#how am I even gonna get to her i need to see her so badly

[justanotherhh]

some trailer things:

big fight around lust/ozzie's place that involves m&m and loona + we know fizzarolli is going to make another appearance, so i wonder how that'll connect potentially. also, new villain?

obvs the whole section of CHERUB working with DHORKS and this massive thing/portal:

john waters big villain episode???? (ghostfuckers from the looks of things)

also more crossdressing in that same episode + millie vs possessed blitz? both millie and blitz giving some evil dead type vibes?

more on stolas' whole social sphere and potential judgement and hell's class politics related to his dating blitz + p much confirmed that blitz will not take stolas' gift in the spirit it was intended

also, "you fucks think you can do this every time-" feels not just like it's about the wider class issues in hell, but maybe like it's personal (potentially with verosika? although it does seem like it's canon that he had more than a little bit of a hand in ending that relationship, so could just be him echoing everything he's been seeing in the treatment of imps and putting that onto stolas in this moment)

and then "thank you blitz, for making me so happy, even for a little while" is during this moment too. lot of teasers for how this is gonna go down (badly, upsettingly, emotionally)

the whole "do you feel any remorse for what you do" feels like a misdirect -- that is, it's edited to look like it's about blitz, but i feel like it's directed at stella or her brother

generally a lot of fun stolas visuals that i won't get into here, but am excited to see more contexts for

also this isn't new, but im always interested in blitz's heart/broken-heart forehead marking

blitz and tilla moment! generally more flashbacks (in the shape of blitz seeming to be almost at the movies, watching his own "failures") around the time of the fire! i didn't see any barbie stuff, alas, but the rest of it looks !!! also lowkey confirmed it was cash who stopped blitz from seeing fizz in hospital

who's this?

another sin? maybe related to ozzie and/or stolas and that judgement of the kinds of people they love?

blitz protecting stolas - maybe from the above, considering the hand motif of it all... stolas really living the life of blitz as a romantic hero, while blitz is barely holding it together as a person the whole time. different genres, my guys. different genres (that's their real communication issue)

this fuck-you-blitz cake looks like a verosika thing to do, esp considering it's her calling him shitty in the VO -- but yay, maybe giving that verosika catharsis, but also generally just verosika!

also the VO part where he says he doesn't want to be this way, he's wearing the same shroud as during his confrontation with verosika. idk, im just. contexts for things. i am curious

is the below also the same episode? I'd think so. it's set during halloween (?) and blitz is then maybe in the blood-covered shroud (costume? undercover? going undercover as a ghost? post-breakup stalking undercover ghost costume?)

MAMMON! and he looks pleased. oh dear.

this blitz + fizz moment

it kinda looks like blitz is wearing the same tee as when he and stolas have their moment + a horse bag + fizz casual wear. fizz generally in this trailer seems to be having the best time (outside the flashbacks). everything makes me suspicious all the time

(also generally hello all the different outfits coming up!!)

fascinated by this:

is that millie?

things we didn't see:

no barbie, no striker, no crimson, no asmodeus (directly, although his imagery is everywhere + fizz and mammon appear), no paimon -- this not to say none of them will show up, but am enjoying that a lot of this is clearly pulling from s1, with the focus on verosika, DHORKS, and CHERUB -- potentially a lot of the s2 villains need some time to lick their wounds a bit (and paimon was never a Villain, just a terrible parent... if he ever returns though...)

and barbie... i do want to see barbie again soonish ngl, she needs some proper introducing, but this is already giving so much callback and continuation of immediate plot-threads, very excited

[chibelial]

.

[n0ct0urn1quet]

hgonesly at this point i really do wish i could just say Fuck It and disappear off the face of the earth for a little bit bc honestly . i donot want to be alive

[cloudybarnes]

new beginnings

Pairing: theodore nott x reader

Summary: after theo very unexpectantly breaks up with you, you try your best to pick yourself back up and move on. theo, on the other hand, seems to be having a harder time of that.

Word Count: 2.2k+

Masterlist

part two :)

✰  ✰  ✰

“(Y/N), you’ve got to get out of bed at some point.” Hermione said. She was sitting on the side of your bed while you laid fully wrapped under the covers. Hermione gently tugged the blanket down from your chin, but you whined a little in protest. 

“‘Mione, I seriously can’t do this yet.”

Theo, your boyfriend of over a year had broken up with you only a few short days ago. You’d been in bed ever since, heartbroken over what could have been. 

“(Y/N), I know you’re upset, but you have to get up. I can’t let you live the rest of your life in bed! Don’t you know how badly your bum would hurt from laying all of your life?” Hermione joked. 

A small smile grew on your lips. “Yeah, that would be pretty tragic. I have too nice of a butt to let that happen.”

Hermione laughed. “There she is! I’ve missed your little jokes. Ron and Harry have become quite boring without you around. I think they’re worried about you.” 

You groaned. “Nooo. I hate when people worry about me. It’s just so awkward when I have to be like ‘I’m fine’, ‘no really, I’m fine’.”

Hermione shrugged. “Well, are you?”

You sighed, pulling the covers down from your chin. You looked up at her, a forlorn look on your face. “Definitely not, but I suppose you’re right. I don’t want to be stuck in here for the rest of my life. I just, I just don’t think I can handle seeing him right now.”

Hermione looked at you sadly. “I know. I hate seeing you so upset like this. God, what I would do to put a hex on that boy. He’s quite deserving of it, I would say. Maybe a rat’s tail, or a snake tongue.”

You giggled and sat up in bed. “Or how about we make him bald, or worse, blonde.” 

Hermione laughed at that. “Oh, Godric, then we’d have another Draco running around. I don’t think I could handle that.”

“Me either,” you laughed. Slowly, your smile dropped. “I just hate him. Well, no, I don’t hate him. And I hate that! I hate that even after breaking my heart I still love him and long for him.”

Hermione sighed, “I’m sorry, (Y/N/N), I wish I could say something or do something to make this better, I just really don’t know what.”

You shrugged, “yeah, it is what it is. It’s not your fault he’s an ass.”

She chuckled. “So, what do you say? You wanna try to get down to the great hall before dinner starts? I’m sure the guys would like to see you again.” 

You thought it over for a minute. You really had missed your friends. Other than Hermione, you’d ostracized yourself from everyone just to avoid Theo. 

But were you really ready to see him again? You didn’t think you would ever be ready to see him again. 

“You know what,” you stated, “I am gonna go to dinner tonight. And I’m gonna ignore him and see my friends who I’ve missed and ignore the hell out of him because he’s an ass and why should I be the one who has to stay in bed all day?”

“Woohoo!” Hermione cheered. “You’re amazing, let’s get you showered and dressed. I hate to say it, but if you’re gonna get back into the world, you need to wash your hair.” 

You chuckled as you picked up a piece of hair to inspect it. “Yeah, okay. Shower first, look really pretty, eat dinner, come back. Piece of cake.” 

You pushed the covers off of you as Hermione stood from the bed. 

She said, “I’m gonna grab your clothes, so just get in the shower. We shouldn’t be too late to dinner that way.”

You nodded and headed to the bathroom. You were gonna go in there, socialize with your friends, reassure them you were fine, and everything would go back to normal. You hoped. 

✰  ✰  ✰

“(Y/N)!” Ginny shouted as you and Hermione made it to the Gryffindor table. She stood up from her seat and pulled you right into a hug. 

Releasing the breath you didn’t know you were holding, you smiled and held her even tighter in the hug. Ginny was an amazing friend to you. She had tried her best to see you, but you didn’t let anyone in. Only Hermione since she shared the room with you. 

Pulling away, Ginny dragged you to sit down next to her. Hermione followed suit and sat on the other side of you. “Oh, we’ve missed you so much, (Y/N/N). We’ve all been so worried about you, haven’t we?”

Harry and Ron sat across from you. They both nodded their heads, agreeing with Ginny. 

“Yeah, what an ass,” Ron scoffed. “Honestly, someone needs to knock that bloke down from his high horse. He doesn’t know what he’s missing, (Y/N/N).”

“Yeah,” Harry replied as he pushed some mashed potatoes in his mouth. “Theodore is a walking red flag. I for one am not sorry for him. He lost a good girl and he’s gonna regret what he’s done.”

You smiled at them. “Yeah, I am pretty awesome. Thanks guys.”

They chuckled and continued eating. Merlin knows those two could eat an entire quidditch field full of food. 

“Ahem,” a throat cleared from behind you. 

Turning around, you saw Enzo standing there sheepishly. 

“Uh,” he stuttered, “hey, (Y/N).” 

“Oh,” you said. “Uh, hi Enzo. Do you need something?” You couldn’t hide the crack in your voice. Damn it.

