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charles-leclerizz · 9 months ago

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🥂 the f1 boys... getting spoiled by them

MEET THE CAST. CL 16 ◦ CS 55 ◦ LN 4 ◦ MV 1

VIDEO DESC. this one was requested by a lovely reader ! thank you so much for requesting and i hope you enjoy !! my inbox is almost always open so please don't hesitate to drop by. rules for requesting are here . [ note! currently just burned through this while feeling a bit under the weather, if there are spelling mistakes, trust that i'll fix them in the morning. ]

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ᡣ𐭩 ⎯⎯ CHARLES LECLERC 16 " he who buys out entire stores for you " spoilt in riches

"mon amour ! " [ my love ] the sound of your boyfriends chirpy voice made you smile and place your book down on the side table by the sofa.

" in here . "you reply, walking over to the living room entryway, prepared to welcome him back with a hug, but as you approached him and opened your arms, a sharp jab hit your ribs which made you stumble back.

"charles ?" you arch your brow at him, planting your hands on your hips as he grinned wider, showing off the multiple, high-end bags that hung from his enclosed fists, " what is this ? "

Charles crossed over to the center table, placing down the bags with little care and turned to finally loop and arm around your waist, " well, y'know how alex had asked me and the guys to help with anniversary shopping for Lily ?"

you hummed, finally tearing your eyes away from the silk and lace that peeked out of the thick cardboard, " honey..." you began warnigly, already knowing where this was going.

" ce n'est pas ma faute ! " [ it isn't my fault. ] he defended, his eyes darting to the front door anxiously bouncing between your face and the already opening hallway, " we just kept going and going and going- " he enunciated with his hands, rolling them over eachother, "and going, it was too tempting. "

Charles held his hands up and watched, amused, as you sifted through the shopping, eyes widening comically as you got a peak at the price tags, " Charles ! " you hissed.

" what ? " he answered back, more focussed on his friends who were barrelling into the apartment, each of them carrying atleast 5 bags each.

Max was the first to plumet the boutique carriers down, hufffing whilst flopping onto the couch, " man, charles, you- " he weazed, "- you have a problem. i think i tore something . " he whined, holding his side.

charles blew air through his lips and flipped his hand at the dutchman, " you're a world champion. walk it off. "

you grimaced at max, who just stared at your boyfriend with an open mouth, " he's right darling, this is too much. "

Lando, Carlos and Alex all followed soon after, added to the pile with multiple trips back and forth to what you assumed to be an armed tank full of your boyfriend's precarious spending.

"charles- it's still going..." you huffed, offering a lemon water bottle to a certain spaniard who was drentched in sweat and sniffing his fingers.

carlos smiled at you briefly, chugging the electrolyte before gasping and slumping back, "dammit, maldito infierno, my hands smell like all those tuity fruity shops you dragged us to. " [ fucking hell ]

"you're a millionare, buy some hand wash. " charles answered back, shrugging his shoulders. he lifted carlos up and pushed him out the door to retrieve more bags.

" charlie, tell me how many more bags there are ? " you gestured around your space, already overtaken with more than millions of euros worth of shopping, " i mean, this is excessive. there's jewellery, shoes, dresses, tops. where should i wear all of this ? "

charles stuck his tongue out at you with faux-confusion before cupping your cheeks and planted a wet kiss on your nose, " we'll just have to go out more often. "

rolling your eyes, you returned his affection, winding your hands around his waist before reaching up and plucking absent-mindedly at his shirt, " yeah- now you got a good excuse ... " you trailed off, biting your lip, " but it bothers me, i can afford this too y'know. it feels so.. odd. "

" what's odd about it ? dis-moi, je vais le réparer " [ tell me, i'll fix it ] his thumbs rubbed comfortingly at your cheeks.

" i don't know- this is all your money, it makes me feel indebted to you, almost guilty . " you bite your lip and grasp his wrists, not wanting him to be hurt by your words and pull away entirely.

though, to your surprise, charles hummed and pulled your closer, resting his chin on your head whilst peppering his lips across your hair, " i understand mon chéri, but, i like spoiling you, it's my way of showing you that i love you. i would never expect something back from you, not this way atleast. " [ my daring ] he paused and looked around him, "think of it as a personifaction of my love ? "

you bit your lip and nodded up at him, your chest warming at the content glint in his eye and enamoured smile he wore, he brought his thumb up to your chin and pulled your lip free before leaning down and brushed his mouth against yours.

his lips worked in tandem with yours, pouring his affection into his movements whilst his hands came up to brush through your hair and pull you impossibly closer.

" - ehm ehm "

" oh come on, how come they get to sex it up here, while we're hauling ass ? "

" - SIMP ! "

a miriad of complaints erupted behind the pair of you, forcing you both apart with a surprised jolt. charles groaned and dropped his hands away from you, gearing up to whip his friends into shape, that was until you put a hand up to stop him and appraoched the trio yourself.

" come on guys, i'm sorry about all this ... " you apologised and smiled brightly, " i really owe you one ! "

a choked sound came from charles, who stood in awe at how these seasoned professionals melted at your sunny expression and merely walked into the house to drop the last of the bags in with not one complaint.

" bye guys, thank you so much ! " you thanked them, waiting until the electronic beep of the lock secured the door closed and allowed you to stare at the final salad heap of the shopping.

charles walked up behind you, ensnaring your waist with his hands before pressing your back against his chest, "show me your ways, princesse , they never listen to me. " [ princess ] he kissed a line up and down the column of your neck, smirking against your skin when you shivered and leaned your head against his shoulder.

" i could show you something else.." you mumurred, placing your hands over his fingers that laid flat against your stomach before lacing them together, "... i could show my love for you, in a different way . " you blinked coquetteishly up at him, fluttering your eyelashes as he growled playfully and coaxed a delighted squeal from you when he picked you up, legs flailing in the air.

