#not that he’d ever acknowledge how much pain I’m actually in

[nope-body]

.

[wheneverfeasible]

It had just been a joke.

He’d been bleeding out, dying, the pain from the demobat bites fading as that unending cold started to seep into his limbs. He was dying and Dustin was crying over him and he didn’t want to say goodbye but what else was there to do?

Pounding footfalls and then Steve and Nancy and Robin were skidding to his side amongst the fallen demobats and Steve was telling him to hang on, to not die, that they were there. Nancy and Robin were tearing garments to wrap around his bites but he didn’t care overly much, figuring it was for nothing. Instead, he was focused on Steve’s hand in his, pleading with him to hold on, and it was clearly just him babbling, but he’d said he’d do anything Eddie wanted if he just hung on.

And really, what better time to come out as gay to your crush than on your deathbed? Or, death-patch-of-dirt anyways.

“Go on a date with me then, Harrington,” he coughed out, choking on blood that splattered on his chin. Sexy.

Steve was noticeably shocked, and confused, but he gamely agreed if Eddie just promised not to die. Eddie blacked out with a grin on his face. He’d thought that was it, thought it was all over, except then he started feeling pain again. Which fucking sucked. Kind of rude to feel pain in death, unless Hawkins had been right and he was in Hell now. Bummer.

But then he heard the beeping, felt the cold air being forced into his nostrils, and he blinked open eyes that felt glued shut. Things were all woozy and fuzzy, but he saw big brown eyes staring at him and a smile he’d never thought he’d see directed at him of all people, and Steve was holding his hand again and that was nice.

Apparently he’d been in a coma for a month. Hilarious.

Steve had told him he’d been begging him to wake back up, they all were, and Eddie was high enough on pain killers to tease, “Didn’t think I’d let you out of our date that easily did you, big boy?”

He’d fallen back asleep almost immediately afterwards, so he didn’t get to see Steve’s reaction to that one, which was probably for the best, all things considered. Except Steve kept coming back, and he kept up the joke about taking Eddie on a date once he was better, even using it as encouragement when Eddie wanted to just give up and die from the pain he was in due to the multiple surgeries he was recovering from and undergoing.

Despite all that, he slowly but surely healed, able to finally move into the small house the government’s hush money had bought for them with Wayne after they also got him cleared of all charges yadda yadda yadda. Pretty sick deal, all things considered. All it took was being framed for multiple murders done by a psychotic supervillain and nearly mauled to death by demon bats. Easy peasy.

When Steve had given him a time and date for their supposed date, Eddie was just happy that the guy was able to joke about it with him instead of freaking out in typical Straight Jock. Steve apparently acknowledged his crush and still wanted to be friends, which was better than he could hope for. Or so he thought.

Because there was Steve, on his front porch, flowers in hand and looking far spiffier than Eddie ever recalled him looking like before. It looked like he’d even gotten a haircut. Good lord.

And it was amusing really, truly it was funny how far Steve was willing to take the joke, but something broke inside Eddie too because he was For Real Super Gay For Steve Harrington, but for Steve it was Just A Joke. And Eddie couldn’t take it anymore.

He snapped, hurt by his feelings not being taken seriously, and ranted about ex-jocks and pretty straight boys who treated being queer like a joke. Though Steve looked shocked at first, he ended up just looking amused by the end, which annoyed Eddie further. He was just about to enter another diatribe when Steve cut him off with a simple sentence that took all the wind out of his sails and left him gaping like a fish.

“Thanks for calling me pretty, but I’m actually bisexual.”

Eddie blinked. Steve smiled. Flowers were pressed into his hand.

“Now, the only joke around here is thinking my date can wear sweatpants to our dinner reservations, so go change into something appropriate, Munson. Honestly.”

As Eddie was ushered to his bedroom to change into something more fitting than stained and holey sweatpants, he tried to figure out where he had, in fact, lost the narrative. Because it had just been a joke.

But somehow he had ended up with a first kiss, a real life boyfriend, and a happily ever after he never would have expected. Go figure.

[mrsdarkandyandere7]

BNHA Boys: 1st Time Noncon

▶ This is a yandere/dark work and it may contain triggering content so please READ THE WARNINGS before. Do not read if minor.

More at Masterlist

Female Reader

Boys -> Hawks + Dabi + Bakugo

Warnings at each part (but the title is quite explicit, right?) + NSFW Link (be careful + on twitter (you need a account to see)

AN: Please, reblog and give me feedback + Gimme ideas

–

Hawks

-> Manipulation

Keigo is a cunning guy, always looking out for a way to get things done his way. He’s used to tricking people, using his tactics to reach his desired goals. But honestly? You have to be the biggest chump he’s ever met in his life. 

Did you actually believe when he deeply sighed and pretended to relent to your begging, just before meekly offering you to walk away from him?

Did your ingenuous self really trust him when Keigo swore on his hero honor - what honor really? - that he’d let you go home, safe and sound?

But the reality is that you fell for it, like a bee attracted to honey. It’s moments like those that Keigo acknowledges how naive and kind-hearted you are. Too cute and good for this twisted, cruel world. 

So that’s why a minor part of him is almost satisfied at the reluctance and doubt that shades your pretty face when he tells you the inflated price for your freedom.  

You clearly don’t want to sleep with him. Your attempts to bargain are immediately turned down and it takes less than five minutes for you to crumble down. 

Keigo almost feels bad at your distressed teary face. But hey, a win is a win.

You try to relax when he starts kissing and touching you. To be calm when he slowly starts making love to you.

But it feels so dead wrong and the overwhelming realization that Hawks was lying about letting you go finally hits you like a brick and you try to push him away, pointlessly make him get off from you. 

But no point in that cause Keigo isn’t gonna let you go anywhere. 

“Deal’s off, babe. I mean, I was willing to let you go and all, but since you ruined the whole mood…there was no need to fight me, ya know? I wasn’t forcing you into anything, was I? But since you broke your promise, I suppose I’m gonna have to keep you here with me.”

(VISUAL)

Dabi

-> Noncon

Dabi isn’t one to shy away from what he wants.

He takes what he wants, when he wants and how he wants and you don’t get any say in it. 

So, if for a moment you actually believed you could argue or convince the black-haired villain to leave you alone, then you’re not up for a great start with him. 

Dabi doesn’t care when you start crying, spirit battered over the small burns he gives you for trying to fight back. He doesn’t care for your wails of pain when he fucks you in the way he wants to. 

Dabi is sadistic like that, he actually enjoys the terror that floods your entire face when he explains in extensive detail all the scary lustful needs he wants to fulfill by using you. 

He’s definitely one to use tight ropes to bend you in uncomfortable positions when fucking you - just because they allow him better access and less struggle from you.

Doesn’t give a crap about your wellbeing or if you get to cum, those are unnecessary thoughts for him. 

As long as Dabi gets to end his night with a few orgasms, he’s good. 

“Oh sweetheart, there’s no point in begging. That’s not gonna change my mind. And can you even blame me? Just look at you, such a pretty body you have. You’re just too tempting to let go and trust me, I’m not planning to.”

(VISUAL)

Bakugo

-> Forced Oral - (male receiving)

Bakugo has mild-anger issues and everyone knows that so, if anything, it was entirely your fault for provoking the anger out of him. 

You saw an opportunity to try an escape and you took it, even though it was meant to fail miserably.

Bakugo ends up wrestling you back inside the house, tightly clutching your hair as he angrily shouts at how much of an ungrateful brat you are.

He’s so damn pissed that you almost got away that he can’t control himself. All the adrenaline and anger mixing up in his blood and all he wants is to teach you a proper lesson. Scare you into submission. Make sure that you’ll never act up again.

His hands are cruel as he roughs you up a bit, ignoring your scared shrieks. 

But the real punishment is the way he fucks your mouth.

His pace is so insanely fast, demanding and brutal, and he carries on without caring for the numerous times you gag and choke around his length, unable to pull away because of the vice grip he has on your scalp.

The way he facefucks you is humiliating and brutal, and the cherry on top of the cake is when Bakugo shoots his sticky cum all over your face before leaving you bruised up and with a hurting throat.

Afterwards, Bakugo might feel a bit bad because that’s definitely not how he planned your first time doing something intimate together, but on the bright side - you get much more obedient and calm towards him. 

“The hell you giving me that pathetic look for, huh. You fuckin’ deserved that and you know that. Had you not acted all lunatic and none of this would’ve happened.”

(VISUAL)

[endereies]

THOUGHT YOU WERE MINE - CS

No Nut November - Day 5

NNN Masterlist...

-➤ When Chris was finally ready for a relationship with you, it was too late

Your situation with Chris was complicated to say the least. You had been running around with his for the past few months, sneaking off during parties and events. You loved the risk between getting caught with someone who was only meant to be your best friend. But it never stayed that way.

At first you sought out Chris’ attention in the midst of a drunken decision, yet as time went on, you found yourself seeking his frame in the crowd as soon as you arrived. It was stupid, you were aware of that. Chris never did commitment, that he made clear. Countless conversations spiralled around the idea if you two and what you both wanted.

You had thought you could escape the pain of falling for someone you couldn’t have. As soon as your heart clenched when he complimented you, you knew it was over. That feeling only grew and even if in the moment you felt like the only girl he’d ever look at, it was a lie. It didn’t help that when you snuck off with him, it wasn’t always for sex. Occasionally you’d find his hand tangled in yours while the concrete steps lay below you. Sounds of the party called the pair of you back. You always ignored it.

He'd steal the odd kiss from you, in front of people and never batted an eye. The two of you would be dragged into the stage by the other to your favourite songs and you never care how you looked when you were with him.

