Anyway, that was all ruined by STUPID, WEIRD ZEN, WHO KEEPS SHOWING YOU ATTRACTIVE PICTURES AND FLIRTING?? IS THIS FLIRTING??? WITH YOU and MAKING YOU FEEL WEIRD.

People asked for a selfie, so you took one, and he spent literally thirty minutes gushing over it.

Is this a joke?

Is he playing a trick on you?

YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND HUMOR, you can’t tell if your leg is being pulled, here!

You spend multiple evenings on your bed, flopped on the covers and sulking over this development.

You just… can’t deal with this?

and why does it make you feel so funny when he gushes over you?

Why does it make you feel so funny, being told that he’s spending a lot more time in the chat ever since you came around…?

UGH. WHY DOES HE HAVE TO BE SO HANDSOME? This isn’t your opinion – it’s objective fact!

(cue more annoyed rolling.)

Zen is… amused by all of this, and he takes the opportunity to tease you more. Like, obviously he wants to start dating you asap – this boy is desperate – but he’s also loving watching you go through this period of emotional turmoil. You’ve told the chat a little about yourself; you don’t do Feelings, and it’s making him pleased as punch that he’s becoming an exception.

…He’s surprisingly gentle with you when he meets you in person.

Oh, he keeps courting you, obviously. Flowers, chocolates, dates. But he’s patient and kind and lets you figure things out at your own pace. He’s enjoying this slow, prolonged descent into you accepting your feelings, and he really enjoys the process of seeing you work through it.

Ok, so sometimes it means he gets punched in the shoulder because you don’t have any other way to process the turmoil of flirting, but it’s always just a smack, and he’s tough anyway.

Zen’s loyal. He’ll wait as long as it takes for you to accept that the ‘weird sickness’ you get whenever he’s around is love.

[Jaehee, Jumin and Seven are under the read-more!]

Jaehee

Ohhboy.

Welcome to Friendship Simulator 5,000, where neither of you can really process that your relationship is... uh… not entirely platonic.

Jaehee’s route is already about her processing the feeling of becoming ‘friends’ with someone, so your descent into emotional closeness is actually a pretty gentle one with her. Yeah, it’s weird that you suddenly find yourself supporting someone so much and being supported in return… but Jaehee makes for a welcoming, accepting partner to discuss these things with.

She’s so reliable that you feel like you can tell her your fears. You say that you’re terrified she’ll leave and then you’ll be left floundering, with no idea what to do or how to deal with your feelings. You say that you’re scared of intimacy, that you have trust issues, because… duh, she has them too.

You don’t really know what to make of the u t t e r f u r y that encompasses you when you hear how Jaehee’s foster family treated her. In fact, it leaves you with a busted hand and a hole in the plaster of Rika’s apartment that you aren’t sure how to explain. It’s – weird! You’ve never gotten this mad for someone before!

But Jaehee is kind, and – and she doesn’t deserve that!

You struggle. You talk to Jaehee. You have a calm conversation that’s conducive to opening up your feelings.

Like the flowers in spring, something starts to bloom in your heart.

You don’t realize what it is until almost a year later, when you and Jaehee are opening the café one day… and even then, you don’t realize the full depth of what it is you’re experiencing.

You just know in that moment, watching the morning sun pool on her shoulders and ghost across her hair, that you want Jaehee to be in your life. Forever.

…It’s a feeling that’s desperate and wanting and hurting, but it’s also warm and supportive. You’ve never felt anything like it before, but you also know that you wouldn’t change a single aspect of it for the world.

Jumin

oh christ.

Neither of you understand an appropriate and proper way to moderate Feelings, and the both of you find different ways to be BAD at it.

Jumin gets, uh. Y’know. Possessive, doesn’t want to let you out of his sight for fear you’ll be hit by a car, etc. You get tetchy because intellectually, you understand this Isn’t Okay, but the emotionally compromised, affection starved inner part of you is like, woah, he cares so much! Frustrated with these feelings and also your inability to properly negotiate boundaries with him, you often close yourself off and sulk.

Jumin doesn’t want to make you sad, so he sulks, and by the end of it Jaehee is dealing with two miserable adult-children which she isn’t prepared at all to handle because HOO BOY GUESS WHO ELSE HAS EMOTIONAL ISSUES??

all y’all need therapy i s2g

anyway you’re falling for jumin, and also have no idea how to describe or properly articulate your feelings regarding jumin. you get annoyed when women fawn over him but are confused about why, because why should it matter to you? what will it affect? what stake do you have in this?

The closest you come to mentally resolving this internal conflict is deciding that, well, you LOVE Elizabeth the III, like - love. like, you’d die for this stupid cat, and Jumin dating someone would probably limit your access to her, so you’re jealous of these women not because they’re around Jumin, but because they’re limiting your Elizabeth time.