Enzo was probably your favorite of Theo's friends. He was always the one you had most in common with, and therefore connected with pretty easily. You’d never hung out one on one, so you couldn’t really say he was your friend. 

“I-no I don’t need something, per say. I just wanted to talk to you. Alone, if, uh, that’s alright.” 

You looked back at your friends, unsure if you should talk with him or not. They all seemed to be the same amount of weary as you were, but you were intrigued. 

“I don’t really want to talk to Theo, if that’s what this is.”

Enzo shook his head. “No! Ahem, no. I wanted to talk to you. To, uh, apologize kind of? I don’t know. It’s fine if you don’t wanna talk to me, this was silly, I’m sorry-“

“It’s fine, Enzo,” you cut off his rambling. “I’ll speak with you.” You looked back at your friends as you stood up from the table. “I’ll be right back.”

They nodded their heads as you let Enzo lead you away from the table and out the door. 

Once you two stood out in the hallway, Enzo kind of just shuffled his feet around, almost as if he was shying away from talking to you. 

“Am I supposed to say something first?” You questioned, crossing your arms over your chest. 

“No, sorry,” he said as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I just feel a little awkward. I know what happened between you and Theo, but I guess I just hoped that didn’t mean we couldn’t be friends anymore.”

Your eyes softened a little at his confession. Enzo’s cheeks blushed a little as you stared at him. 

You sighed. You and Enzo really had been good friends, and you weren’t exactly keen on losing his friendship. 

“I mean,” he continued, “you’re the only one who doesn’t make fun of my poetry, you’re the one I go to when I want to talk about books or get recommendations from, and I just would hate to lose our friendship just because I’m friends with Theo as well.”

Your heart melted. “Enzo, of course I still want to be friends with you. I will admit, I was a little nervous you wouldn’t want to talk to me anymore after Theo broke up with me. I really enjoy being your friend.”

Enzo smiled in relief. “Oh good. I thought this would be more awkward and a little bit more sad than how it’s actually going.”

You giggled. “Thank god. I don’t know what I would have done if I just had a real breakup as well as a friendship breakup.”

Enzo smiled awkwardly. “Yeah, I am really sorry about that. I don’t know why he would ever break up with you in the first place. You’re so kind, and I thought you brought the best out in him.”

You forced an awkward smile. You really did not want to be talking about Theo right now, especially not about how you made him a better person. 

Before you could reply, a voice yelled out from behind you. 

“Oi!”

Turning around, you could see Theo storming up towards you and Enzo. 

“What the fuck, mate?” Theo huffed as he got in between you and Enzo. 

“Woah!” You shouted, backing up as Theo got up into Enzo’s face.  “Theo, what are you doing?”

He ignored you and kept talking to Enzo. “Are you hitting on my girlfriend? Right after all the shit we just went through?”

“What?” Enzo squeaked. “I’m not hitting on her, I was just talking to her.”

You were pissed. Your fists balled up at your sides as you stomped up to Theo. You grabbed onto his shoulder and yanked him away from Enzo. Theo didn’t see it coming, so he stumbled and fell back a couple of steps. 

“Get the hell away from him,” you growled. “And what the fuck is wrong with you, Theodore?” 

You got between Theo and Enzo, pushing your finger into your ex-boyfriend’s chest accusingly. 

“First,” you said, “you break up with me, break my heart, and then you have the fucking nerve to come up here all righteous and accuse Enzo of whatever the fuck you said, all while calling me your girlfriend when you’re the asshole who broke up with me!”

You glared at Theo, watching as his anger turned soft. “I am not your girlfriend anymore, Theodore Nott. You’re the one who made that happen, so you have no fucking right to come up in my conversations acting like I owe you anything.” 

“(Y/N),” he softly said. “I… I’m sorry. You’re right, I shouldn’t have come out here all crazy. I just, I hate seeing you with anyone else, even if it’s one of my friends.” 

He turned to talk to Enzo, “I’m sorry, mate. Will you give us a few minutes?” 

Enzo nodded his head and gave you an awkward smile before heading back into the dining hall. 

You huffed, settling down a little as you stared at Theo. 

He looked tired. His eyes had circles underneath them, and his cheeks didn’t have their usual flush to them. He was as gorgeous as ever, but he looked drained. 

“You don’t look so good,” you pointed out, trying to sound nonchalant. 

Theo frowned and softly said, “neither do you.”

Your lips pulled tight in a frown. Theo didn’t need to know how much he had affected you with the breakup. 

You sighed, “what are you doing, Theo?”

He shrugged and put his hands in his pockets awkwardly. “I, uh, I’m not really sure. I just didn’t like seeing you with Enzo.”

“Why? You broke up with me.”

Theo huffed, “I don’t know. I just don’t like seeing you with anyone else. It still feels like I’m supposed to be there. Like I’m supposed to be the one with you. I miss you.”

You shook your head as hurt started to creep back into your heart. “Don’t say things like that to me, Theo. Not after what you did. I loved you, and you broke up with me out of nowhere for no good reason, either.”

“I’m sorry,” he tried to reach for you, but you shrugged off his hand. “I don’t know why I did what I did. I just know that I regret it like crazy. I want to be with you, (Y/N). I’ve always wanted to be with you, I was stupid to let you go. Can you forgive me?”

Your lips pulled tight. “Theo, I can’t just get back with you like this.” You said. “I don’t trust you anymore. You broke my heart, and broke my trust. You gave me no reason for the breakup, so who’s to say it won’t happen right after we get back together?”

He shook his head. “Dolcezza, no. I won’t do that to you, not again. What can I do to prove this to you?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t get back with you. Not like this, and not so soon. You really hurt me, Theo.”

“Well, what if we try being friends at least?” He suggested. 

“You wanna be my friend?”

“No,” he said immediately. “But I’ll settle for being your friend for as long as it takes to win you back.” 

Your heart warmed at what he had said. Maybe you could try being friends with him. He did really hurt you, but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t miss him. 

“Okay,” you decided, “I’ll give you a chance to be my friend. Don’t hurt me again, Theodore, or I’ll get Ginny on you.”

He chuckled. “Don’t worry, darling, I’m gonna do whatever it takes to get my baby back. I can promise you that.” 

[lxnarphase]

Screaming, crying, violently shaking the bars on my enclosure for thigh grinding. Please.

i had to let this marinate for a little, this is actually so good i love the idea of just plopping yourself on their lap, straddling their thigh when you want their attention when they're doing something. and you gave me free reign on who to write so i am in heaven with these thoughts. i thought about adding 'who would pretend to not notice' and 'who would make you do it until you squirt' but i think i already got carried away with this little thirst ❤︎

WHO ENCOURAGES IT: g. suguru, n. kento, h. kinji, f. toji

the second you sit on him, his attention snaps to you, inquisitively raising an eyebrow. but once you tell him to focus on what he was doing, he bites his lip as he feels you grinding yourself on his thigh.

suguru's abandoned his show, leaning back on the couch and putting his hands on your waist, guiding you back and forth against his leg. "oh, pretty babyyyy, go on, grind on me. does it feel good?" he's a little upset you aren't facing him, but whenever you turn your head over your shoulder, he coos at you so sweetly. he even brings his hand down to your front, playing with your puffy clit through your soaked underwear. "look at you, your gonna get my leg all wet...tsk, you're gonna lick it up for me after, right?" kento turns a pretty shade of pink, chucking as he shakes his head. he texted you only 2 minutes ago, responding to you pouting and asking when he'd be done with work, he didn't think you'd show up this soon. "have i been neglecting you, honey? mm, i'm sorry, love. you can keep going," he encourages, his hand on your lower back as he looks up at you from his leather desk chair. oh, he could never get tired of his view. if he could, he'd have you sit on his thigh every time he worked in his office, but...he knew that wouldn't work out, he'd never be able to get work done with you sitting all pretty on him like this. "i'll take a break from work, okay? mhm, just for you. now keep going, honey, i want you to feel good." kinji stops everything immediately. "well, hi to you too, cupcake," he whistles, his hands instantly starting to rub up and down your sides. "needy cunt wanted some attention? aww, she needs her kinjiiii, ain't that right, doll?" his hand trails down and smacks your ass before grabbing a handful. his eyes are lidded but filled with excitement. oh, he looooved when you took control of your pleasure and used him to feel good. knowing that you needed him so badly that just grinding on his thigh could make you cum made his ego shoot through the roof. "c'mon, wanna have you soak my thigh before i touch you, baby, lemme see how messy you can get." toji is pleasantly surprised when you come to him with that pretty little pout, cooing his name in just his black sweater. his thin pajama pants can't be that good to grind on, the fabric isn't nearly rough enough, but he can feel how hot and wet you're getting, how sticky your panties are getting. seeing how you're getting frustrated, toji just lifts you up and plops you on his dick. "hey, pretty mama, you strugglin'? mhm, yeah, i knowww. my pants aren't enough for that pussy t' cum, are they?" he helps you move your hips back and forth, lazily smirking up at you. "yeah, that feel better? grindin' on my cock instead? y'so pretty, mama, so so pretty."