Those moments made him question how he felt about you, seeing your vibrant smile as you danced with your friends. Or the way you’d laugh without a care in the world. Little did you know he was falling too. He hated it.

Chris was open about his commitment issues to you. He wasn’t someone who was immediately happy getting into a relationship, the whole idea intimidated him. Having a label felt too immediate for him, and after being hurt in a previous relationship it was easy to see why. The fact he was falling for you was already enough to throw him off course, he just couldn’t turn away.

The way you both felt wasn’t subtle. Your friends always giggled when they noticed the smudged makeup that was lining your lips. No matter how many times you v denied the accusations of you two dating, the butterflies in your stomach became obvious.

That was until you confronted Chris about everything.

“Hey Chris...? Vulnerability filled you as soon as the words left your mouth. Quick glances around the room failed to aid you in finding anything else to converse about. His hand stilled from your hip, the touch burning your skin. “Mm? What’s up?”

You hadn’t even said anything to him, and you already felt sick in your stomach. Is this how every confession goes? “Can we talk…about us?”

“What about us Y/n?” You could tell he was getting concerned, yet not out of fear, but the fact he’d have to repeat himself again.

“I don’t want this anymore��like, I don’t know. I guess I don’t want to act like this is all casual anymore.” His touch on your hip no longer burned as it withdrew completely.

“I’ve told you, I’m not into that shit Y/n. We agreed on that, you knew. I’m not meant to be in a relationship, especially with you. That shit would hurt the both of us. We talked about this, end of.”

Tears brimmed at your eyes, and you felt so childish. He was right. You had discussed this more than once, the rules were clear. Weren’t rules meant to be broken. You couldn’t believe that you could be so stupid, the false hope from your friends fed into things that shouldn’t have been touched.

“Right…Well maybe I should go.” He didn’t protest, or even acknowledge you leave. Asking you to stay felt like too much to him, even if every cell argued with him.

The door shutting felt too real. You had actually left, this wasn’t a prank? Chris’s gaze was held on the door, praying you’d push it open and walk back through. You never did.

You quietly left through the front door and walked away from the porch, both your hands in your pockets. You were thankful for the dark sky, that way no one could see your tears. It was too quick, to reactive. It felt scripted hearing those words from him. ‘I’m not meant to be in a relationship, especially with you’

With you…

Maybe if you were someone else, he’d be more willing to hold your hand and call you his. He would always step in and call you ‘his girl’ when any other guy got a little to close to him. For once you wished it wasn’t a ploy. Chris never played you, never treated you badly, never gave you a reason to walk away. Maybe that’s why it hurt so much, he was too perfect.

Steady weeks went by with no contact from you. You never came over to his place anymore, invitations to parties remained unread. He didn’t care, he shouldn’t. What was this weird feeling in his chest.

It hurt seeing you so close and yet so far. Your contact was there, staring him in the face. Your face beaming in the profile picture wasn’t helping him. Chris felt out of place now. Without you by his side he had no one to kiss, no one to hold. He had no one to rant about his day to, no one to console when things got bad. His friends weren’t the same, he needed you. As much as he hated to admit it, all his thoughts revolved around you more than ever. Whenever he used to think about you, his heart clenched with resolute admiration towards you, now it felt sour. It was like a deep breathe wasn’t deep enough, distractions weren’t fulfilling enough.

He hated the feeling of falling for you, but the feeling of losing you was a nauseating sensation he wanted to scratch off his skin.

Not even alcohol could wipe the stain of you, nothing was working. He waited too long and fell comfortable to the casualness of your relationship. He was willing, willing to work through any fears if it meant getting you back.

Before he knew it, his front door was locked, and footsteps disappeared into the night. Stars began to light the sky above him. He found himself wondering if you were looking at them too, like you used to. The walk was only 15 minutes away but each second felt too long. he had waited too long. Now he hurt someone he cared about for his own selfishness.

When Chris turned the corner, his body stilled, and his stomach dropped to his feet. An unfamiliar car was parked outside your house, tilted against the concrete. Your hand placed gently into another’s as they pulled you from the car. You inched closer towards them, yet Chris remained frozen. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. Who was he, why was he here, with you.

The voices were too meek for Chris to make out, yet the message was clear. It was evident when the distance between you two close, his lips softly touching yours.

Only then could Chris turn his eyes away, he felt betrayed without reason. Chris wasn’t ready and when he finally was, he pushed you away enough to move on.

Yet, he loved you first.

@melliflws @yuhayeee @st7rnioioss @sturn-bugz @bueckerrss @worldlxvlys @raysmayhem-72 @patscorner @y0urm4m @bernardsbendystraws @junnniiieee07 @luverboychris @jnkvivi @rac00ns-are-c00l4 @shorthairchris @colorthecosmos444 @anabethinking @zay-sturns @anyaa2s @emilyfaith2003 @jassturn @imjusthereforthesturniolosmut @sturniolosiphone @ribread03

© ENDEREIES 2024

[literaila]

In keeping secrets we see reader worried that sorcery would rid megumi of a normal life but what if we got megumi assuring reader that he wanted to choose this life and that she didn’t have to worry or something along those lines 😭

“we still don’t have to do this. there are plenty of high schools—“

“can you just drop it?”

you look over to megumi, trying to smile. as if he’s not going to see right through that. as if he hasn’t known you since you were practically his age, and as if you don’t actively discourage lying any chance you get.

it’s different for adults, okay?

“i’m serious, megumi.”

he raises a brow. you can tell he’s at least a little bit amused—if only because you’ve seen the same glint in his eyes when he hides satoru’s blindfolds around the house. “so am i.”

your face is pained. “you don’t have to listen to satoru. or tsumiki. or me, even.”

“when have i ever?”

you nudge him with your arm, trying to relax every tense muscle in your body.

is it just pure instinct to protect him from this? or are you actually scared, worried that megumi wouldn’t argue with satoru, isn’t comfortable enough to tell you that—

“can you stop freaking out about this?”

“do i look like i’m freaking out?”

megumi stares at you blankly.

“okay,” you look back down to the paperwork in front of you. you wonder if this is how satoru feels anytime he says anything to the kid. you should probably be nicer to him. “maybe i’m freaking out. but it’s only because dad was supposed to do this with you.”

megumi looks briefly horrified.

“take me or leave me, kid.”

he shakes his head. “you’re better than that bonehead.”

you sigh, rubbing your eyes. “okay, you really gotta get over the movie thing—“

“no i don’t—“

“it was an accident.”

megumi crosses his arms. “why are you defending him? he ruined the entire series for me.”

you roll your eyes. “you think by now you’d know not to talk to him about movies.”

“you think by now he’d know not to spoil the entire thing,” megumi mocks.

you snort.

“why are you so… weird about this anyway? you went there. so did gojo.”

“and look how he turned out.”

megumi gives you a grin—meaning his cheek twitches and he blinks at you.

“it’s just… you really don’t have to go. i know satoru goes on and on about taking responsibility, and acknowledging strength. and i know that tsumiki thinks you should do whatever you can to help people but—“ you stop. bite your cheek. “you don’t have to go, megumi. you can be a normal person. become a doctor or something.”

“i can barely deal with my classmates,” he says, “why would i want to interact with sick people on a daily basis?”

you scoff. “first of all, it was a hypothetical.”

“that’s a terrible suggestion.”

you tilt your head at him. “you’re smart,” you say, “you’re kind. you’re handsome—“ you reach a hand out to pinch his cheek, but he grabs it—like an instinct.

but you take what you can get, so you squeeze it, smiling at him—but really this time.

because he’s so much more than you could’ve asked for.

tsumiki and megumi are your good luck charms, if anything. a sign for your younger self that everything would be okay.

they’re so much more than teenagers should be, so much more than satoru or you deserve.

but you’re not going to complain. the world is shit, and the gifts you’ve been given will never leave your grasp.

still…

“you could do whatever you want with your life, megs. anything. it doesn’t have to be jujutsu.”

“this is what i want to do.”

you let go of his hand, looking back down. “are you sure?”

megumi makes a noise, crossing his arms. “why don’t you trust me?”

“it’s got nothing to do with you,” you retort, sitting up. “but you grew up with satoru telling you who you’re supposed to be—“

“i have never listened to anything he’s told me—“

“so if you decide this isn’t you, that’s okay. i need you to know that it’s okay to do whatever you want. it’s not selfish, or irresponsible. it’s human.”

there’s a moment of silence.

you stare down at the table and wonder how many times you had to repeat those words—just to believe them.

you wonder how many years it took before you decided to act however you saw fit, and not bend to the wills of fate.

what will happen to megumi, whatever he chooses?

how are you supposed to protect him from the future?

“mom,” he says, breaking the silence. not a question.

“hmm?”

you’re tapping your fingers on the table, not looking at him.

god, satoru should’ve filled out the paperwork with him. he wouldn’t have scared the kid into changing his mind. he wouldn’t have even said anything.

“i want to do this,” megumi whispers to you. “i—there was never any question for me. i’ve never wanted to do anything else.”

you look at him. he’s staring back—his eyes so stern and mature, it almost makes you want to cry.

all you can do is nod. there’s no way to voice your fears to a fourteen year old, no way to make him understand.

but that’s okay. that’s why you have satoru.

“and you don’t need to worry about me. worry about gojo, or something, instead.”

you laugh. “i do worry about dad, and you, and tsumiki. all of the time. i can’t stop now.”

“well, try.”

you shake your head, messing with his hair. “nuh-uh. you’re my little boy. i’ll always be worried about you.”

megumi makes a face, and you laugh again.

“okay,” you take a breath. “let’s finish these papers. hopefully satoru and tsumiki will be back by then.”

“did they—“

it’s then that the front door opens, satoru’s signature slam ringing down the hallway.

