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nuhuhwinniethepooh · 10 months ago

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B-urn

Tags : Fluff then Angst, Smitten Gojo Satoru x F!Reader :), Gojo as a hateful dad, character death.

A/N : I've had enough of soft dad Gojo Satoru, I need some hateful dad Gojo Satoru or something similar to it at least.

WC : 1.7k

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1 " Hey 'toru, Get some peaches on your way back. " " Hey, honey. "

"You're crazy," you whisper speechlessly, pushing a strand of wet hair off your eyes and gazing blankly at Satoru kneeling on the tiled floor with a velvet box in his hand, encasing a sparkly ring inside- both his and your birthstones, you notice.

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. But one thing's for sure, I never thought I wanted to settle down. But now...now I just can't imagine a future without you," Satoru starts, you've never seen him so genuine of his feelings, so innocently vulnerable like he's gonna shatter if you say no.

"So please, answer my question. Can I marry you and make myself the happiest man to have ever lived?" He continues, gentler this time. You bite your bottom lip, holding a sob back as you nod, too afraid that you'll fall apart if you speak. You nod once again, feeling warmth envelop your skin as Satoru throws himself at you and peppers your face with kisses- 'Thank you's' and 'I love you's' slipping out his mouth like butter on a heated pan as he slips the ring on your finger.

You clear your throat, backing away as you look at the ring glint under the light with a smile," it's beautiful, Satoru. I love it but next time, please don't propose to me in the bathroom when I'm fresh out of the shower," you say with a wide grin on your face, tugging the towel around you to secure its position again. Satoru responds with a huge grin of his own, pulling you close and nuzzling your neck," Couldn't wait for tonight's date, I've waited long enough for this," he mumbles, placing soft kisses against your damp skin.

"Tha-," he shuts you up with his lips, "Okay, fine. Sorry, I'll keep the destination in mind next time," he apologizes with a sheepish grin but you know better than that, he's not the least bit sorry.

2 " I'm going shopping with your mum for my wedding dress today, I might be a little late. " " I hope you're doing fine "

The wedding was perfect from start to finish, the Gojo clan doing all the grunt work while the two of you made the final call at the end. Everything was perfect for Satoru, especially you. He even tears up a little when he watches you walk down the aisle towards him- muted giggles echoing in the enclosed wedding hall at his reaction. He had his blindfold removed for the day despite the fact that the shards of decorated glass and bright lights irritated his six eyes, a small sacrifice for the greater good.

The greater good being getting a better look at you, every blemish, every scar and every battle wound peeking out of your wedding dress was perfection to him. His heart tap-dancing in his chest when he meets your eyes, absolutely smitten for the look of pure joy in your face when your father finally rests your hand on Satoru's and the officiant starts the wedding, his words falling on deaf ears when Satoru chooses to gaze at you with adoration in his eyes instead.

Popping out of his reverie when your sparkling eyes meets his and a smile tugs at your lips," You're supposed to say 'I do' now," you whisper, squeezing his hand. "I do," his voice rings, loud and clear, squeezing your hand back after you do the same.

"You may kiss the bride." Finally.

"My wife," he thinks to himself happily before pulling you in and crushing your lips against his, the cheers from the crowd gradually turning into background noise, getting lost in the feeling of your warmth against his. He breaks the kiss only when thunder erupts and the pitter-patter of the rain starts loud and ominously, he turns and looks at you worriedly only to be left surprised when you look back at him with delight.

"Looks like even the heavens are blessing our wedding now," you hum, pulling him by the arm towards the door to the large balcony. Pushing the door open and dragging him towards the middle of the open balcony with a grin, the heavy rain immediately drenching the two of you- you let go of his arm, turning to face him with a hand held out," Can I have this dance?" a teasing grin on your face, Satoru swears his heart actually stopped for a second; grabbing hold of your hand, he places a quick kiss on your knuckles," gladly."

Gently swaying in the rain to the music drifting from the wedding hall, Satoru couldn't be happier. He's the happiest man to have ever lived when in your arms.

3 " 'll make breakfast tomorrow though, you want anything? " " I'm not sure if I told you this enough but "

Getting pregnant 3 years after your marriage wouldn't have been a surprising thing but it was for the two of you considering the fact that you went at it like rabbits. You wanted kids, he didn't, heirs and other matters be damned. He wanted you to himself for as long as possible, hoard your attention and love for as long as he could before you finally put your foot down.

The dreaded day arrived sooner than he liked, he'd have preferred another 7 years alone with you but you didn't give in this time. Adamant on bearing his child and starting a family, how could he ever say no to you? So he gives in and fucks you with a new goal in mind- getting you pregnant with his child.

Two weeks later, your breathe hitches as you look at the stick in your hand- you're pregnant. Excited squeals gushing out of you, you rush out the bathroom and to the shared master bedroom where you hold the pregnancy test up at Satoru's face. He looks at you with mild shock in his face," already?" He asks softly, taking the stick from your hand and looking at it blankly, sitting down on the edge of the bed besides him, you nod excitedly," We're gonna be parents, s'toru!"

Before you know it, he throws the test aside on the floor, pulling you in his arms and crushing you under his weight as he presses kisses all over your flushed face," we're gonna be parents!" You giggle, hands cupping his cheeks to slow down the barrage of kisses. Satoru still wasn't really sure about the idea of a child yet but your joy at the thought of it was enough for him to push that idea aside, what you wanted was what he wanted, it's a universal rule.

"We gotta celebrate this now, don't we?" He mumbles, hands slowly sliding under your shirt with a smirk, earning him a swat against his chest. "Gosh, you're disgusting," you chuckle, wrapping your arms around his shoulder and pulling him in. "And you love me for it, Mama," he coos, pressing a light kiss at the corner of your lips- your heart swells at the thought of being a mother, you were finally gonna start a family of your own with the man you love, life couldn't get any better.

4 " It might rain today so call me when you're done, okay? I'll come pick you up. " " I love you so much "

Fear and respect, two sides of the same coin, was easy to come by when it came to Gojo Satoru, hating even easier but what was hard was loving him, harder than it should be- Loving him was like climbing up a snowy mountain with nothing but a fork, Loving him was like crossing the seven seas with only a raft, Loving him was like trying to figure out what to do with a beloved china bowl that got smashed into pieces. It was nigh impossible to love him, anyone who did try gave up halfway through, only leaving him worse still. But everything changed once you came along.

You didn't climb the snowy mountain with a fork, not at all. You just waited long enough for a ski lift to be built for skiing enthusiasts and then took the lift yourself. You gave him time to adapt, time to breathe before finally making your way through the icy remnants of his scarred heart.

You didn't travel the seven seas with a raft, not at all. You just sold the raft and bought yourself a ticket for a worldwide cruise, enjoying every single moment on the long trip back to him. You gave him patience and waited happily for him to come around.

You didn't just accept your fate to pick the broken china pieces and throw it in the bin, not at all. You just gently assembled it and glazed it with lacquer, painstakingly painting over every crack with gold. You didn't fix him, you just accepted all of his broken pieces, that's all - the rest he did it himself.

It wasnt the fact that you took the easy way out, not at all. It was the fact that you put the effort to think about ways to love him- It was always hard to love Satoru, you just made it easy. So if someone asks Satoru why he loves you so, all he does is smile and answers " no reason at all." He just loves everything about you, he doesn't need a reason to do so.

5 " You don't sound so well, is everything okay? " " More than you could ever know "

20 weeks, 5 months, into your pregnancy and Satoru's already starting to feel uneasy, the change is small, unnoticeable to the normal eye even. But the change is there, his six eyes catching everything. You've gotten weaker, not externally per se but internally. He brings it up once when the two of you cuddle in the bed, you laugh and brush it off by saying," it's only natural." He's not convinced but he doesn't push it, opting to graze the curve of your cheek instead.

Something was really wrong, very, very wrong- You've been rapidly losing weight, the complete opposite of what should be happening. The growing baby bump only makes you grow thinner, finding it hard to even do the basic things, having to rely on Satoru for everything. He'd have been delighted on being relied on some other time but this time he's not, he's more concerned than anything.

The trip to the doctors doesnt change a single thing, every single one of them saying the same thing over and over and over again. "She's fine, just a rare case. It's better than it looks, 'ts just an uncommon case of weight loss during pregnancy." He swears its not, the very molecules that makes up you seems to be slowly but steadily gathering and surrounding one particular place, your belly but how could they know that? They were normal doctors, not some omniscient sorcerer like him.

So he grits his teeth, quietly holding your hand and holding onto his last hope, Shoko. Despite it not being her area of expertise, he can only hope for the best afterall she was a sorcerer too, she has to have the ability to figure it out...doesn't she? All hope comes crashing down when Shoko shakes her head, there was nothing wrong with you, the final verdict.

" I told you, didn't I? It's just an uncommon case, honey. You're too paranoid," you grin and tiredly pat his hand, boney fingers brushing against his. Your engagement ring and wedding ring hanging around a chain on your neck glistens blindingly under the stark hospital light- it became too loose to fit you anymore. Satoru feels slight prickles in his eyes from underneath the blindfold, he doesn't know why but he does. Forcing a tight smile at you, he nods," You might be right dear, but you know I can't help it when it comes to you," he mumbles, placing a chaste kiss on your knuckles to hide his falling smile. You chuckle lightly, flushing at the contact," You're such a silly man, 'toru. "

6 " Hmm? Oh I'm fine, don't worry. How's work though? " " And I swear I've tried, I really have "

Problems over problems befall, the number of curses quickly increasing exponentially with no rhyme or reason and the higher-ups pressuring him from all side was taking a toll on him, not to mention your declining health. You looked healthier now, taking the supplements that Shoko provided helped you not look like you were gonna fall dead at any given moment. A farce, Satoru notes, you're healthier on the outside, dying on the inside. He even contemplates getting rid of the thing inside you completely but as if like you read his mind, telepathically catching onto his thoughts, you become more protective.

Hands always wrapped around your belly and eyes instinctively following his every movement, always on sharp alert. Waiting for something to happen, you're not entirely sure for what but you wait. Catching onto your guarded attitude, Satoru drops the idea immediately. He doesn't want you to hate him, he'd die if you did and even he's not sure if he means it figuratively.

He makes sure to coo at your belly every night though, sure he doesn't want a child but that didn't mean he didn't feel any love for it despite the toll it took on you. He just hates it as a husband and loves it as a father- hates it even more as a lover. Hiding his slowly growing apprehension of the unborn child inside you with a mask of an excited father-to-be.

You know Satoru acts off this days especially when he interacts with the baby but you don't say anything, he's a busy man and you were currently out of service which meant double the work, you couldn't possibly have the right to ask him what's wrong, right?

7 " 'Toru, don't worry about me. I'm not mad, I promise. Just try to get your business trip finish a little faster okay? " " So please don't hate me too much "

You're a nervous wreck, anxiety fully settling deep in your bones despite the contractions. The pain was doing nothing to alleviate the turmoil inside you other than making it worse, 7 hours in after your water broke and Satoru is nowhere in sight- you're nervous, in pain and surrounded by strangers. Shoko was kicked out, 'only family members are allowed in' they said, despite your pleas they ignore you. They were gonna have hell to pay later until then you had to push through it by yourself, it couldn't possibly get any worse.

Biting down on your lips after screaming your throat hoarse, you squeeze your eyes shut, the salty taste of your tears mixing in with the metallic ones on your lips only making you want to gag. Slowly, loud words starts to blur and dim as your vision gets hazy, drifting in and out of your consciousness while barely catching sight of the figures hovering around you," I see the head!" One particularly loud statement snaps you back into reality, everything ending too quickly from there with still no sign of your husband anywhere.

With the first cry resounding in the room, your heart rate falls rapidly; the once searing pain only a throb now, a small respite but an unwelcoming one. You wish for the numbing chill to be replaced for the burning pain, praying for the latter if it meant that you could still breathe in the scent of his skin, still comb your fingers through arctic white hair, still stare into his cerulean blue eyes, still lay your head above hi- "I'm sorry" a hushed whisper in the chaos.

The high-pitched beeps flatlines, parallel lines all in all. The silence is too loud and the air too thick, working their way to restart a heart that's already dead and gone. Somewhere in the distance another heart drops, not with the promise of death but of something much worse. What use is a beating heart if the soul is already dead?

8 " I'm sorry I couldn't make it, I swear I tried " " But I can't do it "

Satoru doesn't hate her. No, he abhors her. The feeling of complete hatred and malice against an individual- every babble, every cry, every coo, her very existence disgusts him to the core. Somedays he just wants to snap her neck, it'd be so easy, so quick, so satisfying, so very dreadful. Somedays Satoru even considers it, his long slender fingers wrapping around her small sleeping figure and squeezing just a little, just a twitch but her eyes always flutters open, always gazes at him with a smile, always holds her chubby little arms out to him.

It's not her smile, her voice or his guilty conscience that stops him, it's her eyes. Your eyes. The curve, the shape, the color, the very crinkle reminds him of you, your eyes are staring back at him but it's not you. It'll never be you. Pulling his hand back like he got burned, he rushes out. It's what he always does these days, he runs and runs until he can't anymore, hoping that maybe somewhere along the way, he'll finally find you again.

You're so cruel and so very heartless, if you were gonna leave him in the end you should've never made him love you at all but you did, you did and he loves you. He loves you and you left.

Satoru is always bitter, maybe if she didn't have your eyes then maybe it'd be easier to get rid of her, maybe it'd be easier for him to move on. But you're always there, your first gift being her last saving grace. Your eyes, your first, your life, your last. Maybe you knew about it, you always did say that you wanted a baby that looked like you. He never bothered to ask why because he agreed with you, he always agrees with you, but now he seems to understand why, you always did understand him better than he did himself.

So all he does is mourn, he mourns but he doesn't cry- he didn't cry when he got the news of your death neither did he cry when he saw your body, not a single tear in sight. He just silently stood by your side, gently grazing your face with a finger, hands interlocked with yours until your last moment. And like all sorcerers fate, he watched your body get cremated until nothing but ashes were left in the end. Silently making his way back to a dark and empty house with nothing but the urn of your ash in his hand. He still doesn't cry when he hugs the urn close to his chest and stares at your side of the bed late into the night, he doesn't cry at all.

He doesn't cry because he can't cry. Tears are the embodiment of an emotion, what use are they for a man who's already gone numb?

9 " I love you " " I can't love her "

"Hiiii, 'toru"

"Hey, honey."

"How's everything over there?"

"She's growing up fast, you'd be surprised. She has my hair, y'know? Well, the color at least. It's funny how she's starting to resemble me, it's almost uncanny. She has your eyes though, it's like she copy-pasted your eyes onto hers, it's almost scary because it feels like it's you thats looking back at me sometimes. And well, she started going school now; just wanted to let you know that-"

"Well, that's sounds fun"

"...it's really not, not without you here"

"Aww, you miss me that much~?"

"I do, I miss you so much that it physically hurts"

"Aww I miss you too, honey. Tell you wha-"

Satoru sighs, cutting the saved voice message. What was he even doing, answering to your pre-recorded voice like a deranged person. But maybe he was deranged or tired perhaps both, he's not sure but what he was sure of was the fact that he hated he-

"Papa?"

Satoru hears before he sees, the door swinging open ever so slightly to showcase a pair of eyes, your eyes, meekly looking at him. Your eyes in his face but it's not you neither is it him, it's neither you or him but it's both you and him. It's so conflicting.

"What is it?" His voice softer than he wanted it, harsher than expected.

"I just wanted to show you the drawing I made today in class." Her voice is quiet, her footsteps even quieter as she slowly walks up to him, a rolled up paper carefully held in one tiny fist. She was so small, so tiny, so quiet, so utterly disgusting. Placing it down flat ever so quietly on the table, she takes a step back "It's you, me and...mama" she mumbles, pointing at the three stick figures accordingly.

Satoru pulls his blindfold up and narrows his eyes at the stick figure that was apparently you, your hair was wrong, the color, the length, the very style was wrong. "I-I don't know how mama looks like" she admits, tiny hands grabbing onto her shirt as she looks down.

"Of course, you don't. You killed her, sucked her life-force right out like a fucking parasite" he thinks bitterly to himself, fingers grazing over the paper. Everything was wrong, this whole situation was wrong, but the crudely drawn smile on your face wasn't. The smile wasn't, your smile wasn't. The edges of the crayon smile was raised just perfectly, you smiled just like that, always did even when he-

"Papa?" She calls out, eyes peeking through the soft tufts of arctic white hair- Satoru clears his throat, quietly re-adjusting his blindfold before nodding quickly "it's good, good job." He says, fingers gently outlining the curve of the crayon smile- it's what you would've said to her had you been the one in his place so it's what he'll say to her in your place. "You may leave now"

And don't ever come back.

She nods, reaching out for her drawing but Satoru shakes his head, tugging it closer to him which earns him a surprised reaction, something hopeful glinting in her eyes as she nods and quietly scurries out the door. He sighs when the door closes with a click, standing up and rummaging through his office for a spare frame. You'd have framed it and gushed about it had you been there but you weren't so the least he could do was frame it, he's framing it because it's what you would've done, it's what you would've wanted him to do.

He can't love her for you, he loves you and he'd do anything for you but loving her for you? He can't do that, he's more selfish than that.

Satoru sighs as he carefully puts the drawing in the frame, it's what you would've wanted, it's what you would've done. So he'll do it for you because it's you that loved her.

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THIS TOOK SO LONG AND IM FINALLY BACK! I ALSO FOUND A PARTTIME JOB! YAY! Gonna take a lot to buy a new laptop though so wish me luck!

Masterlist

#nuhuhwinniepooh #jjk x reader #gojo x reader #jjk x y/n #jjk x you #gojo satoru x reader #gojo angst #satoru x reader #Satoru x reader angst #satoru angst #jjk gojo x reader #gojo x you #jjk x reader angst #jjk angst #I

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pintrestgrl · 4 months ago

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hey girly, sending a request for latina reader x drew doing press for obx 4! she’s born and raised in latin america (if you wanna choose a specific country i could say Mexico but that’s my biased nationality recommendation) , so she speaks fluent Spanish and has been in the show since season one, so she’s in the tight friend group with the rest of the cast! I’d love to see their dynamic, maybe a friends to lovers, slow burn type of thing, that could be just a blurb or if you feel like it, it could turn into a series with different scenarios!

cannot wait to see what you come up with<3

hiii i love this idea !! i’m gonna do puerto rico js bcs that’s where my family is from :)

alsooo instead of a usual story, i’m gonna do headcanons

ty for the ask !! love yaaa 💕💞💓💖💘

friends!to!lovers drew starkey headcanons with latina!reader.

- drew most definitely was eyeing you the SECOND you walked into auditions. likeee no shame at all.

- and when he saw you at the first day of filming?? omfg he was cheesing so hard.

- your character was a pogue, so you didn’t get to shoot many scenes with him. but when you did, he was literally silently freaking out.

- he kept breaking character too. it was hard not too when you looked up at him with the biggest brown eyes he’d ever seen.

- he rambled to chase and rudy all day on set about any little thing you did.

- after the first season came out, the rare interviews you did have together, he couldn’t hide the smile at his face any time you spoke, looking at you the whole interview.

- and his face when you started speaking spanish to the interviewer? god, he wanted to die.

- this only caused the fans to notice, and to make many, many posts shipping you two together.

- he absolutely hated this.

- why? because all the fans were right. he did in fact have a silly high school crush on you.

- producers picked up on it too. which only meant that you two would have to start doing one-on-one interviews with eachother.

- specifically, ones that celebrity couples usually did.

- the whole world was practically begging you to get together.

- by the time filming for season 2 came around, there was thousands of rumors coming out about you two every day.

- but, he knew it was bound to awkward on set. you two had done all these interviews, heard all the rumors, but hadn’t really sat down and talked about it. any of it.

- so, he did exactly that. the first day of filming the 2nd season, he spoke to you.

- the conversion was probably the most embarrassing thing he’d ever done.

- he told you everything. every tiny little thing he thought about you, down to the details.

- he told you how he had been infatuated with you since auditions, and how you filled his mind everyday on set.

- to his surprise, you took it rather well.

- you smiled at his words, blushed even.

- he almost died, when the words “así, le gusto al gringo?” came out of your mouth.

- you were definitely open to the idea of trying out a relationship with him, he was the cutest guy on set.

- he was fucking ecstatic. the prettiest girl he’d ever seen in his whole life, agreed just like that?

- you talked for a few weeks, before he finally asked you to be his girlfriend.

- he showed up to your apartment, a huge ramo in hand, and a sign.

- the whole movie shebang, he even learned how to ask you to be his girlfriend in spanish. just for you.

- you kept it private from fans, and your costars for the first couple of weeks, wanting no interruptions in your relationship.

- there was stolen kisses inbetween breaks on set, shy hands reaching for your thigh under tables, and subtle whispers in ears.

- after the first month anniversary of your relationship, you both hard launched eachother on instagram.

- you posted a photo of you and him kissing at the beach, that you took on your digital camera.

- he posted photos he took of you at your previous anniversary dinner, in the prettiest pink dress.

- both your phones blew up immediately. texts from your cast, from your personal friends, everyone in the world was going crazy for you two.

- so many social media posts talking about you two came out, articles, even your own costars posting about the news.

- he was the happiest he’d ever been. that was, because of you.

- you were the perfect girl for him. all he’d ever wanted.

- little did he know, you’d eyed him since the auditions as well.

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irisintheafterglow · 28 days ago

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NOW PLAYING...IRIS' ROM-COM SPECIAL (20s)

SELECT YOUR LOVE INTEREST:

THE SWEETHEARTS: kirishima eijiro, todoroki shoto, iwaizumi hajime, bachira meguru, umemiya hajime, kaminari denki. THE PLAYBOYS: gojo satoru, hoshina soshiro, kuroo tetsurou, takami keigo/hawks, miya atsumu. THE BROODERS: sakusa kiyoomi, bakugo katsuki, suna rintaro, roronoa zoro, itoshi sae. THE WILDCARDS: nanami kento, miya osamu, itoshi rin, geto suguru, todoroki touya.