ᡣ𐭩 ⎯⎯ CARLOS SAINZ 55 " he who showers you in emotion " spoilt in vehemence

" Te amo querida " carlos whispers against your cheek, his hand resting on your hip as you leaned into his hold and watched his back when he detached to walk away, towards his motorhome. He turned around and smiled at you, blowing a kiss dramatically.

" god, you guys are so cute... " alexandra mumurred, grinning like a cheshire as you returned his dramatics with an over the top play of his kiss shooting you in the heart.

" yeah... " you agreed, blinking your eyes quickly to exit the rosy haze that overtook your eyes.

" i wish charles would be so open with his love ... " she twirled the straw in her cup as her chin dug into her palm, eyes tranfixed on her own parter who felt her gaze and smiled shyly at her.

you tilted your head at her, " we're not that open . "

alex arched a brow, " really ? "

flashback # 1

the bass boost of the club made your ears ring and lean into carlos' chest, hands slapped over the sides of your face.

He glanced down at you, " you okay, mi vida ? " [ my life ]

you nodded, leaning forward cheekily to take the straw of his drink into your mouth and sip the alcoholic drink with a satisfied hiss, " so good . " thumbs up-ing him.

locking his eyes on your dazed, flushed face, his gaze softened when you laughed loudly at a joke that kika had just drunkenly attempted to tell.

" you're staring . " you shout over the music after you had caught your breathe, " someone would think that you're weird . "

carlos hummed thoughtfully, fingers pinching your chin gently as he leaned down to brush his lips against your cheek , " let them, i'm sure they'll understand when they see how beautiful you look tonight. "

arching away from his mouth you roll your eyes and loop your arms around his neck, pulling him towards you, " yeah yeah- i think you're prettier, Que guapo eres " [ how handsome you are ]

flashback #2

you stared at yourself in the mirror, twisting on your spot whilst watching the silky fabric skim your ankles and flow like liquid gold from your hips.

" honey, estas lista ? " [ are you ready ] carlos loomed into the walk in wadrobe, eyes widening at your reflection, his hand slipped briefly from its spot planted ont the white wood door of the room until he caught himself and cleared his throat.

you giggled at his reeaction, hands running along the length of the apparrel before coming up to your neck and adjusting the dainty necklace that slinked down to your cleavage that lay exposed from the deep ' v ' cut.

" do i look okay ? " you tilted your head at him in the mirror, humming contently when he came up from behind and bunched his hands up on your hips, fingers swimming in the slinky fabric.

" Pareces una diosa, caída de una gota de sol y regalada desde el cielo. " [ you look like a goddess, fallen from a drop of sunshine and gifted to me from the heavens ] he twirled you around, hand raised high above your head, guiding you in delicate circles and bringing you closer to his chest before linking your hands together. he stared down at you, chuckling when you displayed the shimmery glitter on your eyelids.

your chin rested on his button down shirt as you snorted and began to fiddle with his fingers, " you flatter me , señor . "

" rightfully so, señora " he bumped your noses together, smiling widely.

" yeah okay, we are open . " you grumbled.

alex chuckled at your expression, pinching your cheek playfully before sighing, " lucky you ."

" hey, " you rested a hand on hers that sat on the table, " charles loves you, i've seen it alex, it's like you hung the moon and stars when he looks at you ."

she brightened at you words, flipping her palm to hold you hand and squeeze it hopefully, " really ? "

nodding, you squeezed back " yeah, really . "

" it's nothing like you two though, it's so... surreal to watch him fall in love with you, every time he looks at you . " alexandra gushed.

you blushed and waved a hand infront of your face, " then we both got lucky . "

" we really did ."

ᡣ𐭩 ⎯⎯ LANDO NORRIS 4 " he who attaches you at the hip " spoilt in prescence

" damn man, you can let her breathe . " oscar leans to the side, eyebrows jumping up his forehead as he takes in the scene before him.

Lando, arms wrapped like an anaconda around your neck and in turn tucking your head into his chest whilst you had your hands burried beneath his t-shirt, wrapped around his bare waist.

" no " you protested, already snuggling closer to him, " i need him in my veins ."

oscar huffed out a laugh, rubbing the back of his head as lando nodded definitevely and patted your head, " ya'll are on some other crack . "

" whatever floats your boat oscie . " you call out as the driver walks away from the pair of you.

" in your veins, huh ? " lando smirked down at you, tucking his chin back to lay his forehead against yours.

" yeah ." you harrumph, biting his noise, " you got a problem with that ? "

" no ma'am ."

" good"

" you guys need to let it up . " a third voice interupted your bickering. Lando's pr manager stood to the side of you, arms crossed over one another.

" aw come on glenda, it's not that bad ." lando pouted, laying his cheek on your head.

" it's constant. "

you snorted at her, " well thats a bit unne- "

" constant . "

lando stood taller, " okay then, smarty pants, give us 2 reasons why we should stop being affectionate. i mean you've seen all the other couples, i don't see why you- "

" number 1 " glenda interrupted again with a singular finger pointed up.

instance #1

" so lando, todays race obviously went well, with you coming P3 and the ferrari's scoring a 1-2 finish. can you walk as through what exactly was going on during the battle for 3 rd with perez ? "

lando nodded, grinning cheerfully as he wiped some sweat from his upper lip, " right, well, the race did you amazingly well- umph !"

he surged backwards from the force that had come into contact with his chest.

" i'm so proud of you lando, " you jumped up and down in his dizzy hold as he shook his head and attempted to steady himself. though, you ignored that when you burried your hands in his hair and dragged his mouth to yours, kissing him passionately.

just as your tongue came to run over the seam of his lips and his hands tightened around your waist, the interviewer tapped lando cautiously on the shoulder and sheepishly requested that they continue.

you sighed and detached from lando, who was also blinking back into reality. you laced your arm around his waist and leaned into his side, prompting the blushing interviewer to continue.

