#*what

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Awkwardness level💦

Gina isn’t good at being around guys she has a crush on (at least not in the early stages). So at the beginning with BB, she always tries to act chill, but what actually comes out is often forced, flustered, and way too performative. Her laugh is too unnecessary, her hands tremble slightly, and she yaps on and on about herself. Every time she says goodbye to him and replays her words and actions alone in her head, she often feels super embarrassed. Is he gonna think I was being weird? Was I elegant enough eating my burger, or trying too hard? You talked too much...forgetting to let him speak again. Why couldn't I react faster and come up with a clever comeback?

Thank God BB is even more awkward than her. Watching him stumble over his words and not know what to do with his hands right in front of her makes her feel so much better. Like it means he cares about her more, and that she's the one who can be more at ease in this relationship. So she often tries to tease him – on purpose saying things that might leave him not knowing how to react, doing things that catch him off guard, just to watch him get all shy or awkward. (Also because he's cute like that.) (And she's genuinely curious how he'd respond to things she herself wouldn't know how to answer.)

After they get past that awkward phase and feel more at ease with each other, Gina teases him every now and then even more than before. Sometimes she cups his face or squeezes his ear and says in a kinda regretful tone, Awww baby I miss the days when I could make you blush that easily.

Doesn't use pet names / Uses pet names💖

The pet names Gina has called BB include: Winnie (she thinks that it sounds like a cute nickname based on the German pronunciation of his real name), sweetie, handsome, pretty, my silly (*affectionately*), big boy, love, hottie, sweetheart, my dear, darling, cutie pie (yeah she knows he's a 6’4’’ big guy who looks kinda scary, but that doesn't stop her from calling him that). She's used a bunch of nicknames she picked up from TV on him. But she barely uses some of them– like the last ones. Even she feels awkward after saying them. She just enjoys catching him off guard once in a while with one of those names, then watching him get all flustered over some overly cheesy pet name. The two she actually uses the most are BaBy and honey.

She also likes just calling him by his real name Werner. But with the German pronunciation, not the English one. To her, the latter sounds too funny. Imagine her saying two "-er" sounds in a row while they're making out – she'd immediately crack up and ruin the whole mood🤣. The former is way better (and pretty sexy).

(If you're curious what his name sounds like in German, you could go watch the movie The Silence of the Sea /Le Silence de la Mer (2004) – the German male lead is also named Werner. Around the 1 hour 9 minute mark, the lead gets into an argument with his friend, who calls him by his name. it sounds like "Vienna.")

Though the only reason she can say them so lightly is just that these pet names are in English, not her native language. If BB understood Chinese or were Chinese, he'd find that she barely ever uses any pet names for him. Or at least, not until after they'd been married for over a year and she'd finally gotten less shy – then she'd be willing to use the Chinese version of "hubby"  (which is lǎogōng, a pet name widely used by Chinese wives for their husbands).

Affection through words / Affection through actions❤️

Gina doesn't show her affection for BB all that often,but when she feels like love is just overflowing from her heart at some moment, she'll say it straight out. More often than not, she'll suddenly say I love you or Thank you in a soft voice at moments that might catch him a bit off guard – like some totally ordinary afternoon when she's sprawled on the sofa reading while he's sitting cross-legged in front of the coffee table tinkering with some small mechanical parts. Or sometimes when one of them is at work, she'll just text him something like miss u baby <3. She'll also hold him tight and rock him a little, rub the top of her head against his chest, let out a string of loveuloveuloveu, and then look up at him with messy hair and this goofy grin on her face.

BB also sometimes notices her staring at him for a long time, then smiling for no reason. At first, this leaves him confused – he'll touch his own face or back, not really getting it. He asks her what she's smiling about, and the answer is almost always Nothing…I just smile when I feel happy. As time went on, whenever she smiles like that, he'll kiss her forehead and smile with her. Deep down, he feels a little proud of it because he makes his girl feel peaceful and happy enough to smile.

Can't cook for shit / Makes dinner🫕

Gina can cook (not great at it tho) a few simple dishes from China and other countries, like scrambled eggs with tomatoes, braised cabbage with frozen tofu, Kung Pao chicken, Japanese curry rice, Mushroom Carbonara , cheesy tomato rice bake with mince, gambas al ajillo and so on. When she has enough money for ingredients, the various tools she needs for cooking, time and energy, she'd love to learn and make food she's interested in. But those moments don't come all that often, so she doesn't actually cook very much. That also means she hasn't really practiced any dish enough– she has to follow a recipe every time, and she often messes up the heat or the seasoning. For example, every time she makes Mapo tofu, either she adds too much water, ending up with spicy tofu soup, or it turns out too salty, too spicy, or too bland. She can't be bothered to use a scale.

When she and BB decide to cook at home, she's usually the chef. Still, as long as BB isn't busy with something else, she'll pull him into the kitchen with her and get him to help out – stuff like washing veggies, chopping things up, or when she's deep-frying something, he'll hold a lid at an angle over the pan to block the oil splatter for her. The main reason she does this is that she's scared of becoming that woman in the family who's forever stuck in the kitchen by herself.

When they're in the kitchen, they'll usually chat or just stay quiet, enjoying some peaceful silence.

Overprotective / Chill going🫂

Gina's mood gets thrown off really easily by bad stuff from the past or people being mean to her. So most of the time, her empathy makes her protect BB with that same wary attitude – seeing him as something fragile and precious. And the fact that he's actually pretty intimidating also gives her more courage to stand up for him.