SELECT YOUR SCREENING:

1. 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU - A newcomer underclassman crushes on your sister, and pulls some strings to get you to go out with the reckless bad boy that is oddly charming. STARRING: ITOSHI RIN // PART II: GETO SUGURU // PART III: HOSHINA SOSHIRO 2. LEGALLY BLONDE - Your boyfriend breaks up with you because he's going to law school, so you follow him. What do you do when he decides it's over, even when you're there? Fall for your professor's junior partner, of course! STARRING: NANAMI KENTO // PART II: KUROO TETSUROU 3. THE PROPOSAL - Your boss asks you for a favor: marry him so he doesn't get kicked from the country. The problem? You're going with him when he proposes to you on holiday at his family home. STARRING: GOJO SATORU // PART II: HOSHINA SOSHIRO // PART III: KIRISHIMA EIJIRO 4. 27 DRESSES - You're a bridesmaid for hire whose boss falls in love with your sister. And she wants you to plan her wedding. And the guy who helped you not get a concussion is stupidly cute. STARRING: ITOSHI SAE // PART II: SUNA RINTAROU 5. SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE - For the record, he doesn't believe in love anymore. But, to appease his son, he talks to the reporter on the radio. Now he has a choice to make: does he risk it all to meet you on Valentine's Day? STARRING: BAKUGO KATSUKI 6. WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING - You fell in love with the cute guy that always passes you at work. When an accident puts him in a coma and his family thinks you're engaged, what do you do when you fall for his brother instead? STARRING: RORONOA ZORO // PART II: TODOROKI TOUYA 7. HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS - As a writer, your next big project is to create a list of what traits make men lose romantic interest. Too bad your latest target is hellbent on winning a bet of his own: to make you fall in love. STARRING: MIYA ATSUMU // PART II: DENKI KAMINARI // PART III: GOJO SATORU 8. THE WEDDING PLANNER - On the eve of celebrating your greatest career achievement, you're saved from imminent disaster by the man of your dreams. Unfortunately, he's engaged...and is hiring you to be his wedding planner. STARRING: IWAIZUMI HAJIME 9. ALWAYS BE MY MAYBE - On again, off again, you and your childhood best friend went separate ways in life. Back in your hometown for the opening of your first restaurant, you don't expect to see him again. Or expect to see that he's hot. STARRING: MIYA OSAMU 10. LA LA LAND - One was a burnt out actor. One was an aspiring jazz musician. Need I say more? STARRING: RORONOA ZORO 11. THE WEDDING DATE - You have the genius idea of hiring a male escort to accompany you to your sibling's wedding, and find there's more to him than his physique. STARRING: GETO SUGURU // PART II: MIYA ATSUMU // PART III: HOSHINA SOSHIRO 12. 50 FIRST DATES - Whether it's a blessing or a curse, the effects of an accident on your brain cause you to fall in love with him again...and again...and again...and again...and... STARRING: TOUYA TODOROKI // PART II: SAKUSA KIYOOMI // PART III: NANAMI KENTO 13. TO ALL THE BOYS I'VE LOVED BEFORE - Your sister sends the letters you'd written to every boy you'd had a crush on. Fake dating and chaos ensues. STARRING: IWAIZUMI HAJIME // PART II: TODOROKI SHOTO // PART III: KIRISHIMA EIJIRO

TO RESERVE YOUR SEAT:

REQUESTS ARE NOW CLOSED, THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO SUBMITTED <3

DIRECTOR'S NOTES:

EEK okay so this is my first ever event and it's for my birthday :) I'm a huge fan of rom-coms so I gathered some of my favorites of all time to apply some new characters to and hopefully make you want to watch (or rewatch) them too! I'm very excited to host this event and hopefully have some fun fics released in the process. Thank you all so much for your support on my blog, I appreciate it more than you'll ever know. Disney+ banner was made by me, heart dividers are by the wonderful @cafekitsune !

#irisintheafterglow #writing event #mha x you #jjk x you #bnha x you #mha x reader #bnha x reader #jjk x reader #hq x reader #hq x you #blue lock x you #blue lock x reader #zoro x you #zoro x reader #irisromcomspecial

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moonpascaltoo · 7 months ago

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aaron taylor johnson characters

╰┈➤ 18+ none of these stories belong to me! this is a masterlist of all aaron johnson stories i’ve read and reblogged! just thought it would be nice to have them all in one spot! (if your fic is on here and you wish not to be, please let me know!) <3

MASTERLIST • 11/04/24

˚‧⁺ ･ ˖ · ୨ৎ recs

tangerine

james potter two

dave lizewski / kickass

𑣲 villian!reader I @anjaelle

𑣲 so? whatever part 2 part 3 I @astermath

The preppy girl that just about everyone admires has more in common with Dave than he expects. He doesn’t quite know how to handle this information, but it excites him nonetheless.

𑣲 take a break I @/astermath

dave has been overdoing the kickass activities, and you’re worried every other night could be his last. he tries to comfort you and tell you he’ll be okay. you’re not sure you believe him.

𑣲 gymcrush!dave I @growup-thatbeautiful

𑣲 request I @murdrdocs

dave is the type of horny idiot that doesn't know that women masturbate too.

𑣲 knowing me, knowing you I @pretty-little-mind33

Being partners with Kick-Ass is far more intimidating when you have a huge crush on him, especially when he won't stop talking about his crush.

𑣲 if it wasn't for the nights I @/pretty-little-mind33

You're having a bad day and you and Dave share earbuds on the bus.

𑣲 do it for me I @moonlightspencie

pietro maximoff / quicksilver

𑣲 a bit distracted I @acciopietro

in which pietro needs to start paying better attention. and maybe listening to his sister more.

𑣲 i’ll be back before you even know it I @toothfa-1-ry

𑣲 the silent treatment I @floral-and-fine

Soulmate AU where the words their soulmate speaks first are tattooed on their arm.

𑣲 hole in the wall I @sebsbarnes

despite barely knowing the brainwashed girl beyond the wall, pietro refused to hurt her, no matter how much she hurt him.

𑣲 fernando I @/pretty-little-mind33

You don't want to share a bed with Pietro. He wants nothing more than to share one with you.

𑣲 voulez-vous I @/pretty-little-mind33

𑣲 karma I @/pretty-little-mind33

you hate Pietro for how he treats you, or at least you do until you're stuck in an elevator with him.

tom ryder

𑣲 dating tom ryder would include I @nyxvuxoa-writes

𑣲 love bites I @/nyxvuxoa-writes

𑣲 smut request I @tangerinesgf

𑣲 nonfan!reader I @/tangerinesgf

𑣲 the lucky one I @pretty-little-mind33

Tom books a role in a musical with the only one goal in mind. He wants to work with an actress he's been crushing on forever—you.

𑣲 anti-hero I @/pretty-little-mind33

You're Tom's makeup artist for a movie he's shooting and you absolutely hate him. However, one round of karaoke later, your feelings temporarily shift.

𑣲 i did something bad I @/pretty-little-mind33

When Tom Ryder cockily asks Colt if he can share you with him, your boyfriend is initially disgusted. You? You're less disgusted—

𑣲 the winner takes it all I @/pretty-little-mind33

You try and convince Tom Ryder that doing his own stunt out of the blue is a very very bad decision.

count alexi vronsky

𑣲 lover I @/pretty-little-mind33

Your husband comforts you on your period.

multiple characters

𑣲 reader w/ an abusive ex hc I @/pretty-little-mind33

#aaron taylor johnson #tangerine #james potter #dave lizewski #kickass #pietro maximoff #tom ryder #james potter x reader #dave lizewski x reader #kickass x reader #pietro maximoff x reader #tom ryder x reader #count alexei vronsky #count alexei vronsky x reader #atj fic recs #aaron taylor johnson fic recs

149 notes · View notes

elyvorg · 1 year ago

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Kieran Part 2: It’s All About YOU

Well, looks like The Indigo Disk didn’t remotely drop the ball – it caught it in incredible style! Pokémon’s best character-writing job yet has been followed up and capped off with, if anything, something even better. Kieran is far and away the most complex and well-written character that mainline Pokémon has ever achieved, and I am here to talk about the second half of why this is, in very great detail. Consider me just, blown away. I have So Many Feelings about this boy.

This is of course a follow-up to my earlier analysis post about Kieran’s character and arc during The Teal Mask, which you can find here. Reading that before this is recommended!

(This will contain a couple of brief references to some post-epilogue lines, so if you haven’t got to that stuff yet and you really care about seeing it completely fresh, you might want to hold off on reading this for now. But there’s no actual spoilers for the epilogue itself in here, because, whoops, I think I’m gonna have to cover all of that in yet another post of its own.)

(Like last time, I will be largely referring to the player character as “you” for convenience, although I may shift into third person occasionally when I’m talking about the vague implications of a personality that they are given, since that’s a little more relevant this time.)

The gaping pit of inferiority

First, though, before getting into The Indigo Disk, I want to re-establish where Kieran’s character ended up at the end of Teal Mask, now that I have a clearer idea of exactly how that relates to where things are headed.

Kieran was always gripped by an aching inferiority complex, one too huge and unbearable for him to ever face directly. Prior to Teal Mask, he’d coped with that by clinging to the figure of the ogre as an ideal of strength. He imagined that maybe one day if he managed to grow strong enough to be just like it, the ogre would acknowledge him and be his friend �� and that would finally mean that he mattered and he really was strong after all. He finally wouldn’t have to deal with the crushing pain of his inferiority complex any more.

But then, of course, you swept in with your amazingly perfect protagonist strength, ripping away Kieran’s chance of ever befriending Ogerpon and doing so in the most tragically agonising way possible that only seemed to validate and hammer home to him just how hopelessly weak he really is. Left with nothing but an even bigger gaping pit of inferiority inside him, and no longer able to cling to the idea of Ogerpon as a way for him to one day escape it, the only thing Kieran could do in order to cope was find something else to latch onto: you.

You became a greater ideal of strength to Kieran than even Ogerpon ever was during the events of Teal Mask, so now he’s hung everything on the thought of making himself strong enough to prove he’s just as good as you. If he can become strong enough to beat you, surely that of all things will be enough to prove that he matters and isn’t weak at all. It’s the only thing he can conceive of that might just free him from the grip of his terrifyingly massive inferiority complex, and he’s clinging onto it for dear life, striving for it to the point of obsession.

I saw a lot of people talk in the lead-up to this DLC like it was going to be about Kieran wanting revenge on you, but that’s not remotely it. He isn’t even able to comprehend the idea that anything you did to him could be considered wrong in the first place; that’s just how things were meant to go when you’re strong and he’s weak, right? Even though it was you who took everything away from him and made him feel so crushingly inferior, that pales in his mind next to how incredibly strong you are and how badly he needs to be like that himself. This isn’t even about him getting another shot at winning over Ogerpon, either – as much as you having become her trainer is a huge source of pain and jealousy for him, he seems to have pretty much accepted that there’s no changing that now.

What Kieran actually, consciously wants out of all this is… well, it’s extremely vague and nebulous, but that’s precisely the point, because there is no rationality involved in any of it. What is he really hoping to gain from it, when (if) he beats you? For you to decide to be his friend after all? For him to instantly become happy and finally feel strong? For him to magically turn into you and have all the good things you have that he envies about you? Obviously none of those things would necessarily happen, but Kieran is not consciously thinking any of this through to its logical endpoint. He’s not actually hoping to get a specific Thing out of beating you – he just desperately, indescribably feels like he needs to beat you, more than anything else in the world.

What Kieran really needs out of this deep down is for you, this person he’s warped himself into idolising as the Strongest Most Perfect Person Ever, to acknowledge him and his strength. It’s just like he wanted Ogerpon to acknowledge him before, shifted onto a new target of idolisation and grown far more desperately obsessive. If you of all people acknowledged him, then just maybe it might actually be true that he really is strong and worth something after all. At its most fundamental level, Kieran has always just deeply needed to gain a sense of self-worth, and yet his self-esteem is so horribly low that he’s basically incapable of doing so on his own without outside validation. But I really don’t think he’s aware on a conscious level that this is what he needs and what he’s striving to get out of all this.

(And of course there’s no way you’d ever acknowledge him and his worth as a person anyway, right? He thought you’d maybe done that when you called him a friend back in Kitakami, but any fleeting hope of gaining self-worth that way evaporated when you went and lied to him, validating his fears that obviously you’d couldn’t possibly have meant it. After all, why would someone as strong as you ever want to be friends with someone weak like him? The only way you’d ever possibly acknowledge his worth is if he conclusively proved that he’s even stronger than you, by defeating you in battle.)

Blueberry Academy

The other thing I want to do before getting into the events of The Indigo Disk itself is to re-evaluate a few assumptions I made about Blueberry Academy in the previous post, now that we’ve actually seen it for ourselves.

I was assuming that a significant part of the reason for Kieran’s inferiority complex was due to him being bullied at Blueberry, but… there’s absolutely zero indication from any of the NPC dialogue that any such thing happened. If the writers wanted this to be a fact that was relevant to Kieran’s character, they absolutely would have put something in. However, in hindsight, I realise that maybe I was primed to assume a bullying problem at Blueberry due to the Team Star storyline, when actually, Kieran being bullied there doesn’t necessarily fit. His issues about being shunned and his paranoia that people are laughing at him behind his back are so ingrained that they have to have originated from quite a while ago in his childhood – and he’s only a first-year at Blueberry.

So, scratch that part of the previous post: Kieran was not bullied at Blueberry Academy, but he was almost certainly bullied earlier on in his childhood, at whatever school(s) he attended beforehand. It wouldn’t necessarily have needed to be a really overt, physical kind of bullying either – that’s the sort of thing that Carmine would certainly have noticed and protected him from. But even something more low-key like being constantly left out of things and looked down on by others would have left a huge psychological mark on him, and would have probably been too subtle for his socially oblivious sister to do much about. (Or, in some ways, she might just have made such things worse by being so fiercely overprotective of him. Most people wouldn’t want to go near the kid with the Scary Big Sister who’ll bite their head off if they so much as look at him wrong.)

Bullying aside, I was looking for any kind of clues at all from the NPCs as to what Kieran was like at Blueberry Academy before his big change… and there’s almost nothing. Plenty of people comment on Kieran now, because everyone knows who he is as the Champion, but nobody shows surprise that it was this timid kid who rose up and beat Drayton. It seems that as far as most of the students are concerned, he just came out of nowhere. But maybe that’s the point; maybe almost nobody ever even noticed him or thought anything of him at all until he grew stronger. By the time he joined Blueberry Academy, Kieran’s default coping mechanism must have been to make himself as small and invisible as possible, so that basically nobody even really thought twice about him.

Only two whole NPCs actually make any kind of reference to what Kieran was like before he became Champion. (Well, other than Carmine, of course, and also discounting Amarys because she’d have only known Kieran through her friendship with his sister.) One of them is Drayton, who’d noticed him as the incredibly shy kid who nonetheless lit up with joy more than anyone else when watching battles. And then there is one random NPC you can find in the Central Plaza who comments on how Kieran has turned into a completely different person. That’s it. Only two people happened to have noticed this timid kid enough to realise he’s the same guy who suddenly became Champion. (And, while they both seem at least a little concerned, neither of them appear to have outright considered Kieran a friend, because of course not. You really were the first friend he’d ever managed to make, until everything went horribly wrong.)

One thing I was expecting to get from the vibe at Blueberry that it absolutely did deliver, mind you, was the culture around battling. There’s all sorts of talk about battling and getting stronger, double battles as standard to make things more strategic, and even the random NPC trainers can actually be kind of challenging. So I was definitely right that this culture must have contributed to Kieran fixating on getting stronger and proving himself to you through gaining more battling strength in particular. One NPC near the entrance also remarks that “you don’t look strong”, as if people here assume battling strength to be correlated with physical appearance, which… yeah, that explains a bit about why Kieran felt he needed to look different alongside becoming stronger in battle, doesn’t it.

Changing himself

Of course, Kieran’s reasons for changing up his appearance go much deeper than just wanting to superficially “look stronger”. In order to achieve the nigh-impossible feat of managing to match you in strength, he felt like he had to become nothing short of a completely different person. He can’t be anything like that timid, weak, pathetic kid from Kitakami who got walked all over, because there’s no way that kid would ever, ever be able to beat you.

Which means that absolutely everything about who he used to be needed to get thrown away. That hairstyle that practically covered his face and let him hide himself behind it? Gone. His country accent and way of talking due to being raised in Kitakami? That always made him feel different and outcast among the students at Blueberry already, but more than that, it’s a distinctive feature of that kid he used to be and cannot be any more, so he had to cast it away and learn to mask it. Even the unambiguously good parts of him – the way he’d always get so excited and passionate over things he finds cool! – they’re a part of his old self, so they had to go, no exceptions. Far be it from him to ever say “wowzers” any more, for more than one reason. His old hairstyle may have been the one that visually resembled a mask, but now he’s putting on much more of a metaphorical mask than he ever was before. (Putting on a mask to become stronger and hide his reasons to be cast out and shunned – a bit like a certain ogre.)

(And since Kieran’s just on the cusp of puberty, I find it fun to imagine that maybe his voice happened to start breaking in the interim between the two DLCs, so that he doesn’t just talk differently and mask his accent, his voice literally sounds different now compared to how it did before.)

Unfortunately for Kieran, no amount of fervently doing everything in his power to change and grow stronger can make his growth spurt come any sooner. It seems it hasn’t happened quite yet, leaving him awkwardly still the smallest person in the room even as he is trying to project an air of being Strong and Tough now. He gets around this as best he can by adopting a mannerism of taking a step back from people, to give him less of an angle to look up at, and tilting his head far enough back that he can kinda sorta still be looking down on them, in a sense. He is so desperate to not feel small any more.

(Fittingly – or ironically, perhaps – you are the one relevant person who is the same height as Kieran and can face him eye-to-eye. That’s bound to be feeding into his complex about you: all the other people he looked up to and saw as stronger than him were older than him and so they had a good reason to be that strong – but you and he are the same age. You should be his equal, and yet you can already do and have all these things that he could only dream of.)

And his timid demeanour isn’t the only thing from before that Kieran cast away – he also got rid of almost his entire team of Pokémon from those battles back in Kitakami. Nearly all of them went the same way as poor Furret and Cramorant before them, because they weren’t strong enough to win him that vital battle that would definitely have decided who got to become Ogerpon’s partner (right?), so there’s no way they’d ever be able to help him beat you now. The only exception to this is Dipplin, perhaps precisely because Kieran knew it was capable of evolving again and so still had more strength it had yet to show him. The rest of his team got completely overhauled, no doubt informed by his fervent studies in battling strategies to let him put together the strongest and most optimal team he could come up with.

I nearly had a whole spiel here about how excruciating it is that his new team has a Politoed, in that he could almost have kept another of his old partners from his Kitakami team if he hadn’t hastily evolved Poliwhirl into the less strategically-optimal evolution as part of his efforts to prove himself to you during Teal Mask. Except, actually, a postgame line implies that Kieran’s Politoed is also a longtime partner of his, along with his Poliwrath, like they’re a pair. So it’s not that he went and caught a “replacement” Poliwag that he was less attached to – apparently he always had two Poliwag friends from the start and just only ever trained up one of them to use against you in Teal Mask. Then, when that one had failed to be good enough for him, it was the other one’s turn to prove how strong it could really be.

As for his other new team members: Porygon-Z and Incineroar are both available in the Terarium, but Grimmsnarl is only available, to Kieran at least, in Kitakami. So that must be another one he’d caught during the school trip, maybe a candidate he’d considered training up back then but never quite had the time to alongside the rest of his team. And then there’s Dragonite, which is an interesting one, because the Dratini line is nowhere in either Kitakami or the Terarium – meaning, Kieran must have gone out of his way to trade for it in order to get one. Perhaps he was really impressed by the strength of Drayton’s Dragonite and wanted one of his own to match that? (but his has a very different build to Drayton’s, so it’s fine, he’s definitely not just copying Drayton in order to win, okay.) I like to think that maybe he got it from Carmine, who’d apparently been visiting loads of other regions with Briar during Kieran’s obsessive training arc and therefore could have been in a position to catch a Dratini.

More importantly than just catching these new Pokémon, though, would have been training them, which Kieran threw himself into so obsessively that it and studying battling strategies now consume every single moment he has, to a concerningly unhealthy degree. He’s cutting back on sleep, barely eating proper meals, because spending any more time than necessary on even things like basic physical needs is not acceptable to him. You are so overwhelmingly, impossibly strong in his mind that, in order to match your strength, Kieran feels like he has to give everything, no matter the cost to himself.

Being Champion

And, well, his fervent desperate self-destructive training did indeed make him strong enough to become Champion of the BB League. It’s only a stepping stone, a means to an end for his ultimate goal of being strong enough to beat you – but it’s something. As Champion, Kieran’s known to everyone in the school, getting awed murmurs wherever he shows up. People respect him now, because he’s proven that he's strong. (The very converse of how everyone ignored and shunned him back when he was weak. That’s how it goes, right?) And on top of that, he’s earned himself a position of authority over everyone in the League Club.

…Frankly, it’s a very stupid rule the club has to make the Champion be automatically in charge of the whole thing, precisely because of situations like this, in which the trainer who happens to be strongest also happens to be someone nobody else wants bossing them around. But thanks to that stupid rule existing, Kieran’s in charge now, and everyone else has to do what he says whether they like it or not, because he’s the strongest of all of them. Way to validate and perpetuate Kieran’s toxic worldview that having strength (battling strength) means you get to call the shots and walk all over anybody who’s weaker than you, and that’s just how things work.

Our first glimpse of how drastically Kieran’s changed, the interaction we see him having with that one poor club member, is bound to be the epitome of how he’s been treating everyone in the club these days. And he is not simply being a dick for the hell of it just because he can now and he’s turned Edgy or whatever – everything about his behaviour here is agonisingly rooted in his own deeply ingrained worldview about strength and weakness.

It's so tragically telling how he phrases his scathing disapproval of the poor guy as, “So that means you’re just OK being this weak forever? That what I’m hearing?” That’s not at all what the guy was saying, but Kieran hears it that way because he can’t help but see his own former, weaker self everywhere he looks. At the end of Teal Mask, he was trapped in that horrible pit of feeling like there was nothing he could do except be this weak forever, unless he devoted himself obsessively to becoming stronger and stronger and stronger with everything he had. Any tiny sign of weakness in anybody else reminds him of that place, reminds him that the only reason he’s not trapped there himself right now is because he’s spending every waking moment trying to claw his way out.

The guy’s reason for not completing Kieran’s training assignment wasn’t even that he didn’t want to do it. He said he’d had hectic stuff going on at home that meant he didn’t have time, which ought to be a perfectly reasonable excuse! But… not to Kieran, it isn’t. Kieran has sacrificed everything to become as strong as he is, even basic physical self-care; he would have chosen training over busy home-life stuff in a heartbeat. Anyone who isn’t willing to do the same, anyone to whom growing stronger isn’t the most important thing in the world – they’re not good enough. They must obviously just want to stay weak forever, like Kieran himself absolutely could not bear to be. So he kicks the poor guy out of the club, thus dooming him, in Kieran’s view, to really being stuck this weak forever with no chance to improve.

It's bound to be just like this for everyone else in the club, too, based on plenty of comments we hear about how Kieran becoming Champion has taken the fun out of everything, and the ridiculously strict rules he’s apparently put in place. He’s projecting his own unhealthily high standards of strength onto everyone else, then shunning them if they don’t manage to live up to that, because that’s just what happens to people who are weak, right? It is agonising to watch Kieran perpetuating the exact same toxicity that he used to always feel like he was on the receiving end of, especially as that isn’t even really why he was ever treated that way.