“speak of the devil,” you whisper. megumi just sighs.

“oh goodness,” satoru says, as he walks down the hall. “my son and my wife, sitting at the same table. isn’t that funny?”

“we’re busy, satoru.”

satoru pouts at you, setting a bag on the table. “but we brought dinner,” he says, “and presents.”

“where’s tsumiki?” megumi asks.

“she’s getting the—“

and then tsumiki rounds the corner, holding at least five different shopping bags.

“satoru!” you hit his arm. “go help her.”

“what? she’s fine. woman are strong, you know? don’t underestimate their strength.”

tsumiki laughs, setting the bags down on a chair.

“you’re gonna learn just how strong a woman is when i—“

“what are you guys doing? homework?”

you glare at him. “we’re filling out the papers yaga gave us. the ones you were supposed to do a week ago.”

he grins at you, leaning down to leave a loud kiss on your cheek. then he pulls you so your face is pressed against his thigh. “has she cried yet?” he asks megumi.

“we’re getting there.”

[bella-goths-wife]

So I’m not sure if you’ve ever thought about this and it’s ok if it’s too awkward but…since Velvette is the only female Vee- does that mean she’s the one who takes care of Pet during her “time of the month”? Maybe the only one who can actually understand her.

How do the Vs handle pets time of the month

Warnings: weird dynamics, abuse, power imbalance, menstruation talk, sexualisation of pet reader

You knew how to handle periods pretty well

Sure they were different because of your new form, but it was still the same principles as before

It used to be a real problem back when you were first brought to hell and living on the streets

You had to do anything to be able to get some product to help with the bleeding, literally anything

So you’ve learned to suck up pain pretty well and you’ve definitely learnt to tough out your time of the month

But you also learnt a thing or two about how to manipulate men on the streets, and your period became a handy tool in this effort

If you told Vox that you were on your period, he would act like an embarrassed dad who just wanted to get rid of the conversation in any way possible

He found that your period gave him a reminder that you weren’t a child and he found it to be a constant reminder of your sexuality that he tries to desperately block off

Your menstruation is just another reminder that your an adult demon and not a childlike pet, and Vox almost sexualises you when it comes to your period

His first thought that comes to mind when you bring up your period is that you could possibly be having sex, instead of acknowledging that this is just a biological process your body goes through

So he allows you to get away with much more then usual and will sometimes allow you days off to spend in your room

Valentino has an opposite reaction, your menstruation actually humanises you to Valentino in a way that disgusts him

Your menstrual cycle reminds Valentino that your not just one of his toys and that your a undeadly living demon

Your real and not just made to fulfil his needs

So he’d start up his usual routine of inappropriate touches despite never being sexually attracted to you, and you’d mention your period and that’s all his interest lost in you

He’ll wrench his hand back like he’s just touched hot fire before looking at you with disgust, only seeing a person instead of his personal plaything

He’ll make some kind of fetish joke that will undoubtedly make you uncomfortable before sending you to your room for the day off under the guise that he’s such a good boss and he doesn’t want you to work while in pain

But the real reason is that he cannot stand being around you when your humanised in his eyes, when he can smell the blood on you and know that even his toy has a biological component

Velvette does not let your menstrual manipulation fly though

As she’s also a female, she also experiences menstruation

And when she’s on her period she will expect for you to dote on her like she were a sick person in private while keeping her tough girl act up in public

She’d have you absolutely pamper her and even hold her for a while when she feels emotional

So when your on your period you sometimes expect the same treatment, until you are reminded once again that you are not an equal to velvette

She’ll work you the same amount and will work you even harder if she hears any complaints

If you do complain you’ll be reminded of your time in the streets and velvette will remind you that you managed to overcome that so working for her while menstruating should be no big deal

The other two would try and get her to calm down on you but she’ll only double down and claim that your manipulation tactics don’t work on her

But she will insist on you sleeping in her bed while your menstruating

She becomes overly protective of you when your on your period, she claims that men will sense it on you and take advantage of you

It almost made you laugh how she practically facilitated Valentino’s sexual assault but became overly concerned with your well-being from other demons

So it’s almost like she becomes more clingy to you once your on your period, especially if you two sync cycles

If you two sync she’ll be working you to the bone and expecting you to pamper her while also being overprotective and not letting any men around you

And she’d also be emotional so the nights that your sleeping in her bed she’ll demand you hold her for hours on end despite usually hating affection

She craves the warmth and acceptance of a female companionship and relationship, but does not want to put the work into building a friendship

And your right there, her little obsession

You can fulfil her social needs and her cravings of a connection while being sworn to secrecy and programmed to answer her every command

And your menstruation reminds her that someone could try and take you, in a similar way to Vox she associates your menstrual cycle with sex and sexualises you with more fear then discomfort like Vox

She fears that you’ll enter a sexual or romantic relationship and she’ll lose you to someone else, despite her never craving a sexual or romantic connection with you

She wants to be your friend but that would mean acknowledging you as an equal which is something that she refuses to do

So you’ll remain her pet, her loyal mutt

Her little obsession

Tag list :)

@perkypeony @the-faceless-bride @lilyalone @buttercupfangirl @corvid007 @fandomaddict505 @hazbinhotelxreader @sparkleyfishies @repostingmyfavs @aroomofmyown24 @ivebeenthearchersstuff

[elyvorg]

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!)

[rainba]

When are Kairos and Luka's birthdays? what are their feelings surrounding their birthday? how would they go about celebrating it with their darling and/or celebrating their darlings' birthday??

sorry if it's too much! I just really enjoy learning more about your OCs ^^;;;

I’ve been thinking about when to make their birthdays– I’m a tiny bit conflicted. I usually like to just make my OCs birthdays as whenever they were actually first created! (*^‿^*)

In that case, Kairos’ birthday would be December 2nd, and Luka’s birthday would be March 7th. But… Kairos as a Sagittarius, and Luka as a Pisces??? >_<;;;;;;;;;;;;;

(Ok I don’t take astrology signs too seriously, but I think it’s a little funny ( ´ ▿ ` ). )

Also, it's not too much!! Thank you for being interested and asking questions! ☆*:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:*☆

Every year around Kairos’ birthday, he’ll often fall into a mild depression of sorts. ^^;;;;; It only ever brings up bad memories for him. He hates his birthday.

Going to school as a kid on his birthday, only for nobody to so much as acknowledge him. Going home, only for his parents to not even glance at him. No cakes, no gifts, nothing. He’d often spend his birthdays lying in bed while trying to sleep the day away, intensely wanting for it to just be over with. (-ω-、)

In the present day, he often tries to forget that it’s his birthday at all– but he can’t help but constantly check his phone, hoping that somebody, anybody, has sent him a text. It's compulsive. He also waits for his parents to give him a call.

…But that call never comes.

So, when darling comes around and celebrates his birthday? He would genuinely not know how to respond. If you hand him a gift or give/bake him a cake, tears will instantly start spilling from his eyes as he thanks you endlessly.

“Y-you really didn’t have to do all of this…! I, you… You…”

"You're the first person to... To ever d-do this..."

If you spoil him on his birthday, all of the previous painful memories will fade away, and it’ll become one of his favorite holidays.

On your birthday, he’ll absolutely treat you like royalty! He’s the type to make plans weeks to months in advance. He wants your birthday to be absolutely perfect! ＼(≧▽≦)／

Throughout the year, he’ll scrape up extra money and save it up, just so he can purchase you a really expensive gift. Oh, and he’ll make you a cake himself–! He watches tons of YouTube tutorials on how to make one, and occasionally he’d practice.

It… Still wouldn’t taste very good. But he made it with lots of love!! The cake is your favorite flavor and color! >_<;;;;

As for Luka, he doesn’t feel one way or another about his birthday. To him, it’s just another day.

Like, yeah… He was born today… So what? Who cares? It’s not important.

Some of his acquaintances will wish him a happy birthday, as well as his coworkers. His father might call him and wish him a happy birthday. But nobody really celebrates with him– mostly because Luka prefers to keep people at a distance. He’d probably get an invitation to go drinking after work, but he’d just politely decline.

However, when you come along and celebrate his birthday– his opinion on things will shift. He’d suddenly start looking forward to his special day, wondering what kinds of things you might have in store for him! 

(=`ω´=)

And when your birthday comes around, he’ll make sure it’s a day you’ll never forget. Breakfast in bed, taking a day off work, handing you gifts every hour, etc.! He’ll also do whatever you want him to do– only for your birthday. (o˘◡˘o)

To end the night, he’ll treat you to dinner at a fancy restaurant, or perhaps he’ll take you to go watch a movie! And once the two of you get back home, he’ll be quick to lead you back to the bedroom, focusing only on you and your pleasure. 

(*≧ω≦*)

[fromthefirstmomentitouchedyou]

Soulmate au 3

They’ve been sequestered into a side room in Kensington Palace, Alex is fairly sure theres a guard on the opposite side of the door in case one of them decides to bolt. He thinks about texting Nora to see what the odds are because Henry hasn’t looked at him since they’d been shoved in here, he’s looked in Alex’s direction sure but Alex has had media training and he knows all the tricks Henry is employing.

It’s not like he’s not doing it as well.

He glances down at the book on his thighs-the Prince Henry fact sheet, Henry has an identical one in his lap.

“This is bullshit,” Alex says for the tenth time in a row.

“Yes, well if we have to pull off this soulmates thing we have to at least pretend to know each other,” Henry says bitingly.

Alex sets the fact sheet on the couch beside him. “We don’t have to pretend we are soulmates, you could just ask me questions that’s what usually happens in these cases.”

“Most people actually want to be soulmates,” Henry says archly.