WHO CUMS IN THEIR PANTS: g. satoru, k. choso

it's hard not to get turned on from seeing you hovering over him, eyes lidded and filled with need, using their thigh to get yourself off. you just look so fucking gorgeous they can't help but move you off their thigh to their lap.

satoru lets you grind on his thigh for a little bit, kissing all over your neck as he fucking giggles into your skin. when he gets that pretty whine of his name after mouthing your pressure point, he pulls you onto his lap, grinding up into you. "baby, baby, baby, you're so cute, s'fuckin' cute! f-fuck, shit, 'm gonna cum, h-haah, you'd gonna make me cum in my fuckin' jeans, c'mon." he lets out the filthiest moan, laughing deliriously as he cums in his jeans. he barely gives himself a second to breathe before he moves you onto your back on the couch, sliding your panties to the side and pulling out his cock that's still hard and covered in his cum. "tsk-tsk-tsk, little dumplinggg, you made me waste it, 's a baddd girl...now i gotta fuck you 'til it leaks out, m'kay? my cock feels so much better than my thigh, angel, let 'toru into this lil' cunt." choso looks up at you with wide eyes, and you barely get to grind on his thigh before he whines, slowly pulling you towards his lap where his hard dick is pressing against his shorts. "b-babe," he whimpers, finally feeling you grinding against him directly. "y-you, i-i, mmn, i can feel your pussy, y-you're grindin' right on the tip, keep going, p-please?" he's activitly fucking up into you, uncaring that his gym shorts are getting soaked with his precum, eyes rolling back in his head as he keens your name. "pleasepleaseplease, 'm gonna cum, lemme cum, i wanna cum against you like this, please!"

all rights reserved © lxnarphase | do not repost, copy, translate, or alter my work

[lizziesribbons]

So badly |

PAIRING: RICH STEPMOM! WANDA X FEM! READER

summary: Wanda is your dad's new wife and an incredibly talented business woman, you always liked her but you felt as if she didn't feel the same way about you, she was always cold with you truth be told you were too innocent to know what the real intentions behind the coldness was.

warnings: ****MINORS DNI***** *****MEN DNI***** ****CONTAINS SMUT LOTS OF SMUT****** degradation kink, hair pulling, praising, angst if you squint, mommy kink, r being head over heels in love with Wanda, Wanda being mean too mean but hot. SO HOT. squirting muahahaha, multiple orgasms, crazy crazy gay peOple, everyone's gay y'all are gay, gay gay gay. I need to drown in holy water cuz um yea.

author's note: I changed EVERYTHING CHANGED I don't know if y'all even know who I am but like anyways idek if this is gonna be a thing I just got an idea and I wrote it in my notes and now I'm posting here ‼️

Word count: 2.1k

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Wanda maximoff.

She was an intimidating woman. even her name is hot? When your dad first introduced her you immediately fell in love whenever she was around you were always squirming in her gaze, she was just too pretty too perfect. Too good for your dad. Your dad wasn't the best man in the world he was alright, he was always working always travelling he didn't have time for you or anything else that's why you were shocked when he brought her. Wanda.

Wanda was a business woman too. A successful one indeed, She had 2 twins Tommy and billy, who you instantly grew to love, you wondered how Wanda handled all of it, A husband, A business and still making enough time for her kids, she was like a super mom there was no single doubt her kids loved her. And she loved them.

Your dad was barely home so it was always just you Wanda and the twins, you never felt like Wanda liked you whenever you would try talking to her she would give you cold responses, always looking into your soul like she was angry at you. She would constantly taunt you whenever you would go outside with your friends and come home too late, or when you wore something a little too revealing. Some would say she was possessive you just thought of it as her being her grumpy self

but what you didn't know, Wanda wanted you. Every second of every day she thought about you but she knew it was wrong. so she would put up this act to hide her secret. her dirty little secret, no one except Wanda knew what kind of thoughts ran through her mind, what she did at night thinking about you when her husband was asleep beside her.

she thinks about how her fingers would feel inside you, making you scream her name, whispering all kinds of dirty things in your sweet little ears

how good it would feel to fuck you with her strap until you couldn't take it anymore, she often gets off thinking about you but you weren't aware of any of it. She sometimes thought you knew cause of how you would bend over in front of her wearing the most smallest skirts possible but she knew you were just as innocent as you look, she also knew about the crush you have on her, it was too obvious with how you would look inside her shirt every time she bent down to pick something, how quickly you would respond every time she calls for you, how flustered you would get when she's around. she wasn't blind she could see right through you.

You were always home nowadays as your college was off and your friends were either on vacation with their family or they just didn't have time. Wanda had a business event today on which she asked you to come with her as the twins were at their dad's and you would be home alone, she even picked up an outfit for you, it was a cute black dress simple and elegant not too small just how Wanda liked. She was so sweet with you today. too sweet. even offered to make your hair and do your makeup and you let her. cuz how could you deny it? you let her dress you up like you were her personal doll she gave you a kiss on the cheek that made you blush so hard Wanda immediately noticed and smirked.

the car ride from the house to where the event was being held was filled with tension. Wanda's eyes were constantly on you eating you up she noticed the way you clenched your thighs under her gaze and how you shied away every time you two would make eye contact, when you reached the destination, Wanda opened the door for you holding out her hand to you. Your fingers intertwined with hers following her between the crowd of people.

You insisted on staying behind as she went on the red carpet. admiring her you noticed how beautiful Wanda really is, she is hand-crafted by the gods you wondered how it would feel to touch her. every inch of her body you wanted to kiss her so bad the urge to do it was strong. Wanda noticed, Ofc she noticed she smirked knowing your gaze was on her and all her attention too, you looked at her coming back to you as you straightened your back and smiled at her, she held you by your waist and told you "I want you to meet some people malaysh" the nickname made you weak. you just wanted to fall on your knees and beg Wanda but you couldn't.

After meeting those people Wanda left you alone to go and sort some business deal you didn't care about. Wanda saw you laughing and chatting with some people she thought it was nice you were getting along well, until. she saw this girl put her hand on your thigh and getting too touchy. Wanda felt something burst inside her she interrupted the conversation she was having came behind you and pulled you back from your waist making you push yourself into her crotch.

Wanda looked at the girl and raised her eyebrows, the girl was out of there in a second. It was hot. so hot the power Wanda holds, you were about to ask what that was when suddenly you felt her fingers hold your ass tightly as she whispered in your ear "Stop flirting with every person you see just to get my attention" Your legs failed you as you moan slowly in wanda's grasp, her hold was bruising on you as she whispered again "don't be a whore now, go wait in the car I'll be there in a bit"

as you were waiting for her impatiently in the car and afraid of what to expect next, you heard the car door open and Wanda got in, you didn't say anything. not even a word. her too. the car ride was silent. so silent you could even hear your heartbeat and it was fast. you were sure Wanda heard it

after getting home Wanda softly told you to go and wait in her bedroom like a good girl and you did. not cuz you were a patient woman no no no you were the most impatient girl in the world according to Wanda but you just wanted to make her happy.

after a bit she came in. You saw a bulge inside her pants. looking up at her, sitting on the bed on all your fours she came up to you and held your jaw softly

"you look so good like that, on mommy's bed like a good little slut" Wanda wouldn't be at fault if she thought you came right there, and then because of the moan you let out on the nickname Wanda referred to herself as. but she shrugged it off only smirking at the sight

"strip. slowly." you start striping taking off your dress first, Wanda's eyes on you as she starts undressing herself too making you gasp at the sight of her.