"- so you're just gonna stay like that ? "

both you and lando looked at one another and looked at the man infront of you.

" okay then. " he conceded and listened to lando's response.

" oh come on glenda, mark didn't even care ." you whined, stomping your feet.

" he had a nosebleed. "

lando snorted, " he has the structural integrity of wet seaweed, mark should never be trusted not to get a nosebleed. "

" stop shitting on mark. " glenda deadpanned, " number 2"

instance #2

" the aerodynamics on turn 2 were absolutly of the charts, how did you do that ? " an engineer turned away from the computer to glance at lando, who was leaned against a table but had got up to approach the data.

" i'm not sure.. but has anyone seen my girlfriend ? " lando wondered out loud, looking down at his phone.

" she left a few minutes ago, " another passing worker commented before walking away towards the other side of the garage.

" what ? why didn't anyone tell me ? she's a small human, it's easy for her to get hurt ? or fall down a man hole, or any hole in general, holes are the enemy here. " he rambled, already calling your cell hurriedly.

" why are we talking about holes ? " you call out, picking at your nails.

lando perked up and ran at you, arms wrapping around your chest as he picked you up and instictively you locked your legs around his waist.

" oh god, you're safe. "

" i went to take a shit lando ." you tapped his head comfortingly nonetheless.

" take me next time. " he mumbled into your chest.

" what ? "

" i don't see a problem with it glenda" lando shrugged

" we had to call HR, you said 'holes' 5 times" glenda gestured to your intertwined limbs and flicked her hand at the two of you.

" well holes are dangerous, especially for me, broke my nose cause of a hole once. " you defended, unravelling from your defeated boyfriend.

" yeah holes are super dangerous, who's going to protect her from all the holes in the world ? the world's holes are dangerous, glenda. "

" someone call steve from HR ! "

ᡣ𐭩 ⎯⎯ MAX VERSTAPPEN 1 " he who demonstrates his affection " spoilt in action

" i'm home ! " you call out, dropping your bag onto the floor and groaning as you kick off your heels.

max padded out to the living room, grimacing as your shoulders popped before approaching you and kissing your cheek, "hoe gaat het met je mijn liefste ? " [ how are you my love ] he stroked your face gently before taking your hand in his and began to run his thumb up and down your knuckles.

" i feel like a bus hit me, " you laid your head on his sturdy shoulder, " then backed up on me, and then a pack of rabid wolves humped my head ."

" creative ." max hummed, chuckling when you pouted at him, " i..." he started, cheeks heating up precariously, " i did something for you, cause i know that work has been hard lately. "

cooing, you let him guide you out of the living room and into your bedroom, " here. "

he handed you a soft robe, " you gotta take off your clothes. "

" yeah, i know ." you snickered, gesturing for him to unbotton your shirt as you worked on your long slacks.

Max's fingeerr's shook against your freshly exposed skin when he pushed the shirt off, despite this, he trailed kisses along your shoulders, moving from the left towards your sternum before reaching your right side.

your breathing slowed, body finally relaxing against his gentle motions as you brought a hand up to thread through his hair. he dragged down your bra strap whilst dancing one of his hands up from the back of your waist to pop open the clasp, and although his eyes darkened at the sight of your breasts, the fingers that trailed down your skin were gentle and caring, kneading the tension out of them.

eventually, you were so relaxed that your eyes had fluttered shut and max had to coax the robe onto your slumped shoulder to usher you into the bathroom.

" oh max," you gasped, taking in the transformed space, aroma therapy candles littered the free surafaces, wafting a sweet pungent scent into the air that mixed into a melodious fusion of smells that escaped froom the steaming bathtub, the water within stained a sleepy blue.

he had set up a simple projector onto thee ceiling, producing relaxing views of a nebula onto the once plastered, white area.

" its so lovely, you're amazing, " you pulled him close and kissed his similng mouth, pouring yourr adoration into the melding of your lips together.

" you deserve it, mijn perfecte vrouw" [ my perfect woman ] max replied, sitting you down on the chair that laid perfectly infront of the mirror, he leant forward aand retrieved your brush before stroking the bristles through your hair with the utmost care.

he took his time, de-tangling your chaotic mane until it calmed down to a tamed waterful, running down your back, " wow, your hair is so smooth ." he commented, bringing his head down to run his nose through the silky strands. chuckling, you splayed your hand against the back of his neck.

"next step," he whispered to himself, takinng another familiar bottle from the coounter, " you use this hair oil, right ? "

"when did you get to know this ? " you mock-gasped, " it was my best kept secret."

" i called my sister. "

" yeah that checks out."

max took the oil onto his fingers, heating up the liquid between the pads of them before running his hands against your scalp to massage in the nutrients.

after the numerous steps that had to be completed to perfection, he moved you towards the still steaming bath.

" you're getting in too right ? " you asked, as if it were obvious whilst tugging at the bow that wasa tied lazily around your waist.

"well... i didn't plan on it." max shrugged.

" i want you to," you stepped towards him, pushing away the robe from your shoulders and let the material pool at your feet, " please ? "

" you play dirty, Schatje " [ sweetheart ] max groaned, letting you pull at his clothes until he was in the same state of undress that you were in.

giggling, you take his hand and let him submerge you into the water, " yeah, but you love it, " you stick your tongue out at him.

" yes, i do, " he conceeded, pressing his lips against your forehead as he joined you in the warmth, snuggling behind you and pulling your hips up- into his lap, " but i'm washing your hair, i did not let my sister yap my ear off for nothing. "

you rest your head against his shoulder, neck tilted so you could admire his face, bringing a hand up you trace his side profile softly, " i would expect nothing less. " you whisper.

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spectrum-core · 10 months ago

Note

hi if you don’t mind me asking I’d love to hear more about serrated duo parallels?