None of this is the behaviour of someone who is even remotely secure and confident in their strength. Despite being Champion and having the respect of the entire school, Kieran is still constantly terrified that even the slightest thing, even so much as allowing a tiny instance of “weakness” in anyone associated with him, will cause all of the strength he’s worked so hard to build to come crashing down in an instant. (One detail I really love about the scene where he’s telling that one guy off is the way Kieran’s tapping his foot at the beginning. He probably means it as a way to express impatience, but really it comes across as incredibly anxious and insecure. The animators did some excellent stuff with Kieran in this DLC.)

And what’s extra heartbreaking is that Kieran doesn’t need to be doing any of this. He’s the Champion now; he is undeniably strong; he’s able to talk to others; people notice and respect him. He is already in a position to reach out and grasp everything he’s ever wanted: acknowledgement, friendship, fun. He used to love battling – he’s supposed to love battling – so he could be having a great time with all this! If he just dropped this toxic mindset and stopped letting it turn him into a massive jerk, he could make friends with the Elite Four and others in the League Club and not be alone any more!

But he’s not able to see any of that. None of the things he’s already genuinely gained for himself truly feel like they matter, not when they’re all just a means to an end for the one thing that does – proving he can beat you. By desperately hanging his entire self-worth on the idea of becoming strong enough to measure up to you and nobody else, Kieran has blinded himself to the fact that he’s already found a good amount of what he’d always truly wanted in the first place. And it also means that, if he can’t beat you when that day comes, everything he’s done will be for nothing.

Drayton and Carmine

But although nobody is happy with the way things are now (least of all Kieran himself), it seems only a couple of people have been willing to question Kieran’s “authority” enough to try and talk him out of this.

One of them is Drayton, who’s doing this not just out of wanting his club to go back to normal, but also because he’s the almost-only person to have noticed the timid yet battle-loving kid Kieran used to be, and he genuinely wants to help Kieran remember how to have fun like that again. Unfortunately, it seems that any of Drayton’s attempts to tell him this bounced right off Kieran, because fun and excitement were a part of that weak kid he used to be and absolutely cannot be any more.

Plus, with his newfound authority and validation of his toxic worldview, Kieran would easily be able to brush off anything Drayton said to him with the excuse that he doesn’t have to listen to someone who can’t beat him. He actually mentions at one point that Drayton “always loses” to him, implying they’ve battled more than once. Apparently, in an attempt to get Kieran to listen, Drayton actually went and challenged him to a rematch at some point, or maybe even several – a remarkable amount of effort, coming from Drayton – but he still couldn’t win.

(Kieran is bound to be super jealous of the way Drayton appears so effortless in his strength, when Kieran himself had to train and strive so hard to reach this level. But on the flip side, now that Kieran is the stronger one, he can use Drayton’s laziness as another way to paint himself as superior. Obviously the reason Drayton keeps losing to him is because he doesn’t train nearly as hard as Kieran does.)

It also doesn’t help that Drayton’s attitude towards Kieran when he’s not specifically trying to encourage him to have fun again is very sarcastic and condescending, drawing from his deep frustration at Kieran’s attitude. It must be very easy for Kieran to completely overlook the part where Drayton is actually doing this because he cares – he probably feels that Drayton just hates him and wants him gone. (Just like everyone who’d always shun him and treat him like an outcast before, right.)

Then there’s Carmine, who’s been incredibly worried about the change in her brother and is bound to have done her fair share of trying to talk him out of this too, evidently also to no effect. It’s certainly easy for Kieran to remain oblivious to the fact that she’s doing this because she cares about him and isn’t just trying to bring him down, since she has, uh, historically not been very good at showing that.

It seems that Kieran has largely been avoiding Carmine since he overhauled everything about himself. No doubt a lot of that is because, what with her being part of the reason for his inferiority complex in the first place, she’s capable of triggering his insecurities more intensely than anybody else can. But maybe it’s also partly because on some level, he’s aware that she’s got a point now with the things she’s trying to say to him, and that makes him feel bad, and have doubts that he can’t afford to be having. Carmine’s certainly right to be concerned that his behaviour now would be driving any friends of his away – although she is almost definitely wildly wrong to be assuming Kieran even had any friends other than you before all of this.

(For that matter, she’s very wrong to assume that you are still his friend right now in a totally normal way; ha ha ha. But then, based on your options of “yes” and “yes” when Drayton asks you if you're Kieran's friend, it seems that you – the player character – are also somehow completely oblivious to the fact that Kieran just maybe might not consider you a friend any more on his end. Which just makes this whole thing even more excruciating.)

The dynamic between the siblings during the one brief time we see them interact here has notably changed, in that Kieran is finally able to stand up for himself more, telling Carmine to shut up when she tells him off. And yet, he doesn’t do so very forcefully, averting his gaze in a way that suggests he just sort of mumbles it. He probably realises she has a point about what she was saying – that he shouldn’t act so condescending towards you. Which on Carmine’s end, she said because she doesn’t want him to drive away the one friend he still (supposedly) has, but that’s not how it’d read on Kieran’s end, because he doesn’t believe you ever were his friend at all. He must have felt like his sister has a point only because he doesn’t have the right to act that way towards you, not when he still hasn’t proven himself to you yet (and maybe never will).

Unexpected reunion

See, there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on under the surface of Kieran’s reaction to suddenly meeting you here. Literally everything he’s been doing this entire time has been for the sole purpose of defeating you when he sees you again. Which means that you showing up and challenging the BB League should be exactly what he wants and has always been waiting for. And yet.

The first notable thing is that he had nothing to do with inviting you here – the person responsible for that was Carmine. She probably figured that you’d be able to help her brother out, so she recommended you to the director when she heard he was looking for an exchange student to invite from Paldea. As Champion of the school, Kieran should also have had enough influence to make such a recommendation – but he didn’t.

Then, when Kieran comes to the cafeteria, he has plenty of condescending things to say to Drayton (about how taking a lunch break is a waste of time, because who needs to bother with basic physical needs like eating when they could be training instead, right). But the moment he sees you, he’s just shocked at you even being here… and then he’s very quiet for the entire rest of the conversation.

Drayton puts things to a vote among the Elites plus Kieran as to whether you should be allowed to join the BB League, and – despite that this should be exactly what he wants – Kieran is the last to vote. He only does so when he’s forced to break the tie.

(Although, it’s revealing in a different way that the Elite Four all ask each other for their opinions first, with none of them naturally thinking to consult Kieran. Despite his newfound strength and authority, he is still socially excluded – but this time he really has nobody but himself to blame.)

Kieran’s wording of how he casts his vote is so very telling. Just: “It doesn’t matter who I’m facing… I don’t lose.” – and he says nothing else before leaving in a huff. He words this in a generalised way, as if this an overarching principle of his that has nothing to do with you in particular, even though it’s always been about you. Because if he let himself think about how you in particular will be his opponent, then suddenly the statement that he doesn’t lose doesn’t feel so certain. But, put on the spot like this, he cannot show any sign that he’s afraid he might lose to you – that would be like giving up and accepting that all the effort he’s put in for all this time has been for nothing. So he has no choice but to let you join.

(Drayton totally knew he would refuse to lose face like this if put on the spot, of course, and that the Elites would vote 2-2 between them and leave Kieran with the deciding vote, which is precisely why he set things up this way. Kieran’s not unaware of this, either.)

There’s a brief interim here as you head to the front desk to officially sign up for the League. This gives Kieran a moment alone to process the fact that, welp, this really is happening, you’re really here, and, isn’t this supposed to be exactly what he always wanted? Hasn’t everything always been so that he can beat you this time? He manages to twist things around in his head, convince himself that yes, this is it, the chance he’s been waiting for, and he will win when it comes down to it, he will, because that’s what it’s all been for.

As such, when he shows up at the front desk to confirm that he’s allowing you to join, Kieran is able to be a lot more direct about you challenging him than he was in his one whole sentence on the topic in the cafeteria. Even then, he makes a comment to Drayton about how he feels like he was manipulated into this… then immediately insists that he’s fine with it because this is what he wanted anyway. If it was truly 100% what he wanted, he wouldn’t have felt manipulated!

To sum all of this up: it is abundantly, delightfully clear beneath the surface that Kieran does not actually feel ready to face you. He would never have felt ready for this, no matter how long he’d spent training and pushing himself, because your impossible unreachable strength and his own inherent worthlessness are both so deeply ingrained in his mind that he is incapable of truly believing he can match you.

But, well, here you are, and now Drayton’s trapped Kieran in this situation where he has no choice but to keep up the mask of strength and confidence he’s been putting on all this time. So he’s got to act like he’s fine with you challenging him, whether he truly feels ready or not.

Your Elite Four challenge

As you work your way through the Elite Four’s ranks to earn the right to challenge him, Kieran is very insistent that you’d better not dare lose to anybody else before facing him, or to have gotten weaker in any way since he last met you.

You might think that Kieran would be glad if you actually did lose to one of the Elite Four and never manage to make it to him, because, hey, that means he’s already stronger than you! He doesn’t even have to worry about whether he can win his battle against you! But… no, that wouldn’t be how it’s supposed to go. The way Kieran’s been building things up in his head the entire time, his whole life is supposed to magically somehow get better when he beats you. He needs to prove himself and his new strength to you, specifically. It wouldn’t mean anything if someone else beat you first, or if you’re somehow not actually still the impossibly strong person he’s idolised and fixated so hard on becoming equal to. That’d just be the most crushing anticlimax for him, in which he never gets to achieve what he’s been striving so hard for, and in which he’d have to somehow come to terms with the fact that… he’s already stronger than you, and yet he still doesn’t feel better or any less agonisingly inferior than he always did? If that happened, he’d be at a complete loss as to any other way to escape how he feels about himself.

But, fortunately for him (for some value of “fortunate”), you of course still are just as strong as you always were. On hearing you assure him of this, and also on seeing it for himself as he watches one of your Elite Four battles, Kieran gives this awful twisted grin that does not even slightly reach his eyes (because he has completely forgotten how to genuinely smile and no doubt hasn’t ever done so this entire time). Yes, he will still get to have his long-anticipated showdown with you, and winning that will still somehow magically definitely fix everything that was ever wrong in his life. Definitely.

There’s also the part where, because you come with such glowing recommendations, you get to skip working your way up the BB League from the very bottom and can start right at challenging the Elite Four. Kieran has to feel all kinds of ways about this – on the one hand, he’d tell himself he’s glad because this means he has less time to wait until the battle that he’s definitely totally ready for, and he knows full well that you wouldn’t need to waste your time on small fry at the bottom. But on the other hand… he had to painstakingly work his way all the way up from zero in order to get where he is, so it sure is something that you’re so special that you just get to skip doing that. (And if you did have to start at the bottom, then it’d give him more time to train himself, just to make absolutely sure that he really is ready to face you…)

When you’ve beaten the final Elite, Kieran shows up again and scoffs that this was kind of slow for you, wasn’t it? I believe this isn’t just posturing and was his genuine reaction – you’re so impossibly perfect in his mind that he can’t even comprehend the idea that you wouldn’t breeze through this effortlessly without a single hitch. But still, at least he can turn the fact that you fell short of his impossible expectations into condescension that helps him feel above you and definitely capable of beating you. (How long did it take him to beat the Elite Four, I wonder? Probably longer than you – but of course he’s not gonna bring that up.)

Drayton, meanwhile, has now picked up on the fact that Kieran isn’t just obsessed with winning like he’d initially thought – he’s obsessed with you. Maybe he’d have approached things a little differently if he’d been aware in the beginning that you were a lot more to Kieran than just an old friend. But, welp, bit too late to back out of what he’s set up now, whoops.

And on Kieran’s end, he hasn’t let go of the feeling of being manipulated into this, and now feels like you and Drayton are plotting against him. This poor kid’s paranoia and tendency to assume people are laughing at him behind his back has still not gone away, even if it’s taken on a slightly different form now. It’s probably a good thing he doesn’t ever learn that Carmine was the one who called you here, or he’d think she was in on this supposed conspiracy too.

(But, hey, while Kieran could never do anything about it before whenever he was ganged up on and shunned by others, at least now he’s finally strong enough to fight back and hold his own, despite being outnumbered, right? Just like the ogre did.)

THE BATTLE

So now, it’s finally time: the battle that Kieran has absolutely everything riding on. Of course I’ve already made it abundantly clear here that every single thing he’s done has been for the sole goal of beating you right here and now – but it says a lot that he spends his pre-battle speech making sure you know this. He probably feels like you’re such an amazing superstar trainer that challenging someone for their Champion title is basically just another Tuesday for you, like this is nothing on your end – but this battle is everything for him, everything that he’s been spending every single moment of every single day building up towards for all this time, and he needs you to acknowledge this.

And as if that wasn’t enough, as the battle opens, Kieran screams into the sky with the sheer uncontainable emotion of how much this means to him. Everything he’s been feeling, bottling up, clinging to for so long is spilling out of him now that he’s finally here in this one pivotal moment he’s always been waiting for.

It comes spilling out in a lot more than just that scream, too; he has so many things to say throughout the battle as it all reaches fever pitch inside him. While some of his in-battle dialogue during his Teal Mask fights had fun hints at his issues in there, this one battle here absolutely takes the cake. This is quite possibly the most dialogue in any battle in any Pokémon game, and all of it has something interesting and nuanced going on that’s rooted in Kieran’s massive issues. I cannot resist taking this opportunity to talk about every single bit of it.

His first line as the battle begins is, “I know I’m making the right choice… You’ll understand that soon enough!”, which seems kind of odd on the surface. What “choice” is he even talking about that he feels the need to justify? Accepting a challenge to his Champion position is just what Champions are meant to do. But that’s not what Kieran’s thinking about here – he’s thinking about all of those times that Drayton and Carmine tried to talk him down from the entire way he was acting and pushing himself too hard. Every time they did, he insisted to himself that no, training this insanely hard is the right choice, he needs to do this, and it’ll all be worth it when he beats you. …Somehow. Definitely. You’ll see, you will, you have to…!

On the very first hit he lands on you – it doesn’t even need to be super-effective, any damaging hit will trigger it – he says, “How do you like that? See how hard I’ve trained? Not like that kid you battled in Kitakami, huh?!” In reality, the hit he lands here isn’t necessarily any bigger than the kinds of hits he dealt to you back in Kitakami – but it feels bigger to Kieran. He’s trained so hard that he feels so much stronger and so different from the kid he was back then, and he needs you to see and acknowledge this too.

Meanwhile, your first super-effective attack you land on him manages to pierce through his mask for a moment and get a “wowzers” out of him. It’s not actually any more impressive than any other super-effective hit he might receive from any other trainer – but because it’s coming from you, it feels so much more incredible, triggering his instinctive irrational idolisation of you just for a moment before he collects himself and puts his mask back up.

Then he insists that he’ll still win anyway, even if “the type matchups work out for you”. Which… isn’t how type matchups in battles work? Sure, you landed one super-effective hit, either because one of your Pokémon happened to have a good matchup, or you just had a good coverage move. That doesn’t mean that all of the type matchups in the battle are inherently in your favour. But Kieran apparently feels like they are – because, when it comes to him versus you, he always feels like everything in the world is on your side and he has to claw and grasp to regain the tiniest bit of ground against his inherent overwhelming disadvantage.

Speaking of everything being on your side, when you land your first critical hit on him (and I say “when” here because this battle is long enough that statistically you’re extremely unlikely not to at some point!), his response is delightful, raging that “even luck’s chosen you over me!” and that it’s “not fair!!!” All of his bitterness and jealousy about Ogerpon choosing you over him is still raw, evidently, so even something like you getting a statistically near-inevitable critical hit feels to him like luck itself taking your side against him, because everything always does. And on some level, he may have realised that you befriending Ogerpon was partly due to the sheer luck of you happening to meet her while he wasn’t around, so of course he’s bitter about luck because of that, too. It’s not fair, how you always get everything, so effortlessly, while he has nothing.

(He doesn’t comment at all if and when he lands a critical hit, because of course not. Confirmation bias is one hell of a drug.)

And of course, you bringing out Ogerpon herself gets an extremely strong reaction from Kieran. “You’ve got some nerve,” he snarls among broken mirthless laughter, to bring her out “NOW of all times?!” This, right here and now, was supposed to be his moment, his time to finally shine and show you how strong he is and take the victory. And yet you’re choosing this moment to parade Ogerpon in front of him, a reminder of the painful losses and inferiority he suffered back in Kitakami that he’s tried so hard to forget and overcome by making himself stronger, just rubbing it in his face that you got to have her because you’re so strong and lucky and perfect.

His expression during this line is one hell of a thing as well: shocked and wide-eyed and practically terrified, in stark contrast to all of his other expressions in this fight. He’s not only reeling from the pain of having his inferiority from back then shoved in his face, but also, he’s always believed that Ogerpon is so incredibly strong. If you’re using her against him in this battle, you and her working together… how is he ever going to be able to defeat that combination of impossible strength…?

(Apparently, Kieran’s trainer AI actually has a modification in this fight that makes him prioritise attacking Ogerpon more than an AI trainer otherwise would, which is delightful, I love that that’s a thing devs programmed in there. Of course he’d desperately want to get Ogerpon off the field as fast as he could before she utterly destroys him.)

As his back’s against the wall and he’s sending out his final Pokémon, Kieran’s still raging, with increasing desperation: “Just go down already! How are you still standing after I’ve thrown everything I have at you?!” This battle is not at all going how he’d insistently imagined it would in his head, in which he’d prove himself and win, not even though he’s giving it absolutely everything he has. (And the thought that you still won’t go down even then is terrifying to him. He really has given everything to this, he couldn’t possibly have done more – and yet, what if that still isn’t enough to beat you? That’d mean it’s just impossible for him, no matter what he does, and he’d have absolutely no idea how to cope with that.)

Just before he Terastallises his Hydrapple, he insists that he “doesn’t need the old me”, that he’s changed – here’s the way he felt he had no choice but to throw away everything about his former weaker self in order to get stronger, even the positive parts. But then he adds, “and I’ll show you I can change again!” He’s not just literally referring to the Terastallisation he’s about to do (although it’s thematically fitting that he brings up this topic as he’s doing this – and his Hydrapple’s Fighting Tera-type is a neat link to him having changed himself into being obsessed with strength) – rather, he’s referring to what he’s convinced himself will happen when (if) he wins this fight. That’ll change everything for him, right? That’ll make everything good, finally; he’s going to change for the better once he wins this, he has to…!

And then… Kieran’s animation while he’s Terastallising is an odd one. He’s remarkably expressionless about it, compared to the intensity of his expressions in the entire rest of the fight. But I think the reason for this must be: most trainers wince with the force of it as they begin charging their Tera Orb – and apparently, Kieran doesn’t want to be seen doing that, because that’d make him seem weak. So he’s trained himself to put on an expressionless mask, not even looking at the orb directly, to avoid that. (And one of the few trainers who doesn’t wince, who’s able to stare directly at the dazzling power coming from their Tera Orb without flinching, holding it up for all to see… it’s you, of course. Kieran almost certainly saw this from you a few times back in Kitakami.)

His last possible line in the fight, as he orders an attack from his Hydrapple, at which point he is guaranteed to have only one or two Pokémon left and be desperately fighting to hold on with his back against the wall, includes him saying, “I’m capable of winning too, you know!” Because that is definitely a very normal thing for a reigning Champion to need to say to their challenger. Even with all the victories he’s had on his way here, Kieran still has to fight to convince himself that he is capable of winning, because being up against you and teetering on the brink of defeat like this just reminds him of all his previous agonising losses at your hands, his inferiority complex rising up to overwhelm him with the feeling that he’ll never be able to be strong or win anything at all.

(And, hey… what if he had actually managed to win? Tragically, the game does not let you see any of his reaction if you do happen to lose to him; it just rewinds time like it never happened. But there’s no way that Kieran beating you here would truly have helped or fixed anything about that massive inferiority complex of his. He’d ride the high for a bit, but then he’d go back to the same condescending façade he’d had before and gradually realise that… he doesn’t actually feel any better about himself beneath it like he was supposed to once this happened. Funnily enough, beating you in a Pokémon battle would not have magically turned him into you.)

Everything falls apart

But, of course, because the game refuses to let you not be the Perfect Protagonist (or, perhaps, because the narrative needs to go this way in order for him to actually get better in the long run), Kieran loses. The last time he lost a pivotal battle against you that he’d told himself everything depended on, back in Kitakami, he crumpled immediately in defeat – but this time, his reaction’s a lot more drawn out. Back then, the conviction that he could never ever beat you was right there at the surface to the point that he was basically expecting to lose despite his determination. But here, he’s spent so long insisting to himself over and over that he will win this time, he will, convincing himself that things just have to go that way… that it takes him a moment to even process the fact that they haven’t. He’s just shocked, lost, dumbfounded, not knowing how to react, because this wasn’t supposed to happen…!

But then the spectators around him mutter and begin to leave, apparently because he lost, because he’s no good after all and so there’s no point staying to watch him, and this seems to be what agonisingly drives home the reality to Kieran. All the respect and esteem he’d managed to grasp for himself – in this one awful moment it feels like all of it is crumbling away before his eyes. All of his effort to get here (so much effort) was worthless, all because he couldn’t beat you. He’s gone right back down to being nothing. I adore the blurry effects in the cutscene as Kieran sways and staggers and collapses, giving a visceral sense that the shock of this is hitting him so deep that it's rendered him physically light-headed and dizzy. Guh, this poor kid.

And then Drayton has to come along and rub it in. Kieran winces in agony as he gets smugly called “ex-Champion” – though he was never doing any of this for the Champion title itself, having it meant something and made him matter, and now that’s gone like it was never there at all. It’s bound to sting especially hard coming from Drayton, whom Kieran believed was plotting with you to take him down, take away everything he had, and now that’s exactly what’s happened, because he wasn’t strong enough to stand up for himself after all.

…The fact that Drayton felt the need to be a smug bitch about this first and foremost does not remotely help Kieran actually listen to and internalise the genuinely good advice Drayton gives just a few moments later. He really was doing this because he cares, and because Kieran ought to go back to having fun with things! But of course Kieran isn’t in any state to listen to that, not after all his paranoia about Drayton manipulating him, and then Drayton rubbing his loss in on top of that; he still has no idea that the guy genuinely wants to help him. (Unfortunately, while Drayton cares about the person Kieran should be, he has been deeply frustrated by the person Kieran is being, and that comes out in sarcasm and smuggery first, hence why this completely bombs.)

So instead of taking on board Drayton’s advice, which he probably wasn’t even listening to, Kieran just starts desperately, incoherently mumbling about how he’ll win next time. It’s the only thing he can cling to – the same thing he always has, to escape the all-consuming, unbearable thought of just being achingly inferior forever and ever with no way out. He still can’t see any other way out that isn’t beating you. (But… how is he ever going to win next time, when he’s already given it absolutely everything he had and still couldn’t manage it…?)

Seeing him being so clearly Not Okay, you approach him and (probably) attempt to say something to him, but it seems like even if you try, you barely get any words out before Kieran just shuts down even more. He reacts with slumping, and with an “Aw, man…” – the same words and body language he’d often have back in Teal Mask whenever something (usually his sister) would push back at him and make him feel small. Now that he can no longer cling to his façade that he totally is stronger than you and just hasn’t proven it yet, he’s reverted right back to the state of mind he was always in back then. And it’s you in particular that triggers his inferiority complex harder than anything else right now, even if you just silently approach him, or say a few words that certainly wouldn’t have been anything cruel.