"you're so beautiful," you said as you worshipped her body just by your eyes, giving herself a moment or two to smile and blush at your compliment, she said sternly "Less talking, let's put that mouth to better use yeah?"

she took off her pants and underwear revealing a scarlet strap attached to her as you look at it and drool "Open up show mommy how good of a slut you can be" she said as you open your mouth tongue out, she guide the strap inside your mouth not even half of it and you were already gagging, it was bigger than anything you've taken before but Wanda didn't care, your gags and whimper were music to her ears.

losing herself in the pleasure she started thrusting inside your mouth as you sat there drooling, she threw a sadistic smile your way and said "I think we just found the perfect way to keep your mouth shut"

Wanda pulls out suddenly, your face covered in sweat and tears, and lays down on the bed

"come here ride my strap," she said patting her lap, gasping for air your breath shaky from the previous encounter you said

"y yes mommy"

slowly, you lower yourself onto her strap, your eyes locked with hers as you whispered "It's too big"

Wanda pouted her lips with fake pity "Aw is it?" you nodded as she looked at you "Is it too big for my little whore huh?" you nodded again not breaking eye contact

"fucking say it then. you can speak" Wanda said sternly placing a sharp slap on your ass, just as you were about to say Wanda force your hips down onto her strap "Too late" You bit your lip feeling her strap penetrate deeper into your wet slit

"Mommy hurts please ah" moans and gasps. it was all you could let out as Wanda ignored all of it and thrust your hips up and down on her strap, tits bouncing with the force.

your body trembling as you take her deeper inside you, suddenly you feel a sharp slap against your tits just as a humiliating spit was delivered on your face, spit drips from your mouth onto your chest as she slaps your tits repeatedly

"Mommy too much-gonna cum please" you plead at her "Come for mommy honey let it out" You came just as soon as those words left her mouth, she didn't stop. turning you guys around so she was on top she started thrusting with all her might as the bed started moving

"you know how badly mommy wanted to fuck that pussy from the very first time she saw you huh?" she whispered in your ear making you moan as she kept thursting "How I touched myself at the thought of being inside you fucking you so deep your legs wouldn't work for weeks? it was a torture not being able to fuck you every moment I saw you I just wanted to bend you over and take you" The dirty confessions only added fuel to the fire as you were already close

"please Mommy" you said weakly as she thoroughly fucked you, the room filling with noises of skin slapping together, "Please what? say it, baby"

"please I'm gonna cum again" you say looking up at her, "cum again for me then you don't need my permission"

just as you were about to cum she reaches down to rub your clit "NO PLEASE NO!" was the last thing you said when you lost control completely and squirted everywhere, not knowing what happened you looked at Wanda who was smirking smugly as she pulled out of you slowly and took off the strap throwing it down the bed

"Mommy I've never done that I'm sorry I don't know what happened" Wanda looked you down with admiration as she cooed cupping your face "Oh baby no that's okay you did good it was so good" she softly kissed you, leaving small kisses down your neck to your stomach until she reached between your legs

"no too much, can't." you tried squirming away but her strong hands held you in place "Just trust me" She raised her eyebrows and scanned your face for any hesitations as she dived down and carefully cleaned you up making sure not to overstimulate you

she sat back up "You taste so good", blushing at her compliment you muttered a "thank you"

"so adorable" Taking you in her arms and holding you against her she whispered sweet nothings into your ear through the whole time until you fell asleep in her arms, she looked at you knowing you were hers now. for forever.

[babyfacedscum]

why cant I be happy with what I have for once in my life

[tbgkaru-woh]

100 Dialogue prompts

Trying this out (feel free to tweak out any grammatical errors) so writers who are bored, have at it! ♥ Mix of Fluff, Angst and Smut

“I don’t see you that way”

“I will just do as I’m told. As I’ve always done”

“Have you never ridden a bike/horse before?”

“You don’t have to be so…formal”

“What happened to us?”

“Good things don’t happen to me”

“Interested in palm reading?”

“Bowing to you felt right”

“There, let me help you.”

“Next time, listen to yourself and not me”

“Why do you want to get in trouble so badly?”

“It’s him/her…isn’t it?”

“Are you keeping it?”

“Good to see a familiar face”

“You never had to ask me anything, let alone beg”

“Oh you again?!”

“I need to take you somewhere”

“With you gone, everything went wrong”

“Insufferable, see you at dinner”

“I wasn’t kissing you, I was saving your life!”

“You did all this already, why not finish the job?”

“I will look for you”

“I couldn’t see anything, I couldn’t breathe”

“You knew about it?”

“I will atone for what he/she did”

“You need to start having some faith.”

“Say what you want, I know what I’m feeling is right”

“It’s okay, you will move on. We will move on.”

“How much do you miss him/her? And what if you didn’t have to?”

“Focus on my hands, on my voice…”

“Perhaps you need to be reminded where you belong”

“I was fine having a non-sexual relationship with you, but instead I’m having non-relationship sex with him/her.”

“I wanted to do it for you and in hindsight it was a terrible idea”

“I’ve been inside him/her more than outside him/her”

“Don’t ask me with ‘please’, you’re paying me”

“Oh why won’t you just die already”

“Sometimes I wonder for how long have you wanted his/her heart and if you will ever stop”

“Filthy cheater, we go again!”

“Didn’t you pay your debt already?”

“I can’t get sick/injured.”

“You act like you’ve never been defeated”

“Diamond thrown into the trash still has the value of a diamond”

“I got engaged”

“All this was decided for me, I had no choice”

“I’m beginning to think not even the jail guards/cops want you around, given how many times they’ve let me bail you out”

“You, sir/madam, should watch your alcohol intake”

“I’ve been denying everyone, you’re not special”

“I’m not looking for a romance”

“Isn’t that immoral enough to tempt you?”

“We’re two sides of the same fucked up coin”

“That’s what I like to see, you are your parents’ best indeed!”

“You have nothing to lose right?”

“Oh I can’t wait to hear you sing”

“Anything you’d like to add to the conversation?”

“Hi.”

“You need to stop making me pick you up in places someone may see”

“I thought I was a puppeteer pulling the strings but instead I was a back seat audience”

“I want names, I want addresses, I’m gonna make them pay.”

“You know where to find me if you ever want me again.”

“My mother is visiting in like 5 minutes”

“Is it that, or is it because you’re in love with me?”

“Not being able to reciprocate has been the hardest part of my life”

“Did you kill someone?”

“Envious of my youth, are we?”

“The others may have gotten away…”

“I found you. Found you looking like you didn’t want to be found”

“Did we use to be a thing?”

“I can fix this. I can fix this…”

“Weird question, are you a supernatural being? Be honest”

“We should have never played Gods”

“Must you be so harsh with me all the time?”

“What did all these men/women do to deserve you?”

“We have a reputation to uphold”

“May I have this dance?”

“I am a bad influence on you!”

“Let’s make history”

“Who the hell wants to live forever.”

“Feeling any different?”

“Time waits for no one”

“You got your happy-ever-after. And for all I know, it’s because I didn’t.”

“Try that again and you’re gonna lose it”

“Didn’t I say one of these days you’re gonna be the death of me?”

“Do you know what my answer was?”

“You look pathetic.”

“Almost didn’t recognize your voice when it’s not yelling at me”

“I often find myself talking to those no longer here as well”

“Excuse me, this is not a buffet”

“I don’t suspect you because I’m the one who put him/her in the ground”

“You look like someone who likes a good gamble”

“I am poison”

“Feel free to stay as long as you need”

“You don’t need to understand, just be a good little thing”

“I’m gonna need your driver’s license, your ID and your phone number please~”

“Say my name”

“You…are telling the truth”

“Is that why you did that? Back there?”

“Stop reading my mind”

“I can teach you”

“How can you laugh?”

“Pretty pictures. I don’t have any”

“Heaven may fall, but __ can’t die.”

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Spooky season needs spooky stuff.. >:3

So can I request the digital circus cast (minus Caine)meeting a Child Spirit Y/n headcanons,who like Kinda possesed/went inside the game to find they’re killer for some reason? They are eerily quiet and like to stare but if talked to very sweet but quick to snap in distrust because..well trust is what got them killed in the first place? They’re a bit bloody..and a eyeball sometimes hangs out?? Like vhs horror stuff

Sorry I’m being so descriptive,I hope you are a nice day!

OOOoo yes time for more spooks!

Also I am having a nice night, thanks! (and I hope you are having a nice day/night too!)

......

Pomni

To make a long story short, you got murdered while wearing the headset, and that tethered your spirit to TADC.

As expected, you lost memories of who you were--except for the knowledge that someone killed you because you trusted them too much, and you believed the answers were inside this very game.

Your character ends up looking like a child's ghost costume: a white bedsheet stained in blood and one of your eyeballs occasionally wanting to pop from its socket.

Caine (who was very much bewildered at your arrival) declares that you're part of an "exclusive Halloween update" and changes up the tent and grounds to have more spooky flair.

But Pomni clearly wants no part of it, and she can tell you don't either.

You're clearly a kid who is (somehow) handling the situation of being stuck in this game better than her, yet when she tries asking you about it....all you do is stare back.

She swears she can hear static noises and whispers she can't decipher--all in all getting a...very creepy vibe from you.