The sarcastic lilt of Henry’s voice sets off something hard and unpleasant in Alex’s stomach, a cramp at the verbal acknowledgement of how much Henry doesn’t want him. And it shouldn’t bother him, he doesn’t want Henry right back but the bond between them doesn’t lie. His body doesn’t lie even if his brain does. Henry’s rejection stings.

“Look, man, just ask me questions like a normal person,” Alex says.

For the first time Henry does look at him and the wave of pure emotion that wells in Alex’s throat makes him feel parched. Well, now he knows why Henry wasn’t looking at him.

Fuck the soulmate bond.

“Why do you hate me so much?”

Alex blinks, he’d expected a soft ball question, maybe what’s your favourite colour or something. But as ever Henry cuts down to the very core of him and prods something painful.

“The Olympics,” Alex says, “I came up to you to introduce myself and you took one look at me and told Shaan to “get me out of here”

Henry has the grace to blanch at least. “I didn’t know you heard that.”

The heat in Alex’s belly turns into anger. “Yeah, that’s not really the point is it? The point is you were a dick”

Henry nods solemnly. “Yes, of course. It’s not an excuse but my father died a few months before and to be frank I was a dick to pretty much everyone all of the time back then.”

Oh.

Alex swallows. He should’ve just studied the fact sheet. Now he feels as if he’s peeled back a layer of Henry and glimpsed a person inside. His soulmate, not some rich stuck up cardboard character.

He feels an identical desire to peel back a layer. “I just….this shit is hard and I didn’t get a handbook and I wasn’t born to this like you were and it’s pretty hard when everyone compares me to you, who apparently can do all this in your sleep and it doesn’t matter how hard I work to everyone else I’m just a bad imitation of you.”

Henry’s eyes are wide and very blue and suddenly they are very close. The air feels charged somehow, a faint low hum starts in Alex’s ears and thrums through his blood and he knows on some molecular, cellular level Henry feels it too. The bond between them flaring to life and burning all of their good intentions to ash. Alex wants desperately to kiss Henry and he’s just working though gathering his courage when Henry leans forward and kisses him. Soft, sure and achingly sweet and the sore part of him he just revealed to Henry feels soothed, at least a little.

Henry pulls away and Alex finds himself tilting forward, eager to follow, to keep doing whatever they hell they were doing because suddenly feels as if he’s one half of a puzzle piece slotted into its mate and he wants to keep the feeling.

“I’m sorry,” Henry swallows painfully, cheeks reddening and in a moment the prince is up and out of the room.

[m1ssunderstanding]

Get Back Rewatch 55 Years On: Day 16

Not the Love Actually India footage! https://archiveofourown.org/works/40600110/chapters/101720886 by @inspiteallthedanger is a favorite I should revisit after this painful day.

“Yes, what Were we doing?” Literally, why did you start this conversation, Paul? What did you think John and George were going to do? Just let you have your little casual chat about the footage? Come on, you know them better than that. “In your room?” “Yeah, right. I remember, yeah.” You set yourself up for this, babe. 

I would LOVE to know the real context for John’s mic-job. Because yes, that is real. He really did do that while staring like That at Paul. But it wasn’t after he said, “I don’t regret anything. Ever.” What was the real moment where John decided that was his move? And did Paul really just keep talking right over all of that? Beatles tumblr deserves access to all that footage just for all the obsessing we do. 

It is noteworthy, certainly, that we know for a fact that a good chunk of John’s India footage is just Paul, but in how much of that footage, I wonder, is Paul also focused on John?

We all know Paul approves, but why did we have to use valuable time to show monkey sex? I did not need to see that. 

“I have all the tapes, too.” Those laughs. You guys aren’t as sneaky as you think you are. Also, @ Lennon estate you won't release the tapes. Chickens.

George is just SO sick of their shit. “Because that was the purpose of going there was to try and find who yourself is.” AKA ‘I took your dumb asses on this beautiful spiritual retreat and you had to make it about your stupid psychosexual obsession just like you do with everything else.’ “And if you were really yourself, you wouldn’t be any of who we are now.” AKA ‘if you two would stop fucking hiding, we – me and Ringo too, you’ve dragged us down with you – wouldn’t be in this hellish mess.’ And here’s the thing. He’s pissed off. And rightly so. But he’s still going along with their veils and secrecy. A callback to his strumming over Paul ranting at him. He’ll still protect them even when he fundamentally disagrees. George is such a beautiful person and so underrated by people like me.

 Paul’s appreciative little look as John finally ends the difficult conversation. 

"Bye, Bye Love” is DEFINITELY *meaningful*

John calling Two of Us “Four of Us” is so sweet. Like saying to George and Ringo, “You are important too. Just because we don’t have weird thoughts about your physical adjacency to Elvis Presley, doesn't mean we don’t love you.” 

I think John’s willingness to be taught is also an underrated leadership quality of his. All the old men obsessed with Leader Lennon won’t acknowledge it, but that’s what it is. It’s humility and a recognition of other’s strength and it’s leadership.

Literally everyone else: Just don’t look and it’ll go away. John: what? Don’t look at Paul? I don’t know how to do that.

George and Ringo honestly had the patience of saints to just sit there and play through Two of Us eight million times so John and Paul could do their little accents and silly voices.

And then John can also do the traditional leadership, too. “Start again, ey. Shh, don’t talk when he’s playing there, gang.” And really, he’s the best of the four for that job by far.But it’s far from acerbic or cutting. Get Back John is certainly almost undiluted Lovely John. 

Quick reminder to anyone who may have forgotten: those boots George is wearing are literally Paul’s hand-me-downs. Earlier on the nagra reels, George was describing a kind of boots he’d like a pair of and Paul was like “I’ve got some you could have.”  Permanent baby brother status. 

“That’s a good idea, John.” “Yeah, well I’m full of ideas like that, I’m famous for ‘em. Literary Beatle, you know.” Puhlease. I know fics with more realistic dialogue.

“The things that’ve worked out best for us haven’t really been planned any more than this has, it’s just. You know, you just go into something and it just does it itself.” Yeah, George. Because of Brian. 

Paul really wants to do a big Thing at the end, because he loves performing, yeah. But what’s this about John and Yoko’s black bag? Does he think that performing together will remind John that being a Beatle with Paul is what he loves? Or does he just want closure before everything falls apart?

He really does hate to see him upset, doesn’t he. Like, I think he does a lot of things purposely to get a reaction out of Paul. And sometimes he needs to see him hurt to know he even cares. But from the way he’s watching Paul chewing his nails and rocking, you’d think Paul’s worries affected John physically. And then he breaks into “I Lost My Little Girl” almost as a sort of knee-jerk comfort instinct.  

These two shots are comedic gold.

My cabaret boys again. Heck, maybe I’ll write it just for myself. Honestly though I love that the two Beatles who loved performing and who would’ve been performers in any life (would’ve been performing circus elephants if they’d been reincarnated as animals) got to continue doing it into their eighties. One of the few happinesses in the end of the Beatles.

Get Back really is such a great character study, though. George hands John a drink. John takes it without looking at George, let alone the drink, and gulps. George hands Paul a drink. Paul smiles at him, then proceeds to sniff it and swirl it and inspect it like it might be poison before he gives it a taste. 

John chewing the mic. I hope you didn’t do That to Paul’s dick in India. What if that’s all that happened?

Bitching and gossiping: top requirements in the job description for John Lennon’s Codependent Special Person.

In these last few minutes of the day, I’m relating more and more to George. I’m sick of John and Paul and all their drama and stupidity. John suggests they write another verse of Let it Be together, and Paul looks frankly horrified at the idea.

So John lays his head in Yoko’s lap, reminding me painfully of that “ . . . except you can go to bed with it and it can pet your head without . . .” quote.

And then a few minutes later, Paul’s spiraling again and asks to go home to which John responds with a tease. “I’m just tryna get the group working, you know,” and “You’re gonna have to be strict, Paul.” And it’s just dizzying and frustrating at this point. Where are they possibly going to go at this rate?

[johaerys-writes]

Summary:

Just as Patroclus gets ready for the most important work trip of his career, Achilles decides to come along for the ride without asking. After not having seen each other for a year, the friendship they once had is hanging by a thread... while the tension that neither of them wants to acknowledge is heavier than ever.

Read on AO3

Chapter 1: i try to live in black and white but i'm so blue

It’s still dark outside when Patroclus hauls his suitcase out of his apartment building, waiting at the curb for his cab. The city is quiet in the twilight; there’s barely anyone in the streets, save for the garbage trucks making their first rounds. He glances down at his wristwatch: just short of 5am, and mere hours before he boards one of the most important flights of his entire career.

He heaves a sigh of relief when his cab finally arrives. The driver steps out to help him with his suitcase, and asks him if he wants to place his hand luggage in the trunk as well, but Patroclus smiles and shakes his head as he clutches it protectively close. He’d rather keep his laptop as close to his person as he can short of strapping it on him.

The driver has just shut the trunk door when the tires of another car screech, startlingly loud in the empty steet. Patroclus glances back to see another cab through the rear window skidding to a halt behind them. The car door is flung open before the cab has even stopped moving, and then—

And then, out steps the bane of Patroclus’ entire existence.

“Stop the car!” Achilles shouts. He grabs a designer duffel bag out of the cab’s trunk and slings it over his shoulder, then tosses some bills through the driver window— probably much more than the actual ride was worth— before running up to them.

“Hi!” He chirps merrily, slipping into the backseat beside Patroclus. His scent hits Patroclus like a punch in the face: a hint of expensive cologne and his own familiar smell, that heady summer smell Patroclus knows so well. It’s so sudden, it’s all happening so fast, that it renders him completely speechless and numb.

