ughh… ive had this theory that lehends and faker are the same person with different flavors…
siwoo got raped by his older team management and by his team members on s benu, and faker got raped by literally every older male figure in his early career… and they both don’t consider it rape bc they grew to rationalize it and shove any feeling of shame or hatred deep within the rotting corpse they call bodies because it was the only point in their lives where they were wanted to that degree and they feel that if there is any part of them that “wanted it,” then it just isn’t rape, but another muddy category that they don’t want to think about further. In fact, they both seek out that feeling of need after all those years bc they feel worthless and little without it.
now faker, bc he’s been successful in his career, drowns out that feeling of shame and worthlessness with chasing after people who have long moved on, even after they prefer to stay unromantically involved, even though he believes that they would do anything for him considering he is everyone’s idol and cannot get down from the pedestal that he and everyone else built for him during his early years. In fact, the rejection he gets from most of his situationships ends up being so unbearable that he keeps on perpetuating the cycle of chasing people who are younger and look up to him even more in the hopes that someone eventually ends up not rejecting him, even if it’s for futile reasons and at his own detriment.
and the only difference between faker’s relationship troubles and lehends’ is that lehends chases after older people and makes himself the younger, fun partner because from the start of his career and even during his school years, his self-stated only redeeming quality is that he was the “life-of-the-party” and the “fun one” despite being so depressed he was crying almost every night before going to sleep. he’ll make himself the receiving end of jokes bc he’s feels as though it’s the last remaining part of his youth that he can choose to cling onto, though he does tend to sweet-talk and flirt with anyone that he believes will either get him on a higher pedestal or give him some kinda benefit, even if it is just a night of sex and a temporary release that allows him to forget everything that happened to him back then, because at least he’s the one choosing this time.
that’s why lehends and faker as a ship is kinda self-cest but also so unbelievably toxic bc they would become caricatures of their worst parts to appease the other… ughh