Alright, just to make sure we are on the same page because I'm not sure if many people know who am I even talking about when I say serrated duo, I mean this pair of goofballs who I love very much.

Fuckass essay about them and how this thing even came to be (which is not what you asked for but it's still important I think) under the cut, as a warning though this is EXTREMELY long, i'm also writing it assuming the readers have played ruina to completion, have at least glanced at the ruina artbook once and are decently familiarized with the pjm universe and its terminology.

"But Spec", you may (and reasonably so) say, "these guys show up in different story tiers, one is a glorified ranged attack tutorial with a minor lore exposition attached to him and the other doesn't even have anything going on due to being a general reception, what the hell".

So let's get into this, more meticulously organized than some essays I've submitted for my uni classes because I care that much about these guys (don't be like me and do your uni projects, please).

Table of contents:

How the fuck did this even come to be 1.1. Me yapping about character dessign

Liwei as a character 2.1. The surface 2.2. Emotional internal nature 2.3. Resentment

Dong Hwan as a character (sorry can't separate him into many categories bc there's NOTHING THERE man i'm absolutely grasping for straws here i KNOW it, but please bear with me)

Summarizing parallels

If you don't feel like sitting through my attempts to contextualize how this ship came to be and me desperately grasping for straws, feel free to skip all the way down to part 4

1.- How the fuck did this even come to be

Honestly the whole thing started as a sleep deprivation shitpost I rolled with because yeah i like these two guys a lot (if you read that one post talking among other things about why I like liwei so much in the first place, the short reply also applies to dong hwan and... Yeag, the only thing that's better than one hot guy is two hot guys and so on).

There was also an interesting aspect about this because maybe it's just me but based of liwei's dialogue lines and keypage text he suggests not trusting, or even liking/admiring/looking up to, high graded fixers (despite feeling that he's supposed to). With an emphasis put into colors because, I mean, he fucking died because he met one at the wrong moment, but I feel it's a general thing he feels for grade 2s and above.

With this in mind, putting him to interact with a grade 1 is... at the very least it has the potential to put them into a funny mutual vitriol kind of dynamic with lw constantly thinking "what's the deal with this guy? does he expect me to praise him just for having a high grade? well, tough luck, i'm no bootlicker" and dh constantly thinking "what's wrong with this man? is he unable to recognize greatness even if it punched him in the face...? should i punch him in the face?", but it becomes far more interesting when you try to imagine (and, with dong hwan being an absolute background character we can only assume things of from extremely vague hints, pretty much all we can do about him is imagining) what made them both special enough for each of them to think "wait, hold on, i actually like this guy" of the other.

After the initial shitpost stage was over, we (the guy who came up with serrated duo while sleep deprived and me) started talking about why we liked both characters and we essentially concluded that, at least dessign wise, they are the same type of guy (ofc I also added a couple of characters I like and who fit the criteria to my post but this post isn't about them).

1.1.- Me yapping about character dessign

On top of that, if you pay attention specifically to liwei and dong hwan in there, you can notice that there's a pretty neat balance of common and contrasting themes in their dessigns, almost in a two sides of the same coin way, so here's a non exhaustive list:

both characters have a primarily monochrome/dark aesthetic going on, with their eyes being the primary colored element that stands out in their dessigns (yeah, you could say that dh has brown hair too but it's a dark shade of brown that doesn't catch the eye nearly as much as the bright-yet-deep shade of red of his eyes)

on top of that, liwei's eyes are blue while dong hwan's are red (i thought they were reddish brown at first but that's just an effect of the transparency, if you separate the sprite in it's different parts, you'll notice his eyes are actually red), which happens to link with a certain trope about two-sides-of-the-same-coin pairs... (will elaborate on this later trust me).

despite the previously mentioned similar monochrome aesthetic, there's a clear contrast between their styles and how they wear their clothes, with liwei having a much more "only informal if it's more practical that way" type of look, with a focus on practicality over trying to stand out too much (for the most part at least, he was dessigned with the idea of a cool guy in mind after all), while dong hwan is essentially wearing a business suit in the most fucked up way possible (really, what the fuck dong hwan), which of course makes his dessign incredibly memorable. To further elaborate on this (and to add details that don't really follow this formal until unpractical/informal AND unpractical pattern): -Liwei's clothes stay in similar shades of grey and black giving him a more uniform look, while dong hwan uses more contrasting shades in his clothing (despite wearing primarily black clothes, that light grey shirt absolutely stands out, and by extension he does) -Liwei wears long boots, while dong hwan wears regular shoes -Liwei wears a long coat, while dong hwan wears a short jacket -Liwei has a fully buttoned dress shirt with a tie, dong hwan wears his shirt unbuttoned, in an universe where clothes are basically like armor this is essentially him saying that he's confident that his opponents won't be able to hit him in the chest, or that even if they did he wouldn't get too hurt from it, and it's a dessign detail that absolutely stands out in an universe where most characters only show skin in their head, neck and hands at most, as we know since its stated in multiple keypages and cutscenes, if a character shows more skin than the absolutely bare minimum, then that means that A. they are inmensely strong, and B. they are even more confident in their capacities, with this being a tactic to intimidate potential enemies for many factions -Liwei wears fingerless gloves while dong hwan wears regular gloves, while at first glance this detail seems to subvert the pattern, let's be real here... have you tried to hold any object and using it properly with gloves? unless you're wearing latex gloves or something made of very thin fabric that shit's absurdly hard, of course i assume there's weird city tech involved in dh's gloves but at least that's my own personal impression of that particular contrast)

and going back to common but not really details: both characters have something noteworthy in their ears (this is most likely just a result of the characters being visible as chibis in game so the best way to give them memorable dessigns is by slapping somewhat unique stuff in their faces and heads BUT IM GRASPING FOR STRAWS HERE OK) with liwei's earpiece (which serves a practical function) and dong hwan's earrings (which look cool as hell, going in line with both characters' general priorities)

similarly, both have something in their opposite eyes, with liwei partially covering his right eye with his hair and dong hwan having the scar going through his left eye.

the right-left motif is actually very relevant in their dessigns. You see, most character sprites in ruina switch the hand in which they're holding their weapons for certain frames (or at least, this is not uncommon to see), either for rule of cool, clearer silhouettes or whatever reasons. However, in every frame in which liwei is visibly holding his knife, he holds it with his left hand (and when he uses his pistol he holds it with both hands), suggesting that he may be left handed. On the other hand (see what I did there?), dong hwan consistently holds his knife with his right hand, in every. single. frame. of his sprite, suggesting that he's right handed instead.