In the end, it’s JUMIN who accepts his love of you first, and who tries to express to you that he’d like to be a couple. You tell him that you’re very flattered but obviously, this warm, fuzzy, gooey feeling in your chest is only a response to his cat, so you can’t date him.

(i want to emphasize how many times zen has bashed his head against the wall in the background by this point.)

Anyway, Jumin is crushed by this idiotic rejection, and since he’s not used to this whole… loving and then not having thing, he goes into a downward mope-spiral. This makes you feel guilty and sad, which are both things you’re bad at dealing with, but you also realize that you kind of want to hug him and make him feel better?

like… that’s weird.

This drama is too much for Zen, so even though he hates Jumin the cat freak, he decides to help a bro out by sitting you down and forcing you to confront yourself. It takes like five straight hours of bickering with you to prove that, yes, you do like jumin - seriously, he needs a powerpoint and documented evidence - but afterwards, you’re like…

oh.

You’re also scared because, OH SHIT, you just- rejected him! he probably hates you now! you can never show your face again… no, not just that, you need to run away to another country! another continent! another planet!

N o, zen says, and he grabs your arm, drags you to a flowershop to buy an ‘I’m-Sorry-I’m-an-Idiot-Bouquet’, and then brings you to Jumin’s apartment to talk.

JUST TALK, YOU MORONS.

AND BE HONEST…!

after what is, quite possibly, the worst confession in the world, Jumin hugs you, and the two of you can be emotionally repressed, touch-starved idiots Together.

707 (Saeyoung)

somewhere, the combined forces of cupid and Aphrodite create a new ocean from their tears, because gdi you are a matchmaker’s worst nightmare. 

You don’t get Seven’s jokes. They’re weird. He’s weird. You don’t understand why he says this stuff. 

You also don’t understand why he talks to you, why he seems fascinated by you, and why he laughs with such force after hearing your deadpan responses over the phone. It’s bizarre! It’s peculiar!

You know you’re a robot, and he knows you’re a robot, so... why does he keep pestering you?

You can only think that he’s some kind of weird sadist, and you continue on as normal (while sighing and rubbing your head each time you’re the punchline of his bizarre humor.)

Seven doesn’t get why you’re so hilarious, but holy crap, you really are the greatest straight man in the world, aren’t you?

You’re like Jumin but better, because your sincere naivety isn’t tainted by you being ruthless, capitalist, bourgeoisie scum. You’re odd, you’re different, you don’t understand basic things (like the human emotions you’re so used to repressing) and he’s fascinated every time he talks to you!

He can never predict you! He can never anticipate what you’ll say! Interacting with you isn’t like the mundane, routine call-and-response shticks he has with the rest of the RFA... 

Talking to you makes him feel like he’s flying on the clouds! 

--But only because you’re entertaining, right?

He’s definitely not pestering you because he’s head-over-heels in love. That’d be ridiculous! Preposterous! Unthinkable.

...This is how things go, until you’re put in danger from the bomb.

You take things cooly. What, you’re supposed to be scared? Hah! The last time you felt fear was when you were eight and just learning that no one would come and help you fight the monsters in the closet. You’d truly understood then that, if you wanted things done, you’d have to do them yourself, and feeling fear wasn’t part of the equation.

...Feeling anything wasn’t part of the equation, really...

Seven takes things less cooly. he is, in fact, flipping out, because holy shit you’re in danger holy shit it’s his fault holy shit he’s so worried about you and -

...Why is he so worried, precisely?

(You ask him this question repeatedly. He’s only known you for a few days. The lengths to which he’s going to ruin his life for your sake are ridiculous, aren’t they?)

But for some reason, it’s precisely because you think they’re ridiculous that he wants to try so hard to help you.

You don’t get it. He doesn’t get it. You kind of fight about it but he won’t stop. and neither will you stop worrying about him because for some reason...

You want to save him, too.

Everyone else realizes it’s love long before you two do, and the both of you manage to navigate the Mint Eye situation without ever once beginning to acknowledge how you feel about each other.

There are plenty of strange declarations of emotion. When Seven is letting his brother take his repressed rage out on him, you step in and force them to talk. When Saeran is struggling, you try to watch over him, because it’s stressing Seven out, and you want Seven to be happy.

You stay up late, listening to Seven’s worries, and tell him he’s a dipshit in the morning when he tries to brush them aside. Occasionally, you do the same in return, though you’re less likely to back away from having expressed emotion. You’re just...

Confused. And lost. And don’t know how to deal with being strangely concerned about him. You make a million excuses, which Zen and Yoosung shoot down a million times because they just want to see you happy with someone, okay?

And you love Seven so much! And he loves you so much!

It’s dumb!