Initially she decides to keep her distance, afraid you were secretly some virus or Abstraction underneath that sheet.

But that changes when you're walking by the rooms one night, and you pass by Pomni's door, hearing her quietly crying.

Although you weren't inclined to get close to anybody here, you were concerned. And since you weren't actually coded into the game, you didn't have to follow any of its rules--and that allowed you to enter her room without a key.

At first you scared the shit out of her, but after realizing it's you, she lets you sit beside her, eventually venting about how badly she missed her real home.

"Everyone keeps telling me "oh this place is so much better" or "get used to it"...but what if I don't wanna do that? I don't care if my old life was bad...I-I can't take anymore of this.." Her sobs grow louder. "I wanna wake up in my own bed knowing my real name!!"

"...I miss home, too," is all you say in response. Yet it's more than enough to calm her down.

For once, you're not trying to brush her off or force her to "cheer up" and accept her reality. You made her feel heard.

"Yeah..me, too....sh-should I thank you for agreeing..?" She sniffles, seeing your subtle nod, before you leave her be, not wanting to get too attached.

Ironically, she was able to sleep a little easier after talking to you.

Jax

From the get-go, he's gonna be real nosy and curious.

Since not even Caine himself expected your arrival and found out that you don't follow the "rules" like everyone else...Jax is gonna try his damnedest to understand you and see what makes you tick.

But he's gonna be disappointed quickly since you don't respond much to him (or anybody in general).

"So...ya like Halloween?"

"........"

"....thought so. Good talk, new kid."

You definitely act like a legit ghost--doing nothing but stare, move things around, and pop up unexpectedly.

Eventually, his curiosity leads to him visiting your room (which has no key), and he discovers many drawings on the walls.

Most depicting a dead person wearing a headset.

What he found most disturbing was a journal that contained his and the others' names..

From what he's gathering...you're suspecting one of them of murdering your real world-self.

But he doesn't get much time to ponder this as you show up, angry at him for intruding.

You make yourself look even bloodier and scarier, with both of your eyeballs hanging from their sockets and staring at him.

"Get out."

Those two simple words put the fear of god in him.

Jax runs out faster than a jackrabbit, colliding with Gangle in the process. Her comedy mask falls off again, but he catches it and looks at her.

"J-Jax..?" She realizes his fur is standing up on all ends, and he looks terrified....even more than he did after realizing the circus was his forever home.

But he just shoves the mask back into her hands and leaves without saying a word.

He never speaks of what he found in your room that day.

Kinger

He thought his eyes were weird...until you came along and periodically had to put your own eyeball back into its socket.

"It's good to know I'm not alone!" He nervously chuckles, only to be met with your eerie silence.

Sometime later, he suggests showing you his insect collection, and it does pique your interest.

You did love all things "creepy" and "crawly".

Yet you're adamant about going to his pillow fortress after he invites you.

It reminds you of the ones you used to build all the time, up until...

Fortunately, Kinger recognizes your reluctance and just brings one of his bug boxes to you so you can look at it.

He could infodump about the various critters for hours, with nothing but nods and quiet "mhms" from you, and he's happy.

In general, he doesn't mind your quiet personality.

Although you still sometimes jumpscare him unintentionally like Gangle often does.

Tbh he's a good father figure and recognizes that you're just a kid who got trapped in this game unfairly.

Even so, you try to keep your distance and looks at him suspiciously if he starts acting too nice.

He was quiet aloof, and you weren't sure how he would act on any given day.

Gangle

After accidentally spooking her (by simply existing in the same room as her), she breaks her comedy mask off.

But immediately she feels guilty for screaming and tries scrambling to fix it, hoping you weren't mad at her.

Yet all you do is stare, not looking angry or anything at all (it's hard for any of the performers to see your expression in general, aside from your hanging eye, but still).

Poor Gangle is just afraid you'd turn into a scarier version of yourself.

When she keeps cutting her ribbon fingers(?) on the ceramic pieces, you come over and clean it up for her, taking it away despite your own hands bleeding.

The implications that you were able to shed blood and nobody else were a little disturbing to her..but she's glad you're not offended by her screaming.

Although she wonders where you're going with her mask..

Later on, you knock on her door and present it fully fixed.

Except...it looks more Halloweenish with an evil smile painted on it, messily glued together.

'Oh god I hope this doesn't turn me evil or anything..' She thinks, putting on a smile as she takes it anyways.

Yet you remain where you are, staring and clearly waiting for her to try it on.

And so she does, and it turns her into a very chaotic Halloween lover, acting even more mischievous than Jax and allowing her to finally get her revenge for all his pranks.

In the end, you gain a decent friendship with her, subtly protecting her from Jax's bullying.

Ragatha

Seeing that you're so distant from the rest of the gang has her worried.

Some of them might consider your loose eyeball creepy, but she's not gonna judge you on that (besides, she's missing an eye altogether so she can't say much anyways).

Howeve,r she's the first to find out how strong your distrust of everyone is.

"[Y/n]? I don't think it's good to be isolating yourself like this. I know you hate being here and Caine's a weirdo..but...we're all in this together. You can trust us-"

"Don't." You warn, putting on a frightening display of anger that sends her tumbling to the ground, sending chills up her spine.

"Trust" became something you didn't take lightly, as the last time you put your trust in someone....you ended up dead, turning into a literal ghost in the machine (that was your gaming system).

Despite this, Ragatha doesn't run away.

Like Pomni, she understands that you're just a kid who's confused and lost.....and clearly had serious trust issues.

But she's determined to help you through that, even if you keep scaring everybody away.

She's got motherly instincts, and she hopes that in due time you'll learn to warm up to her.

Zooble

"A bedsheet worn as a costume? That's a classic."

She's seen weirder things during their time in the circus, so you don't faze her too much.

Only when you snap at Ragatha or somebody who was trying to be nice to you does she raise an eyebrow.

Honestly, they 100% understand that you just wanted to be alone sometimes, and she respects that.

It's suffocating trying to act all cheery and go along with every damn activity Caine tries to get everyone involved in (but lucky for you, he can't make you follow along).

Especially since she believes he made up that stupid "Halloween update" as lazy way to explain your sudden arrival.

The only time you do interact with Zooble is after she yanks Jax by his ears, and they hear this eerie-sounding giggle behind them.

When she turns around, you're just standing there motionless, staring at her.

Somehow, they just know you were smiling underneath that costume, which makes her smile, too.

"Maybe I should pull him out a hat next time, huh?" She jokes after letting him go, and you giggle once more as he hits the ground.

[hanjisungslag]

attack on titan headcanons #10

synopsis: how the characters react when you, their s/o, gets hurt. 🩹

characters involved: eren, mikasa, armin, jean, connie, sasha, reiner, bertolt, annie, levi, erwin and hange

notes: i am cooking up a storm, so watch out for that & also hit double digits!!

☆ eren jaeger

bro is INFURIATED

“WHO DID IT HUH?! ILL KILL THEM WITH MY BARE HANDS-”

oh.. you got injured in training? poor babyyy☹️

he’s super sweet and gentle with you.

if anyone tries to go near you though.. he’s super scared they’re gonna accidentally hurt you😭.

so he’s always at the edge of his seat ready to rescue you if needs be.

he gets all of your food, water, clothes, bandages etc.

then the nurses catch him doing it and have to YANK him off of you, once again.

☆ mikasa ackerman

so incredibly caring and concerned 🤍

she was the one who found you on the expedition with a broken leg

she refuses you to the hospital

lets the nurses do their jobs (thank god)

she really wants to be able to help nurse you back to health as well though..

she gives you the next best thing aka massages.

she literally comes in everyday and gives you 3 massages minimum a day

she’ll also sleep in the hospital with you most days.

☆ armin arlert

nothing less than an angel.

for however long you’re in the hospital, he’ll bring you flowers

in there for 3 weeks? new flowers every week.

in there for a week? new flowers every other day.

reads you books every night to help you sleep

sleeps there EVERY single night

always gives good morning and good night kisses

keeps you updated with what’s going on with everyone and training to make sure you don’t miss out.

makes sure to surprise you by bringing your friends there too!! it was a super sweet surprise.

when you’re sleeping, he goes around asking nurses if they need help😖.