When she hears Lane starting to talk shit about BB, she'll cut him off as early as she can– even if to Lane those comments are barely even a warm-up. She'll immediately rush out from behind the counter, get in front of BB, and try to push Lane back into the stockroom.

But sometimes she's the one who hurts him.

Jealousy level👁

In this relationship – even before they officially started dating – Gina's jealousy level is extremely high, so high that it's honestly pathetic. Btw if there were a possessiveness level, it'd be just as high. maybe even worse.

It's not like she can't handle BB talking to any woman. Still, she gets jealous super easily, feeling anxious as hell. Especially when she's deep in that jealous, negative headspace – her mind quickly slides toward thinking about all kinds of bad endings. The same imagination and association skills she's so proud of when she writes? Yeah, at times like this they just make her miserable.

Even though BB keeps giving her lots of love and making sincere promises to stay loyal, she still holds onto a bit of pessimism and keeps this lingering worry in the back of her mind. Who knows if it'll stay that way. And if you had already lost feelings for me, but hid it and stayed with me just to keep your promise of being faithful… ...that would be even worse for me.

(Let me just say – Laly once said in some Q&As that BB would never cheat and stop loving you. As players who know this, we don't have to worry too much. We can just enjoy his loyalty. But for Gina, who's actually inside the story as a character, she doesn't know if that kind of promise is forever or real (well considering how suspicious she can be and she’s found him lying about stuff sometimes…)

Generally, what triggers her are those who are actually(?) a threat to her, like the attractive ones he glances at without thinking, or some customers who try to flirt with him, and those who subjectively make her feel uneasy: women she feels can do things she can't, and have some kind of chemistry with BB that she doesn't have with him. Like, imagine a female mechanic in that garage who also loves riding a bike and whose repair skills could beat his. Or Amelia. The hot biker boy and the glamorous queen…huh.

(I've already decided that in the future I will write the version of the game story with Gina as the protagonist. At that time you'll clearly see how Gina lost control step by step during her conversation with Amelia in shift 2. Even though I guess what Amelia really meant was closer to “MC is way too good for BB. He doesn't deserve her”, what Gina hears is something else entirely.)

When her jealousy explodes, all her reason and good qualities get shoved aside by impulsive emotions and dark, vicious thoughts. The good news is at least she wouldn’t attack her “rivals” verbally or physically. She just lets all that resentment eat away at her brain and her insides, then lets it all out in her diary or private blog. When it comes to BB, she usually can't control her emotions well and ends up giving him the cold shoulder. Even if BB didn't respond to the flirting at all and politely kept his distance, or was just the one being gazed at– she still does it anyway. Until her sulkiness fades (which usually takes at least an hour or two), she doesn't want to talk to him. She'll push away his hand if he tries to put it around her, and look at him with a cold, sometimes even disgusted expression. Like she's angry because someone touched her thing without asking. Like being attractive is his fault.

And precisely because she's like that herself, she totally understands and accepts BB's jealousy and possessiveness toward her. Though sometimes she'll make him jealous on purpose – to get back at him, to check if he still loves her and cares, or just to mess with him a little without going too far – overall, she doesn't want him to feel hurt or angry because of jealousy. She knows how bad that feels.

Has more relationship experience / Has no relationship experience📽🎞

Gina had a few relationships back in school. But in China during that era, teachers and parents were generally very alert to and disapproving of “premature romance” among middle and early high school students. Key schools especially thought dating would affect students' grades and was a kind of bad behavior. Her schools were exactly like that. Boys and girls weren't allowed to get too close, otherwise they might be suspected of being in a relationship (even though they are really just friends). If teachers found out about a relationship, the young couple would likely be called in for a talk (some less strict teachers would just turn a blind eye). But if love birds’ intimate interactions, like holding hands,hugging and kissing, were caught by a patrolling teacher from the dean of students' office, the result was always a school-wide public reprimand, plus their parents being summoned for a talk.

Gina was a “good” student who was very afraid of teachers and basically followed the rules. She didn't want to suffer those consequences, since she was pretty thin-skinned. So affected by these reasons, her relationships with her exes were all very similar: after just a few exchanges, she'd feel that "ok now he’s the one" and start crushing on them. She'd have a secret crush for months, and then get them (she was lucky – they all ended up liking her back). Then came a month or two of sneaky dating. During that time, she'd realize they were a little different from who she'd imagined, so she'd start wanting to distance herself from them. Eventually, they'd have their first and last fight, and she'd break up with them after that. The only one that was a little different was her most recent ex – the relationship that lasted through the last three years of high school and the first two years of college. You'll learn more in her backstory.

After all these relationships, the only physical contact she'd ever had with these boys was them patting her on the head slightly. Even though Gina was already into reading steamy romance novels back in her school days, somehow she always felt a bit resistant to any further physical contact with them.

But with BB, things were different. In the early stages of their relationship, she still felt a little nervous and scared when he touched her. but at the same time, she wanted him too, looking forward to his hands on her, holding her, caressing her. And she didn't mind taking a little initiative with him.

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So...Gina is actually my half self-insert oc. BB and Gina are my yume ship. I wasn't going to point that out at first bc I was planning to write some really cringey and freaky fanfics. But I feel like my writing skills right now aren't good enough to create a real, complex character like Gina. the only reason shes like that is that some of her experiences and feelings come from my own life...

That said, we live in different eras and have different life experiences. She is a character within the story, while I am outside of it. All of these actually leads to many differences between us. so she's not 100% like me. Probably only around 60% similar. As I get older and go through more things, that percentage might keep going down. Though this is just the main universe Gina. Things might be different in other parallel universe stories I'm planning to write – like, 24 y/o BB × 30 y/o Gina