And of course, both of them have elements in their opposite legs too, with liwei having these two stupid fucking belts (affectionate) in his right leg while dong hwan has... whatever the fuck that thing is, in his left leg.

Of course I'm not here saying that they were given contrasting dessigns on purpose, but all these details end up making both of them looking really cool when put together, specially with how their dessigns emphatize their personal preferences and priorities, something I will elaborate upon in each character's section later.

2.- Liwei as a character

Liwei is one of my favorite pjm characters as a whole, yes i like him more than ayin, yes i like him more than angela, yes i like him more than carmen, yes i like him more than dante, yes i like him more than your favorite sephirah/patron librarian/sinner, no im not saying i think any of these characters is bad or poorly written and in fact i think pjm has made an amazing job with protagonists so far catching my interest even with characters i thought i wouldn't vibe with at all, but i have a thing for unremarkable background guys.

As you may have guessed, this means that i have a lot, and i mean A LOT to say about him.

This also means that I have a very specific interpretation of him, this interpretation, while clearly taking bases from what we can see of him in game, is entirely fanmade and i'm not trying to claim this is what anyone intended to convey with him, but it's what makes sense for me.

This interpretation also strays away from some other fan characterizations I've seen of him. So if you think he's actually, at his core, a serious, formal, emotionally detached and unbearably professional, even outside work hours, guy who's deeply dedicated to the honorable task of murder and who is in good terms with the shi association or holds them in high regard? sorry, but for me he's nothing like that.

2.1- The surface

"But Spec", you may say again, "he does act emotionally detached during his cutscene, he even says that people die all the time! are you sure you are actually reading this character right?"

Of course I'm not, I'm just saying that I'm reading him in a way that makes enough sense to me, but I do have reasons to believe that the serious and emotionally detached attitude is an akward mixture of a facade he puts up to be taken seriously by others and an incredibly unhealthy coping mechanism, so let's start by analyzing his artbook profile...

Wait a minute, is that..?

Ok, I'll see myself out and continue writing the actual character analysis this is what people are here for.

Anyway, going back to the character profile, you may be inclined to see it and assume "well, that actually just proves that he's a serious and formal dude" at first, until you realize that artbook profiles, due to their in-universe explaination being that they were compilled by roland and angela from the information they could take out of the guests' books, are most likely to be about what the guests perceive themselves as/would say to describe themselves rather than what they actually are when looked at from an outsider's perspective. Further proof of the artbook profiles being subjective comes from how the profiles change almost erratically for distortions and ego users, with people in the middle of both states simply not knowing how to describe themselves, the fact that we lack any information about the agents of the head as they were never booked, or how characters such as tomerry have...

This, which I mean, it's very clear that's just tomerry talking about themselves.

Now, liwei's personality traits, or at least what he'd use to describe himself, are "Meticulous, Efficient, and Sharp". We know that he has to be efficient at the very least, considering the nature of his job and guns in universe, the same thing goes for meticulous, we can assume he wants to do things the right away so that he gets paid, sharp as a personality descriptor can take multiple meanings and frankly i don't know which was the original korean word used to describe him so i can't tell which is the right one but most of them seem pretty accurate, at least when looking at him from a surface perspective.

To be honest, I don't think any of the traits mentioned there is precisely wrong, I simply don't think that they are the main or core ones, but they are the traits liwei tries to show, at least.

Another interesting detail is that all full stop fixer artbook profiles have food related items for the likes and and dislikes sections, except for stephan disliking dangerous jobs.

Not particularly noteworthy for this category in particular but still tangentially linked to a point that I believe is also a core characteristic of all three full stop fixers and that is key to understand all three of them, their dynamics and the choices they make during their reception: they are Poor As Shit, because guns and bullets are expensive of course, we also get to see this in stephan's obssesive fixation in money (come on nobody actually checks their bank account as a hobby... right, guys?), and of course this ties in with wanting to be seen as someone serious and professional people will trust with their money AND with the idea of them having the need to maximize efficiency to... well... you... you know... not end up even worse than they actually are.

2.2- Emotional internal nature

Alright, and here we dwell into the actually spicy part of the essay, at least for liwei's character: the moments in which the mask of a professional and emotionally detached guy cracks and he shows his more emotional, and mostly caring, side. This is focused in the way in which he treats stephan and tamaki (compared with how several other faction leaders treat their underlings).

While I should probably need to read all the dialogue in the game to make sure this is a particularly notorious detail, something that inmediately caught my attention is... the fact that liwei never uses a single honorific when refering to other people, neither he's bothered by stephan's more informal speech and the fact that he doesn't refer to him by any honorific or title either (sure, you could say this is because they were in a life or death situation but also y'know, it says something about you that the people below you don't feel the need to use formalities when talking to you), the only person he calls by title instead of first name is... well, the blue reverb, whose real name we can assume he didn't know, with also him being someone perfectly capable of killing not only him but the guys standing beside him as well, you'd want to be as respectful as possible when talking to a guy like that and trying to negotiate.

(even then he doesnt use any sort of honorific towards him, at least in the english translation of the text, he simply refers to him by title)

He neither uses any title or honorific when talking to angela, despite keeping a formal/respectful attitude, i honestly believe that he is genuinely formal and respectful but... you know, that's not the beginning and end of who he is.