☆ jean kirstein

UGH TERRIFIED FOR YOUUU

he has to hype himself up before going to see you in hospital because it just breaks his heart.

but being able to see you, hug you, know that you’re being taken care of makes him feel wayy better.

he’s just happy to see that you’re not too badly injured.

just a sprain from training!

he likes to draw things for you from the outside

or you guys draw together.

yk that cute game where one person draws a squiggle and the other person has to make into a drawing?

yeah, you guys do that. and it’s frickin adorbs😡

☆ connie springer

you went to do some late night training by yourself

and cornelius found you on the ground. in a lot of pain.

he rushed you to the first aid

fastest anyone has EVER seen that man run

you got cleaned up but had to take a break from training until you were better.

definitely tries to make you laugh all the time

even with your injury, he still wants to see you happy and smiling 🤍

☆ sasha braus

aw bless her cotton socks.

your injury wasn’t fatal enough to warrant a hospital stay

but the nurses said to stay home and rest up!

you had to take care of your scar

in her own time, sasha headed over to first aid to ask the nurses how to help you properly☹️.

you literally do not lift a finger!!

she does everything for you, like cleaning it up, wrapping it up etc.

and she’s really good at it and all…

☆ reiner braun

he’s like a scared little boy.

he’ll sit by your side and tell you it’s all okay

but when he’s alone.. HE GETS SO UPSET

sometimes he’ll take ‘bathroom breaks’ just to pull himself together because he hates seeing you in this state :(.

really affects his everyday life

but he hides it well.

BIGG celebrations as soon as you’re out of hospital

is literally like a servant, will get you everything and anything you want.

☆ bertolt hoover

GAH SO ANXIOUS!!

he bakes you cookies for being so brave☹️.

he stays with you all day long until the nurse finally tells him he has to go.

it breaks his heart leaving you but he gets up bright and bloody early to see you in the morning

like i’m talking the second the hospital opens up.

☆ annie leonhart

she’s not nervous,

your injury wasn’t fatal or anything.

she’ll still visit you, of course ;)

she also makes sure to tell you how brave you are

since you are scared of hospitals.

she’ll giggle at your wimpy-ness though.

like you were getting patched up and you were just like trying not to scream

and she was just standing there chuckling at you.

☆ levi ackerman

so so so scared, secretly.

he has lost one too many people

but to lose you? that would completely and utterly BREAK him.

it was a pretty gnarly injury as well…

which was rather terrifying for both you and him

but he’ll keep a cool persona around you.

if he’s unable to visit due to work, he’ll ring the hospital and asks how you are.

he’ll always make time to come see you though, no matter what!!

☆ erwin smith

he hears from his assistant that you’ve been put into hospital

he runs STRAIGHT over and makes sure to comfort you.

he’ll stay till dark when you’re asleep and pay the nurses a visit too

he asks them to take extra good care of you.

if he’s unable to see you, he makes sure to call you up every single day

or at least have SOMEONE come check on you.

☆ hange zoë

GAH!! FREAKS OUT!

hange has seen it all at this rate

but doesn’t seem to heavily affected.

they’ve never really had anyone close to them be extremely injured

they were sooo scared though :(.

it was really sad for everyone to see hange’s energy so low but

they couldn’t help it!!

all they could think about was their poor love in hospital :(.

when they’re around you though, they try to stay positive! and tells you all about their work to keep you both distracted.

[love-toxin]

Absolutely frothing at the mouth for ur recent leon stuff ESPECIALLY that last thing you just did w him I am SEXUALIZING this man please don't stop 😭😭💗💗

struck with the thought of Leon >>>>> moaning >>>>>> sweating, flexing during some reunion sex 🥺 even better if it's reunion AND makeup sex-!!!!

set the scene: you get into a huge fight with your boyfriend right before he's about to leave on another big trip, and Leon being Leon finds better solace in just leaving and electing to figure it all out later because he can't think well when he's pissed at you. plus he knows he's getting himself into even worse danger than you even know about, so it's better that he leaves you at home--and maybe it's better if you hate him too, so if and when he dies on this mission it won't hurt you as badly when you can remember him as a bastard. he hates it but what is he good for? pissing you off? that seems to be the only thing. so he leaves, and prays to gods he doesn't even believe in anymore that he'll be able to make this all up to you when he comes back.

but then Spain happens, shit hits the fan, and Leon gets some very disturbing news. apparently there's not only whispers of the girl he might be looking for around the church, but there's supposedly also another person being kept captive here if Luis' word is to be trusted. Leon's more concerned with having to escort two civilians rather than just the one, but he's got no clue who it could be. he doesn't even think it, it doesn't even cross his mind.

he's absolutely devastated and somehow relieved that it's you. that your beautiful eyes are the ones he lands on when he steps into the cell, your hand on Ashley's arm to comfort her and your breath visibly hitching in your throat when you see who your savior is.

and while it doesn't last long, it can't with where you are, you kiss and embrace and he squeezes those huge arms around your waist and you sob into his neck about how sorry you are, about how you wish you'd never yelled at him, how you prayed you'd see him again even though you don't deserve to. and Leon basically has you off your feet he's got you so wrapped up in his arms, murmuring at the same time that everything's gonna be okay, you're gonna be okay, he's not mad he's so sorry he argued with you, they're gonna pay for what they did to my baby. every scrape and bump and bruise will be repayed tenfold, he thinks as he grits his teeth and bites his cheek until it bleeds.

but no matter what comes next, it comes and goes in a blur. the shells exploding, blood and gore splattering over yours and Ashley's heads as Leon directs you away from danger, running and barely being clipped by Los Iluminados as they grab for you and the president's daughter. eventually, through all of those catastrophies, you and Leon find a moment to yourselves and you take it the second it's presented.

it matters little that you don't even have a bed, or you can barely get your clothes off because you need to be ready to shoot at a moment's notice--it's time for you both to express your apologies and you couldn't possibly have enough words to do so.

which is exactly why Leon lifts you off your feet like you weigh absolutely nothing, rubs you against his cock so easily it's like he's lowering a fleshlight to the tip, and guides you with both hands on your ass to sink down and take him inside, cloaked in nothing but a thin condom he had saved in his wallet for emergencies. he wants to take it slow but he can't, he wants to be gentle but you feel so good god he missed this.....the only respite he gets is from thinking about you and now that you're here, he's gonna let you hook your arms round his neck and your legs round his waist as he carries you, so you can bounce on his cock as much as you want without your feet ever touching the floor. suspended here for him, up high on his hips with your sweet holes stretched all the way out for him, this is what he wanted, what he craved for so long.

you still cry out your apologies, but they muffle themselves into his lips and disappear when he kisses them into moans. even covered in blood and dirt and sniffling as you whimper his name, you're still the most gorgeous thing he's ever seen and you've got the sweetest body he could ever imagine making love to. he adjusts his grip on you, watches you squeak with a twinge of pain as you slip a little further down and squeeze his head deeper into your shoulder--and he loves that, he loves that when you're hurt, you reach for him first. because you truly love him, don't you? he can't imagine you'd agree to fucking him in a ruined cabin if you didn't, much less be the one climbing in his lap and blubbering with that adorable pout because you just wanted him to hold you. that frustrated scowl from before he left is completely gone, and he couldn't be more relieved because he hates making you angry--and he knows that it was mostly his fault.

but you're so needy for him and he loves that. he loves that you can't get close enough as he holds you up, that you're basically drooling all over his mouth because he's fucking you so good your brain isn't working, and he loves that when he whimpers right back and does it so close to your ear, you scrabble for better purchase on his toned back and whine for him to keep going. be louder. you don't think it's girly or weird that he makes noise, in fact it turns you on to listen to him moan and beg and gasp for you like he's doing now. like you're a breath of pure, clean air and his lungs are drained and empty. he loves that it makes you clench around him when he does it, and that it turns you on just as much as his biceps that you're running a hand down to feel the way it flexes, as he slams your hips down to warm his full length inside that soft, tight heat he can't stop chasing.

he knows he has a job to do, but it just has to wait. Ashley can wait, Luis can wait, Hunnigan can wait, the whole world can wait--when he feels his cock twitching and he squeezes you down to the base to finish you off, those few moments of bliss you share together are the only things that matter. and while your walls are still spasming and clenching down on him and you're mewling his name and nothing else, Leon pulls you up prematurely and slides that awful, preventative sleeve of rubber off his dick and slings it aside to fall to the floor, before slowly settling you back on top to push into that addictive heat once more. he hasn't got another, and he doesn't care--those lone trickles of cum squishing right up inside you and your walls squeezing him for dear life feels more right than anything else he's done in his miserable life, and as long as nobody's interrupting you, Leon's not gonna stop for anything more.

[jaskierx]

republic of pirates dashboard simulator part 2

thanks to @sherlockig for the screencaps 💕

part 1

⚓️pirate-tats-tournament

and the winner is...

BLACKBEARD'S SNAKE TATTOO with 78.6% of the vote

thanks for voting!