It's a bit of a shame that the game doesn’t actually let us see what you try to say to him, assuming you do. But it most certainly couldn’t have been anything along the lines of “You put up a really tough fight!”, because that kind of thing – acknowledging Kieran’s strength, even though he lost – is exactly what he’d need to hear right now, and he’s clearly not hearing it. Whatever it was you did say, he probably barely even heard it beneath his crushing sense of inferiority at being near you, and you probably trailed off pretty quickly upon seeing his reaction.

(In fact, it might say a lot that your dialogue options here are so non-specific that they’re literally just “Say something/nothing”. This suggests that the player character has no idea what to say to Kieran at seeing him in this absolute state, and they can only choose to either accept that and remain silent, or to fumble for something to try and say anyway. I believe it’s pretty important to “your” role in Kieran’s arc that the player character is extremely socially awkward and just finds themselves utterly lost as to how to deal with him breaking down like this because of them. Someone with better social intelligence would be able to say the right thing here to help him at least begin to feel better! But that someone is emphatically not you, it seems. This apparent social obliviousness also tracks with the fact that you – the player character – agreed with Carmine’s very short-sighted decision to lie to Kieran back in Kitakami, thus unwittingly setting off this whole domino effect of his issues in the first place.)

Sudden legendary hunt

If Kieran had had longer to process his defeat, maybe he’d have realised that there really is no way he can “win next time” when he already gave it his absolute all this time, and he might have begun to approach the fact that there’s nothing he can do but let things go. However, while he’s still reeling, he almost immediately gets dragged into the meeting with Briar about her expedition to Area Zero.

Kieran looks like he’s barely even listening to the conversation at first, just staring miserably into space in front of him, no doubt stuck endlessly thinking how can I ever be stronger than you when everything I had still wasn’t enough??? But then Briar mentions that they’ll get the opportunity to find a legendary Pokémon on this quest – and whoops, now Kieran’s paying attention. Because here’s the answer to his impossible conundrum of how he can beat you next time.

Make no mistake: this is nothing like Ogerpon was to him. He’d been fixated on her and cared about her ever since he was little for deeply personal reasons based on him relating to her situation and projecting onto her. Her strength was part of it, but it wasn’t that he wanted to obtain that strength by catching her; he just admired her strength and wanted to be like her, and if he could, then maybe one day she’d acknowledge that by being his friend (and therefore also incidentally his Pokémon partner). But Terapagos is nothing to Kieran here other than a source of potential strength for him to acquire for himself by capturing it, a tool that will finally let him beat you.

Nonetheless, because this is another legendary Pokémon, Kieran can’t help but draw the surface comparison to Ogerpon anyway and remember the way she chose you over him. He’s probably already imagining that Terapagos might just do the same thing, because you’re so strong and special while he’s nothing – so he tells himself, fervently, that no, he won’t let that happen again, he won’t let this chance go.

He doesn’t ever say as much, but he’s bound to be already having doubts as to if he really could ever capture such an amazing Pokémon. Legendary Pokémon – or really, any Pokémon in general – are supposed to join trainers once they acknowledge their strength; that’s what battles to weaken and capture a wild Pokémon are all about. How is Kieran ever going to get Terapagos to do that for him when he’s so weak? But even so, even if it seems too good to be true, he has to cling to this possibility. It’s the only chance he has left to still just maybe be able to beat you, to continue running away from that gaping pit of inferiority inside him that he doesn’t know how to face.

(A minor nitpick I have with the game’s writing: it’d have been fun here if things had been subtler and Kieran hadn’t outright said that he wants to catch Terapagos at all. His intent would have been very clear regardless for anyone who could read between the lines – I realised what was up the moment he reacted to hearing about a legendary, because Oh No. But nonetheless, it seems like you the player character and also Carmine are both socially oblivious enough to fail to follow Kieran’s stated intent to catch Terapagos through to its obvious conclusion of “he’s still fixated on beating you”. I guess the two of you just assume, oh, hey, he’s found another legendary Pokémon to get excited about, that’s good, that means he must be getting over Ogerpon, right…? Ha. Ha ha ha. If only.)

Journey through Area Zero

As you make your way into and through the depths of Area Zero, Kieran seems to have largely lost hold of the condescendingly superior façade he’d been putting up all this time (after all, he doesn’t have the right to act that way towards you when he’s still weaker than you). This allows a few little hints of his true self to begin to rise to the surface and shine through again, at least a little bit.

He lets slip a “wowzers” on seeing the sheer alien beauty of the place for the first time, and later at the lab he’s so excited at the technology reminding him of a spy movie that he even forgets to mask his accent for a whole sentence. But both times, he’s quick to catch himself and brush it off and act aloof. That excitableness was part of who he used to be, that kid who was weak, and he's still convinced that he can’t afford to be that person any more. But, hey, getting these little reminders that he actually enjoys being his true self and has missed it, at least certain parts of it, has to help! Plus, Carmine seems happy at these moments of him being the little brother she knows and loves again; they have a bit of regular healthy sibling banter; she notices him being considerate about Briar reading someone’s private diary…

These are all good signs that Kieran’s starting to get back to normal, maybe just a little… but, not completely. The spark still isn’t there in his eyes, even when he’s smiling about the cool spy vibe of the lab. Despite the distractions, he’s largely very intent on just getting to the legendary Pokémon and nothing else. And perhaps most relevant of all, he barely says anything of substance to you, even if you try and talk to him.

He does have a notable reaction near the beginning when you mention that you came here last time with some friends of yours. Kieran had probably never quite considered the idea of you having other friends before – Ogerpon did not exactly prime him to imagine that about his idols, after all – but, now that he’s hearing it… of course you’ve got friends. Why wouldn’t you? You have everything, everything he’s always wanted so badly for himself but could never, ever have.

Then, of course, you’re the one who does all the hard work in the Underdepths to deal with the sparkling Pokémon that are blocking the way forwards. For the first one, Carmine almost asks Kieran to take care of it before changing her mind and asking you, which, ouch, that’s got to have stung. (I don’t think she did that to deliberately be unkind, though; it’s probably that she still feels a little weird and uncomfortable about her brother battling, because of the way he’s been, so she’d rather just watch you battle it instead.)

Because of all this, later on Kieran bitterly comments that he feels like everyone’s relying on you too much. Really, the only reason this is the case is because you just happen to be the one who has the lizardbike buddy that can navigate you to the Pokémon you need to defeat… but then, that in itself is another sign of how special and favoured by legendaries you are, isn’t it.

And actually, you’re not necessarily the only one who can reach the sparkling Pokémon! Kieran has a Dragonite, which must have been what he rode on for the flying Elite Four trial, so, in theory, he could go and deal with those sparkling Pokémon himself. But he doesn’t, because you’re already doing it anyway, and he doesn’t feel worthy of taking the spotlight from you. (Or, he could ask to join you on your lizard buddy as you head over there, but ha, even less chance he’s about to do that.)

One bit of optional dialogue Kieran has during this part is insisting that he could totally make quick work of those sparkling Pokémon if only they weren’t so far away. This is very true… but the fact that he never tries to do so despite actually having the ability to reach them himself tells us that his words are just desperate posturing that he doesn’t truly believe. He can’t even register the part where he genuinely has a really strong team of Pokémon that he worked hard to train, because he did all of that for the sole purpose of beating you, and since he couldn’t manage that, that means that none of it matters and he’s just useless.

Then there’s the moment near the end where Carmine tells Kieran it’s his turn to call out to you to let you know the path opened up, but Kieran miserably assumes you’d prefer to hear it from her instead. (As if who tells you that even makes any difference!) Carmine did this to try and begin bridging the gap between you, and she forces him to do it anyway despite his protest, but then when she asks if he’s got anything more to say to you, he just says no. He still doesn’t feel like he’s worthy of even interacting with you in any way at all, still convinced he must be nothing to you.

There’s a heartbreaking hypocrisy to this, too, since he knows you’re perfectly okay interacting with Carmine, and it’s not like she’s ever been able to beat you in battle either. But… but that’s different, right, because she’s already someone who’s strong and cool and worthy of your friendship. In Kieran’s head, he is the single person in the world who is so automatically, inherently worthless that he needs to prove his strength before he is allowed to Matter to you or to anybody.

Outburst at the crystal

As the group reaches the final chamber, Kieran rushes ahead into it and begins pulling at the crystal the moment he figures it even might be Terapagos, because he is so desperate not to lose this chance to anybody else (meaning you). In his urgency, completely oblivious to how messed-up this sentiment is, he blurts out that this’ll mean he can finally beat you, at which Carmine, who failed to realise this was still the reason he was doing all this until now, tries to call him out on it—

—And Kieran can’t stand that; he can’t let her try and take this away from him too on top of everything else, because this feels like the one remaining chance he’ll ever get to still have something and matter next to you. So in a kneejerk attempt to defend why he needs this, everything comes tumbling out. All of those feelings about how you have everything he’s ever wanted, and he has nothing, how he trained so so hard but even that ended up worthless because he still lost to you in the end, so this is all he has left.

(Well, it’s not quite everything that comes spilling out of Kieran here. He doesn’t say anything about why he feels he needs to beat you, and how that’ll totally magically solve everything for him – because there is no actual logic behind that part. There’s nothing he can say to make that make sense, and on some level he must be aware of that, must know it doesn’t, really. But if he admits that, admits that there really isn’t any way at all to escape from his crushing inferiority, then he’ll have nothing left whatsoever, which he cannot bear.)

Hearing Kieran’s outburst about how worthless he feels, Carmine tries to put in a good word for him about how he’s tried his best too – which is good! That’s exactly the kind of thing he needs to hear; she’s finally getting it! But unfortunately, because she herself is one of Kieran’s sore points, in regards to how you magically went and befriended her, he doesn’t properly register what she’s saying. Hearing her speak at all just triggers that thought and spurs him into venting about that, too.

His hang-ups with you befriending Carmine are interestingly reversed from how they appeared to be in Teal Mask. Back then, he seemed more low-key jealous that she might have been trying to take you, his first ever friend, away from him. But now (now that he’s convinced that you were never really his friend in the first place), it’s all twisted around into yet another sign of how perfect you are, because you managed to win over even someone as prickly and abrasive as his sister so remarkably fast. (Which, of course, has less to do with you than it has to do with the fact that Carmine’s actually a lot softer at heart than Kieran realises.)

He’s also maybe thinking about Drayton here, about the one time Drayton claimed in the cafeteria that you and he were “already tight”. That was a massive exaggeration, but no doubt Kieran filed that away as another person – someone else he finds infuriating and impossible to get along with – that you instantly won over with your magical friendship powers because of course you did. And on top of that, he’s bound to be thinking about his recent realisation that you came to Area Zero last time with your friends, plural, because of course you’d already got a bunch of friends, you’re perfect, you can do anything you want, you can be friends with anyone!

And yet – even as Kieran says this, it is objectively not true. Because you’re not friends with him right now! No amount of your amazing protagonist powers has been able to cut through his pile of issues and properly befriend him, even though you want to, because you are in fact not perfect in the slightest and have no idea what to say to get through to him and help him! But of course Kieran doesn’t realise this contradiction in what he’s saying – he's worthless, so the fact that you’re not friends with him is obviously just because you never wanted to be.

Speaking of you not being perfect, this moment here in which Kieran outright voices his jealousy and sense of inferiority compared to you is bound to be the first moment in which you, the player character, actually begin to realise that this has been his problem this whole time. (And, to be fair to your poor socially-oblivious avatar, it really wasn’t very apparent from their perspective until now! The only time Kieran ever gave any real explicit indication of his issues around you before was in Teal Mask, after the third battle when he lamented that “it’s because I’m weak” – but at the time, the player character wasn’t aware (like we the players were) that he knew they’d lied to him, so they couldn’t have known he was thinking about that. They probably just chalked his reaction down to him taking the lost battle particularly hard. The lie reveal was messy but seemed to work itself out; he was obviously upset when you caught Ogerpon but appeared to accept it well enough in the moment – then all of a sudden he showed up later being really determined to beat you for some reason??? Why.)

Another thing I love about this moment is the animation of Kieran desperately pulling at Terapagos’s crystal, the way he has to pause to catch his breath in between each huge tug, which really gets across that he is giving this every ounce of his strength. And that still isn’t enough, because it never is – he’s always too weak to be able to grasp even one thing for himself, but he is never ever going to stop trying no matter how impossible it seems.

(And I wonder if it’s going through his mind as he does this that surely this wouldn’t be nearly so hard for you. Like this is a sword-in-the-stone kind of thing, in which Terapagos would slide out smoothly like butter for someone who’s truly worthy of it, while a weakling like him is stuck hopelessly yanking on it with everything he has and just making himself look pathetic, because of course he doesn’t deserve this.)

Catching Terapagos

Except it turns out Kieran can manage to pull out the crystal after all, doing so with such force that he accidentally flings it halfway across the cavern to land between you and him. He rushes to pick it up before anyone else can, because this is his and he can’t let anyone take it from him, he can’t—

But then Terapagos wakes up, pops out of the crystal that serves as its shell… and it’s facing you. It doesn’t even see or acknowledge Kieran at all. It looks up at you adorably, like a baby imprinting on the first thing it sees, taking a few steps towards its new friend…?

(this has to be such an aching reminder of the way Ogerpon so quickly came to adore you and didn’t care about him, all compressed into one single agonising moment, ouch)

…This was not Terapagos choosing you over Kieran in any meaningful way. Kieran was behind it, such that it literally couldn’t see him and didn’t even know he existed. All it was doing was latching onto the first person it saw, which was you, because – completely by chance – it happened to wake up facing you and not him. If it’d woken up facing Kieran, it’d have seen and approached him in exactly the same way. Terapagos’s dormant crystal form is symmetrical; Kieran had no way to know which end was the head and which was the tail until it popped out.

This was, almost literally, a fucking coin flip. Only the coin was a magical crystal turtle and the winner was whoever “heads” landed facing towards.

(But then, luck has always chosen you over Kieran, too, hasn’t it?)

And so, seeing this happen to him yet again, seeing his one last chance of maybe finally having something and mattering about to be casually snatched away by you, like always, because the universe always gives you everything he wants… Kieran makes an awful, desperate split-second decision and throws the Master Ball. Because of course he does. It’s not right; it’s not fair on Terapagos – but it is so achingly understandable why Kieran would be driven to do this in this moment. The whole thing was so cruelly, rudely unfortunate. This poor kid just wants so badly to have something, to have anything at all where he’s not immediately overshadowed and upstaged by you.

(Also, shout-outs to the narrative cleverness of quietly establishing that BB Champions get given Master Balls, by the game giving you one when you beat Kieran, such that you think nothing of it at the time but can realise right away in this moment where Kieran got his from.)

Still, it’s notable how quickly Kieran was able to pull out the Master Ball, which suggests he’d had it ready near the top of his bag. It must have crossed his mind on the way here that surely, you’re going to somehow magically sway Terapagos to join you – or that it’ll just shun him, because earning a legendary’s respect involves proving one’s strength, and he’s still so weak – such that he felt he might need a way to guarantee it would become his, no matter what.

But even then, I do want to believe that Kieran wouldn’t necessarily have used the Master Ball if he hadn’t felt like he had no other option, and that he wanted to at least try to get Terapagos to join him willingly, like trainers are supposed to do. If he’d won the turtle-coin flip and it had woken up facing him, maybe he’d have been able to do so! But of course he didn’t get to have that.

(It’s kind of a shame that the characters never discuss the dodginess of catching a Pokémon from behind in a Master Ball, how that gave poor Terapagos no choice in the matter like Pokémon are supposed to have when they join a trainer. But then, pointing out that Master Balls are inherently ethically dubious gets awkward considering that the player can freely use them on anything they like, so the game was probably never going to go there. You are too silent-protagonist and Briar is too irresponsible-adult to comment on it, but maybe Carmine could at least have had a brief line questioning this? But, well, at least she does express apprehension about going in to battle with a legendary Pokémon they know almost nothing about, which is also a very valid concern, considering what ends up happening.)

Trying to beat you with Terapagos

So of course, the very next thing Kieran does is challenge you to battle him with Terapagos, so that he can finally beat you. Only�� he doesn’t show anywhere near as much of that furious, fervent determination that he had for the Champion match. All that fire of his got snuffed out the moment he lost back then, and it never really came back. This isn’t the battle he’s been psyching himself up for and dedicating everything towards for months; it’s nothing but a desperate grasp at not falling apart completely. He’s kind of just… going through the motions, trying to beat you simply because it’s what he’s been clinging to all this time, and he still doesn’t know what else to do with himself if not this.

And more than anything, Kieran has to know deep down that he doesn’t truly deserve this, not after the way in which he caught Terapagos. After all, trainers are supposed to earn having strong Pokémon in their team, either by training them up from a low level themselves, or by proving their strength to a high-level Pokémon by weakening and catching it in battle. (This is why high-levelled traded Pokémon will disobey you if you don’t have enough badges – you haven’t given them a reason to respect you!) Catching a legendary from behind with a Master Ball is none of those things. Kieran has to be perfectly aware that he has not earned Terapagos’s strength in any way (just like he knew all along he’d never really be able to).

A very revealing line on this matter is that if you say you’re not ready to battle him yet, Kieran tells you, “You’d better not run away from this”. He never once implied you might run away from the Champion battle – that’d be like admitting you couldn’t win, and you’d never do that. But here, it's different, because Terapagos isn’t his strength, so even if he could beat you with it, it wouldn’t really prove anything about him. You’d be well within your rights to just refuse to indulge Kieran in this at all, and on some level, he knows that.

(…With all that said, Terapagos does obey his commands in the battle anyway. It’s sadly difficult to attribute any definitive emotions to it because it’s pretty unexpressive, but perhaps we can imagine that Terapagos is kind of just lost and confused, going along with the orders of the one who threw its ball because it’s not really sure what’s happening and battling is kind of instinctual for all Pokémon. Maybe it’s even more instinctual for Terapagos, thanks to its ability that automatically shifts it into a battle form when there’s an opponent in front of it. It doesn’t really help matters that you just sent something out to battle it without questioning things, either.)

If you manage to hit Terapagos super-effectively during the battle, Kieran scoffs that “it has a weakness? I thought this was the hidden treasure of Area Zero?!” What do you mean his super-special legendary that would let him finally definitely win this time isn’t invincible, that it’s still functionally just a regular Pokémon and it’s still possible – and not even that hard, really – for you to beat him even now.

And if you land a critical hit, oh boy: “How can you get critical hits, even at a time like this… What are you, the hero of this story?” Kieran is clearly raw with bitterness about the turtle-coin flip, about luck choosing you because you’re just so heroic, even when this was finally supposed to be his moment really seriously for real this time. It’s reminiscent of another time he compared you to a hero when you critted him, in his fourth Teal Mask battle – but back then, he said you were like the hero in “a story”, whereas here, you’re the hero of “this story”. Kieran’s realising on some level that if this were a story, you would be the hero of it, you’d deserve to win, and… wouldn’t he be the villain? Because heroes certainly do not go around throwing Master Balls at legendaries from behind.

(For the record, though? Kieran is not a villain. Stop calling him a villain, people. Not a single thing he does is outright villainous; catching Terapagos in this way is wrong, yes, but it’s an act of desperation for which his entire end goal is literally just to win a dang Pokémon battle against you. He’s barely even that much of an antagonist, if we get into that – this isn’t really a you-versus-him conflict so much as a him-versus-himself conflict that you happen to be inextricably wrapped up in.)

Kieran isn’t even that crushed when he loses this battle, just… lost and confused. He insists that “I thought if I had Terapagos, it would make me stronger,” as if catching it in a Master Ball would change anything about his strength – but really, he has to have known that wouldn’t truly be the case. And when Briar remarks that Terapagos isn’t as strong as it should be, Kieran just miserably assumes, “so it isn’t the hidden treasure?” Like, of course this was too good to be true, of course whatever Pokémon he actually managed to get his hands on was just some dud and not the real deal, because he’s never deserved to have anything worthwhile. His expression’s upset, and pleading, as he says this was meant to let him beat you, still like that’d somehow fix everything, but his desperation’s become something pitiful compared to how furious it was before. He just doesn’t know what else to do, doesn’t know how else to cope with his crushing sense of inferiority if he can’t hold onto this.

Terapagos goes berserk

The only reason Kieran even Terastallises Terapagos is pretty much because Briar tells him to, and he’s at a loss for what else to do. It’s very possible that if an actual responsible adult had been here to talk him down – or, heck, even just let Carmine talk to him, since she was trying to do so again – then he’d have finally been in a state to listen and none of the ensuing disaster would have needed to happen. But Briar’s gotta see her giant sparkle turtle, because it turns out that basically her entire character exists to facilitate Kieran’s character arc having the most dramatic climax possible, and I for one am 1000% okay with that.

Kieran looks apprehensive and afraid even as he’s just beginning to Terastallise it (no emotionless mask to cover the wince this time), perhaps because he can feel that the power from his Tera Orb is way more than it usually is and isn’t sure this is a good idea. But what else can he do? He has nothing else left – so he throws the orb anyway.

Again, Terapagos is frustratingly unexpressive, such that it’s difficult to get a sense of whether it attacking Kieran once it Terastallises is an instinctive, unconscious defence mechanism, or something more deliberate. But it’s certainly more fun to imagine it’s deliberate – that this is Terapagos lashing out from anger and fear now that it’s been given a terrifying amount of power it can’t fully handle and begins to realise, wait, no, it didn’t want this. That makes this problem distinctly more Kieran’s fault, which is a good thing for his arc. (If Terapagos’s rampage wasn’t based in its emotions in any way, then this kind of wouldn’t be Kieran’s fault at all, not really! It was significantly more on Briar that he Terastallised it, after all. Kieran’s real mistake was catching it without its consent – so it’s more narratively satisfying for this to be, in part, him facing the consequences for that.)

Either way, the important part is that Kieran is bound to feel like this is Terapagos lashing out at him because he shouldn’t have caught it. He always knew deep down that that was wrong, and now here’s the proof, because of course a strong and special legendary like that would never truly acknowledge him. And now it’s so mad at him for trying to act otherwise that it tries to kill him. (This poor kid is already clearly very sensitive to rejection in general, but, ouch, that has to have been like a stab in the gut.) This is all his fault for daring to think he deserved to have any kind of strength at all.

But then you save his life, by sending out your lizardbike friend to shield him! Which on the one hand just makes you even more of a perfect hero – but this time, your heroism is a good thing for Kieran. And, more than that… you wanted to save him. You saw him as someone worth protecting? You, actually, care about him??? (Kieran has been convinced that he’s nothing to you pretty much ever since you lied to him back in Teal Mask, but, oh, hey, maybe not…?)

