11th school trip spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read it all yet
okay hello I’m back on my 11th trip bs but !! what r ur opinions on a swap au.. as in sunwoo and gajun swap roles. imo the story would still make sense and be pretty interesting !! i personally think gajun would be start the loops because of the kindness he saw in sunwoo that he never saw directed towards him before.. and sunwoo, maybe he tries to protect gajun during the trips, but gajun is still trying to be somewhat protective of sunwoo too, although not as much as when gajun’s looping.. (I personally like this because it keeps the dynamic of “weaker guy tries to protect stronger guy” and this dynamic is really silly and fun !!)
(also i loved your ideas from my twewy au ask, it was very interesting and i loveee the idea of sunwoo being the main character w/ rotating partners with the trio.. i wanna draw everyone in the twewy art style now.. thank u for feeding my 11st brain rot. bless. and apologies for the ramble )
oh my god I forgot I got this ask, also, I'm glad you liked the au musings, you should absolutely draw that. hang on let me see... and also... let me see if I can remember anything...
so originally this whole thing kind of kicks off because gajun died (protecting sunwoo...?) and sunwoo shatters his own soul to accidentally put gajun in time prison. I think gajun's Special Eyes and some kind of awakening mechanics could've been involved but I don't remember
there would be the options of either a) swapping it up and having sunwoo die first and gajun having some kind of partial awakening (rather than soul shattering) to set things in motion--even though they're in an extreme situation, I don't think gajun would feel so strongly about sunwoo that he'd shatter his own soul UNLESS things happen *during* the school trip that got them together somehow... gajun's a pretty indifferent character, it takes a lot for him to get fixated on another person (like timeloops) so something pretty wild would have to happen... I'm getting off track, the other option would be b) actually just keeping it the same, as in gajun dies saving sunwoo and sunwoo shatters his soul and then ends up in a timeloop
and actually, we also have the option of a) full swap where gajun dies instead of sunwoo each loop, OR b) partial swap where sunwoo is the one looping but he's still the one dying each time (though doing way better than he is in gajun's loops since he can actually retain and act on loop knowledge)
I think the most torturous execution would be 2b (gajun dies) and 3a (gajun keeps dying), it removes some of the extra twists but it puts higher emotional stakes on The Guy Who Already Has A Crush On His Classmate. also fun because while in some ways original webnovel gives sunwoo a dream scenario of his crush being very intensely fixated and clingy with him, roleswap sunwoo is just in hell and it's about pushing him to the brink.
I don't think sunwoo would go full fixation on gajun at the expense of everyone else, but it'd be fun if he got too tired/stressed to keep up his mask and that's what gets gajun to be like. Someone Needs To Take Care Of This Fragile Delicate Guy. would also be fun to have gajun have to pick up the social/emotional gap left by sunwoo -- he kind of does it in the original novel, but more in the mastermind way and I'm thinking here it could be him scrambling a little more and having to work with none of the information he had when he was looping. hmmm as I'm typing this I think this turns into tank sunwoo figuring out ways to blast through the monsters as fast and as brutally as possible to minimize casualties at the expense of himself and his reputation, but having to rely on and use gajun's guidance/strategizing in subsequent loops... lmao my sister wrote a timeloop fic where the looping character was clueless and had to use the character that kept dying as a hint system, it'd be kind of like that. the emotional development would be more driven by sunwoo being increasingly unable to conceal or suppress his emotions, and maybe even being upfront about them... sunwoo never gets accidentally led on while gajun gets blasted point blank with I Love You I Would Die For You, and gajun absolutely rejects sunwoo's feelings from the start. all cards on the table immediately.
I really like the post timeloop emotional torture chamber, in a roleswap I think it would still be gajun pursuing and sunwoo withdrawing -- it's not even that sunwoo's piecing back together his mask, he's genuinely sincerely wholeheartedly like 'ok I've been rejected and I've satisfied my mission so I'm completely fine with us never seeing each other again :)' (as opposed to being on the verge of death after thinking they were basically dating post timeloop) while gajun goes like ????? but you're crazy about me????? you're definitely 100% in love with me????? still a wall between them, but a different kind of wall. like, sunwoo being in love with gajun but 100% not seeing gajun as a romantic option (not angsty way) which leads to gajun having to take more drastic measures to initiate their relationship (I mean gajun gets pretty desperate in the original and has to fight to initiate the relationship, but I'm thinking here he'd have to REALLY fight for the relationship)... ok those are my thoughts