Achilles leans over to the cab driver and pats him on the shoulder. “Let’s get moving, we have a plane to catch!”

Patroclus, who had been watching the events unfold in pure shock, as if witnessing the collision of a rushing train with a brick wall, finally stirs out of his silence. “We?” he echoes. “Who’s we?”

Achilles blinks at him, completely bamboozled that he would think to ask such a question. “You and me, of course. Did you think you were going to that conference alone?”

The cab rolls down the street, steadily gaining speed. Patroclus can barely take in his surroundings for the sudden flash anger that fills him. “Wait, wait, wait —” he says, holding up a hand, which the driver chooses to ignore. “Why are you here, Achilles? What are you doing?”

“I’m flying to Singapore with you.” He grins at Patroclus as if he’s just given him the best news of his entire life, before he adds, “After being away for so long, I thought it’d be fun to surprise you. Didn’t you miss me?”

His hair is so golden and glossy in the morning’s bleak first light, windswept and yet still attractively dishevelled, like he’s spent hours trying to achieve that specific look even though Patroclus knows he probably woke up like this. His eyes are bright with mischief, like they used to be when they were kids and running around the garden of their childhood summer house in Phthia, but there’s something else in his searching gaze now: a sort of tentative hope that’s so at odds with his usual brazen confidence. A flicker of the real Achilles behind the face he chooses to put up.

After not having gazed upon him in the flesh for more than a year, being so close to him is almost physically painful right now.

Patroclus might as well have swallowed his tongue for how incapable he is of forming actual words. He turns away from Achilles and scowls out of the window, seething with frustration as Achilles nags the cab driver about connecting his phone to the car’s speakers and blasting his favourite tunes the whole damned way to the airport.

He doesn’t talk to Achilles when the cab drops them off at the airport departures, and he refuses to reply to any of his enthusiastic comments and questions as they drop off their bags at check-in and make their way through airport security. Once they make it to their gate, Patroclus leaves Achilles flicking through the pages of an airplane magazine as he steps away to make a phone call.

“Hello?” comes Peleus’ groggy answer. The man has never been an early bird, and this is particularly early even for Patroclus. He feels bad for waking him, but this can’t wait.

“It’s me. Patroclus,” he says, though he knows it’s unnecessary. Peleus can tell who he is through the caller ID. “Listen, I’m sorry for waking you but I need to talk to you.”

“What happened? Anything wrong with your flight?”

“Yes. No. Well, sort of.” Patroclus lets out a sharp breath and rubs the bridge of his nose. “Are you aware that your son is travelling with me?”

“Achilles?” Peleus asks, baffled. “That’s the first I’m hearing of it.”

Patroclus stays silent, guts twisting with anxiety while he waits for Peleus to properly wake up.

“I told him about the conference last night, when he came over for dinner. He was very happy to hear about you taking on this responsibility. But you know Achilles— he has never been particularly interested in the business end of things. I practically had to beg and bribe him for him to agree to start coming to the office once in a blue moon. Every year I ask him to go to one of these conferences, to start learning the job, and every year I get the same answer. I’ll spare you it; it’s too early in the morning.”

Peleus laughs indulgently at his son’s antics, but all Patroclus feels is dull and hollow bitterness. His stomach squeezes uncomfortably at the prospect of spending any time at all with Achilles, let alone the entire length of this trip. At least he’s somewhat mollified by the fact that Peleus didn’t send Achilles along to keep an eye on Patroclus, as if he can’t be trusted to do a job on his own, and that Achilles’ actions are all his own fault and of his own devising. As per usual.

“You know,” Peleus continues, “it isn’t such a bad thing that he wants to come. It’s about time he showed some initiative— and you have always been such a good influence on him. Catching up will do a world of good to you both, I’m sure.”

Patroclus grits out a reluctant acknowledgment to this, which is neither an assent or a refusal, and hangs up the phone. He isn’t at all sure that ‘catching up’ will do anyone any good, especially Achilles and himself.

By the time they board the plane, Patroclus is hungry, tired, and already has a splitting headache. He wants nothing more than to be left alone for the rest of his flight, even though there’s little chance of that with Achilles managing to find a seat right next to him on the plane.

“Isn’t it great, going on a trip together after so long?” Achilles says happily as the plane takes off. “It’s going to be like an adventure! Like old times, right?”

“I’ve got a job to do, Achilles,” Patroclus says. “I’m not interested in adventures.”

Achilles laughs, and the sound at once enrages him and makes him ache with painful longing. “We’ll be there for a week, you won’t be working all the time.”

“Watch me,” Patroclus says irritably, reaching for his laptop in the overhead locker once the sign to stay in their seats flickers out.

He barely got any sleep the previous night, working on his presentation until late, much later than was reasonable. The presentation is pretty much ready, but he can’t resist tinkering with it all the time, changing a word here and fixing the formatting there. He knows he should leave it alone, but he is simply incapable of doing that. He wants to be the best, the very best, at what he does.

It isn’t just about him being a perfectionist, though, or having a chip on his shoulder. The task Peleus has entrusted him with is the most important he’s ever had to undertake; sending him off to Singapore to one of the biggest business conferences in the world to present the growth and production of the company before an audience of hundreds, and thousands more online, is just a small token of the enormous faith Peleus places on him. Patroclus isn’t about to let him down.

And he won’t let anything distract him from that purpose. Not Achilles, or anyone else. This is far too important.

His resolve doesn’t last very long, as Achilles thrusts his face over Patroclus’ shoulder to peek at his laptop screen. “Ooh, what’s this?”

“Do you mind?” Patroclus snaps, slamming the laptop closed. He shifts around to face Achilles, schooling his features to the most annoyed scowl he can muster. “This is important stuff, Achilles. I can’t have you poking around my work. If we’re going to have to suffer each other’s company for a week, the least you could do is mind your business and let me do mine, okay?”

He hates the way his heart plummets at the sight of Achilles’ smile fading, at the disappointed pout that replaces it. Achilles edges back, all of his enthusiasm melting away.

“Fine, okay,” he mutters. “Whatever.”

He turns around and takes his headphones out of his bag, placing them over his head. Though being left in peace was everything Patroclus wanted, Achilles pulling his attention away from him feels like the sun being hidden behind thick rainclouds, taking away all its warmth. He sullenly returns to his work while Achilles gets ready to watch a movie on his tablet, and wonders how long it’s been since they’ve done anything in the same space, since they’ve sat so close. The distance between their elbows on the armrest is electrifying, and every time they almost touch, Patroclus’ heart gives a painful, frustrating thump in his chest.

Patroclus does his best to ignore it.

Read the rest on AO3

[reviewdiaries]

Nancy x Ace and the conundrum of pain in 4x12

Alright kids, buckle up for one last time. Don’t worry I will absolutely be back next week for more, but this is the last one where we still have some story left to discover, and I am all up in my feels about this.

There are definitely storytelling choices that I feel are ahem, slightly misguided, but as ever I’m focusing on the Nace of it all, and despite another painful episode of heartbreak, angst, and shouting, I genuinely think we’re making progress. And gosh there’s a lot to unpack from this last episode - it gets long under the cut.

We finally know what the sin was, and we’ve seen them get their memories back. But I still think there’s something else at play here. Because we had heart eyes adoration. We had heartbreak and pain. We had breakups and desperate longing and despair. But then we suddenly shifted to indifference in the wake of that phone call and Nancy’s trip to the Yacht Club. Which either is terrible writing, or it’s some other puzzle piece at play here that we have yet to see. I’m still clinging to the latter. I think there are a few more revelations to come, and I don’t think Nancy and Ace are operating with their full range of memories and emotions yet - hence the anger, indifference, and general out of characterness we’ve been getting.

These last few episodes have served a really interesting purpose though, untethering Nancy and Ace and allowing them to stand on their own. It’s highlighted how much Nancy needs the support of those around her - forcing her to acknowledge her feelings and how important this found family of hers is. But it’s also given Ace the space to breathe, to try and work himself out, to learn to trust himself, to stand up for what he needs and wants, and how he functions as an individual instead of just constantly in service to others. That’s been hard to watch, but it’s been important.

The Nancy and Ace we saw at the start of this season were amazing, yes, look at the yearning! The pining! The heart eyes! But as a couple they were going to run into problems really quickly. They weren’t managing to communicate well - Nancy has slowly been learning not to close herself off since way back in season one where suddenly she wasn’t the only one invested in solving the Tiffany Hudson murder. And Ace has always been supportive of her, quietly there ready for when she finds the words. But they have always struggled to actually communicate effectively, particularly when things are going badly. Nancy takes everything as a rejection and abandonment, Ace actively puts his needs to the bottom of the pile in favour of protecting those he loves. This isn’t healthy, and it isn’t the foundation of a good relationship. And we want them to have a good relationship, we want them to last, because even now for me, they are still endgame. 

They have needed to have that time and space to work some of their own issues out so that they can come back to each other on a more equal footing. To be able to say absolutely I want this, I deserve this, and we can do this together. 

And it’s always been up to Ace to come back. He is the one who walked away, who committed the ultimate abandonment as far as Nancy is concerned. He’s the one that said stop, no, we’re not doing this. And partly as respect for his wishes, and partly because he’d basically just put a fist through her heart by saying that and then leaving, Nancy has stopped. She’s been devastated, broken, looking for something easy that doesn’t hurt as much, but she has respected his wishes. Which is why it’s up to Ace (hey Ace you’ve done some really excellent growth and learning to stand on your own and have your own boundaries and needs, time to put that into action) to come back. To admit he still loves her, he still wants her, he still wants to make this work.