Of course, this isn't a major point, but I think it's worth mentioning considering how important honorifics can be to establish the speaker's relationship with the people a message is directed to, they can be used to distance oneself from others. So in a way it could be seen as him putting himself at an "equal" position relative to stephan and tamaki, as opposed to trying to assert that he's their superior (at least in the context of the mission they were working in, since his title is merely fixer, not operator, president, director or anything implying some form of leadership on his end).

Another extremely important detail is his inmediate first reaction once argalia shows up and ruins their plan is... not coming up with a plan b, not trying to fight him in any way, not doing anything about trying to save what little money they can, he quite literally tells stephan "forget about money, we need to survive now".

His initial reaction is directly just yelling at his team to run away, and this stays consistent once he:

Notices that stephan and tamaki are beginning to argue over the future of their mission and how much money they lost.

Realizes that they can't outrun argalia as long as they're wielding their heavy (and again, extremely expensive) equipment. This says a lot as it shows that he cares enough for the people under his care to let the office go bankrupt if it means they can live.

Needless to say, stephan and tamaki refuse to do so and while he clearly isn't precisely happy about the inevitable confrontation with argalia, he doesn't argue about this, he does understand their concern about money, he's not like the other authority figures who will ignore their underlings' concerns at best and ditch them once they outlive their usefulness at worst (at least, that's what i imagine he thinks as he makes these choices).

Not to mention, once they are in a, if only slightly, safer situation in the library, his inmediate response is trying to comfort stephan and tamaki, things dont look good but theyre at least alive, for now.

And there's this line which... doesn't seem to fit at first glance with the idea of him wanting his office to survive at all costs... right?

That is until you realize that he says that line during yet another argument between stephan and tamaki, as an attempt to get them both to calm down, this could also fit in with him trying to keep or restore the cynical, stoic and serious act, but then again we get to see his more emotional and sincere side once he:

Gets killed, quite literally saying that he didn't want to die yet, at least to me this line alone is enough to pretty much confirm that he didn't really mean it when saying that trying to delay their deaths was pointless, but if you need more, he also acts against that same line when he...

Sees his allies die, and inmediately starts freaking out.

Wins the reception, in which case his inmediate first concern is, again, not money, lost ammunition or anything, but rather if stephan and tamaki are okay and if they will be safe once they return.

I don't think that line was him fully lying though, it does say something about him that makes enough sense to me and fits with the rest of the characterization: that his cynism runs much, much deeper than stephan's.

Tl;dr he is extremely caring and emotional deep inside, and even though he tries to suppress that side of himself it always finds a way to show itself, I feel like in other contexts this makes him prone to emotional outbursts and generally make him an unpleasant person to be around... save for people who are already familiar with his personality quirks and the fact that he is Like That.

2.3- Resentment

Of course, this dissonance between the person he tries to pretend to be to fit in/keep his job and the person he actually is made him grow a pretty strong disliking of... well, everything he considers related to the fact that he has to act like that to get enough money to feed the people in his office.

I also feel like he feels genuine guilt over the fact that his job is essentially just glorified murder, I have no base for this other than the more detached way in which he refers to the church of gears, it almost feels like hes forcing himself to not care because its them or him and his office, and that he has genuine self-hating tendencies because of it (which he also uses his stoic act to hide, he doesn't want to worry his office and become a burden to them, after all), in a way he may be trying to overcompensate by being nice to his office to feel like there's people he can help/protect.

But this hatred towards himself also manifests in the form of hatred towards anything he can blame over him being the way he is and working the job he has.

As I said before, I don't think liwei likes colors, or most high grade fixers for that matter, you may also extend this to figures of authority, influential organizations or even the city's society as a whole (and honestly? i do personally, i don't think he's actually capable of forming any particularly healthy bond with people outside his office because of this, and even then saying that the relationships he has with his office are healthy is... generous to put it softly, this is not to say that he secretly hates the other people in the office, but rather that he fears that they may secretly hate him, because he's the highest graded member of the office, he hates people sitting above him so it only makes sense that people below him hate him for being above them, right?), and of course I'm not saying this because I'm projecting or because I think it's cool and edgy and sad but I actually have bases for this from what I can see in the game.

The first example of him not trusting high grade fixers AND influential organizations being one of the very first things he says when being introduced: that having an important person, from an important organization, belonging to an important section of said organization, approach him and give him a request was shady as fuck.

And he turned out to be right, as Yujin was planning for him and his office to get sent to the library and die there so she could read their books and find some passage saying shit like "well we were found by the blue fucking reverb and our only choice was to come here and die even though we were royally fucked either way life sucks see you all in hell my final message 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕" so she could use that on her favor.

In this topic too, I'm personally firmly opposed to the idea of full-stop office being affiliated to the shi association and this is the hill i'm willing to die on, but I digress.

We see this same resentment on an even deeper level in his keypage where he talks about colors (and we can assume this view extends to other high graded fixers, and to a lesser extent to the hana association), he doesn't sound like he wants to become a color, he doesn't sound like he even likes the concept of colors being a thing that exists in the first place.

The most important lines from these fragments to me being the following:

"A color is the dream [...] of all fixers who wish for freedom.", freedom is a VERY relevant concept in project moon and ruina makes a very clear point about how nobody is free in the city, roland says it, most plot relevant guests say it, some patron librarians say it too... a huge part of the story is how angela comes to terms to the fact that turning human wont grant her freedom and how she ultimately becomes free by embracing her nature as a machine (so free indeed that the head decides to kick her and the entire library out of the city, not only shes a machine that acts like a human, which is already a major city wide taboo, she made a choice that no human in the city should ever make). Essentially, liwei seems to see colors (and im assuming that by extension high graded fixers) as the ultimate example of an impossible aspirational class (think of these "self made" enterpreurs who received extremely generous financial support from their rich parents to start massive companies as the closest irl equivalent, except that obviously not the same, i will elaborate more on this later).

