Minipedia

Lance is an awkward, shy, and timid teenager who tends to keep to himself. He's naturally quiet and often struggles to speak up, especially when meeting new people, and those who make him feel intimidated. He becomes visibly nervous, usually fidgeting with his hands, rubbing his neck or avoiding eye contact. But Lance is genuinely really kind and never wants to cause trouble for anyone. He just prefers to be more of a listener than a talker.Much of his quietness comes from his low self-esteem. His bad luck has caused him to feel like he can never catch a break; always dreading what's coming next and expecting everything to go wrong. He frequently compares himself to other people, specifically Souta Tokugawa, who he seems to admire. Souta is the best athlete on the team after all, and Lance, everyone knows is one of the worst. Even when no one's comparing them, Lance can't help himself. Koji, his coach, constantly encourages him that he's way better than he says he is but Lance struggles to see past that. This is because compliments often make him uncomfortable because he assumes people are just being nice to him since they feel bad/out of pity. However, apart of him worries that if Koji means what he's saying, he's still failing to live up to his expectations.Lance is also very self-conflicted when it comes to his appearance. He's considered attractive, mostly "pretty" rather than handsome when girls or others talk about him. This is what gravitated his exes to him initially, but once they got to know him, they quickly became disappointed by his awkward and insecure personality. They broke up with him a couple weeks later, resulting in Lance feeling like he doesn't live up to his looks. This awakened his belief of people liking the way he looks, but not who he is as a person.To fix this, he copies the mannerisms and confidence of people he looks up to, the popular boys in Kitagawa High, hoping that this will boost his self confidence. This caused him to join the football team to potentially change himself, observe their behaviours more easily but also to "toughen up" even if its in small steps.When it comes to confident people, Lance instantly feels himself shrink. He assumes people who have any form of self confidence, those who approach him to pick on him are way braver and stronger than he is, both physically and mentally. This is because majority of the things bullies say to him, he already believes them, theyre things that he repeats to himself everyday. Which is why when someone is being cruel, he wonders if they're simply just telling the truth. Because if someone else is repeating what he says to himself aloud, then it must be true. This makes Lance pretty open to manipulation, someone voicing the same insecurities he has can make him feel seen even if it hurts him. In his eyes, they're telling the truth rather than lying to his face with a fake compliment.(TW: Self Harm)
↳Lance's struggles with self-esteem has also left a serious impact on his mental health. His anxiety and depression can leave him feeling isolated, hopeless and later convinced him that there wasn't a reason for him to keep going; eventually attempting to take his own life. However, his bad luck followed, despite wanting to end it all, he survived. This hopeless feeling still lingers in the back of his mind, hence why he doesn't defend himself when anyone makes fun of his character.Despite everything, Lance's loneliness makes him hold onto relationships with a lot more security than others would. Having someone spend time with him, show interest in him or treating him like a friend means a lot to him. Someone taking the time out of their day to spend it with him always leaves him feeling somewhat guilty, so he tries his best to make it "worth it." Which is where he becomes apologetic and easily slips into the fear of being a burden.

Curse

Lance's bad luck is from a curse that's followed his family for generations.Long ago, one of Lance's ancestors, AKA LA, was unfaithful to their partner. But there was already resentment towards LA's species. They've spent their whole relationship hearing people being against a human and "their kind" together. So they felt betrayed. And as a result, they curse LA. It was originally intended to affect only the affair partner and LA's relationship. The more time LA spent with them, the less chemistry they had until it got worse, eventually leading to their breakup.However, the curse didn't stop, it spread to friends and family. One by one, they started to lose connection from LA until they became distant, leaving LA all alone. Because there was no visible spell, no obvious cause, LA became more isolated and lost almost everyone. Eventually, causing LA to end his own life.Then LA's wife became pregnant, and because the curse is tied to LA's bloodline, the unborn child inheritted it. The wife doesn't know, no one knows about the curse. Eventually, the curse carries on through the generations until it reached Lance's biological father.He knew about his family's history and the curse it carried, but kept it a secret from Lance's mother. Until she got pregnant. The guilt got to him, so he confessed and told her everything. Hurt by his secrecy, Lance's Mum broke up with him since he was so secretive about it, the fact he withheld something this important until she was carrying their child. Later on, she found someone else, who Lance calls dad and becomes his father figure.Lance has no idea that the man he calls dad isn't his biological father. He also doesn't know about his father not being entirely human either. Whatever his father inherited from his species, was passed down to Lance too, leaving him with abilities and physical traits that are far from ordinary. For now, he believe's he's just an unlucky athlete who isn't nearly as good as everyone else seems to be.