Do I think the writers are waiting until the absolute eleventh hour and really making this pivot a hard one to pull off? Absolutely yes, dear god this feels a little unnecessary. But I do still think we’re getting this pivot. Nancy and Ace have needed to have that space and individual plot lines to come back together as a stronger whole.

Which is why this revelation about what actually happened the night of the boat trip hits that much harder. This is the very first time we’ve seen Ace beg Nancy to come, to be there. She’s the first person he calls. He just needs her there because something awful has happened and she is his safe space. 

GIF Credit @thatonekimgirl

This is huge, life altering vulnerability from Ace in a way we have never ever seen. In all the tragedy, she is his first thought. Not to fix anything, not to make it go away, just to be there with him, hold his hand and smooth his hair away from his cheek and hold him steady in a world that feels like it’s falling apart around him. 

GIF Credit @thatonekimgirl

And any other night, Nancy probably would have made a different decision. But she’s emotionally wrecked from her mum’s memorial. She is adrift in grief and fear because those first weeks after her mum died are a haze of darkness and pain, and on this anniversary night she feels the closest to that pit of grief than she’s felt in a long time, and it would be so easy to tip back into it. Shut her eyes and let it consume her.

And Ace is there and he’s panicked and desperate and she’s never seen him like this - never been allowed to see him like this. He is vulnerable and trusting in a way she has never witnessed. 

GIF Credit @thatonekimgirl

And she just wants him to be ok. She can’t bear the thought of him going through a fraction of the pain she experienced with the loss of her mum. The guilt, the despair, the anger. She wants to spare him as much pain as she can because she loves him. It’s never about thinking he isn’t strong enough to hold it, it’s not about selfishly trying to keep him as he is. She is, in that moment, so full of love and desperation that she would do anything. And she’s not thinking straight, she just wants him to be ok. Isn’t that all we want for the ones we love?

So she leaves him. Breaks every speed limit getting to the yacht club, just wants it done, wants to take the pain away, smooth the lines from Ace’s brow and wipe the tears from his face. Heal the pain bracketing his mouth as he bites his lip trying to keep the grief at bay. He knows he did the right thing, but it still hurts, still feels like it carved out a piece of him to leave someone to a death like that to save his father. And he’d do it again, even though it would kill him a little more, there’s no way he would change what he’d do, no way he wouldn’t save his father every time.

She isn’t thinking, not really. Panicked by the vulnerability, the fear, the pain, the tidal wave echo of her own grief. She can’t take that away, hasn’t even thought to, can’t imagine herself with the grief hollowed out of her bones. But she can do this for Ace, help him, save him. Doesn’t think through the consequences. Doesn’t think through what else might be taken. What this house of cards might look like when it begins to crumble down. This isn’t Nancy thinking clearly, this is Nancy acting purely on instinct - fear, grief, pain. Her own and Ace’s. And if she can’t be with him at the very least she can take away this burden, ease it for him, shoulder some piece of the load. 

But he’s right to be angry once he understands. He’s right to call her out on it. She had no right to do what she did, particularly without telling him what she was going to do. There’s no way he would have let her. And maybe that’s partly why she didn’t say anything to him before she left. Because she didn’t want him to talk her out of it, didn’t want him to have to understand what loss feels like. What regret eating you away from the inside can do to a person. 

This is where my comment from last week comes into play though. Ace has been so bad at standing up for himself, for calling Nancy out before this season. We’ve had odd moments - the Aglaeca and how angry and scared he was to be caught up in a death curse. But he’s always kept his feelings quiet and bottled until the odd moment where they explode out (see 4x02 and the passive aggressive snark and withdrawing we get from Ace). But last week we saw him standing up to Nancy, arguing, fighting, getting what he needed. And it’s left a muscle memory path for him to follow so we get not one but two fights this episode. And sure, I’d much rather there were heart eyes and curse breaking, but honestly? The fighting gives me hope. It tells me there’s still something there, there are still messy tangled feelings mixed up in all of this. And it starts to offer a more solid foundation, an equal footing for them to build off. 

To say the things they’ve kept bottled up inside, to actually call out what’s upsetting them. That it hurts that each of them seem to have moved on even though neither of them actually have. That it hurts to be around each other, to be so tied up in each other because they can’t bear to be apart. That they’re afraid, so so afraid of what might happen next - of losing each other, of trying and failing, of the possibility not living up to the reality.

GIF Credit @livelovecaliforniadreams

And the sucker punch of realisation that Ace has that Nancy isn’t moving on or as put together as she’s seemed. That they’re both still such a mess over each other and putting on a front that is far too effective because they’re both too blinded by the pain.

GIF Credit @livelovecaliforniadreams

But the real pain, because this episode is just a heaping plate of pain after pain, comes with that final confrontation at Icarus Hall where Ace finally calls Nancy out for what she did. Because it feeds into everything he already fears, that he isn’t enough as he is. That Nancy would do something to change him, to remove his pain, his grief, the painful experiences that ultimately are part of him.

GIF Credit @livelovecaliforniadreams

But with the darkest low points come a turning point, because Nancy needed to be called out. She needed to be told her actions weren’t acceptable, no matter that they came from a place of love, of trying to protect him. She has to have this moment of understanding, of Ace putting it in terms that she could understand so that she can see the damage that has been done. 

GIF Credit @livelovecaliforniadreams

They can’t start anything without getting this poison purged, without fighting their way to the truth, no matter how badly it hurts, to start from somewhere clean and whole.

Whilst I know most would rather pretend that kiss at the end didn’t happen, I would like to make one comment on how it evokes Ace even when he’s not there.

Tristan comes to Nancy filled with emptiness, not knowing who he is, something she can entirely relate to - she’s just been rightfully chewed out by Ace who has broken her heart into even smaller pieces than previously thought possible, and walked away again. And then Tristan tells her exactly what she has only ever wanted to hear from Ace - that he feels connected to her, and he kisses her. And she tries, gosh she tries to get into it. Her hands go into his hair and then jerk back out when it’s not the expected softness of Ace’s hair. She tries again and still can’t. You can see on her face that this isn’t the fireworks and mind melting best kiss of her life. This isn’t even close. But then he says “But I know I can’t walk away from you” and it immediately taps into that memory. The heartbreak is on her face and it’s not Tristan she’s thinking of then, it’s another kiss in this space, and another person’s hair, and someone she desperately wants to stay, to choose her, who has walked away from her and broken her heart so many times over these last few weeks. There’s a breath of relief when her phone rings and offers her a way out of this. Because she thought this would be easy, that this would be better, good for her. And all it’s done is serve to highlight that there’s no one but Ace for her.

So we leave them with one episode to go, broken but healing, finding parts of themselves they hadn’t realised existed, and slowly coming back to their love. Always their love, it’s tangled into everything, and we’re finally going to see that play out next week.

On a personal note, this season has been a curious one for me. I’ve overall really enjoyed it, and I think a lot of that is down to doing these analysis posts. It’s forced me to go back over the episodes in miniscule detail, and to really examine what’s happening and why. Believe me there were weeks where I finished my first watch and wanted to post this gif and be done with it.

GIF by lecoeurasesgifs

But doing these posts has pushed me to unpick what the writers have been trying to do in a way I wouldn’t normally have engaged with. So thank you for feeding the meta beast. 

I can really understand why people have found this season frustrating, there have been a lot of shall we say interesting choices, for lack of a better word. Part of that is down to the completely broken system we have where shows kinda have to act like they’re about to get cancelled at any moment, which inhibits really thoughtful, interwoven long form storytelling, or they do what Nancy Drew have done and desperately hoped they will get to keep telling these stories and then have to pivot if they’re given any sort of warning that it’s over. And in this case, means we’ve had to have a hard pivot which has shafted a lot of storylines and left a lot of fans (myself included at points) wondering what the hell is going on.

That said, I’ve still really enjoyed the journey. Not just of this season, but the whole show. It’s given me a found family to root for, supernatural shenanigans, thoughtful and well plotted storytelling, and a romance for the ages. Yes I still think we’re going to get that, despite all the roadblocks in these last few episodes. It’s been my spoopy little comfort show through some really difficult years, and I am going to miss it hugely. Thank you to anyone who has read and engaged with these posts, it’s been such a joy both writing them and then talking with people afterwards about them. We’ve got one more wild ride to see how Horseshoe Bay and the Drew Crew will be left, and I cannot wait.

[thecozycamper]

I have a question, and while no, you're not forced to answer or even glimpse at it, it has me wondering...Do you or any of your peers, for that matter, ever think about the respawn machine? Not just a simple glimpse, not just "Oh, respawn is respawn." Have any of you ever worried about it?

•|| I just found this blog today I'm going to give him an existential crisis I'm not sorry - Mun

content warning for descriptions of physical injury

It was the first time Sniper had been left in a pile of pure agony. The first time the Australian had experienced respawn, it’d been a sobering experience. He’d gone through almost 30 years of life without giving death a house call, and suddenly in a fraction of a second, he was inside sitting on the couch. A dull ache in his temple, and he hadn’t even noticed the enemy snipers dot. But, it’d been just that. Quick, nearly painless in a way that was almost forgiving… A round to the head, a knife to the back, a lethal blow to the temple. Snipers weren’t a part of the main action, hidden as he was, it would take- DID take-  a short time for the other classes to get smart to his tactics. He’d yet to experience being canon fodder to the frontline. He couldn’t tell whether it’d been on purpose or unintentional, maybe it’d caught on that the marksman was reluctant to seek help when he was injured, and it was a decision to prolong his participation in the ongoing spat for the control point. Splayed out on his front, he couldn't move. Chest rattling with heaving gasps, his nails dug into the floorboards in an attempt to find purchase. Pain, pain, pain. An agonizing numbness that started from the epicenter of it all, spread down into his hips and legs. That thin blade jammed in-between the disks of his shoulder blade had missed its mark. He remembers the voiceless pleas that fell from his lips, reaching out towards the weapons that’d been removed from his person and tossed far away. He doesn’t remember who must have found him in that way, and helped him along. But he remembers coming to in respawn and collapsing onto the cold floor, his brain far delayed to his body.

