She looks boring

Maybe she was actually that boring, or perhaps the comment section consisted of 4chan trolls. Near all the comments were negative. The top voted comment made fun of her eyes.

"Your eyes are more dull and brown than any African river"

"You should put down the chips and pick up running.."

"Another good for nothing dumb girl trying to get attention from her less than average body. Yuck"

Tears began streaming down her eyes as she read the little archive of hate. Her attempt at getting some attention and maybe a compliment or two had completely backfired. She decided then and there to step up her "game" a little. If people thought she was boring, she'd just have to try harder to appeal to them. She knew her body wasn't good enough, and her face wasn't much to write home about. Her attention had to come from the things she did. Or what she wore. There was a year around Halloween costume shop down the street and it probably housed a bunch of slutty, revealing clothes for her to take photos in.

But that all had to wait until tomorrow because she didn't feel like going out after her failed try to get validation, she was an emotional wreck. Instead she just cried herself to sleep as the mean comments haunted her.
Even her dreams were plagued by self-loathing and isolation. Everywhere she went the people there acted as one mass, pointing and laughing at her. Like dreams where you forget to wear pants.

She woke up the next day in a sweaty bed. Her sheets soaked after a night of bad dreams. During her waking moments as the grogginess faded, so did a lingering pain in her bloated thigh.
The first thing on Ami's mind wasn't to get herself cleaned up or even brush her teeth. Her mind was solely focused on heading to the costume store for something that would grant her some much needed validation and attention ..positive attention.

With messy hair and clothes not suited for going out she headed out the door and quickly made her way to the shop. It was a small store, but had been recently refurbished. The white walls, ceiling and floor made the space feel a little bigger than it actually was. There were no rooms for trying on costumes though. Given how near all of the costumes were wrapped in plastic packaging of some sort it wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense to allow people to try them on. Once the seal was broken it was basically a "used" product anyways, with little to no resale value.

The walls were all adorned by shelves upon shelves of packaged costumes. They were sorted into sections which could quickly be identified by the signs hanging from the ceiling. There was a maid section, nurse, slutty cat, slutty dog, slutty rabbit. Basically a lot of slutty animals.
Three costumes appealed to Ami at a glance. She picked out a skimpy cheerleader costume, a form-hugging gymnasts outfit, and a magical girl costume that looked more like a nightgown than an actual dress fit for a mage. The costumes were rather low quality and as such, very very cheap. It also helped that she was shopping out of season, most of the costumes in the shop were already at a discount. God knows how a dedicated costume shop could manage to run year-round like that..

Back in her bedroom, Ami unpacked the costumes to feel the fabric. They were all pretty cheap, except for the magical girl one. The fabric of that one actually felt pretty high quality, not to mention the long staff that came with it. Must've been real wood or something, at least the price would've been justified then. It was the most expensive costume of the bunch after all, coming in at nearly triple the price of the other two pieces combined.

Before she committed to photoshoot V2, Ami decided it was a good idea to eat some breakfast and maybe catch a quick shower to not appear like a total slob in the pictures, though there was probably a demographic who liked that too..
Hopefully the costumes would fit her. She didn't really know what size she was, having gained quite a bit of weight recently, especially in her butt and thighs. She was the definition of pear-shaped, her complete lack of breasts only served to emphasize the fact.

Fresh out of the shower, Ami immediately put on the skimpy excuse of a cheerleader uniform she'd bought. It was tight and left little to the imagination, but it was sure to attract at least some attention. This time she decided to keep her glasses on for the shoot. She lined up in front of her bedroom door and left the phone on a chair and a book in front of her. It took hundreds of pictures as she switched up her poses, trying her hardest to look somewhat pretty. The hardest part about the whole ordeal wasn't taking the pictures themselves, but filtering out all the bad ones that was taken in between poses, when she blinked, and so on.
It boiled down to a couple of photos she was satisfied with. Her favorite one was a pretty basic pose. Standing basically straight with her arms behind her back, looking directly into the camera lens.

This time around Ami thought it'd be best if she posted her pictures in a sort of cosplay community instead, at least she'd hit the desired demographic.
It didn't take long for comments to begin raining in. This time a little **** than last, though there was no absence of haters either. Of course Ami was incapable of filtering out the negative, in fact, that's mostly what she was fixated on. All the comments that struck a nerve with her insecurities made a much bigger impression than all of the kind and encouraging comments did combined.

Ami didn't know what she expected at this point. Was it that obvious that she yearned for attention? Why couldn't she just get it. She put in the effort, right? Maybe she was just that unattractive, or was she boring? She began spiraling into deep, negative thoughts. She was only brought back to reality when a message appeared dinged on her phone. It was an SMS. Strange, she couldn't think of a single person to have her number except for maybe Asuna? She'd practically thrown it at her when the schoolyear began, hoping to latch onto her popularity and make some friends from the popular circle..

If you enjoy it so far, do consider giving it a like!
This is a commissioned story and will follow a very strict prompt. I'll gladly take any feedback you might have, but suggestions may be ignored if they conflict with the established concepts and ideas from the commissioner.Should you want to read further into the story there's already additional chapters available on my Patreon, as well as other exclusive content not found on CHYOA.

I also take commissions for specific stories whenever there's an opening, which there is right now.

https://www.patreon.com/Felixfalck