Not that he has much time to process that in the heat of the moment; he’s too busy freaking out over everything such that Carmine has to be the one to tell him he should recall Terapagos. Maybe on some level he just feels like Terapagos would never listen to him if he tried, because it literally just attempted to kill him – and indeed, it fights back and breaks the Master Ball rather than go back to being his Pokémon (there’s another painful sting of rejection). Of course Kieran should never have caught it or called himself its trainer. He reflexively asks “why?” it wouldn’t come back, but he knows why. It’s because he’s worthless and deserves nothing, and he should never have tried to pretend otherwise.

Facing the gaping pit

At the start of the final battle, Kieran’s just frozen in terror at what he’s accidentally unleashed, not to mention the recent shock of nearly being killed and the knowledge that this is all his fault. (Even though, it isn’t all his fault! Briar deserves at least half the blame for this! But that doesn’t remotely occur to Kieran in the moment, because he is intrinsically the most worthless person ever, so of course all the blame should be on him.) But after a little while, the immediate terror fades, and Kieran’s left with nothing but the overwhelming feeling that he’s useless, that he can’t help anyone. It’s that vast aching pit of inferiority that’s always been there inside him, finally right at the surface.

There’s nothing he can do to run away from it any more. Ogerpon didn’t want him and chose you instead. All of his efforts to make himself stronger meant nothing in the end because he still lost to you. He never should have tried to catch Terapagos, because it never wanted him either and all he’s done is put himself and everyone else in danger. There’s just no way out.

Which means that, for the first time ever, Kieran has no choice but to finally, actually face up to and confront his terrifyingly huge inferiority complex, and begin to fight against it in a genuinely healthy way.

Maybe he wouldn’t have even tried at all if it hadn’t been for the fact that he needed to help with this battle! Shout-outs to the narrative for creating a situation in which Kieran has to help after Carmine’s one remaining Pokémon goes down, because he might otherwise never have done so.

(I love that one of the things the battle camera can do while you’re idling here is cut to Kieran and linger a moment with him, with the look of either frozen terror or miserable inferiority on his face. Even though he’s technically just a background character right now for the mechanical purposes of the battle, this moment is about him, and the devs knew it.)

And of course it takes Kieran a really long time, most of the battle, to actually find the courage to fight back! His inferiority complex is so massive, so all-encompassing, the root cause of all of the desperate, self-destructive, obsessive things he’s done to try and escape it, that of course it’s so, so terrifyingly difficult for him to actually face up to it and find the strength to try and believe that… maybe it’s just wrong.

Crucially, the single thing that does the most to trigger Kieran’s shift into courage is you – you, calling out to him, asking for his help. Hearing that you actually value his strength and need his help is exactly the kind of acknowledgement that Kieran has always desperately craved from you all along. It’s just what he needs to help him believe that, just maybe, he might actually be kinda strong and worth something after all.

But even then! Even with that, his inferiority complex does not magically vanish, because of course it doesn’t work that way! All your words do is give Kieran the courage to fight it, by holding onto the fact that you believe in him and he’s not alone. His animations here are so good; there’s tears in his eyes even as he manages to snap himself into determination, because he is still so scared and just finally being really, really brave about it!

One really lovely subtlety is that the highlight in his eyes, that little visual detail that makes a character really look alive, which was completely not there in Kieran for the entirety of Indigo Disk up until now, finally comes back in the exact moment when he finds the courage to fight. And it's neat how the game manages to re-use the same screaming animation Kieran had for the beginning of the Champion fight, with the only minor differences being the tears and that highlight in his eyes, but in this new context it communicates an entirely different kind of emotion. It’s like he’s fervently psyching himself up into believing that he is capable of doing this.

And hey, Kieran’s contribution to the battle really is pretty helpful! It’s a genuinely tough fight to the point that, no matter your level, there’s a good chance you were struggling on your own for a while, so you’re probably glad he’s here to help even just in a mechanical sense. His Hydrapple’s Supersweet Syrup ability can be useful to you as well as him, and then if it goes down, he switches to Dragonite and – because of the evasiveness drop – begins spamming near-accurate Thunders on a Terapagos who is Water-type for this final phase. Look at him go! (And another thing Hydrapple can do to support you is use Dragon Cheer, which delights me, because it’s Kieran deciding that actually he’s okay with you getting all the critical hits after all. Aww.)

Once Terapagos is defeated, if you try to not catch it, Kieran will tell you that you need to do it, that “it has to be you, not me!” It’s so lovely that there’s not a hint of bitterness to him here as he says this, just perfectly comfortably accepting it, because he never really wanted Terapagos anyway and he knows it’ll be happier with you, and that’s all that matters. Even if you don’t get that line, his encouragement of you as you go for a Pokéball is more than enough to communicate the fact that he’s okay with you doing this. And Kieran’s smiling again, cheering you on with that same animation of his from back in Teal Mask when he was super excited to watch you battle his sister! This is the excitable, battle-loving kid he always was and finally is once more! His smile is even more adorable now without his hair obscuring half of it, too.

Letting it go

In the end, Kieran’s finally able to let things go thanks to multiple factors brought about by what happened in Area Zero. There’s the part where he spent the adventure being just a little bit closer to his normal self, letting him realise that he misses being like that and that maybe there was nothing inherently bad or weak about those parts of him at all. There’s the way that Terapagos going berserk served as a very stark representation of how his obsession with strength only ends up hurting himself and everyone around him, which must have helped him see that his behaviour leading up to this was doing the same kind of thing and he can’t go back to that.

And, perhaps most importantly, you acknowledged his strength by calling out for him to help you against Terapagos, which is what Kieran really needed the most all along. By joining you in the battle, he’s finally begun to face his inferiority complex, to shoot down the conviction in his mind that he’s useless and weak and can’t do anything, and prove to himself that he’s capable of confronting scary things after all, even including his own mistakes.

I do have another small writing nitpick about his dialogue in the post-battle scene, in that I don’t quite agree with his progression from “I just don’t have it in me to be like you” straight to “finally I can let it go”. Kieran was always aware of the former, deep down, but knowing that never did anything but make him latch desperately onto trying to prove that wrong no matter how impossible it felt. Meanwhile, the latter implies that he’s always consciously wanted to let it go and just somehow couldn’t despite that, which isn’t quite it either.

Instead, I think it’d work if he first went from how he can’t ever be like you into “I guess I have to just let it go”, and then from there into “Yeah… finally I can let it go”. Feeling like he simply has no choice but to let go at first, and only from there would he reflect and realise that actually, he can now, and maybe a part of him had always kind of wanted to after all.

Delightfully, as Kieran begrudgingly accepts that he can’t ever be like you, you finally get a dialogue option that lets you tell him that he’s strong and cool and worth something as he is!!! It seems like it really did take you hearing his inferiority complex directly from him in order for you to realise that this was something he needed to hear. He reflexively tries to downplay your compliment, like he didn’t really do anything impressive at all just now, because he still instinctively feels that way about himself – again, his inferiority complex has not just magically vanished, because it doesn’t work like that! – but hearing otherwise from you of all people has to be an immense help for him in fighting against it.

And it’s this that sets Kieran off crying, from that overwhelmingly positive emotion that you think he’s really cool, aww. This seems to break something of an emotional dam for him, letting him just have a good long cry about all of it, which, yes, he has so many emotions he’s needed to let out for so long now and it is good and healthy that he’s finally able to do so! (I wish this part was better animated, alas – but believe me, I am imagining him having such a big long cathartic cry even if the game isn’t managing to adequately show it.)

Then there’s the final scene! It’s so brave of Kieran to have resolved to apologise and make amends for everything he did wrong. That is scary as hell and comes with a huge risk of massive painful criticism and rejection, but he’s doing it anyway because he wants to do the right thing. He is such a good kid at heart despite his massive issues having driven him into several big mistakes.

Now that Kieran’s returned to something resembling his old self, his anxious body language from before is back – he’s barely making eye contact with you as he speaks, his head low, instinctively trying to hide his face behind the one bit of hair he still has hanging down. But nonetheless, you can tell that he’s making an effort to fight that and push himself to be just a little bit more assertive than he was able to be before all this. As he asks if you two can be friends again, he’s grimacing, already braced for rejection, hesitating then blurting out all of it in one big go before he changes his mind – there’s still a very significant part of him convinced that you’d just never want that and he doesn’t even have the right to ask. But at least he’s now able to realise that said part is probably wrong and find the courage to ask anyway! Because he wants this, and he deserves to at least try and grasp good things for himself!

And of course you still want to be his friend, because you basically always were anyway from your perspective, and Kieran is so adorably happy to have this second chance, and I am so delighted that the two of you are able to be friends again like you always should have been all along, aaaa. I could not be more proud of my boy.

(Well, I could go into a lot more detail about just how proud of and happy I am for Kieran thanks to all of his scenes in the epilogue and postgame. But that’s enough of its own separate Thing that it ought to get its own post! So hold on for that; I’m not quite done having So Many Feelings about this boy just yet. Aaand here it is!)

#pokemon #pokemon sv #pokemon scarlet and violet #the indigo disk #the hidden treasure of area zero #pokemon kieran #kieran pokemon #trainer kieran #rival kieran #champion kieran #character analysis #ramble #my buttons #friends

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red-hot-kick · 1 year ago

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Theory: Ryuji was popular, before.

I'm not entirely sure if anyone has really talked about this but I maintain my interpretation that, in the canon of Persona 5, Ryuji used to be very (or at least moderately) popular prior to the events of the story.

This is something I've gotten into before when talking to friends who like the game and the character, but I haven't really considered writing it down until now. The main argument I have is based on three things:

Things Ryuji alluded to in canon (but no one believed him on)

The deliberate choice of making him a track athlete

Typecasting for voice actors

1: "There were girls all over me!"

I don't really have the time to go on a deep dive through all the instances in which he hints at his reputation before the Kamoshida incident, but I think the most clear-cut representation of this was during the scene where he and Ann spend the day with Futaba during her post-palace social rehabilitation:

So here's the thing...I don't think he's lying about this. Nobody in the room would be that impressed to find out whether Ryuji was popular since they are already friends (or in Mona's case, he really just doesn't care), so it wouldn't make sense for him to lie.

Regarding everyone's reactions though, here's my impression: Ann was simply not aware of what was going on with the track team, being predominantly focused on dealing with rumors, her friendship with Shiho, and her modeling career (and eventually Kamoshida's advances once he started doing that shit) and she mentions a few times that she and Ryuji weren't actually close before joining the PT; they were just in the same class in middle school. Futaba hasn't interacted with anyone her age in years and isn't the most reliable source when it comes to what people generally find attractive; just because she doesn't have any interest in Ryuji doesn't mean that nobody her age would. And Morgana is a cat that brags constantly about how cool he is, so he shouldn't be throwing rocks.

There are many other times in the game when you get little glimpses of his social savvy, and from my understanding of Royal (I'm an OG vanilla P5 player and haven't done 3rd-semester yet, so don't kill me) when the track team returns to "how it was", he is getting along extremely well with everyone. Not only was he the team's ace: this kid was also expected to become the captain by his senior year (as briefly mentioned when he bumps into his former senpai at the gym, iirc). That's huge! If his team held him in such high regard, then the general student body of Shujin surely had a similar opinion. This brings me to my next point:

2: Girls like boys that run fast(???)

This is honestly something that baffles me. It's also really difficult for me to substantiate; any source material on this is obviously in Japanese and if I could find any of it, I sure as hell can't read it. The only English-language source I know of I cannot find anymore; I think it was an old Tofugu article? However. If you've watched any romance anime set in a high school during the last 20 years, you might have seen this trope at some point: the school sports festival is happening, and the relay race is kind of a huge deal (it's the final event! a make-or-break moment for the class!). The boy thinks to himself "If I win this race, I'll be able to win her heart/ask her out/etc." Low-stakes drama ensues. Maybe a confession happens.

This is (from what I've been told) based on a long-standing trend of girls and women self-reporting in surveys about how, oftentimes, their crushes in junior or senior high school were simply "the boy who ran the fastest in the races". I have no idea what this means in a broader cultural context. It makes no goddamn sense to me at all. Do not cite me on this. But I think it's worth keeping in mind, even if it's almost entirely speculative (and possibly outdated) information. And even if it's just based on rumors, don't you think it's pretty in-character for Ryuji to go for a track scholarship—despite being adept at other sports like baseball and football/soccer, as mentioned in P5 and P5D—because he was aware of the potential of being more popular with girls? Of course, his priority would be getting the scholarship and paying his way through school to lighten his mother's burden, but hey, getting a girlfriend on the way up wouldn't be half bad!

I think this could also inform us as to why Kamoshida (as a predator who wanted attention from high school girls) felt so threatened by the track team in particular, and why he felt a need to specifically knock Ryuji down a peg and sought out a weakness to do so (as opposed to targeting any of the probably just-as-popular boys on the many other athletic teams and clubs in the school). Just some food for thought on this one! Also, if anyone can find a source or has any insight on the relay race thing, please share. I am so confused about it.

3: Typecasting

So this is something that you really only notice if you are very into keeping up with seiyuu in Japan. I am not one of those people. But I do have some favorite voice actors! One of these being Mamoru Miyano.

So I freakin' love this dude. He's voiced a lot of my favorite characters, sings incredibly well, and has an unreal sense of comedy. He's stated in interviews that his acting inspiration is Jim Carrey, and let me tell you: it shows. He is also quite consistently typecast into certain roles, predominantly as princely pretty-boy types, Coolguys, or complete fucking nutcases. Sometimes all three at the same time (shoutout to my boy Ling FMA!)

ATLUS definitely cast him for P5 because of his comedic chops. But I think they also cast him because having him voice someone like Ryuji is a great way to subvert expectations for the player. I think it's supposed to give you whiplash—"what do you mean the voice of LIGHT FUCKING YAGAMI is coming out of this guy's mouth?" "why does the delinquent character sound like king of the host club Tamaki Suou?" "isn't that Rin Matsuoka's voice?" etc. etc. etc.

(here's a quick list, just to really get the idea across. maybe you recognize a few.)

This is obviously a non-comprehensive list, but something that a lot of the characters he's voiced over the years have in common is that they were considered cool, handsome, or popular. Not just for fans, but within the canon of their stories! So...what does that mean? What does that say about how we should see Ryuji?

I think players are supposed to expect that he will fall into one of those categories too, and then be surprised to find that it's not the case—that he's been isolated and made bitter and resigned by what happened to him the year before.

Speaking of his tone, I think it's very telling that Ryuji actually forgets to keep up the delinquent act a lot in the original JP audio, which unfortunately doesn't really carry over in the ENG translation. The delivery of his JP lines sounds a bit more subdued in comparison too—yeah he's got a lot of energy and is very hotheaded, but when he gets to talking about serious shit, he sounds a lot more regretful and melancholy as opposed to the EN delivery which depicts him as more resentful and outwardly angry. I think before Shit Went Down, he probably had the Coolguy vibe. Still a bit of a rowdy idiot and a showoff, but I think he probably came across to most people as a very friendly, sincere, and popular guy.

So yeah, the girls probably were all over him, at least for a short while.

#persona 5 #ryuji sakamoto #character analysis #LONGASS POST SORRY #I JUST REALLY LIKE HIM AND WANTED TO THINK MY THOUGHTS FOR A WHILE #pita.txt

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starryeyedcas · 5 months ago

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Every Destiel Fic I’ve Ever Read [WIP]

Let’s do it! I took this list directly from my twitter

I’m not really going to post my ratings and stuff and I’m not going to copy what I said verbatim because as I grow older my opinions always change and every fic deserves love regardless of what some stranger on the internet thinks! Check these out if you need something new to read :)

Also, side note: A lot of the fics I tend to read are either non-canon or pre S10. If your looking for canon type, recent fics this will not be a list for you and I apologize :(

Also pt. 2: Some of the fics that I have listed on my twitter are no longer available so I have decided to not list them here. It’s very sad because there were some really good ones! Regardless, I’m still trying to keep this list as up to date as I possibly can when it comes to my reading ventures. Either way, I hope you enjoy these fics as much as I do <3

1. NINETY ONE WHISKEY

By komodobits, 401,193 words (not counting other fics in the series)

Please, please, please! Read this if you haven’t yet!! It’s a slow burn, World War II based fic and it’s my absolute favorite fic of all time. In fact I think it may be my favorite story of all time!! I come back to this fic always. If I’m sad, I read it. If I’m happy, I read it. I’ve read it probably 4 or 5 times at this point and it always holds up. I will say though, IT WILL MAKE YOU CRY. Dean and Cas are written VERY well, in fact every character in this fic are written to perfection. You find yourself growing attachments to side characters that you may have even forgotten existed in the show. I seriously cannot recommend this one enough. You will not regret it.

2. A BRIEF GLIMPSE

By cloudyjenn, 12,356 words

I’ll be honest, this one is special for me. This was the very first Destiel fic I ever read back in 2014. That being said, I may be a little biased towards it but I do genuinely think that it’s very cute. It’s a Slice-of-Life esque story with light supernatural happenings; where Castiel is in high school and has a very big crush on his best friend, Sam Winchester. Things start to go awry when Sam invites Cas to a carnival. I won’t spoil too much though! If you want a quick read with some fluff, definitely read this one.

3. SMELLS LIKE ROSES

By unknown :(, 53,828 words

Uhoh! A Djinn fic! I remember this one just hurting me so much. Dean is living his dream life. Everything around him is perfect and he’s mysteriously very happy. When you get to the end of this fic, holy cow the heartbreak. It’s written very well, you obviously can’t go wrong with a fic that slightly follows canon. I really like this one and I might reread it again soon but I cannot stress enough how much it hurts! Stay safe out there.

4. NOT ALL THE WAY THROUGH

By Tracy, around 4,700 words

Shorter fic based around s5 episodes 3 and 4. This one is good but it’s also very painful. I think I like fics that hurt me lol. There are some warnings I want to state! This fic features substance abuse, non con, mentions of torture and A CHARACTER DEATH so please be careful! This is told through Castiel’s perspective and all the summary says is “Castiel’s new life begins and ends with Dean.” So I will leave it at that. (Also as a side note whenever I think of this fic I think of the song ‘And So it Goes’ by Billy Joel. Listen to that while reading and you are sure to shed some tears. Stay safe friends xx)

5. PAINTED ANGELS

By WinnJennster, 105,637 words

This one used to be really popular, so it’s likely many of you have already read it. Either way I will still recommend it. It’s a nice little “reunited” type fic in which Cas is an author and Dean is a painter. I will say, however, that the angst in this fic is HEAVY. Personally, I’m not huge into giant angsty fics like this, or maybe the type of angst portrayed in this one. I just remember feeling a little frustrated by it. YET, this fic has a lot of good memorable moments with some fluff sprinkled throughout. If you love angst, this is the fic for you. WARNING though, you need an AO3 account to read this fic. If you’re not already logged in, you’re out of luck.

6. TWIST AND SHOUT

By Gabriel and standbyme, 97,556 words

Who are we kidding?? Everyone on this website KNOWS this fic. You all could probably recount it backwards, forwards, sideways, upside down. Who knows. All we know is that this fic is a capital S-A-D. When I was in high school, I LOVED this fic. I adored it, no matter how much it made me cry. Because YES there is a MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. And NO it’s not FUN. Can I be honest? After rereading it, I feel as if Cas and Dean are out of character! Doesn’t mean it’s a bad story, absolutely not. It’s beautiful! I think it’s wonderful and obviously I recommend it. But you could change the names of the boys and you wouldn’t even know its based off two characters from Supernatural. This is my hill and I will gladly die on it. Read it if you dare, but remember to beware OOooOOoooOo (another side note: I had to go to the fic to get the link for this post and I swear to God my eyes watered when I read that first sentence. I HATE and I LOVE this fic all at the same time.)

7. SMOKE IN THE MIRROR

By letters_of_stars, 52,327 words

Oh shoot! Dean is an artist and he needs a nude model!! Who do you think is gonna take the bait?!?! In all seriousness though, I really adore this one. YES Castiel is nude and YES Dean is painting him but if you’re expecting smut right from the get go you are mistaken! I wanna say this is another slow burn?? But it has also been a while since I’ve read it. I just remember liking this one a lot. In my original rating, I gave it a 5/5 so that’s gotta mean something. Another little slice of life with a lot of good moments. Check it out!

8. A HOME BENEATH THE STARS

By CheshireMoon, 71,240 words

Hi, it’s me again. The girl who likes fics that rip her heart to SHREDS. I’m gonna be about as vague as can about this one because boy did that ending catch me off guard when I first read it. So Dean is homeless, right? And Cas is a kind hearted, Good Samaritan, astronomer. When the two meet Dean’s life changes… for the better… I’m gonna leave it at that. You could be ignorant like me and skip over the warnings to this fic and just leave it to good will and faith that this fic will leave you happy and giggly. Or you could do yourself a favor and know what’s coming but not know when it happens. Either way, I still recommend this one. I really like it, just make sure you have a fluff fest fic waiting for you on the other side.

9. THE FACE OF HEAVEN

By orange_crushed, 9,772 words

This one is short and so so sweet. Another type of slice-of-life where Dean is just a gay bartender living his best gay bartending life when he suddenly comes across a fallen star whose name is Castiel. It’s very unique and I love it so much. In my original opinion of this fic I said I didn’t like the formatting? And I think what I meant to say is, I don’t like reading long paragraphs but the formatting to this fic is perfectly fine lol. Still a fun little read and it’s pretty fluffy!

10. SO MUCH TANGLED THREAD

By imogenbynight, 37,428 words

Holy crap! Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES. It’s like, Ninety One Whiskey almost, except there’s time travel, and supernatural happenings, and OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS FIC. It’s ends pretty quick but it’s still so so so good. Please read it, show it some love. I think about this one from time to time and I still smile. Much like with Painted Angels, you need an account to read this one. So make sure you’re logged in! If you don’t have an account you best get that invitation fr.

11. DIAMOND STAR HALO

By had, 4,924 words

Just pure fluff told from Sam Winchester’s perspective. I kind of have a soft spot for fics told from a third party perspective because it’s like they’re seeing Dean and Cas how WE see Dean and Cas and it makes me all giddy, I dunno. This is a good short read and you should definitely read it after reading something really sad and heart wrenching!

12. CINDERWINGS

By bendingsignpost, 181,619 words

STOP!! I love this fic!! It’s a Cinderella type story, there’s a masquerade ball, Dean is a PRINCE. Very fantasy with supernatural elements. It’s WONDERFUL. The way the author writes about the world through Castiel’s perspective is super entertaining and funny and I love the misunderstandings that happen within the story. If you love fantasy and monarchy and magic and parties, this is definitely a fic for you.

13. ONE WHITE LIE

By komodobits, 11.179 words

I can’t lie, komodobits is my favorite fic author and so I am a little biased towards their stories. This one is no exception. It’s hilarious, lighthearted, and fluffy. The range that this author has with their fics amazes and horrifies me. How can one person have that much talent? I have no idea. This is just a komodobits appreciation post, you got me. Anywho, Castiel tells a small lie to the Winchester brothers and they mess with him. Not based in canon, a very slice-of-life fic. I love it, please check it out.