"They put forward the colors as great and successful people that other fixers will look up to. They dream of earning wealth and fame, and to be free like them one day." Why would he be talking in third person here if he too admired colors, or wanted to be like them, or thought that were free in any way? Also that separation between money and fame (something that colors objectively do have since they can afford exclusive high tech weapons and armor) with freedom (something that is debatable, but liwei seems to assume colors don't have) feels too much like a deliberate choice to further push towards that point of him seeing colors as not only an impossible goal to achieve for the average fixer but also that the ideal of a color as someone who is free is something impossible to achieve even if one were to become a color.

"Colors are assigned by the 'Hana Association'. [...] The title of a color is forcibly given to fixers who qualify essentially. Can a fixer be truly happy with freedom that was forcefully handed to them?" This particular fragment, specially the last sentence, is absolutely key for Liwei's characterization, and the final and most important part of him saying "wait, no, colors aren't free, because nobody is" to me. It is also worth noting that this fragment can be read in multiple ways, all of them are important and accurate for his characterization.

He thinks that the responsability and risks that come with being handed the title of a color are far greater than the prestige that comes with the title, can you really say that someone who cant afford to decline requests due to being contacted by the most important organizations in the city, whose closest friends or family WILL be regularly targetted by rivals either to extort them for money or just try to attack them to the point in which most high graded fixers abandon any personal attachment to others, who will have to see the horrible things that happen in the city in an almost day-to-day basis and will likely have to do even worse things in the name of corporate interests is free? Can you really call it freedom if you can't refuse it? Essentially he is saying "actually every single aspect of being a color is terrible and to make matters worse that life is forced on them after they go through extreme miseries in the hopes for a better life but all they get is more of the same if not even worse, they aren't free and shouldn't be refered to as such."

He thinks that in order to become a color (or any highly graded fixer, really), you must essentially lose yourself, which is to say abandoning all friendships or familiar bonds, only keeping shallow interactions with people, desensitizing themselves to whatever horrifying shit they may have to see, abandon all sense of morality as they never know what their next request will be and "im sorry but i dont do xyz, it does against my personal morals" isnt an argument that will work in a place like the city, this also fits into the whole "actually having a much more chaotic emotional side he's trying his absolute hardest to supress but failing" theme mentioned in point 2.2., someone who is so deeply emotional and whose actions are ultimately defined by what is the most likely to keep the people around him alive is obviously not going to like the idea of keeping his distance to them, or to dispose of people with lower grades than him because they were supposed to be expendables anyway.

I don't remember the exact quote and i dont feel like looking for it but in one of gebura's cutscene she claims that all power in the city only serves to strike those below but never up. You have to climb to get stronger and then you'll only be able to assert dominance (through violence) over people weaker than you are, and she grew to dislike this, as she wanted to protect others but was never able to do so because of how the city was dessigned.

Of course, liwei reached the same conclusion but he took the much simpler but much more unhealthy approach of assuming "well, if things are like that, then that must mean that everyone in a position of power (over me) must be responsible for this".

Of course this also comes with the side effect of him being as caring for the rest of the office as he can because he doesn't want to be like other figures of authority as i mentioned in point 2.2, but thats not to mean that things are all fine in the office, i feel like there are several moments in which he internally curses his position of authority but not quite (bc i don't think he's actually The Big Guy In Charge of the office, really), most obviously the aforementioned moment in which he yells at tamaki and stephan to drop their guns so they can run away and live when they clearly dont want to, i feel like at moments like that he feels like they only do things because he tells them to and they "can't argue" (except that they do, fortunately for him the enviroment in the office is healthy enough for the rest of full stops to not abuse this fact, but the "what if"s are absolutely eating him from the inside). As ironic as it sounds his earnest desire to not be Like The Others is the same thing stopping him from being the perfect and efficient leader he wishes to be, and he probably isn't sure of which thing he values more than the other (it's staying true to his own morals and keeping the people under him safe).

However, there's a key detail here that's worth noting: liwei has a tendency to treat everyone else as equals, sure he is formal and respectful when doing so (pressumably even when talking to people he'd rather never interact with if we assume his conversation with argalia was actually how he is and not him just walking on eggshells to not get killed) but he doesn't bother trying to make a clear distinction of who is above and below him, no matter what their title and rank may be, and for people who are used to being looked up to by everyone else this will be seen this as him insulting them in some way, it may come from a sincere desire of him to come off as insulting while not breaking any (major) social convention in an act of malicious compliance or just the type of person he is, that's up to you to determine.

"But how the hell does any of this relate to dong hwan?" we'll get there right now.

3.- Dong Hwan as a character

This is kinda... the hardest point to talk about, because sure I can yap all I want about him but... it's hard to without going "Source: I made it up" too much.

So, looking at his combat sprites you may notice one thing: he is unbelievably hot for real what the hell he has an incredibly smug aura, most people who care about him to some extent i've seen tend to depict him as a very prideful person, and honestly i dont think differently either.

HOWEVER, i feel like despite this he's still a levelheaded guy who can aknowledge his own flaws. On top of that, i think he's a pretty charismatic guy and he's capable of noticing other people's strenghts, and he'll let people know about their own strenghts too.

Also, to contrast with his smug and cheerful exterior, his combat lines depict him as someone very serious when at work, he doesn't even react emotionally to getting killed.

His first "on kill" line is also particularly interesting, as it shows that he prefers to work on his own (unlike everyone's favorite monochrome moody boy), which makes sense considering that he comes alone to the library when you fight him, he may belong to a one-man office (which is the closest a fixer can do to be fully independent, as far as we are aware).

His keypage story also fits this more serious and analytical personality but not much of it is particularly noteworthy from a character analysis perspective, it doesn't say much that you couldn't notice from his combat lines anyway.