#pirate tattoo tournament #poll result #next time i'm gonna seed it properly so we don't end up with the final 8 tattoos all being on the same guy smh

1,520 notes

🐶saltyseadog

hi everyone i'm fang/kevin and my pronouns are he/him 🥰 looking for more people to follow so like or reblog if you post about:

cute dogs

goats

leather

piracy

art

fishing

stories about demon boys

3 notes

🍖knivesareknives

#if you picked 2 or more let's be friends

29 notes

🌊keeptheseaclean Follow

friends don't let friends throw rubbish into the sea. THINK before you THROW

🎣managainstbeast

can everyone report this account for harassment please. i know the guy in the photo and he is lovely and has really nice hair and he hasn't given his permission for this image to be used.

#posts from the fishing boat #also one man's foul projectile is another man's lovely letter. just saying. broaden your horizons #there's only one thoughtless dipshit here and it isn't stede

448 notes

🦈sharkinfested

who the fuck is 'anti ship'. i didn't even know that was a thing. this website is something else

🌴palmtreeappreciationclub Follow

people who don't support incest. it's that simple

🦈sharkinfested

that doesn't make any sense. i literally live on the same island as every generation of my family. if i was against ships i'd have a much harder time finding someone to fuck who isn't related to me

#how am i supposed to get anywhere else without a ship? fucking swim?? i don't think so #but sure keep virtue signalling i guess #💿🐴

801 notes

🔪notafuckingmermaid

reblog this if you ARE POLYAMOROUS, SUPPORT POLYAMOROUS PEOPLE, or ARE CURRENTLY COVERED IN THE BLOOD OF YOUR ENEMIES 🩸

#3/3 😌

11,873 notes

🕊️see-which-sea-witch Follow

To love the sea as she must be loved requires change.

🌊keeptheseaclean Follow

to love the sea as she must be loved requires NO MORE THROWING RUBBISH INTO HER

🐙krakenmyjoints

bro you're literally replying to a bird

2,432 notes

🐳calicojackwhippedmyballs

you'll see a post that's like 'HRRRHRNESDGJNKDFG I NEEEEED HIM I NEED HIM SO BADLY HE'S SOOOOOOOOO HE'S HGURIESGHDKLJG' and then it'll be a picture of the soggiest white guy you've ever seen

7,230 notes

⛵️gentlemanprivates

hrresrgjerskdghklgjfdgdkl i need to get him PREGNANT he's EVERYTHING he's SOO ASDJHGKLFJSDG

359 notes

[the-froschamethyst4]

Mask Kink

➤𝖶𝖾𝗅𝖼𝗈𝗆𝖾 𝖳𝗈 𝖣𝖺𝗒 𝟣 𝗈𝖿 𝖪𝗂𝗇𝗄𝗍𝗈𝖻𝖾𝗋

𖤐Pairing: König x F! Reader

𖤐Pronouns: She/Her

𖤐Warnings: Smut, NSFW, Mask Kink, dirty talk, language, badly translated German, kissing/making out, moaning

𖤐Summary: Y/n had a secret kink that she was afraid to tell her boyfriend König, but she finally does, and it ends with the best sex she’s ever had with him

——————

——————

Y/n was walking around the garden around the outside of the house and was planting some new flowers she had bought and even set out some Halloween decorations.

Y/n LOVES Halloween (I mean who doesn't?) she went all out every year for Halloween and everyone in the neighborhood loved how she decorated her house and König was so proud that she could decorate this much for Halloween.

If she could, she would leave the decorations up all the time and NEVER take them down for any reason. She wouldn't even take them done if the HOA told her to because it's not Halloween anymore or because they were too 'scary'.

As Y/n just got done planting flowers and hanging up some orange lights, she saw a black truck pull into the driveway, she knew it was her boyfriend, König.

She was all smiles when he came out of his truck, as he did and took off his mask which made his hair all messy. Y/n's face was red, and blush danced on her face as he walked up to her.

He bent down and kissed her lips. "It looks amazing, schätzchen (honey)," he said with a smile on his face.

Y/n saw the mask in his hand as he was looking at the decorations around the house and the beautiful flowers around the house too. She rubbed her arm and moved from König's touch.

"Yeah, I'm almost done," she said as she grabbed some rubber bats and started to put them on the side of the house and some hanging off the porches ceiling.

"I'm going to go change and then I'll be out to help you," he said with a smile on his face.

"O-Okay," Y/n said. König walked into the house as Y/n was trying to concentrate and not think about finally seeing her boyfriend in his mask.

Y/n and König have been together for 5 years now and anytime he gets back from work, he always takes his mask off before he enters the house, but today he was tired and had forgot about it.

Y/n had a kink that she never really told König, she thought it would be weird if she told him, so she kept it to herself and when she saw him for the first time with his mask on, she got wet and tried her best to hide it.

He came back out and Y/n held the rubber bat that was held by a string, she needed him to put it on the ceiling.

"Thank you, King," she said as she squeezed her legs together.

"What was that?" He asked as he saw her squeezed her thighs together.

"I'm cold."

"You're in sweats and a hoodie...how are you cold?"

"I just am," she said.

"Okay?" He was confused.

She tried to act normal again, but she wanted to see him in his mask one more time.

"King?"

"Hm?"

"Could...could you put your mask on again?"

"Why?"

"Because....I think you look sexy with it on..." she wasn't gonna beat around the bush.

"I look sexy in it?"

"Ja (yes)."

"Ummm~ okay?" He was still confused, so he went back into the house and grabbed his mask. He came out and put it on, Y/n's thighs squeezed together again.

"Liebling (sweetheart) do you have...a mask kink?" König asked. She could hear the smugness coming from his voice.

"Yes," she said, disappointedly. "I just couldn't tell you because I thought you might have found it weird or something, so I just never told you," she said.

"Aww~ liebling...I don't find it weird at all," he walked up to Y/n and held her face in his big, calloused hands.

"R-Really?"

"Yeah, now," he picks her up.

"King?"

"I think you know, what's gonna happen, now, liebling (sweetheart)," he said, seductively.

König took her inside the house and took her to their shared bedroom, he placed her on the bed he moved the bottom of his mask exposing his lips and she had a clear view of his scar over his mouth, he leaned down and kissed her lips.

She moaned into the kiss and König's hands went up under her hoodie and gripped her hips and moved them to her breasts. He gently squeezed and she moaned.

König brought the hoodie over Y/n's head, exposing her bra and he unhooked her bra letting it drop and he tossed it somewhere in the room.

His hands then started to squeeze her butt as he licked his lips and kissed her lips again. He smirked when he could feel her nipples harden against his shirt.

König started to mess with his belt and tied her hands behind her back and tightened the belt.

"K-King."

"Shut the fuck up, slut. You're a slut. You like seeing me in my mask. You're such a kinky little slut," she could hear the smirk coming from his voice. "Du wirst mire zuhören (You are gonna listen to me)...and you're nicht (not) gonna fucking talk..."

She just nodded; she was honestly just a bit scared what may happen if she did talk. His hands went to her sweatpants and pulled them off her bottom half and kissed her collarbone and between her boobs.

He sucked on her left boob and pinched at her right nipple. She moaned and squeezed her thighs on his side loving the feeling.

"Ahh," König smacked Y/n's ass, hard definitely leaving a handprint on her ass.

Y/n bit her bottom lip trying to hold back her moans. König just smirked under his mask. He gripped her hips and started to move her hips back and forth as her pussy lips glided over his long and hard dick.

She tried to hold back her moans. König groaned and pushed up against her. She moaned again and König held her hips up making her stand on her knees, he stood his dick up and slowly pushed her back down on his dick.

"Ahh~ ahh~!"

He smirked and pushed himself up and slammed Y/n on his dick. She moaned as she felt his tip just barely hit her g-spot.

"Mmm~" she held her moans.

König smacked her ass again and kissed between her boobs again. He sucked on her left boob and pinched at her nipple again.

"Ahh~ K-!"

König smacked her ass again probably leaving yet another red handprint. "What the fuck did I say?" König growled at her.

"Mmm~" she cried.

König stood up to where she was on her back but then flipped her back over onto her stomach. He gripped her hands that were tied behind her back.

He pushed himself back inside of her and started to pound into her, her face was buried into the soft mattress, her moans were muffled, and she could feel a bit of drool rush out from the corner of her mouth, and her eyes rolled in the back of her head as König was moving fast and was fucking her just right.

His hands smacked her ass again. She moaned into the mattress. König bent down and kissed the back of her neck.

She moaned into the soft sheets, and she felt herself close to coming, she didn't want to warn him, but he could feel it. He could feel her tightening around his dick.

He went harder and faster into her, she moaned, and König grabbed a handful of her hair pulling her head back.

"AH!" She moaned when he pulled her back.