14. FORGET-ME-NOT BLUES

By noangelsinthegarrison, 68,689 words

Ahhh I remember this one. Another slice-of-life, have you noticed a pattern? Sam and Jess are getting married! Woohoo! Of course Dean is in the wedding but so is Castiel, someone Dean has history with……….. Basically there’s misunderstandings and mutual pining and it’s fun. It’s got all sorts of romcom elements with just a dash of angst!

15. MUSCLE MEMORY

By komodobits, 18,961 words

Give me a story that’s loosely based off of 50 First Dates and written by my favorite fic author and suddenly I’m in Heaven. I’m a really big fan of movie AU’s, especially well written and this one is no exception. It’s kind of sad though, but if you’ve seen 50 First Dates then you should expect that. Even if you aren’t a fan of movie AU’s, I would still suggest giving this one a read.

16. KIND OF A FOREVER DEAL

By komodobits, 111,460 words

STOP LOOKING AT ME. YOU THINK IM PUTTING TOO MANY FICS BY THE SAME AUTHOR HERE? WELL YOU LISTEN TO ME PAL, THIS WON’T BE THE LAST ONE EITHER!! Ahem, this fic is awesome and sort of a fan favorite already!! Slice-of-life, teenaged angst, summer camp, LoVe, it’s amazing! The way that the author wrote the friendship between Dean, Cas, Jo, and Victor has me in tears. Very wholesome and heart wrenching, highly recommend!

17. IMPERFECT PROPOSALS

By Fallen_Angel_Meg, 111,082 words

Another movie AU! This is loosely based off The Proposal and filled with fluff! You really don’t see a whole lot of crossover fics that are long like this one, but it’s fun to read and you’ll probably fly through it just like I did. Do you like The Proposal? No? Read it anyways xx

18. CHECKED OUT

By whelvenwinge, 27,127 words

Okay this one, is really good. Like really good. It comes complete with original artwork and fantastic storytelling. Castiel is a librarian and he really despises Dean Winchester, an acclaimed author. It’s sooooo good, I cannot stress enough how much I think you should read this. And you’ll get really pretty pictures to look at! The ending is great, the beginning is great, it’s just wonderful. So what are you waiting for? Run along now and read it!

19. SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS

By habitatfordeanwinchester, 2,593

This one is just cute. It’s short and fluffy. Imagine Castiel working at a Chipotle and getting special instructions on a mobile order. Can you guess who they’re from? If you’re sad and need a pick me up, just read this one. It’s so cute!

20. C-S-T-L

By komodobits, 90,377

It has been a really long time since I read this one. But I know that I loved every second of it and I was crying during the majority of it. Either because I had just got done reading 91w or because the story itself made me emotional. Either way it’s a fantastic read! Castiel is an android and Dean is tasked with adding him to their army for the WAR. This fic has wonderful world building, really in-depth character exploration, and the ANGST. I’m probably going to read this one again sometime soon~ JOIN MEEEEE

#destiel #deancas #Dean Winchester #Castiel #supernatural #spn #destiel fic #destiel fic rec #fic rec #fanfic #fanfiction #ninety one whiskey #twist and shout #fic review #Sam Winchester #casdean #deastiel

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theyanderespecialist · 1 year ago

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The Deal (Scenario) Yanderes Asmodeus/Fizzarolli X GN Blitzo Reader (Helluva Boss)

[Hello, I am finally getting around to this one! I hope that you all enjoy this chapter! It is after Fizz quits and How Ozzie and Fizz's relationship changes. Maybe a little of that episode! So good luck! I hope that you all enjoy this.

Disclaimer: You take the place of a Gender Neutral Listener

Disclaimer 2: Fizz and Ozzie are a canon couple, they are not yandere in canon. This is just for fun and not to be taken seriously. Simping for fictional characters and yanderes is fine. Just do not be illegal or gross about it. Yanderes are not ideal partners to have in real life. Also, remember to separate fiction from reality and headcanon from canon.

(Yanderes Asmodeus/Fizzarolli)

(No One's POV)

Fizz had a crush on (Name) when they were kids. They were just such sweet Imps. Then the accident happened and a huge misunderstanding came from it. For over a decade he has hated one of the loves of his life. He mourned that he could have been with (Name). When Fizz learned the truth, that (Name) had wanted to see. That they do care. It made his heart ache. Also, it reminded him that they were dating Stolas kind of. That left him bitter and angry.

He gets ready for his date with Ozzie and then hears Ozzie come in.

"Why are you upset Froggy?" Ozzie asks him.

"well you know how I used to have feelings for (Name)...?" Fizz asks. "After they saved me... These feelings reared their head again... I love you so much Oz... It is just hard."

Ozzie pulls Fizz close. "It is okay Fizzy," Ozzie says. "I can tell why you love them, they are quite something."

Fizz stops and looks at him. "Oz? Are you attracted to them?" Fizz asks curiously.

"Yes, they are physically attractive, but it is more so that they saved you~ That they would never have hurt you like that, seeing them shoot your stalker~ That was kind of hot~," Ozzie says and kisses down Fizz's neck. "If you want, we could have them~ Keep them as our lovers ~"

"We could?" Fizz asks, this was the best situation that they could get in.

"We could, I still have to give them one of my crystals," Ozzie says. "Maybe we can even make a deal with them~ Make them ours, and ours alone~"

Fizz grins, that would be the best of both worlds. He would have (Name) and Ozzie, both of them being the loves of his life and he would never EVER let go of (Name) again. They belong to them~

-Small Time Skip; Brought to you by: Ozzie being an Evil Little Fuck-

(Name) was eating cheese and having a good time. When their phone rings, they answer it. "Hello?" They ask around a mouthful of cheese. "What do you need?"

"(Name)!" An excited Fizz says. "Since we are friends again, I thought I could have you over for dinner. You know, just me, you, and Ozzie."

"Okay?" (Name) draws out. "I mean I will not say no to a free meal, just is it you cooking or the lusty king? Last time I checked you burn water when cooking."

Fizz blushes. "Yes, Ozzie will be cooking," He confirms.

"Okay then, I won't say no to a good meal, and my daughter is out with Tex and the Queen Bee. She won't be back until Monday." (Name) says and starts to put on their shoes. "So I guess I am all yours!"

Fizz smirks happily, Yes, (Name). You are all Mine~ "That is great, we will pick you up in a few."

"Okie doki!" (Name) says and eats the last bit of cheese.

They wonder what prompted this. They shrug, whatever a free meal is a free meal. Soon Ozzie and Fizz are there and (Name) gets in with them. They drove down to Lust, (Name) talked to Fizz, they could tell that he was nervous. Was it because he was on edge because of the dinner? It was his idea, not (Name's).

They got up to the penthouse and there was a candlelit dinner. Wait what was going on?

"Were you guys planning a romantic date before inviting me?" (Name) asks.

"Kind of. The romantic date is for you, (Name)." Fizz says and (Name's) face goes a bright red. Oh boy!

"Hehe, oh that is a lot!" They laugh. "What does that mean, you two want a threesome."

Ozzie pulls out a chair for (Name) and they sit down.

"thank you."

"Anything for you," Ozzie says.

Fizz pulls out a box that looks oddly enough like an engagement box.

"We both want you, (Name)," Fizz says. "We do, really bad, but we know at this time you are bonded to Stolas, Ozzie can break that bind and then you will be free. To be with us."

(Name) takes the box and opens it, there is a crystal to have access to the human world. "Oh... Frick." They could not even swear, this is a lot.

They also have feelings for Stolas.

"Stolas cannot love you like we can," Ozzie says. "He is using you for his gain, he made a contract with you, so you will have to fuck him."

(Name) bites their lip.

"But we," Fizz adds. "We love you so much, I always have loved you, from since we were kids. You are just the perfect most wonderful darling."

"Fizz is right, why be with Stolas, who is not good enough for you, who does not appreciate you and does not stand by your side?" Ozzie asks, both were manipulating (Name's) emotional state.

"I-"

"Let us love you." fizz says and kisses them. "Let us show you how much you mean to us~"

(Name) felt their eyes tear up and they slowly kissed back Fizz. Fuck it was always what they wanted.

Fizz pulls away, this is it (Name) is almost their Darling.

"So what do you say, baby?" Ozzie asks.

"Alright." (Name) agrees it felt nice for someone to say they wanted them, and not ask for anything in return. (Name) felt loved and it made them feel good.

(Name) made the deal and they did not know that they just swore themselves to the Sin of Lust and His Imp lover, forever!

[YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS another Chapter is done! I hope that you all enjoyed this, and stay sexy, all of my sexy muffins!]

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foxbinnstuff · 13 days ago

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back with my crackship bullshit so soon holy crap! Anyways heres a ToriSaiKai ramble cuz my brains so dead

THIS MOSTLY GOES INTO TORIKAI AND THEIR FUNNY LITTLE DYNAMIC BE WARNED THIS IS LONG AND MIGHT BE OUT OF CHARACTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To me, ToriSaiKai doesn’t work that well as a full on relationship, it’d be so fucked 😭 its more of a “imagine them crushing on each other/imagine how messy it’d be if they dated for a couple months” so kinda like more like a crazy fling than anything

Toritsuka would probably find himself crushing on Saiki first cuz he can legit transform into a girl and all that, but thats been done 100 times so you get the jist :3 Tori’s brain works in a sort of “if I’m getting something from you, I’ll stay around” way so he’s being clingy to Saiki and doing extra favors for him and all that stuff because he just wants Saiki to date him at least once as Kusuko, which is far from a promise, so why is he clinging around Saiki and doing extra things for him if it doesn’t get him Kusuko in return? (he’s gay for Saiki and doesn’t realize yet) So he continues flattering Saiki and all that woth the excuse of Saiki’s shapeshifting. Why not just any other girl? Because Kusuko is canonically really really attractive and I don’t think the perv would let go of that for weeks to even months. But where does Kaido come in? Well, Kaido’s always kinda hanging around Nendo, Saiki and Kuboyasu with a huge emphasis on Saiki and Kuboyasu since he looks up to them so much, and heck you could even say “fuck it” and add Kubo into the poly crackship lol anyway, so in one way or another Kaido realizes he has more than just friendly feelings for Saiki but is in super denial! He starts feeling jealous over Tori doing all these favors and even flirting with Saiki, so Kaido’s like being protective and stuff in his own little ways going “Saiki, Toritsukas apart of the dark reunion! We need to release our powers on him!” very loudly and Saiki rolls his eyes, silently agreeing with Kaido and playing into it a little in his mind cuz yeah, maybe he should ‘release his powers’ on that perv. So Tori’s very aware of Kaido’s jokes but I do think that theres a misunderstanding and Tori thinks Kaido ACTUALLY has superhuman powers like Saiki, cuz Saiki has showed that he enjoys Kaido and see’s him as at least a friend more than a few times which is so rare for Saiki when they don’t know he’s a psychic. Tori is sort of confused and shocked when he makes that connection cuz Kaido’s so weak and small, but it kind of makes sense since his spirit guardian was a out of the ordinary chihuahua! Tori starts making thinly veiled threats back about his spirit medium power, saying stuff like how he’s gonna get a world star wrestler to possess him so they can fight it out like real men! Kaido really seriously thinks Tori’s part of Dark Reunion and Tori thinks Kaido knows about how Saiki’s a psychic and therefore knows about shapeshifting, wanting Kusuko all to himself like he does. I think it’d be really really funny if Tori knew about Kaido being gay first on accident 😭😭😭😭😭 a cocky Toritsuka going “I have no need to worry, I have waay more experience than you anyways” and a flushing Kaido going “Huh?! Who said I ever wanted him like that?!”

a bit of confusion all around! Its sort of hard for Saiki to decipher cuz all the misunderstandings but he eventually does, and he actually gets amusement out of it, not stopping it because that at first.

The 2 of them go head to head, Kaido not wanting his trusted ally and greatest friend to join Dark Reunion and Tori wanting a chance with Kusuko instead. They flatter him and pamper him and such and he actually doesn’t mind being bought extra sweets and such, he just has to put up with Tori’s overly flirtatious and suggestive comments from time to time and Kaido’s try’s at expressing his love for Saiki and how much he means to him, just so he doesn’t join Dark Reunion. Saiki can see that this is sort of ruining them at first because they both hate each other so much but then they start popping up in each others heads again and again I think it starts off as a sort of “maybe I should trick Kaido with this to make him look bad in front of Saiki!” and a “Whats Toritsuka doing over by Saiki?! He’s probably got something evil up his sleeve that’ll make Saiki succumb to the Dark Reunion! What if he puts something in his food! Poison? Something worse?!” But they get less situational and more sudden, Tori see’s something light blue and thinks “I hate that dumb chihuahua!” Kaido see’s something to do with ghosts and goes “that stupid Dark Reunion ghost perv!” They don’t even need to see each other much and they’re popping up in each other’s thoughts 10 times a day! That got a little worrying to Saiki, especially when they start having frustrated rambly thoughts about each other that felt like they never stopped.

“he pisses me off so bad! Flaunting his power around everywhere but not using it in front of anyone, such a cheap ploy just for chicks probably! Not to mention his cute act, how he probably uses makeup just to appear cuter and less threatening! That dark reunion crap is so annoying, every word out of that guys mouth carefully articulated to sound insane! He probably thinks he’s so good, that damn goody twoshoes! He drives me insane!”

“does he really think he’s so slick?! What did he even join Dark Reunion for?! To be a pervert to all the reunions women?! I should of known they’d have those kind of disgusting people, is he even a person?! His devilishly good looks, those can’t possibly be real or human! He’s some kind of undead or something! How dare he come back from his grave to haunt the JetBlackWings?! What a sick pervert!”

The thoughts lead up more and more, so does the flattery and the head to head battles. Tori pushes Kaido and Kaido punches Tori, Tori rolls his eyes and Kaido goes into a fit of yelling. Their thoughts about each other slip out but the only thing they can understand are the accidental compliments, catching them both very off gaurd.

They sort of want to understand each other and why they’re doing this after a while, Tori asking stuff like “whats your deal?! We can just take turns!” and Kaido yelling “Why did you even join Dark Reunion, to haunt him!?”

They don’t really get anywhere except they know more and more that this is all for Saiki but they want it to stop, but they really don’t want it to stop at the same time. Their little fights and nonsensical arguments replay over and over in their heads, keeping them up at night, trying understand what the other was saying, trying to understand what’s happening to their brains and why its always either each other or Saiki.

what I like about it is the huge fucking mess they have to get out of, cuz lets be real, Kaido and Tori are like COMPLETE opposites

#tdlosk #saiki k #the disastrous life of saiki k #saiki kusuo no ψ nan #the disastrous life of saiki k.#saiki no psi nan #kaido shun #kaisai #saiki x kaidou #kusuo saiki #torisaikai #saiki x toritsuka #torisai #torikai #mostly goes into torikai #MY BRAIN IS SO DEAD

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painted-bees · 6 months ago

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I went looking for a list of OC questions that had a majority of things I hadn't answered yet wrt the hi-note trio, and found this lil' one abt "love and relationships" lmao I'm not gonna make anyone submit a number in my ask box for it, it's only 15 questions. I'll just answer them all for Margie and Raf under the cut.

1) How does your character view the idea of romantic love? Raf's got a complicated relationship with it. He's a very romantic person, and wants desperately to believe in the whole "true love "thing-- to believe that someone could love him just because it was predestined for them to do so, or because of some hard coding in their DNA or whatever--and that it'd work the same way for him, too. Just effortless, unquestionable, natural and unbreakable love. But that doesn't exist, it's a fantasy. People don't get into relationships unless there's something tangible in it for them--and then it's a tug-o-war of compromises and capitulations, and it's impossible to imagine anyone ever being truly happy and comfortable under the weight of an obligation as undefinable as 'love'. And so, he figures he'll be lucky if he can find someone he can tolerate, who can tolerate him--who might, once in a while, give him the euphoric feeling of being valued as a person rather than as an asset. And hopefully, those moments can outweigh the inevitable fights and disagreements, and all the emotional damages that arrive in those situations. As for Margie, there's no clear distinction between romantic love and platonic love for her, much of the time. She loves her friends all very intensely, and she loves her romantic partners in very much the same way! Her expressions of love do not change much between friends and lovers--and maybe for this reason, people who take the plunge into being a committed romantic partner with her find her to be somewhat underwhelming. There is very little difference between Margie as a friend and Margie as a romantic partner. There is very little difference between her definitions of these two things. Arguably, she's a very loving--but not a very romantic--person. She doesn't believe in soulmates or true love or any of these things, either. It feels too limiting. It puts so much unnecessary pressure on a single person and needlessly mystifies something that really shouldn't be all that strange or complicated.

2) What was your character's first heartbreak, and how did it influence their approach to relationships? Raf's first heartbreak, romantically...hm. He had a few friends who grew up with him, most of whom were also part of the junior classical music circuit; some of whom he kept in contact with even as his career pivoted away from the classical niche and into pop performance. I think perhaps there was one lass who he might have returned to Monaco for rather than fucking off to Juilliard--if she had returned his affections. He had confessed to her over the phone, just after being announced as a semi-finalist for a large, televised popular music competition. She asked him to call her again after the competition was over, when he was gonna come home. He didn't make it as a finalist, and she never answered his calls then after. So he followed his initial plans and absconded to Juilliard with a different friend who he awkwardly...briefly fell in with romantically instead. Who knows why she never answered his calls, but Raf has no doubt attributes the fact that he didn't make it as a finalist to the reason why she stopped talking to him. That was kinda the first and last time he made the first 'move' for a romantic relationship, and has since taken a much more disinterested, aloof approach...as with most things, really. Margie's first heartbreak was in grade five! She had a huge crush on a boy one grade above her, and mentioned it within earshot of one of her classmates from the 'popular' clique. Those girls got really excited for her and offered to help set her up on a date with him, got him to come over and ask her out during recess, and when she provided a very overenthusiastic, "yes!", Margie found that she had only been set up as the butt of a very hilarious joke between the lot of them. In that same interaction, the lad coined a new name for her, "FleaGirl", and it stuck all the way until she graduated highschool. It's still one of those embarrassing moments that crop up in her brain during the Midnight Carousel of Shame that keeps her awake during restless nights. As a teen, she started flirting with people as a joke, cuz that's her affection could really be–and she delighted in weirding people out with the overfamiliarity she performed. It felt nice though, when the other person would volley back and try to out-skeeze her. She still doesn't know how to flirt in earnest, and will always make a joke out of her affections. It's always kinda up to the other person to respond sincerely if they're actually interested in her.

3) Does your character believe in soulmates, and why or why not? HAH woops, I accidentally answered this in the first question lmao

4) What traits does your character find most attractive in others? Raf values honesty and genuine expression. He really...really loves joyful, unironic cringe. Like, there's something really attractive to him about a person who can let their guard down in order to fully enjoy something. He's really attracted to people who seem impervious to expectation and can cut through what he perceives as the superficial, performative gestures of day to day interactions. Sometimes that takes the form of a counter cultural "I don't care what they think of me" rebellious personality. Sometimes it takes the form of, well...[[gestures at Margie]]. Also, he'd never admit this, but Raf is attracted to messes that he can clean up. Margie is attracted to nice hair, cute smiles, and warm kindness. Unprovoked kindness towards her is the fastest way to make her fall in love with you. The other is casual, affectionate physical touch. She is not immune to a well groomed sense of style and easy confidence, either. If someone is well dressed with nice hair, a straight, open posture, and a warm smile--that's an attractive looking person to her.

5) What does your character fear most in a relationship? For Raf, it's expending his usefulness and being discarded. In every relationship, he's waiting for that one chance to prove that he can't give, or be, or provide what his partner was hoping to get out of him. Or maybe they finally get what they were after and don't need to keep suffering the act of 'loving' him anymore. Or maybe something better will come along and make him redundant. He's always waiting for that other shoe to drop. His biggest fear is just learning that his partner was only pretending to love him, so as to pacify him while they extract from him whatever it is they wanted. For Margie, she's terrified of overstaying her welcome. She feels like as soon as she gets into a relationship a timer starts ticking down where, every day, she starts becoming a little less cute, a little less fun, a little more annoying, a little more difficult to live with. She's identified herself as a kind of 'manic pixie dream girl' that people initially enjoy because she's weird and quirky and playful. But the more time they spend with her, the less fun those things are. She never stops being weird and quirky and playful. There's no point where she is able to get serious and organise herself, and behave like a normal adult. No one wants to live with that for very long.

6) How does your character handle jealousy or insecurity in relationships? Margie has no jealousy. She's straight up chill to let her partners have other relationships or flings or whatever so long as they don’t lie to her about it. And she’s extremely trusting about this. Her insecurity about her own lack of desirability probably played a huge part in developing this polyamorous stance, but she genuinely does feel very comfortable and secure in it. Raf [[gritted teeth]] deals with it. Not very well, in previous relationships. Poorly, in fact. The very uncommitted, open ‘friends with benefits’ relationship he had with Margie for a while before he eventually admitted to himself that he really needs her to stay in his life–has done a lot of weird psychological lifting for him. There’s a really strong precedent for Margie to be honest with him about the nature of all her relationships. On top of this, she doesn’t have locks on her phone, she makes him hold her phone most of the time. She doesn’t care if he reads her messages or checks her emails [he Does Not Do This, if only for the exercise in restraint]. If he’s having the Weird Paranoia about Margie, the thought that “well, she’d let me go through her messages right now if I asked” is enough to leverage himself with. Sometimes he does ask, and she’s just like “sure, w/e”--and he pacifies himself on that without feeding the impulse further. And so, the paranoia usually picks a far more fruitful subject to latch onto.

7) What past relationship still impacts your character's current life?

Raf is still comparing and contrasting his current relationship with Margie to his previous relationship with Lacey…and has been learning a lot about himself through the differences. Lace was arguably his only other “real”/serious relationship before Margie, and it was such an absolute trainwreck. But it’s also just what he assumed relationships were Like. Nowadays, he kinda dreads ever meeting with Lacey again because most of what he has learned is that he absolutely could have, should have treated her better, and she deserves an apology.

Margie still thinks about her ex girlfriends in Montreal. She just really misses them a lot…She’d love to rekindle those friendships, and thinks there might still be a chance to do so, some day.

8) How does your character show love and affection?

While Raf hates to have things expected of him, treating and gift-giving is genuinely his biggest show of affection. It stops the moment he feels like he’s being taken for granted, or as soon as he gets even the faintest whiff of entitlement. He doesn’t take kindly to being “hinted” at any more than he appreciates being straightforwardly asked for gifts or favours. It’s the fastest way to get him to withdraw. But If he gifts things and he feels like the gesture is genuinely unexpected and appreciated–it’s almost kind of a bond-strengthening exercise in of itself. He enjoys being helpful and feeling needed and appreciated, he just pathologically hates being taken advantage of or used. So–like…a lot of love and trust goes into the act of Raf giving something. It puts him in a vulnerable position, because the way the gesture is received will forever colour his perception of the relationship and can really…make or break it for him–beyond reasoning or any logical recourse.