Another important factor to me and to contrast him to liwei is... okay, this may be the fact that he's a solo fight and he is, pressumably, an independent fixer, so he's not titled as a member of a particular organization, instead his title (for him, his reception, his keypage and his book) is "dong hwan, the grade 1 fixer", which i mean, again, is most likely just so we dont fight this guy with zero context on who he is and what hes even doing in the library in his own is he stupid? but i like to imagine that the in universe explaination is that he has tied his perception of himself and his own self worth to his grade, to the point in which using both his name and grade is what comes naturally to him when introducing himself, since books are essentially physical manifestations of the soul, then it just makes sense then that his book will give both his name and grade the same importance. This may come from a need to compensate for something else and i actually like to imagine that's the case because it adds yet another layer of parallels with liwei (source: trust me).

Another point is... remember that I mentioned how food was a very consistent thing in the full stops' likes and dislikes sections in the artbook? this point is also not relevant but dong hwan is frequently assumed to be the owner of that pub that shows up at that short side story about roland and angelica which i never watched because i Literally Can Not Care about angelica sorry, but, hey, it's a cute detail, i think he should cook for the full stops.

I feel like there's something to be said about dh's red eyes because in pjm when a character has red eyes you know that means one thing: they will be a big deal, but dong hwan, other than looking incredibly fucking cool and carrying me through the snow queen suppression (FUCK THE SNOW QUEEN ALL MY HOMIES HATE SNOW QUEEN) and star of the city tier 1 (thank you dong hwan i love you dong hwan)… he is rather unremarkable on the grand scheme of things, he's a general reception so you don't even need to defeat him to beat the game, and he only serves to give us some insight on who the fuck was the vermillion cross, and even then he does a terrible job at explaining who he was other than "well, he was a guy i guess" and honestly, the relevance of both liwei and dong hwan is ALSO an important factor in these parallels, as with one being the guy who introduces the concept of colors and the other being the guy who introduces one particular color fixer by casually mentioning being friends with him, both feel like characters who would be much more narratively important in any other story, but here they... aren't.

4.- Summarizing Parallels

Aka the part you may want to skip to if you don't care about me analyzing characters with little background info about them.

So, basically a list of personality (and background, i guess) traits they have in common and how they're different:

Both characters are putting some sort of facade, with liwei trying to act serious and stoic so he's taken seriously while dong hwan... i dont think he even knows what the facade he's putting even is, he's been putting an act for so long that his mask became his true self

In both characters' cases, the first impression they give isn't really the kind of person they truly are (in lw's case this is a deliberate choice and in dh's case i assume that's just the type of person he is), HOWEVER, while liwei acts serious and analytical (and to some extent he is), his true self is far more emotional and prone to form deep bonds with people, while dong hwan has a more passionate, smug and cheerful external attitude but he's much more serious and levelheaded deep down

Both characters have different, conflicting views about their grades, however these differences ultimately lead to both of them being able to treat each other as equals, or as close to that as possible in the city, i feel like liwei can see dong hwan as someone of worth so to speak for reasons unrelated to his grade, while dong hwan does see liwei as a good person (well, good is a subjective term specially in a place like the city) and far better at teamwork than most people in the city, in a way both value something in the other that the other never stopped to consider "hey this is actually a good thing i have"

Both characters are (pressumably?) trying to compensate over something, with liwei putting his professional and formal act to compensate for his sentimental self while dong hwan puts a strong emphasis on his high grade for... who knows, really, i just like this parallel being there because i think it adds a lot

Both have problems forming relationships, with liwei being a generally unpleasant person but being capable of forming deep, meaningful relationships with the people capable of seeing through it, while dong hwan is a charismatic guy liked by almost everyone he's met, but whose relationships tend to be shallow

Not really a personality thing but both characters have a thing for being remarkably unremarkable guys, dong hwan is obviously forgotten by most ruina playes because he's a general reception and the biggest impression liwei leaves in most players is "OH SHIT HE HAS A GUN", even though both are pretty intentionally dessigned with the intention of making them look cool however ive very rarely come across full stop or liwei fans (by which i mean people who like them particularly instead of "actually the entire pjm cast is cool and that includes them) and dong hwan fans are.... yeah, i think ive met like, 4 of them at most (thanks guys i owe you my life)

Something about their combat styles including their passives, liwei's only visible passive is called Concentration and gives him extra strenght for the first turn of a fight, after which he relies in the fact that his attacks weaken the enemy, so he comes off as the sort of guy who prefers to keep his distance and figure out the opponent's weak spot(s) (something he canonically is good at doing) to keep an upper hand at combat, however despite this he's still lacking in both strenght and technique, being only a grade 4 (which i mean let's be real the grades go from 9 to 1 and i feel like a majority of fixers are in the lower grades so he's still pretty much above average but he isnt doing all the cool shit you see the stronger characters do, because that's not the kind of character he is). On the other hand dong hwan's passives have much more cooler sounding names (Fervor, Carver of Scars, Toughness...), all of them focused on either inflicting bleed (status ailment that gradually makes the opponent lose hp)/buffing him against enemies with bleed or buffing him as he gains emotion levels, and his focus is just inflicting bleed like crazy, as well as delivering harder blows against people with bleed, prioritizing raw damage over strategy (but likely being able to figure out an opponent's weaknesses as well, brute strenght alone are most likely not enough to get you far in a world where the powerful people are INSANELY strong bc physical enhancements are commonplace)

I feel like in a way both admire each other, liwei admires dong hwan's capacity to keep a cool head at all times when at work and not letting his feelings have too much weight over his desicions, but dong hwan admires how honest liwei is about himself as well as his capacity to work in a team taking in consideration what will be best for the team as a whole even if it's perjudicial for him in particular.

In Conclusion

Your honor, two of them