"I can feel you about to cum...I don't know if you deserve to cum, liebling (sweetheart)," he mumbled into her ear.

"N-No, please lass mich, lass mich (let me, let me)." She begged.

"Nein, das hast du nicht verdient (No, you don't deserve to)." König pulled himself out of Y/n. She watched as he sat back against the headboard of the bed. She sat up and looked at him, her eyes were begging to be fucked again.

"Please, please, King, please, please," she begged.

He gripped her chin making her look up at him. He looked at her eyes seeing them shimmer from crying.

"Awww~ you little whore...you just wanna be fucked so bad it's adorable." He teased her again.

"King~"

"You're whining turns me on, so much..." she could feel him smirking under his mask. He pulled his mask completely off and her feeling was right. She saw the smirk on his face.

"I just wanna finish," she begged.

He smirked and kissed her lips; he pulled her onto his lap and started to push himself back inside of her and she felt herself close to cum.

He smirked and kissed her neck and sucked till there was yet another little bruise. He pushed up and watched her fall back down on his dick. She came on his dick, and he came inside of her.

She felt weak and rested her forehead on his shoulder. He smirked and kissed her bare shoulder.

"Should I put the maske (mask) on all the time when we have sex?"

"Please...I think you become a different person when you put the mask on."

"Really?"

"I think so..." she said as König started to remove the belt from her wrists. She groaned when her wrists were finally released from being behind her. She rolled her shoulders to get the feeling back.

"Oh my god," she said as König kissed her neck again.

"Well...I'll do that next time just for you, liebling," he smirks. "And I also learn something about you...you have a mask kink," he smirks.

"It's embarrassing just a little bit."

"No...it's fine, liebling...why don't we go get cleaned up and I'll treat you to dinner?"

"Okay...yeah."

"Come on, then," he said.

[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 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!)

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the asshole for calling a (now ex-) mutual a stingy asshole?

So to start, I (NB20) am in a pretty rough situation, I'm facing homelessness soon, transphobia at home and work and my hours have been getting cut resulting in me making even less money that can sustain me. I have a toyhou.se forum post up stating I have emergency commissions open to help me out and to please support me if you can. This is where the situation begins. I have a mutual on toyhou.se who I'll call Apple (MTF22) I talk to sometimes to the point I'd say we are friends, not super close but friends nonetheless. She made a bulletin telling people about my commissions and to please comm me if they could which I'm very grateful for since I did get a few customers from her because of that. The thing is, a few weeks later, she made a bulletin talking about how happy she was so many commissions she bought were finished around the same time and posted all of them with the artists tagged in the post. It was honestly... quite a few, I'm talking like 9 pieces of art of her fursona and even a custom vtuber model she got of her sona. I was going to reply all happy for her, but it made me think... how much did she spend on those commissions?? So I went through all the artists socials to find their commission prices and came to a total of fucking $385!!! More than half of my current goal I'm trying to make through commissions to stay out of homelessness!! So I messaged Apple saying since I saw she bought a few commissions if she was interested in buying a comm from me. She replies saying "Ohh! I'd love to <333 but im just not in a place to buy any more comms right now :< sorry >.<!!" So I casually reply really? because it seems like your in the perfect place to help me out after already spending over $300 in commissions. She tells me she's sorry and really wishes someone would be able to help me out but she just wasn't that interested in my art or a custom to which I tell her she could've easily donated to my ko-fi which I have always had since she clearly has money to spend? To this, she straight up IP blocks me. So still fucking annoyed, I vented in a discord server I share with a few friends from being in a few shared CS together, saying how annoying it is rich assholes like her would drop half a thousand for a picture of their fursona but don't even blink twice at their so called friends. anyway, one of my friends takes a look at Apples th profile and notices she has a new bulletin up and sends me a screenshot, but anways the bulletin reads like "hey!! just saying, but please dont come into my dms acting like you know my financial situation better than i do, just because i buy a lot of commissions doesnt mean im made of money! and please dont think that me commisioning artist 1 means i hate artist 2? thats so weird, thanks!!!!!" and seeing all their subscribers just kissing her ass pissed me off so i made my own bulletin that just stated "i thought it was pretty fucking weird to know how bad ur friend's situation was and to go buy a bunch of comms instead of buying a comm from or even throwing a buck to help me out? like yeah im gonna think i know ur situation better than u, you stingy fuck!!!" Anyway, she mustve been block evading (which I reported her for) since she unblocked me, took a screenshot of my bulletin, then went on about how she lived in an abusive household; her dad had thrown her into a sink and chipped her tooth, bruised half her face and scarred it pretty badly. She bought a bunch of commissions immediately afterwards in a panic to make herself feel better, paying everything with her savings. Which to me.. isn't an excuse. Ive been hit and abused and still found scraps of money to pull together to give to mutuals who need it and Ive been bumping my own post like crazy and she had literal weeks to donate or comm me. Not to mention Ive had exmutuals of hers come to me saying that shes never donated anything to them either despite advertising their posts but always had money for plushies, comms and other crap, meaning Im not alone in thinking shes a stingy asshole. This is getting long, so here, tumblr AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[stevesbipanic]

@steddiemas Day 26: Fake Dating

Steve was ready for Hawkins to open up again and for the Upside Down to swallow him whole. Christmas was meant to be fun, well at least it was supposed to be fun now that he spent it with the Buckley's. Right now though he was glaring at his boyfriend and best friend across the table. Or wait not his boyfriend this evening, no tonight, Eddie was Robin's boyfriend.

Steve could only blame himself he supposed, one for loving the two idiots that were currently badly suppressing giggles and two because it was all because of what he'd said last week.

One week earlier...

"Robin, just tell your mom you're a lesbian or I'm not coming to Christmas lunch next week."

"Steve I can't do that do you want to ruin Christmas!?"

"She was already fine with me being bisexual she's not going to send you to hell, that's why we tested her with me in the first place!"

"No, I'm not ready!"

"Well I can't sit through another Christmas of your mom suggesting a Spring wedding!"

"You're my boy space friend can't we just let her live in a fantasy world where she marries into the Harrington's?"

"I don't even want to be one!"

"Could pop down to the courthouse and become a Munson, baby," Eddie supplied watching the back and forth while blatantly stealing from the candy display.

Steve gave him a deadpan look, "You need to propose to me better than that, Eds. No, Robin that's it I'm not going, I'm not being your boyfriend anymore!"

"What am I meant to do then, she'll be asking about you all day!"

"I'll do it!" Eddie exclaimed.

"Do what?" The other two asked giving him a questioning look.

"No, stop I hate when you do that twin thing it's creepy. And I'll be your boyfriend for Christmas, Birdie."

Which brought Steve to now. It had seemed like a brilliant idea, one Steve could enjoy his Christmas lunch peacefully being the golden boy of the table as Mrs Buckley dawned over him and two, no boyfriend questions. There was also the added bonus that lesbianism might seem like a better option than the town's drug dealer in the Buckley's minds. What Steve hadn't counted on, was the Buckley's loving Eddie.

"Oh, you're in a band that's so lovely, you know I played tamborine for a band back when I was your age, we thought we were going to be a big girl group."

"I hear you're working over at Thatcher's son, they're good men there you're certainly going to learn a lot."

Steve had been relegated to peeling the potatoes while Eddie was literally putting his feet up in the living room. He felt like the middle child of a family that just got a newborn baby, how dare Eddie steal his pseudo parents. What was worse was that Robin was finding this hilarious.

"Oh poor Stevie Wevie are you sad mom's not asking about how EMT school is going?"

"Yes! I had such a fun fake heart attack story she was gonna love." Steve pouted and for a moment he thought about stomping his foot in protest.

"Hey, it's ok, next year I promise I'll have told them, and Edward over there can come as your boyfriend, ok?" Robin reassured wrapping an arm around him.

Steve guessed that he could give up being the favourite this time, and it was nice seeing people be kind to Eddie, it hadn't been easy after Spring Break. It didn't stop him shooting daggers whenever Eddie and Robin decided to reassure Steve at lunch that he'd find someone nice eventually.

Steve and Eddie waved goodbye after lunch, promising to visit soon and hopped into the van.

"Have fun?"

"Oh yeah, I think Janice is already planning the Spring wedding."

"Well, I hope you enjoyed getting fawned over because we've got dinner with Wayne now, and guess who's his favourite?"

"Just because you know the difference between the Chiefs and the Packers, I'm his own blood and the minute you're there it's like I'm chopped liver!" Eddie exclaimed as they drove towards the trailer park.

Lunch had been interesting but he was very glad it was over as he laughed and slid his fingers between Eddie's between them, happy that he had his boyfriend back.

Ao3