Respawn was hardly forgiving, but the little mercy it did have was taking away the memory of the last few seconds of your previous life. Sometimes that just wasn’t enough… Everyone had their own theories, and only so few actually know how it works. Sniper wasn’t one of them. He’d heard numerous things over the years… had formed his own ideas, trying to blame his own physical condition rather than acknowledging that the mental toll was so taxing. Death was so normalized. Respawn is normal and death is common. You can believe it as faithfully as you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that it happened, that most of the time you remember how it happened. It didn’t matter that you woke up physically okay, it was like an imprint, some sort of muscle memory. Invisible tolls. Dying so many times to the same thing over and over again. Sniper gets horrible headaches sometimes, right in the smack center of his head. Other times, it’s like his body locks up and stiffens. The center of his spine becomes a pin point for a nonexistent injury that forces him to his knees, and he has to sit there and wait for it to subside. Poor posture and chronic back pain, that’s what he tells himself. — Snipers fiddled with the flayed edge of his glove's thumb, considering the question in a terse silence.

“...S’not my area of expertise. Leave that to the Doc and Truckie.” He starts, “it lets us do our jobs. All I need for it to do. …I don’t think much about it, not the machine itself anyways. I’m no engineer- specially not one to compare to ours. If it works, it works.”

“I worry about my teammates. One thing supportin’ them from my nests and towers outside the fray, seen my mates get themselves into some nasty binds. Sometimes it’s on me to get them out of it. … It’s just, it’s nasty work and some things are better left on the battlefield. Respawn ain’t perfect. It keeps us alive alright, has that part down to a science. Hell, sometimes it’s more tedious if anything. You take a hit in a bad way and come back looking for some retribution.” Sniper pauses to clear his throat, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “I just think it’s best they help each other stay sane at the end of the day.”

[redzie02]

Not Just a Dream m.m.

this is my first time ever posting a fic :) there's not much dialogue in here, i'm experimenting a bit. I haven't proof read but i hope y'all like it!!

summary(974 words): Matt is pining for you but you don't even know he exists.

warnings: none

Manuka honey and lavender. That's what he smelled whenever you were near. He searched for it. Craved it. He smelled it in his dreams. And in his dreams is where he feared you would stay. You ran through his mind at times when he needed comfort and a light in the dark, yet you didn’t even know he existed.

Matt had tried to make his presence known to you by holding the door open to the cafe you loved and visited every weekday at eight in the morning. You would thank him and quickly make your way inside to order your favorite drink. To be honest, Matt wasn’t sure if you’d even taken a second to glance his way. He noticed how swiftly and quietly you moved. Like a ghost. Or a dancer. It was almost like you wanted to go unnoticed, undetected by the world around you, but he noticed. He always did.

Matt would focus on your voice whenever you would give your name to the barista. He’d whisper it to himself, repeating it over and over on his walk to work. Why was he so obsessed with this stranger who hadn’t even taken the time to acknowledge him? It almost pained him to think about the idea of you living your days without him. You were his favorite part of his morning routine. He looked forward to those ten minutes in the cafe when you were standing only a few feet away from him, absentmindedly picking at your nails while waiting for your daily dose of caffeine.

There was something about you he desired, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint it. Maybe it was the scent of your shampoo swimming in the air and into his airways. Maybe it was the way every word that fell from your lips was a melodic resonance that danced in circles around him. Or was it your soft, steady breathing that seemed to reel him back to earth before he suffocated in his billowing thoughts?

And now as you both wait for your coffees, Matt stands a couple feet away- as he usually does- trying to gain the courage to finally strike a conversation with you. Matt knows by the smell of your upcoming coffee order that he doesn’t have much time, so he swallows his nerves and makes his way to you.

You feel something tap at your foot and you look down to find the tip of a cane. Your eyes move up the cane, stopping at the faintly scarred hand firmly holding the black leather grip. Your eyes shot up to meet a pair of red tinted glasses when you heard his voice. “Oh,” Matt laughed, running his free hand through his hair. “Sorry about that, I didn’t mean to bother. Are you okay?” Of course he meant to, but you didn’t know that yet.

You’ve been to this coffee shop countless times and somehow never exchanged words with anyone besides the baristas. The slight change in your routine made you a little nervous, but you were also glad this beautiful stranger was the cause of it. “Y-yeah I’m good…you’re good. I almost didn't notice.” You smiled at him and he mirrored your expression, adjusting his glasses and holding out his hand.

“I’m Matthew, by the way. I’ve, uh, I think I’ve heard your voice around here a couple of times.” You take his hand in yours, shaking it. You notice he has a strong, calloused grip. You give him your name, still not letting go of his hand.

“That’s actually really impressive. I can’t believe you’ve heard me ordering coffee…” You finally let go of Matt’s hand. He wonders if you miss his warmth as much as he misses yours. You do, he just doesn’t know that yet. “Oh man, I feel so bad! I’m always too caught up in my own mind- I never notice what’s going on around me- I- It’s nice to meet you, Matthew.” You gave him a sheepish look, truly apologetic that you hadn’t ever noticed him before. But that’s not what Matt was focused on.

Matt’s heart jumps a little when you say his name. Matthew. You make his name sound like a song. His new favorite song. He’s never loved his name more than at this moment. Matt tries to suppress the smile begging to spread across his face, but he fails, the crinkles by his eyes making an appearance. You basked in the sight of this moment, taking a mental picture and hoping it doesn’t get lost in the files in your mind.

You and Matt continued talking about everything,- work, friends, hobbies, favorite snacks- eventually taking the conversation outside when you both had your drinks in hand. It almost freaked you out just how easy it was to slip into dialogue with Matt and how comfortable you felt with him. You could’ve known Matt a hell of a lot sooner if you’d just looked around once in a while. You mentally swore at yourself.

“Do you happen to know the time, by any chance?” Matt asked, standing barely a foot from you. When did you two get so close?

You check your watch for the time and swear. “Ah shit, it’s almost nine! I’m thirty minutes late to work. Uhh…I gotta go but it was so incredibly lovely to meet you! We should talk more…see you tomorrow then, Matthew?”

“You know where to find me.” Matt smiled at you and stood as you sped walked a few blocks over to your job. He was also incredibly late for work, but he didn’t care. It was worth it. You were worth it. He had a stupid grin on his face the entire walk to his office and the stupid grin never left his face that day. You were more than just a dream now.

[starcrossedspirit]

✧. ┊    angst drabble one ! pairings: reno x fem!oc original characters:  seraphine tag warnings: n/a - it’s just a lil bit of angst  song: who are you by bad omens

Reno could never have her, that was the reality of it.

No matter how many times he would find her in his arms, no matter how many times he would hear the words of love escape her lips, no matter how much he had wanted her- she was to never know that he loved her back.

Instead nights like these would play out all the same; Sera would return back into their care after slipping out to dance and she would always find his arms. She was different when she would drink, all the more outspoken and touchy-feely, perhaps even a time or two she would cry about things that he didn’t quite understand. Things about the planet, the experiments Hojo would conduct, but most of all how she felt alone. The only time it would make sense is when she would try to kiss him but he would put her to bed- it was his duty and nothing could break that honor.

The first time it happened it almost got the better of him, he almost spilled his heart out to her but he stopped himself from saying anything and instead ate that courage. He loved her and loved all that she was, good or bad, but that was just something he would lock away.

Nights like these were no different from the rest. They would find her at the club, dancing and drinking but never resisting returning with them when they’d arrive. They’d would whisk her away from upon the dance floor and into the back of the car. All of them would be quiet on the ride home, Reno perhaps even deep in thought with furrowed brows but would catch quick looks at her through the mirrors. Rude would never question it nor would he ever- it was just a silent understanding of something neither would talk about.

But when they would arrive back to headquarters and after finding their places, hands in hands as they guided her upstairs, Rude would leave it in Reno’s care to see her to her room. He’d have to stand guard to make sure she wouldn’t go out but they all knew that she wouldn’t, but it wouldn’t stop him from staying around anyway. He would hold her hand and when Rude would leave that’s when it would start- at the door of her room, she would turn around and ask for a hug, something he would oblige in with a soft but careful grasp.

“Don’t leave me, Reno,” she would say, it was always something about him staying. “I’m afraid of hearing the whispers again, they never leave me alone.”

Things like that made his heart hurt for her. He could take the physical pain away, sure, but that? How could he make something like that go away?

“I ain’t leaving you, I promise.” he would say and holding her tighter, his lips buried into the long strands of snow-white hair.

“Then why do I wake up alone in the morning? You never stay with me.” she asked, her breath slow as her lips lingered at his neck. He closed his eyes and held her closer for a moment as he was unsure of what to actually say or do, instead taking in the moment as a whole.

Sera kept her arms around his neck and the two held one another close- this was the way they were allowed to express their love for one another.

You could say that Reno, for all of his brashness and perhaps even in spite of his ego, was everything that Sera would want in a lover. There was a fierceness in the way he would tend to her, a hard undying loyalty that never faltered even when she would have her bad days, and for all of the things that Shinra had done to her he would love her all the same no matter how much it would terrify someone else. Even without approval from Tseng it would be him who would go after her and they would all let it happen, a silent affirmation from those that surrounded them that their love was acknowledged.