Margie shows her love and affection with physical closeness and careful patience. If there is someone she exceptionally loves and loves being around, she takes a lot of extra measures to make sure she doesn’t overwhelm them with her presence and she tries to really reign in how she acts around them so as to not be unpalatable. But she’ll drop her head on their shoulder or throw her legs across their lap. She’ll hold onto their arm while walking, and lean against them in casual settings. She just wants to exist in the same space, and reciprocated touch is a comforting reassurance that they do, as well.

9) What significant change has your character experienced in their understanding of love?

The biggest thing Raf has so far learned is that love isn’t a tug-o-war of compromises and capitulations after all. If you love someone, you genuinely want them to feel safe and happy and secure, and so you’ll give things up and change your behaviour willingly for their sake with very little sense of loss about it. They’ll do the same for you, and neither will keep score about who gave up what, or who was willing to do the most work for the relationship. In the end, it’s not about him vs her or who gets to live ‘better off’ in the arrangement–but it’s a matter of collaborating to build a comfortable, happy environment together. One’s happiness is the other’s happiness. Not a competition, not a game of carefully measured concessions. A better whole.

Margie has learned that she has a lot more to offer in a relationship than she thought; that emotional labour is an enormous contribution to a partner who is able to appropriately value it. Just because it comes easy to her doesn’t mean it’s worthless. Her love and affection is not a joke; it has meaning, it has worth. It’s worth a whole lot.

10) What sacrifices has your character made for love, and were they worth it?

Raf has to sacrifice his entire sense of safety and wellbeing every time he commits to a relationship. And, just this once, it’s been worth it.

For each person that Margie has pursued as a romantic partner, she has sacrificed a friendship and definitely mourns each one. Raf is the first time she’s not had to sacrifice anything.

11) How does your character's cultural or familial background influence their views on marriage and relationships?

Oh man lmao Raf’s Monegasque billionaire family dynasty…his parents genuinely really really love each other, but he has had very limited exposure to that. I don’t think he has ever seen them hug or hold hands, they stand very attractively next to each other and exude an imposing aura that commands respect. So…his idea of what marriage and relationships should look like is severely lacking. “Absolutely No PDA” has definitely stuck with him though.

Margie’s from a lower income northern Ontario blue collar family with a dad who probably still makes “ol’ ball and chain” jokes about his wife, and a mom who does all the cleaning and cooking and doesn’t really get to enjoy her hobbies outside of the house. Actually, in a small way, this has probably contributed to Margie’s lack of enthusiasm towards getting married. She doesn’t wanna be anyone’s ball and chain, she doesn’t want to cook and clean, she doesn’t want kids. She’s written herself off as being absolutely unfit for marriage. She thinks she’d be an abysmal wife lmao

12) Does your character have a relationship that everyone else misunderstands?

No lmao everyone around them understood Raf and Margie’s relationship better than they did themselves for a long while lmao.

13) How does your character handle rejection or unrequited love?

Raf has only really had to deal with this once, and he got pretty spiteful mad about it at the time. He also holds a mean grudge just…generally…so I do not think he’d be excited to ever meet her again.

After the initial emotional gut-punch, Margie suffers a lot of shame and embarrassment and gets really depressed and quiet for a few days until something new and shiny comes along to divert her attention away. Anytime she randomly remembers a rejection though, she gets to re-experience it all again for a brief moment lmao stings.

14) What lesson about love is your character still trying to learn?

Raf is still trying to really honestly believe that it can be this easy. He’s still waiting to hear what the catch is.

Margie still has to fully internalise that the people who love her don’t find her annoying and will never tire of her–and that she doesn’t have to apologise for existing as a person with wants and needs

15) How has your character's professional life affected their romantic relationships?

For Raf, it has severely limited his options–he refuses to date fans, past and present. If they recognize him as a public figure, but aren’t from a similar economic background as him, it’s basically a write-off in his mind. Eligible peers are hard to find…

For Margie, it’s uh…homelessness definitely complicates things. All of her relationships prior to Raf were plagued with financial stress…and that can probably be cited as a major reason as to why most of her relationships fell apart.

#Hi-Note #Magritte #Rafael

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anukkuna · 1 month ago

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Day 2: Favourite Spatort Character

Adam Schürk.

Look, I know this is complicated... but feel like I just get him, okay?

I get not being able to talk openly about your feelings. Feeling trapped and unaccepted by parts of your family but still staying and trying to care for others. Parents not doing their job. Having to grow up too early, avoiding conflict.

I get trying and failing to stop a parent from drinking.

I get leaving, because you can't cope.

I get staying away, because fuck all of this.

I get returning to unfinished business... and returning to people you haven't talked to in a very long time. Not because they don't matter to you, quite the contrary.

Maybe because you thought, you were a burden to them. Maybe because you didn't have the words yet. Maybe you just had to break out.

I get that it's shitty for people. For what it's worth: I also get being sorry. More than that, feeling remorse and guilt to your gut, because you left and never said a fucking thing. But still dreaming, planing, thinking so often about an option to return. To return for good, set everything right.

Thing is, the asymmetry is so shitty for the others. What good is it to them you keep thinking about them from afar? If they'd die in a car crash tomorrow and you had never told them what they truly mean to you, it'd be shitty. Plain as that.

But when you think of them from afar this worry remains. The feeling of: if I ever go back, I need to be sure. I need to be done with the chaos, I need to have found myself, otherwise I will just be a burden again, and again and blahblah.

Turns out: you may never really be done with becoming yourself (no shit, huh?). So waiting for that is a shitty reason to never engage with those who need to hear your apology for leaving and not saying a thing, even though you had reasons. Anyways.

I get having a huge crush on your best friend (of the same gender) and yet never telling them. Which amplifies the guilt.

I know that last part isn't canon but it's how I read Adam - and I don't seem to be the only one.

Finally, I also think that's what makes Spatort so queer. You'll attract the people whose stories you tell - and Adam's experiences relate to many queer people (even if they need not be intentionally plain-text-queer ).

It's why, for me personally, Adam is my favourite character. By god, he is a flawed clusterfuck, but very often I feel like one too. I feel like we have some things in common and it's nice seeing someone whose experiences you can relate to struggle - but overcome them!

Also puts a fucking mirror to my face. Cope with your stuff to and talk to people. Jesus, why don't you two morons talk, Hörk, goddammit. Reminds me myself to heed this advice from time to time.

So, yeah, that's why.

#spatort #adam schürk #tatort saarbrücken #30dtsc #30 days to spatort challenge #30 day tatort saarbrücken challenge #Spatort Favorite Character

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aihoshiino · 11 months ago

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chapter 144 thoughts!

I don't think any other chapter of Oshi no Ko has ever baffled and confounded me quite like this one. Viewed solely in isolation this is a perfectly fine, functional chapter but as the followup to 143 and everything it contained, I actually feel like I'm losing my mind a bit. 143 might as well not have happened for all the weight it's given in this chapter. Ruby is not remotely acting like a girl who just tongued her crush of 18 years and in general, the total absence of any reference or cushioning of the shock of that event is just so loud and so jarring and so completely out of touch with how OnK has handled romantic developments in the past.

Both AquAka kisses had at least a scene or two in the chapter immediately following of characters reacting to and reflecting on both the event itself and the status quo change it represents in the relationship. Even 124 has that scene of Ruby clinging onto Aqua to let the viewer know what the new dynamic between them is going to be from now on. This chapter has nothing of the sort; I wasn't kidding when it says it feels like the kiss never even happened. The only thing I can point to is Ruby's little "we have sensei at home" exchange with Tsukuyomi but that's… kind of just exactly what she would've said even before the kiss. So if it has resulted in absolutely no change to their dynamic that we can see thus far, what was the point in ending the chapter on that note?

The part of me that is cynical and jaded can't help but suspect that this is intentionally hot button reaction bait paced specifically for the purposes of keeping OnK a trendy topic in the lead up to season 2 of the anime airing, But Who's To Say, Really.

I also had my worries about this last chapter, but unless we skip back in time to address it, it really looks like we've skipped over the remainder of the KamiAi romance and everything to do with the early stages of Ai's pregnancy. This is incredibly frustrating to me - they're parts of Ai's story I had been incredibly curious about and was excited to see her thoughts and feelings on, even filtered through fiction. In general, the way the Movie Arc has been increasingly dropping its focus on actually conveying Ai's story has been a real sore point for me. I fully acknowledge this rankles me more than perhaps it should because I am so deeply invested in Ai above any other character but… fuck, man! Once again, remember when this was supposed to be an arc about her? About her inner life, her pain and struggles and Aqua and Ruby working to a better understanding of her? I was excited for the Movie Arc specifically because I thought we were going to get peeks at parts of Ai's life we weren't privy to beforehand, but at this point it almost feels like Akasaka has just lost interest in following through.

Not only that but… uh, where's that KamiAi breakup scene, Akasaka? The one we were promised during the script reading? That huge I CAN'T LOVE YOU elephant that's been patiently sitting in the room? I can only assume that the 15YL version of this breakup happens after the twins are born or maybe even when Kamiki visited Ai at the hospital the night the kids were born but. What the fuck is even going on here anymore lol. The Oshi no Brainrot discord has been kicking around a joke theory that we were seeing the events of the Movie Arc out of their actual chronological order and it is becoming increasingly less of a joke in my brain because I can't make any sense of its progression otherwise.

oh my god i'm almost 1000 words in and i haven't started talking about the actual point of this chapter yet. god help me.

Anyway, MY SON IS HERE LET'S GO MELT!!!!!!

Ngl, I've always been a little disappointed that we didn't see much more of Melt in this arc, both just because I like him and because I think there's some really interesting potential in drawing on the parallels between Melt and Kamiki. I'm not the first to point out that Melt's experience with a dubiously consensual sexual encounter at the hands of an upperclassman - when he wasn't that much older than Hikaru was when Airi began abusing him - echoes at least in spirit Kamiki's experiences as a CSA victim; both were young boys, noted to be pretty and desirable, who were taken advantage of by older female figures. I think it would be extremely interesting and a great character moment for Melt to have some degree of engagement with that material and maybe to have some thoughts about it. It feels like a little bit of a missed opportunity to pass up on that, but I also acknowledge that Melt is ultimately not a huge mover and shaker in the overall story and I don't know how that would've fit into the Movie Arc as it stands, so I'll just have to make eyes at the AO3 tag and hope someone writes a fic about it.

Anyway as a lot of people predicted… here's Ruby being a jackass to Melt about his performance!!! Joking aside, I will admit it's a little jarring to see Ruby being so hostile to Melt over this…? Gorou is a sore spot for her, obviously and she would undoubtedly have high standards for his role in the movie. In addition, Ruby being snitty with people who rub her the wrong way definitely isn't new for her, but it still feels kind of odd both coming off her own struggles to connect with Ai through acting and her little "holy shit other people have feelings" breakthrough in the wake of the RBKN fight for her to be like this about it. I do think this is mostly just supposed to be just goofs and I'm overthinking it, it was just one of those things that kind of gave me pause as I was reading.

ruby's little little princess shirt is really good though, as is her referring to herself as a fan of the 'original work'. both of those got a solid sensible chuckle out of me.

Another thing that gave me pause for a very different reason was Melt and Ruby's exchange about his little merch pin. First and foremost, I think this is a really good Melt moment; while we saw him busting his ass to improve his acting in Tokyo Blade, that was very much when he had something to prove. Here, he really does seem to be going above and beyond for what is basically a bit part purely out of a desire to improve his craft and a passion for acting overall. It's nice to see the story double down in this being a lesson he did properly take away from Sweet Today and that he has committed to acting upon it (no pun intended) in the long term, not just when under outside pressure to do so.

The other thing that jumped out to me about this exchange is that… technically speaking, both Ruby and Melt are wrong, here? It's a very nice, flowery description of Gorou and it certainly lines up with his more positive traits but the idea of him not wearing his Ai merch in front of Ai herself is actually incorrect. Gorou is depicted (in the anime, anyway) as openly wearing the charm at what's implied to be all times, even in front of Ai herself. The manga also implies by way of where the charm is on his person when Ruby finds his body that this is also the case in that version of events, too. I don't think it's a retcon and may be an unimportant detail in the grand scheme of things but it did pique my interest.

There's a few ways to take this, I think; a more positive spin is that this is in line with what the story wants us to take away from 15 Year Lie as a production, where the literal granular facts of its events are sometimes less important than and can be bent in favour of supporting the emotional narrative it wants to convey. Melt may not literally be correct here, but he at least achieves the spirit of the right answer in his efforts. "Lies are love", after all.

However, given that Ruby enthusiastically endorses this interpretation - and is thus wrong alongside Melt - this could potentially be an indication of there being cracks in Ruby's rose-tinted view of Gorou. This strikes me as a fascinating idea and one I hope the series plays with; it would follow quite naturally from last chapter's framing of Gorou as Ruby's 'idol' that she's 'gachikoi' for. Oshi no Ko has pretty consistently portrayed the idol/fan relationship as inherently unequal, even when approached with the best of intentions and to truly know someone, you must let them off their pedestal first. She has sort of begun this process with Ai, just through empathizing with her during the 15YL production but we have yet to see anything similar happen with Gorou - if anything, we see the opposite here, where she asserts herself as the authority on Gorou's character as if she has the final say on who he was and what he felt and thought.

But the thing is, how well can Ruby really say that she knew him? They were only in each others' lives for a few months and in that time, she was only exposed to a very narrow slice of his life and his personality. Hell, you could even argue that Akane knows more about Gorou than Ruby does, given that we have no indication that Ruby or Sarina was ever privy to the details of his birth and his home life. Again, it's entirely possible that I'm reading too much into this, but now the idea is in my brain I'm simmering on it a bit. If nothing else, I hope the series takes the time to prod and poke at this angle, especially now it has made the fan/idol aspect of this dynamic explicit and textual.

Ruby and Melt's little senpai/kouhai dynamic has the potential to be really cute and I do hope the series actually spends some time on it. I've always thought a RBML friendship could be really fun to watch play out and seeing Melt gain some confidence in himself by teaching someone else could be really great. But with how unfocused the Movie Arc has been, it's really hard to get my hopes up that we'll be sticking with this even past this chapter lol

oh hey there crow girl we thought you were dead

Surprisingly, I don't have a lot to really say about her little lore drop here, since it's mostly mystery boxing and implications and, man. It's been 69 (nice) chapters since she first started showing up ominously muttering about supernatural things and while I don't mind her presence and I think she's evolved into a fun character, it's a little hard for me to get interested in these little supernatural tidbits until they resolve into something that feels meaningful for the characters.

This isn't helped by the fact that we don't really know what kami means in the context she uses it here. While 'god' and 'gods' are not strictly incorrect as translations, I think an English speaking viewer is primed to think of Abrahamic, capital G-Gods, which isn't necessarily correct. The term kami is a catchall that covers all manner of things from divinities to venerated earthbound humans, so kami can perhaps best be understood as being an umbrella term for something like 'an otherworldly being', which I think better lines up with Tsukuyomi's assertion that those who have memories of past lives are like kami in of themselves.

Ultimately though until we know what kami really means and amounts to in Oshi no Ko, it's hard to say what this means for the characters and I am ultimately only really interested in the characters. So until we know what this actually amounts to in-story, I'm just kind of nodding long with whatever Crow Girl says because sure. This might as well happen.

can we talk about how fucking funny her anime antagonist jump out of the tree was, by the way

break next week, or so i've heard... one of these days, we'll beat the allegations....

#oshi no ko #oshi no posting #onk spoilers #chapter reviews

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ocean-waters · 24 days ago

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HEY OCEAN!! ヾ⁠(⁠･⁠ω⁠･⁠*⁠)⁠ﾉ para el ask de personajes, que tal 2, 12 y 24 sobre Haru y 10, 14 y 23 para Lapis (SU)? (espero que no sean muchas)

Hey dragon!!

Ooo mis queridos seres acuaticos 💙🐬🌊

Haru:

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

What isn't, honestly. I really love his love for odd mascots like iwatobi chan and Northern stoplight loosejaw kun. I love that he makes little hand crafted figures and has merch of them. So real of him.

How he can easily succumb to any of his favorite things like mackerel and water and how people bribe him with that. I think it's hilarious.

How much he has done for his friends. He really does show a lot of his love through actions, which speak louder than words. Letting Nagisa stay at his house, also I remember reading that he once wore a girl's swimsuit to save Nagisa from embarrassment because his sisters had packed him one to tease him; Being overall protective of Makoto, especially when things relating to the ocean are involved, the cherry blossom pool for Rin... he just does so much and I adore how truly caring he is.

How expressive his eyes are. How they sparkle and swirl and show so many emotions hidden behind his mostly impassive face.

Also i love how everyone has agreed he's like a big cat. A big water-loving black cat. It suits him.

And so much more, but this question was only supposed to be about one thing, so I'll leave it there.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character

Oo okay so, i know I've said this so many times across many different posts, but:

That he's in the aroace spectrum. Specifically demiromantic/asexual. From seeing the show, it always seemed like the story was pushing how he really was not interested in anything pertaining to love and sexuality. Sure, this is also because most of the moments that pop up are meant to be funny and not taken too seriously, but he's MY comfort character, and I CHOOSE what the headcanons will be.

Like the story of his "first crush" being a waterfall because water is just so gorgeous and amazing. Or how his "lewd" magazines under the bed were about hot springs. Like, this man is 100% asexual, and this is the hill I will die on. (Though there are certain scenes with a certain someone that appear to have a certain tension like in the splash free! Ending, but they're mostly just so intense because they are also so intense.)

The demiromantic part is well, admittedly, mostly due to shipping reasons. In the actual canon, I might even be inclined to believe he's just fully aromantic.

However, romantic Rinharu has cemented itself in my brain permanently, and their chemistry and story are simply too good. So I do think Haru could discover he's demi through Rin. I just feel like eventually they could reach a point where he starts reconsidering the way he feels about him. All those dazzling smiles, funny electric charges that run through his body, and that racing pulse when he's with him... until it all just boils over and oops, he realizes he's in love.

I also have a very long headcanon about how him and Rin would go about things and what would happen in a relationship, like how Haru may not really be one for traditional romantic gestures and being tactile, but still enjoys the things Rin does and knows they make him happy, so he starts doing them more until they feel so natural- but there's literally too much to mention here, so maybe I'll leave it for another time if you're interested hehe.

24. What other character from another fandom of yours reminds you of them?

While not entirely that similar, one who comes to mind is Chief Justice Neuvillete from the court of Fontaine in Genshin Impact.

He's also a huge fan of water. However, he enjoys it by drinking it instead of swimming. He's such a water connoisseur. He mentions all the different tastes and feels he gets from drinking water from different nations, how some feel more mineral rich, other soothing and fresh, etc. He's constantly drinking water during his idle animations. I think him and Haru could potentially get along.

He also gets along with these little fantasy creatures called melusines and is essentially like their father, lol. He loves them very much and is very gentle with them. Maybe a stretch, but it reminded me of how Haru is good with kids and also animals like cats.

Neuvillette is also technically the fastest swimmer in genshin since he is the hydro dragon of Fontaine and has a passive talent that increases his and his party's swimming speed.

Oh, and during an event quest, he gifts the traveler a cute little hand crafted ladle of an aquatic creature. And it just reminded me so much of Haru. I love it so much.

Lapis lazuli:

10. Could you be best friends with this character?

I would love to, but I'm not sure if she would lmao.

However, painting with her would be really fun, plus I'd love to see what her technique is with watercolors. I'd love to create pieces with her. Maybe she'd be a bit mean and blunt at times, though, but eh, I think that makes her funny, lol. She is involved in fandom, too, given that she loves camp pining hearts. Although not as much as peridot. Maybe I could get her into free! lol, then we'd really hit it off. Going to the ocean with her would be so fun. Maybe a bit scary at times, but fun nonetheless.

14. Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character

Oof, I really don't know fashion aesthetics by name, but I feel like she could wear coastal, breathable clothes. Either shorts with loose shirts or long baggy pants. Something like these:

23. Favorite picture of this character

Bob. I loved her attitude this entire episode. Her deadpan expression and half assed hits and runs. It reminded me of me during middle school when the p.e. teacher would force us to play soccer. (I hated soccer). Plus I love the outfit. In this one she just gives a casual thumbs up to ruby and sapphire because they got distracted flirting with each other.

#ask game

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stillness-in-green · 5 months ago

Note

What do you think about Horikoshi ending the manga without a canon couple? Do you ship or used to ship MHA characters? Did you see romantic potential? Do you think Horikoshi might confirm a couple later?

No canon couple? Au contraire, my dear anon! The manga ended with the most important canonization of all!

(Everybody give a huge hand to The Only Hets Who Matter, Gentle and La Brava; they deserve it.)

As to the ships people actually care about or were expecting some word on (e.g. the stuff with the students), my reaction there is overwhelmingly “lol gj hori”. I’m glad he ended it with no canon student couple to speak of! While I do sympathize with the position of certain people on Twitter who contend that Ochaco’s arc about repression really needed her to actually confess to Deku, I hated what her crush on Deku did to her arc anyway, so I don’t have it in me to be too annoyed. Anyway, I don’t think it’s possible to do the Iron Might 2.0 part of the epilogue if Deku and Ochaco[1] have been dating the entire time, so I’m perfectly happy to run with the headcanon that she did confess at one point and it didn’t work out for whatever reason, so by the time the last chapter rolls around, they’ve just been friends for years.

1: Or Bakugou, for that matter, but with all due respect to the BakuDekus who haven’t been seeing Shonen Jump battle manga come and go for twenty years with nary a confirmed gay MC amongst them, that was never in the cards.

I remember posting once ages ago about a Japanese fan’s hope that Horikoshi, who the fan perceived as being at least somewhat progressive about women, could manage to end the series without a bunch of timeskip romances showing up at the last minute. While I have some deep reservations about Hori’s progressive cred at this point in time, and am not tremendously impressed with his writing of women, either, credit where credit is due: he did end the series without any timeskip romances.

As to there being any confirmation of couples in the material we have remaining, I imagine the last train station[2] for that is going to be the final volume release in December, as, on top of the usual volume extras, Horikoshi should be considerably more free to include expansions that his schedule and exhaustion kept him from in the weekly publication. I could even see a bonus chapter of some sort, maybe something post-epilogue so we can see the power suit in action or something silly and fourth wall-breaking to celebrate the series conclusion. There’s also going to be one last fanbook released in January, which I have been assuming will be a data book like Ultra Archive.

2: Or harbor, I suppose, since we’re talking about ships.

Now, do I think any of that stuff will confirm ships? Eh, that’s not really in my analytical wheelhouse. The farthest I’d venture to guess is that I would a) not be surprised to get some clarification on Deku and Ochaco, and b) definitely peg the volume release to have material like that over squirreling it away in the fanbook.

For myself, my shipping habits are somewhat erratic—it’s not really where my primary engagement in media lies, and certainly not for this series! But that’s not to say I don’t have ships, or that I’m not happy to talk about them, so if you’re curious about that, do feel free to hit the jump. I’ll order them by general sphere first, then by how passionate I am about them compared to ones I just think are kinda cute or funny for whatever reason.