They do everything in their power to set you up on dates, which ends up with you and him bumbling past your feelings like two navigationally challenged ships passing in the night. It’s impressive, really. Even Vanderwood is annoyed by watching you two. The only thing that Zen can think to do...

Is try to make Seven jealous by flirting with you.

This is a bad plan. This is a stupid plan. But Zen is also kind of a stupid man, so he undergoes it with gusto, trying to ‘woo’ you while attempting to inspire some feelings of jealousy in Seven.

and it. works? sort of?

Like, you don’t understand you’re being flirted with, but you do get kind of flustered once which makes Seven feel w  e i r d.

and obviously, since Seven loves running from anything even approaching genuine emotion, shuts down and avoids to problem.

He stops talking to you.

This pisses you off for reasons you don’t quite understand, and with only a very poorly thought out plan in mind, you march to his apartment and BANG ON THE DOOR UNTIL SOMEONE LETS YOU IN BECAUSE THIS IS ENOUGH.

YOU ARE DONE.

YOU FINALLY JUST GET SO ANGRY AT SEVEN ACTING DUMB AND NOT LETTING YOU CARE FOR HIM THAT YOU ADMIT BOTH TO YOURSELF AND TO HIM THAT YOU DO.

THAT YOU ARE HIS FRIEND.

THAT YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE HIM HURT.

that you... like him.

“...so please... stop ignoring me, okay?”

(saeran lets you in, grabs his brother by the scruff of his neck, and forces you to talk.)

That talk doesn’t really get you into the date-zone yet, much to everyone’s chagrin, but it puts you far closer to the vicinity of romance than either of you have been willing to trudge into up to this point. There’s practically a second RFA party held in honor to commemorate you holding hands with him, and five years later, when you’re finally married, Zen openly bursts into tears as he watches you go down the aisle.

FINALLY.

FINALLY, IT WORKS OUT.

[anyway-i-love-vanderwood]

Headcanon that some people that are trapped within the game are totally okay with forgetting their past lives. They are okay with dying inside and forgetting their lives. These people eventually become problems as they try to stop the guild from rectifying the situation.

✿ Ohohoho, you’ve made an interesting observation. Many people pour their lives into MMOs as a form of escapism, and well, wouldn’t being transported to a fantasy world where you can’t actually die be kind of amazing? Particularly if you have a very unpleasant reality…?

…What I’m saying is, that headcanon is actually closer to actual canon. Particularly concerning Mint Eye, whose dialogue all refers to leading everyone to paradise.

clearruby

I Really love this Au, have you been inspired by Log Horizon if not I can recommend the anime :D

✿ yes, I like Log Horizon a lot, and it’s a pretty big influence. It’s sort of like an anime made for me, haha. An anime with relatively little fanservice about fun characters being trapped in an mmo that focuses on worldbuilding and fantasy economics is exactly the sort of thing I’m into. I like it for a lot of the reasons I like Spice and Wolf.

I’m glad you like my AU! 

anonymous said to anyway-i-love-vanderwood: I’m probably just slow but like how would getting trapped in the game work? Is the game already a SAO type thing where the players actually go into the game, or when people get stuck do they transfer from their real bodies to the game world? (sorry sword art online was the only example I could think of)

✿It’s ok! I’ve mentioned a couple of times that the people who play Mystic Message Online use VR headsets, which is what the Nervegear technology in SAO is modeled after. So yeah, it’s something like that! The .hack//series uses the same idea, along with many other properties set in video games. Playing MMO is an incredibly immerse experience; because the VR headset is linked into the player’s nervous system, they actually experience sensations within the game world. When the incident happens the players’ consciousnesses are transferred into the game, which many theorize happened because of the immersiveness of the VR technology. In the outside world, their real bodies fall into a coma…

Though honestly? The players don’t know that. Some think there’s no escape. Some think they’re all already dead.

ihavenotfallenyet said to anyway-i-love-vanderwood: So who notices the memory issues first? Is it you? Does it change depending on route?

It’s actually discovered through the combined efforts of The Star Society (who I spoke about in the post running over some of the guilds), and the Netizens, who are a guild of internet rumor hounds who do a lot of theory-crafting for Mystic Message Online. Where The Star Society tends to focus on ingame lore as the topic of their research, the Netizens investigate numbers, find game-breaking bugs and ways to get into otherwise restricted or inaccessible areas, and also do some research on persons of interest. After Day Zero - what people have started to call the date everyone was trapped - the Netizens become very, very interested in how the world actually works, and one of their first topics of study is death.

The Star Society started investigating rumors of people having strange dreams in the moments before they were revived, of a strange, mysterious entity… taking something from them. They then contacted the Netizens when they heard that one of their members, who had died multiple times on purpose to try to study the process of death, became unable to recall the face and name of his little sister.

Prominent Netizens include Sherlocking, B1ack*Cat, and Joker, who is rumored to actually be a hacker in her real life.