For Sera it was his love that would keep her going, even when at times she couldn’t bear another day at being Shinra’s failed experiment. It hadn’t been so bad since Sephiroth’s death, Hojo having deemed her as mostly useless which allowed for more times to be alone. But when she was alone it would eat at her, the way the sounds and the whispers would get worse. When she went dancing it would disappear with the hum of the music but the drinks made her long for Reno- no matter where she went her heart would want his.

“Tell me that you love me,” she whispered then, this time the sadness causing her voice to quiver. “Tell me that you will always love me no matter where I go or what happens to me.”

His eyes opened and his grasp around her tightened, this time more determined than afraid.

“Nothing will happen to you,” he whispered as he felt the tears start to fall down her cheeks, something he answered with him placing his cheek to her head to both comfort her and to speak properly. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Sera, not here or anywhere, I promise.”

Her tears however were bittersweet and she only cried more. “You never tell me that you love me, even when I tell you that I do. No matter how many times I say it.”

Reno’s brows furrowed together but he wasn’t angry at her, he was angry at himself. Professionalism was his first and foremost thought, he did things he didn’t want to do and then didn’t do the things that he wanted. It was like a blight upon his heart at times but what else could be done?

“There are things that can’t be said, Sera, and I think it’s time you go to bed.” He insisted then in spite of it all. But Sera said no words, she just wept as he picked her up and carried her to the bed. It made his heart hurt but he had to do it this way.

Moments passed as he tucked her in and ignored the tears that fell. He was quick to make sure that she was safe and out of harms way before turning to the doorway but not before soft words carried out in the silence.

“I love you, Reno, and I am afraid.”

Pausing for a moment at the door he turned slightly to look at her past his shoulder. The things he wanted to say were not allowed by his duty to do so, something he would later come to regret.

Instead he said. “You’ll be fine, I promise.”

He would promise a lot of things to her, but the words would never reassure her the way that she had actually wanted him to. Instead Sera would weep from upon her bed and he would stand on the other side of the door longing for a girl who he had loved, both untouchable in their own rights as Shinra’s pawn and bodyguard.

[callmewishful]

Gautier Family Week in full swing! Cute little family piece to start :)

.—.

“Dad?” The door was half open before the small voice said, “Oops!” and it was shut once more. Three small knocks followed.

Matthias shook his head. He’d reminded Miklan about this often, though the rambunctious boy was rarely better at remembering. “Come in, Miklan.”

The little boy knew he had done wrong because the first thing he muttered as he approached his father’s desk was “Sorry.”

“We speak about this often, Miklan. What if I had been with company?”

“Yes, Sir.” Miklan nodded, pressing his lips together. He kept his eyes trained on his father and Matthias was glad to see that at least that lesson had sunk in well. In fairness, Miklan had always been confident and unwavering enough to have no trouble maintaining eye contact, unless he was in trouble as he was now. “I’m sorry.”

“You are forgiven. What did you need, Little One?”

“Where’s Momma?” The brightness in his eyes was quickly replaced, blissfully unaware of the sharp pang to his father’s chest at that phrase.

Miklan stared at him expectantly; Matthias usually held many answers for him on a multitude of topics…Why are horses tall? Why are weapons shiny? Why doesn’t the fire last forever?…it had been an interesting few years, to say the least. They, of course, had discussed what happened to Miklan’s mother numerous times before. Miklan was often plagued with nightmares as a younger boy and those usually prompted questions of where she was and what actually happened. Matthias tried to keep those conversations short in order to occupy his mind with better thoughts. Though he thought he had sufficiently detailed to Miklan where his mother actually was, at least enough to ward off future questions.

He swallowed the pressure in his throat, “Miklan, we’ve talked about this. Your mother is-“

“No, not that Momma.” Miklan shook his head and half rolled his eyes at Matthias. As if Matthias could read his mind and know who he’d truly meant. “Momma Phe! Where is she?”

Momma…Phe. If Matthias said those words brought comfort, he’d be lying. The knowledge that Lia was so easily…replaced was even harder to acknowledge. How could a woman who loved Miklan so furiously be erased from his mind in three short years?

Of course, it wasn’t Miklan’s fault. He had been young when his mother passed and Matthias always carried the knowledge that Miklan would struggle to remember his birth mother. He couldn’t say it made the day that had come too soon any less painful.

“Are you allowed to call her that?” Matthias finally asked his son. Phelan had not been in their lives long and Matthias didn’t wish to put any undue pressure on her. She was already testing out the possibility of being a Margraves wife. Sure, being a mother to Miklan seemed to come naturally to her, but calling her mother sounded much more final. As much as he wanted her to decide yes, she needed to be able to decide if this wasn’t the life she wanted.

Miklan shrugged, “I dunno. She reads me stories and tucks me in and plays with me like a Momma.”

“Nieve does those things too.” Matthias reminded him gently, “You should ask Phelan if you’re allowed to call her ‘Mother’ before you do so.”

“Why?” The ever-present question on Miklan’s young mind.

“Because she is not your mother. And it’s polite to ask permission before thrusting a title upon her.” When Miklan did not ask any follow-up questions, Matthias continued, “Now, I’m not sure where Phelan is. I haven’t seen her yet today. Have you checked the study?”

“I checked everywhere!” The boy groaned dramatically, raising his arms up and letting them fall against his legs. “She’s missing!”

“She is not missing. Have you asked Tabitha if she’s seen Phelan?”

Miklan sighed, “Yes! And she hasn’t so she’s missing!”

Matthias copied his son’s actions, “Have you checked her room?”

“That’s rude.”

Well, that lesson almost stuck, “It’s rude for you to barge in without being invited. It is not rude for you to knock and ask to come in.”

Miklan gave him a skeptical look, as if Matthias hadn’t made the rule and was just changing the law Willy-nilly. To avoid further back and forth, Matthias stood and held out his hand, “Come. We will go check on her.”

This seemed to be what Miklan was truly after, based on the way he smiled up at his father and cheerfully exclaimed, “Ok!”

They started with the library. If Phelan wasn’t working or with Miklan she could often be found there. When that was empty they made their way to other places Phelan was known to frequent. It wasn’t until those were void that Matthias began to worry. Phelan was not the kind of person to sleep past this hour and she certainly wasn’t the type to disappear without saying anything. Maybe Matthias had misunderstood Miklan and she was actually missing.

He knocked twice on her door, releasing Miklan’s hand to do so. The ‘told you’ look on his son’s face after she didn’t answer right away did not ease his worries.

“Phelan?” Matthias knocked again, a bit louder this time.

He pushed the door open slightly, just enough to see if the room was lit. This didn’t stop Miklan from gasping like his father had committed a crime, loudly proclaiming, “That’s rude!”

Matthias shushed the boy, opening the door a little more, “Phelan?”

It was obvious, then, that she was actually still asleep. The lump in the bed wiggled slightly, sheets rustling as it did. Miklan rushed in from behind Matthias, throwing his arms up on the side of the bed to try and reach her, “Momm-oops! I mean, uh, Phe! You’re alive!”

Matthias shook his head, rolling his eyes to himself before taking a couple steps in to pull Miklan back.

Phelan was certainly awake now with the yelling. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and gave the little boy a small smile. Matthias fell into her line of sight next and seeing him jolted her alive. “Is everything alright?”

Her voice sounded awful; scratchy and hoarse. Matthias rose his head up in understanding, “You are not feeling well.”

“I’m fine.” She certainly tried to appear as much, moving to get out of bed before Matthias stopped her.

“You are ill. We apologize for disturbing you. Miklan hadn’t seen you yet today and was worried. We should’ve checked with one of the assistants.”

“What time is it?” Phelan ignored his words, glancing out the window to see how far the sun had risen.

“Nearly noon.”

She apparently hadn’t expected this, eyes wide as she went to get up again. When she was stopped a second time she settled on apologizing profusely for oversleeping, explaining that she’d only meant to sleep a few minutes more.

Matthias shook his head, the smallest of smiles on his lips, but one that Phelan had learned to find months ago, “You are apologizing for nothing. If you are ill, you should rest. Come, Miklan, let us get Phelan some soup and medicine.”

Only Miklan returned minutes later with a tray containing soup and some medicine. He was rushing, as he always was, sloshing a bit of soup as he lifted it up to her, “Oops! Don’t worry Momma-oops, I mean, Phelan! I’ll clean it!”

She couldn’t help laughing, even it did cause her little twinges of pain in her throat and a coughing fit. Miklan returned yet again with a full bath towel for a gold coins worth of spilt soup. “Don’t worry Momma! I got it!” He put the towel under the bowl after she lifted it, then paused as he remembered something, “Oops, I mean Phelan. Sorry. Can I call you Momma?”

“Honey,” she ruffled the boy’s hair affectionately, “you don’t have to ask. Of course you can.”

“I told him I didn’t! But Dad said I did. I’ll go get books to read and Beary!” Miklan dashed off before Phelan could get a word in. She didn’t want to get him sick, but Miklan was insistent that she needed snuggles with him and his stuffed bear, proudly exclaiming, “We gotta snuggle and read when we’re sick! I feel better when we do so you will too!“

It was hard to argue with the logic of a five year old sometimes, especially when the warmth in her heart told her he was right. They spent the day in the comfort of the covers, reading and napping as they pleased.

Matthias stopped by often, but only lingered when the sound of Miklan’s outside-inside voice was silent. He watched her run her fingers through his son’s wild hair, the boy tucked up right against her as though she’d disappear. Matthias supposed it was a reasonable fear, all things considering.

They were lucky to have found her; one that filled the gaps they had for so many years now. She was a quick study, worked without complaint, took excellent care of Miklan; always patient and kind with him - Matthias knew he was fortunate.

But, as he held the worn square of paper between his fingers, he wondered why his heart couldn’t quite agree.