DISCLAIMER: While I have not explicitly stated as much here before, I am a 40-year-old asexual proshipper, proshipper here meaning I'm in favor of curating your own fandom space and not harassing people about their fictional ships under any circumstances. When I say I ship something, that does not mean I’m idealizing the relationship, want it to be canon, think it would be cool in real life, or am mentally putting myself in the place of one the characters. It’s solely because there’s something in the dynamic I think is fun or interesting, and “interesting” can very much include the same kind of interest one might have in watching a building get demolished.

That is to say, there are a handful of Too Problematic For Tumblr ships in here—one age gap but otherwise wholesome, one age gap and tacitly abusive, and one that really hits the Tumblr Trifecta by being age gap, abusive and incestuous. I've put all three at the very bottom in their own section in descending order of Most BadWrong, but if you’re one of those people deep into The Discourse about how ships need to be Morally Correct otherwise the shippers are terrible people who should kys, this is not the post for you. The block button’s there if you need it—and be advised that it’s there if I need it, too, and I’m not afraid to use it. (I grew up in dark fantasy shoujo fandoms; I am not litigating my ships with anybody.)

~~~Stillness’s Dubious and Delightful BNHA Ship Opinions~~~

Villain-o-rama-rama:

Spinarakiya, ShigaRD, Spinaraki: Alas for my short-lived OT3! I was really, really pumped for this in the stretch between MVA and the early stages of the first war, what with there being such interesting possible angles between all three parties, only for Re-Destro to get arrested and never seen in person again, Spinner to get snatched up by Gigantomachia and never look back, and Shigaraki to get lost to the possession plot for, at least as far as scenes with his allies were concerned, basically the rest of the series.

Not exactly great material for my shipping heart, though I’ll refrain from the rant comparing how long the PLF members were living in close contact with each other compared to the League of Villains and why that should have meant they developed stronger relationships than what we got.

But canon being what it is, I do still ship the hell out of these three in a canon divergence situation, or any number of potential AUs. I love the connective tissue there, with Re-Destro + Shigaraki having some startlingly strong background parallels and lasting injuries courtesy of each other, Shigaraki + Spinner having the gaming and the emptiness themes, and Spinner + Re-Destro having their Big Gay Feelings About Shigaraki as well as an appreciation for patterned fabrics some shared early frustrations about Shigaraki’s seeming lack of plans or direction.

It's a good dynamic, and I think they could all do a lot for each other, though certainly not in ways that are good for the continued survival of Hero Society. But fuck Hero Society anyway.

As to the component parts, I don’t ship Re-Destro and Spinner without Shigaraki being at least an invisible part of the dynamic (though I would read the fic where he wasn’t with considerable interest!), but I’m also very much on board with ShigRD and Spinaraki individually. My constant refrain about Shigaraki and RD is that they have a lot of common ground but very little common language, and I’m fascinated by how much of that they could recognize in each other and how much of it they could then recognize back in themselves, versus how much you’d get one of those cases of, “This guy is a freak and I’m so normal.”

It's so, so, so important to me that Re-Destro is the first ally Shigaraki won entirely on his own merits. He's got no borrowed reputation from Stain, no monsters on loan from Sensei, and no help from people on Sensei’s payroll, yet still, as a result of his efforts (both in his own fights and in making the League his own, even if it didn’t start that way) he wins himself an army and a follower who never saw a light that wasn’t his.

I weep for the Shigaraki/Re-Destro relationship we could have had if Horikoshi didn’t decide that Shigaraki in the endgame was to be nothing but a pawn, and therefore couldn’t be allowed to keep any of his markers of independence and growth.

As to Spinaraki, man, what is there even to say? The relationship so clear and obvious that it had even the mhatwt bros out there saying, “Spinaraki but at what cost?” in the last chapter! I will admit that I liked them better when their romance had that apocalyptic tinge than when it suddenly started getting painted as primarily about them being Gamer Bros, but at least that melancholic “beauty at the end of the world” shading came back when Shigaraki talked about destroying Mount Fuji for Spinner (be still my heart!).

They will meet and be close in every world and I will hear nothing else.

RiKoku: I don’t think I truly understood the appeal of ex-lover ships until these two. They snuck up on me in a big way, pretty much entirely a result of my realization when I was halfway through the (first and only, sadly) MLA Week event that Trumpet was pretty free-roaming and independent from Re-Destro all the way through Deika only to be glued to his side from there on out. Together with the Spinner parallels (the subordinates who fought each other and then came together to the crater to see their worlds remade) and my jokes about wanting to see the MLA heads during their stressed-out, over-achiever college years, all the pieces fell into place for a Rikiya and Koku who had dated for a few years and then broken up when Rikiya realized that his authority as Re-Destro—and Koku’s strong subordination to that authority—meant that he could not responsibly stay in the relationship. (This also presents several good explanations for why a man in Rikiya’s situation isn’t married with at least one child already.)

Anyway, to me, they never really fell out of love with each other; Re-Destro just couldn’t justify overlooking the power dynamic problems once he realized how extreme they were. (This does make for a fun alternate angle on RD’s personal life post-Deika, wherein Trumpet watches RD pass the mantle of leadership to Shigaraki Tomura and then more or less immediately pounces on him because now he doesn’t have the power dynamic excuse anymore. Look up the great Whatever Is Spared by @leftofrevolution on AO3 for more on this.)

Overhonest: I just like Nemoto much more than I like Chrono, and thus my Overhaul ship of choice follows suit. I like the idea that their feelings are wildly unbalanced but not totally one-sided—Overhaul has more baggage than a freshly loaded airport carousel, but he does like the Shie Hassaikai, as proven by them being mentioned in the Likes section of his character page. Nemoto in particular is someone whose presence we know Overhaul finds reassuring and we know it because he told Nemoto so directly when Nemoto asked, which means it can’t be anything other than the plain truth. He relies on Nemoto enough to make demands of him, he expects (and gets!) effectiveness, and he even bothers to take the time to justify out loud why it would be okay for him to merge himself with Nemoto physically (because Nemoto would say yes if asked, right? of course he would) rather than just doing it with no thought to Nemoto’s feelings about it because why should he care about that.

And Nemoto, for his part, is of course an obsessive weirdo who’s totally smitten with the first person he’s ever found who legitimately wants him around, so smitten that he’ll happily overlook the fact that Overhaul primarily wants him around because he’s useful.

Moving away from what’s on-the-page canon, I enjoy (and write) the take that Overhaul is sex-repulsed, not because he’s fully asexual, but as an extension of his mysophobia. This makes his sex life extremely fraught, but not non-existent. When I dabble with writing them (and they’re by far the ship I’ve written the most explicit material for in this fandom), I write him as basically a sex-repulsed demi (not that he would know or use that terminology!) who is attracted to Nemoto but has been largely left aggravated and sexually frustrated by their periodic experiments in non-traditional ways of getting him off. (Nemoto, for his part, is more than willing to keep trying! No kink is too weird for this guy if it means finding something Overhaul would actually like.)

(To get real here for a second, if Spinarakiya is meaningful to me as a person who’s comfortably poly, Overhonest is meaningful to me as an asexual person who's only ever had allosexual partners.)

AFOUji: Truly the Evil Husbands of all time. I wish the shift from Final Boss Shigaraki to Final Boss AFO hadn’t left Ujiko with a few truly inexplicable characterization beats,[3] because I truly do love these two as just the worst pair of mutually enabling monsters making the world worse and more dangerous for everyone while being 100% supportive of each other’s passions the entire time. Here’s to 70 years of Dark Lord/Mad Scientist domestic bliss.

3: For the record, I consider these to be his, “I've only been living for the boy's sake,” line in Chapter 269 and his clear reticence and dissastisfaction with Shigaraki getting the surgery in Chapter 240.

DabiSkep: Skeptic is the only man Dabi has ever thanked for his contributions. Dabi goes out of his way to kidnap him. I’m 90% convinced that they’d been working on the video together prior to the Villa raid. The combination of Skeptic’s deep and abiding neuroticism with Dabi’s swings between lazy malice and manic pushiness is extremely funny. What can I say; it’s just about the only Dabi ship that really clicks for me. I enjoy leftof’s take that Skeptic had a goth phase he never completely exited and so Dabi appeals to his inner Hot Topic teen, which he is 100% aware of and 150% embarrassed by.

School Environs:

Mirio/Tamaki: Tamaki literally regains consciousness at the exact moment Mirio loses his quirk. Other than cases where there’s some actual explanation for that—a magical connection, psychic powers, etc.—I have never seen that kind of beat happen outside of a shoujo manga. The bit where one romantic lead just mysteriously has a Bad Feeling in the same instant that something Bad happens to their love interest is so shoujo-coded. Jesus Christ, Tamaki is so moe. And Mirio so clearly thinks the world of him, too, as evinced by what an over-the-top sobriquet he dubbed Tamaki with. They’re great, end of story.

Monoma/Shinsou: I’ll admit I liked this somewhat better when I thought there was any chance at all Shinsou might end up in Class B—I kind of loathe that he wound up in Class A for the self-evidently terrible reason that it’s The Main Character Class, when it seems so obviously a conflict of interest for Aizawa to be teaching him. But eh, it’s okay; it just means Monoma will have to nobly learn to look past it after a lot of time spent being completely obnoxious about it.

My annoyance with Shinsou’s class placement aside, Monoma is one of my favorite students, and I like that he immediately latches onto Shinsou as a kindred spirit. And, like, if that were 100% one-directional, I would probably shrug it off, but Shinsou, despite trying to play at being aloof, does actually get invested enough that he gets pretty bothered by the idea of Monoma needing help, even in something as inconsequential as a class exercise. It’s just a much, much more interesting dynamic than Shinsou has with Deku or especially Kaminari.

Also, as someone with a bit of a Thing for mind fuckery, the way Copy and Brainwash can play off each other is Good.

MomoJirou: The fanart is cute and I like Momo better than Kaminari. And the culture clash thing is fun.

Shouto/Inasa: The fanart is cute and I like Inasa better than Deku or Bakugou.

Professional Sphere:

Hawksdeavor:The age gap adds flavor. The fact that Endeavor is still married but deeply unhappily so makes it even spicier. The difference in what they represent (or could potentially represent) to each other is the best part, with Hawks, for Endeavor, being someone who represents a totally clean page, while Endeavor, for Hawks, represents a lifelong adoration. Finding each other’s reality in all of that would be an interesting relationship arc and could be extremely fulfilling and strengthening for both of them.

The spoiler is (or at least should have been, if I’d been writing the series) their divided feelings on Dabi. Honestly, I really wanted to see them clash over the matter of Touya and how to deal with him, with Endeavor wanting to save him but not knowing how and Hawks just wanting him gone but not knowing how to get away with it. A certain pair of facts is glaring to me: first, that Hawks was a chief architect of the second war’s battle plans, whereas we never saw Endeavor involved with them at all, and second, that, when the big day came, Endeavor was slated to fight All For One with Hawks at his side despite at least some guilty protests from Enji that he really ought to be facing Dabi.

It smacks strongly of Hawks making some profoundly selfish decisions under the guise of clear-headed strategy and I really wanted it to blow up in his face when Dabi found his way to their battlefield anyway. Pushing Endeavor into a place where he had to choose between them and ultimately chose his son (say, by protecting him from an attack coming from Hawks) would have been validating for Touya, done a lot to lever Endeavor’s arc out of the reactiveness and passivity that drag it down so badly in the canon, and also handed Hawks a real consequence for how dismissively he treats the lives of Villains and how much he’s tried to avoid reckoning with both Endeavor’s abuse and Enji’s own attempts to do said reckoning!

In summary, Hawks and Endeavor could be very good for each other, and the incredible amount of baggage they’d have work through first would be key to either making that good ending feel earned or lead to them dramatically and deliciously imploding. Either one works for me, and either one, even without the romantic angle, would have been more interesting than the pablum we got.

NightMight: Speaking of could-have-been-good relationships that dramatically imploded! I love Sir Nighteye as the most visible cost of All Might’s lifestyle, the one he lost because he couldn’t step away from the path his ideals had set out, and how that ideal inevitably took him full circle so that he found himself standing, for Deku, in the same place Nighteye once stood for him. And of course by then it was too late and Deku wouldn’t listen to him anymore than he himself listened to Nighteye back then.

But Nighteye didn’t give up on caring about him, even if he had no avenue left to express it but throwing himself into finding a successor All Might would accept, which led to Nighteye's own (wonderful) relationship with Mirio.

Just great, difficult, adult stuff about irreconcilable differences that never stopped them from caring about each other even as those differences forced them to their parting of ways.

Mount Lady/Kamui Woods: They’re cute and I like the idea that they both have trouble, for opposite reasons, with cameramen. I like that he calls her just Lady when he thinks she’s in trouble. And not to put too fine a point on it, but I like that they’re kinda the most explicit Pro Hero couple and yet she’s the more prominent and important character with the more visible arc, which is a nice contrast to most of the other hetero relationships in this benighted manga.

Other/Cross-faction:

Togachaco: The yuri ship that could. My god, the canon divergence I want to give these two. You know why I want Deku and Ochaco to not be together in the end? Because I want Ochaco to realize that she did everything in her power to save her Villain while Deku—after all that talk on the cliff!—just killed his, and triggered Toga just before he left to do it, meaning Ochaco had a harder time with Toga than she might have otherwise.

But, I’m not here to talk about No. 2 Green; let’s talk instead about the canon divergence where Toga survives (shove that absurd death-via-blood-transfusion right into the incinerator) and then Ochaco has to come face to face with a system that does not want to let her be anywhere near as kind as she wants to be. The canon divergence where Ochaco realizes that her forgiveness is immaterial to justice, where she watches the system she fought to defend gear up to try Toga as an adult because Japan needs a scapegoat for the destruction of the war and all of the people who are actually most responsible are already dead or dying. Where Ochaco realizes that she has to do something drastic if she doesn’t want to live the rest of her life haunted by the knowledge that her compassion got a 17-year-old victim of emotional and psychiatric abuse executed by the state. The one where she decides to take a fucking stand, and it forces the rest of her class to confront that need as well.

“The cutest girl in the whole world,” my god.

Kotarou and Nao: I’m not as big on it by the time we’re seeing them in the Tenko flashback, though I certainly wasn’t pulling for some mean-spirited, allegedly feel-good “Nao slaps Kotarou and the whole family walks out of him” thing like you see in fanfic sometimes. No, what I really like with Kotarou and Nao is thinking about them when they’re both still young, in the stretch of years where they really think they'll be happy together. That her being with him can make all his problems go away, that him being able to bury his past and be better than all the people who hurt him (and there were so many people who hurt him) will be enough, that love is the answer to everything. Sure, the cracks are there, but they’re thin, and they can be hidden beneath all the days when things are good, when the two of them hold each other and feel safe and loved and sure.

The cracks are still there, and love isn’t enough when love becomes a band-aid and a blind eye. But the love is still there too, and it’s so fierce and so desperate, and it still won’t save them.

Sorry, everyone; they make me emotional. They are beautiful in the way of sparks dancing above flames, or early flowers blooming right before a vicious cold snap. Ah, me.

StainMight: GOD, All Might really needed to grapple more with Stain’s side of his legacy. Like, StainMight is really a victim of the way the story looked like it was setting up to criticize All Might’s methodology as well-intended but not sustainable long-term, but then, like every other aspect of the series that was about systemic critique, that criticism just evaporated and Stain became an All Might cheerleader with nothing to say about the system All Might supported for thirty years. Maddening! But for real, All Might should have been badly hurt in that car attack and then rescued by Stain, both to give Deku some stress about how All Might could be in danger after they parted on bad terms, and also to really make All Might have to sit with this opinionated zealot all-too-prepared to talk about how no one else is really living up to his example.

And there should be UST the whole time.

Yoichi and Kudou: I am almost entirely negative towards the OFA Collective these days, especially Kudou’s role in the endgame, but I still have some fondness for what he and Yoichi could have been. My god, the first One For All transfer really should have been because they kissed. More beautiful, more tragic, more profound, and preserves the Yoichi that had some actual fucking agency in the life he lived instead of just constantly being AFO’s or Kudou’s trophy princess there to talk about how respectively terrible and awesome they are.

TogaTsuyu: I just think it would be interesting if Tsuyu were actually allowed to be more present in the Toga plotline, rather than only arriving as a spoiler to avert major shifts every time. Toga says she likes Tsuyu, too, after all, and Tsuyu is so different from both Ochaco and Deku, so much more thoughtful and considered. I dunno, I just wonder how things might have gone if, for example, it had been Tsuyu that Toga managed to draw away in the Jakku fight. Given that side story with her snakey friend Habuko, evidence suggests that Tsuyu is a good deal more observant and intuitive than Ochaco, and I wonder if she might have been able to suss out what Toga was actually asking there better than Ochaco did, and how that might have changed things.

THE TUMBLR PROBLEMATIC ZONE:

Gentle Criminal and La Brava: I was willing to follow the canon’s initial vagary about these two, but I also like them quite a bit together, so if canon wants to put them in wedding rings at the end of the series, that’s fine by me! Yes, I’m aware that there’s a pretty significant age gap there, which would have been at its most apparent when she first sought him out, but I don’t for one single instant believe that he’d be anything less than a total gentleman to her. Indeed, it’d be entirely plausible to mount an argument based on his behavior that they were not at all romantically involved circa the Culture Festival arc,[4] and only become so after Gentle’s imprisonment and subsequent release. But in general, what I’m more concerned with is the dynamic—I regard a power differential in a relationship as a reason for both parties to be cautious and mindful of that differential, but not as an immediate game-ender.

4: Most obvious is that when she says, “I love you,” he only says things like, “Thank you,” in return.

In that sense, Gentle and La Brava are great—they click together perfectly and obviously make each other tremendously happy after a lifetime of rejection. La Brava, in Gentle’s theatrical attention-seeking, finds someone who accepts her overflowing way of showing love; Gentle, in living up to La Brava’s feelings, finds a reason for his skewed heroism beyond satisfying his pride. To whatever extent their life together was heading anywhere bad (and there’s no evidence of this at all save that Heroes were always likely to catch up to them eventually, making La Brava’svery extreme response to Gentle’s defeat likewise inevitable), Deku’s intervention got them off of that path and back onto one that let them be accepted by the world, which they seem to have capitalized on marvelously.

They’re the only Villains I can think of whose turn to Team Hero in the endgame works for me without any significant quibbles. Good for them! I hope they are so, so happy together, because they deserve it.

AFO and Kotarou: MEANWHILE, IN MY OTHER KOTAROU SHIP. I love AFO knowing Everything about what he’s doing here while Kotarou knows absolutely Nothing about what AFO is doing here. I love an AFO who is self-amused in being friendly and reassuring and distractingly attractive to Kotarou, an AFO who knows that his toying with Kotarou would make Shimura Nana sick with terror and rage, and even if she isn’t alive to be so anymore, the fantasy of it is satisfying enough, especially since Kotarou is himself a very handsome young man, one whose hurt and resentment AFO finds beguiling to sometimes prod at, as if unable to leave a bruise alone except the bruise isn’t on his own skin.

I have an AU I’m never likely to write where Kotarou winds up successfully knocking out Tenko on the night of the accident before going on the run with him, only for them to get picked up by AFO a few weeks later, and let me tell you guys, that’s where all my guilty pleasure AFO/Kotarou really lives.

That said, I liked this one much better before we got the opening for it in canon, and not just because AFO’s disguise persona was doofy-looking instead of devastatingly handsome. It was always one of those ships that tickled my inner hedonistic wickedness fancier but that I never wanted to be canon because my affection for the ship's vibe was not more important to me than the integrity of Shigaraki’s arc, and Shigaraki’s arc was far better served by his early childhood being as free from AFO as possible. Alas, the reveal is very AFOtarou but at what cost.

Dabideavor: Sorry not sorry everyone, but all the people screaming about how this is SICK FILTH seem to have missed the point that it is indeed, absolutely and completely, sick filth and that’s part of the appeal. Personally, I like it for two main reasons.

Firstly, I want Endeavor to have as hard a time as possible, and times don't get harder than this. I enjoy it when he's frozen and helpless in the face of the son whose life he destroyed because I have a long history of enjoying stoic male characters being made vulnerable through suffering.

Secondly, and more importantly, I like it because I like the version of Dabi you see in it, particularly compared to the Fanon Dabi who made so much League of Villains fan content un-fucking-readable for years.

I'm going to try to keep the hot fandom tea to a minimum here, limited to the upcoming footnote, but I hated Fanon Dabi.[5] He was an incoherent mash of a character designed to be a vehicle for the unabashed revenge fantasy of bloody murder against Bad Dads while also presenting no danger whatsoever of splash damage, a Woobie Big Brother who was completely harmless except to the father whose organs he was planning to paint the walls with. Every excuse that could be made, would be made, for Dabi's more questionable or even outright nasty moments, even if it meant minimizing or outright erasing the harm we saw Dabi do, right there on the page in literal manga monochrome.

5: There's a particular type of flanderization that goes into Fanon Dabi, the same kind of flanderization I saw attached to Steven Universe's Lapis Lazuli, and which informed the absolute umbrage certain people took with Rebecca Sugar for describing Spinel, the SU movie's villain, as toxic. There is a portion of fandom that loves abuse victims who get angry and lash out, but which will go absolutely ballistic at the slightest suggestion that abuse victims are themselves also capable of harm, that lashing out has the potential to hurt innocent people. In a perfectly executed DARVO, it becomes "victim blaming" to confront an abuse victim about the very real abuse they're inflicting on others. I only specified fictional characters here, but it's a dynamic you see in real life, too. Some people hunger for nothing so much as an acceptable target and abuse victims are not exempt from that statement.

The Dabi I thought was fun was the high-energy maniac who doesn't give a shit about anyone else getting caught in the crossfire of his revenge. Both that version of Dabi and the Endeavor who's paralyzed with guilt and despair are facilitated by Dabi’s father-obsession having a taboo sexual dimension to it that Dabi is all too ready to shove in the face of absolutely everyone who would think worse of Endeavor for it. That means Endeavor himself, of course, but also all the good little civilians who Endeavor keeps telling to watch him. Watch this, says Dabi, as he makes lewd hand gestures on force-streamed national television.

It's not about Dabi healing as an abuse victim, and it’s not about Dabi having a fulfilling arc—covering that stuff was canon's job! It's about the fact that I, for reasons both personal and related to fandom spite, am personally entertained by Dabi being pedal-to-the-metal deranged about doing whatever it takes to seize Daddy’s attention and never let him look away again, which also means acting to ensure that no one is capable of or willing to save Endeavor from that fate. Like, if you want someone who would spend ten years plotting the most agonizing possible way to torment his abuser, then it’s sophistry to suddenly declare some agonizing torments off-limits. Dabideavor is just committing to the bit.

#bnha #stillness answers #stillness ships #tw: incest #just discussion no depiction #it's the last one on the post

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