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felassan · 2 months

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Edge – The Future of Interactive Entertainment magazine, issue #401 (October 2024 issue) – Dragon Age: The Veilguard story

The rest of this post is under a cut for length.

Update: this issue of this magazine is now available to buy from UK retailers today. it can be purchased online at [this link]. [Tweet from Edge Online] also, Kala found that a digital version of the magazine can be read at [this link].

This post is a word-for-word transcription of the full article on DA:TV in this issue of this magazine. DA:TV is the cover story of this issue. When transcribing, I tried to preserve as much of the formatting from the magazine as possible. Edge talked to BioWare devs for the creation of this article, so the article contains new quotes from the devs. the article is written by Jeremy Peel. There were no new screenshots or images from the game in the article. I also think that it contains a few lil bits of information that are new, like the bits on companions' availability and stumbling across the companions out and about on their own in the world e.g. finding Neve investigating an abduction case in Docktown.

tysm to @simpforsolas and their friend for kindly telling me about the article!!

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[image source]

Article introduction segment:

"[anecdote about Edge] We were reminded of this minuscule episode in Edge's history during the creation of this issue's cover story, in which we discuss the inspiration behind Dragon Age: The Veilguard with its creators at BioWare. Notably, director John Epler remembers the studio experimenting with a number of approaches during the early phase of development before eventually locking in to what the game was supposed to be all along, above all else: 'a single-player, story-focused RPG'. As you'd expect from BioWare, though, that was really just a starting point, as we discovered on p54." BioWare draws back the Veil and ushers us into a new Dragon Age

"BEHIND THE CURTAIN BioWare's first true RPG in age age is as streamlined and pacey as a dragon in flight. By Jeremy Peel Game Dragon Age: The Veilguard Developer BioWare Publisher EA Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series Origin Canada Release Autumn

The Dragon Age universe wasn't born from a big bang or the palm of an ancient god. Instead, it was created to solve a problem. BioWare was tired of battling Hasbro during the making of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, and wanted a Dungeons & Dragons-like setting of its own. A small team was instructed to invent a new fantasy world in which the studio could continue its groundbreaking work in the field of western RPGs, free of constraints.

Well, almost free. BioWare's leaders mandated that the makers of this new world stick to Eurocentric fantasy, and include a fireball spell - since studio co-founder Ray Muzyka had a weakness for offensive magic.

Beyond that, BioWare’s storytellers were empowered to infuse Dragon Age with their own voices and influences, leaning away from D&D’s alignment chart and towards a moral grayness that left fans of A Song Of Ice And Fire feeling warm and cozy.

In the two decades since, the world of Thedas – rather infamously and amusingly, a shortening of ��the Dragon Age setting’ that stuck – has taken on a distinct flavor. It’s something director John Epler believes is rooted in characters.

“There’s definitely some standard fantasy stuff in Dragon Age, but everything in the world, every force, is because of someone,” he says. “The idea is that every group and faction needs to be represented by a person – someone you can relate to. Big political forces are fine as background, but they don’t provide you with those interesting story moments.”

Dragon Age: The Veilguard bears out that philosophy. The long-awaited sequel was first announced with the subtitle Dreadwolf, in reference to its antagonist, Solas – an ancient elf who once stripped his people of immortality as punishment for betraying one of their own. In doing so, Solas created the Veil, the thin barrier through which wizards pull spirits and demons invade the waking world. In other words, many of Dragon Age’s defining features, from its downtrodden elves to the uneasy relationship between mages and a fearful church, can be traced right back to one character’s decision.

“The world exists as it does because of Solas,” Epler says. “He shaped the world because of the kind of character he was. That’s, to me, what makes Dragon Age so interesting. Everything can tie back to a person who to some degree thought they were doing the right thing.”

Perhaps BioWare’s greatest achievement in slowburn character development, Solas is a former companion, an unexploded bomb who sat in the starting party of Dragon Age: Inquisition, introverted and useful enough to get by without suspicion. Yet by the time credits rolled around on the Trespasser DLC, players were left in no doubt as to the threat he presented.

Determined to reverse the damage he once caused, the Dreadwolf intends to pull down the Veil, destroying Thedas as we know it in the process. The next Dragon Age game was always intended to be his story.

“We set that up at the end of Trespasser,” Epler says. “There was no world where we were ever going to say, ‘And now let’s go to something completely different.’ We wanted to pay off that promise.”

Yet almost everything else about the fourth Dragon Age appears to have been in flux at one time. In 2019, reporter Jason Schreier revealed that an early version, starring a group of spies pulling off heists in the Tevinter Imperium, had been cancelled two years prior. Most of its staff were apparently moved onto BioWare’s struggling Anthem, while a tiny team rebooted Dragon Age from scratch. That new game was said to experiment with live-service components.

“We tried a bunch of different ideas early on,” Epler says. “But the form The Veilguard has taken is, in a lot of ways, the form that we were always pushing towards. We were just trying different ways to get there. There was that moment where we really settled on, ‘This is a singleplayer, story-focused RPG – and that’s all it needs to be’”.

Epler imagines a block of marble, from which BioWare was attempting to carve an elephant – a character- and story-driven game. “We were chipping away, and sometimes it looked more like an elephant and sometimes it didn’t”, he says. “And then we eventually realized: ‘Just make an elephant’. When we got to that, it almost just took shape by itself.”

2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition was an open-world game commonly criticized for a slow-paced starting area which distracted players from the thrust of the plot. The Veilguard, in contrast, is mission-based, constructed with tighter, bespoke environments designed around its main story and cast. “We wanted to build a crafted, curated experience for the player,” Epler says. “Pacing is important to us, and making sure that the story stays front and center.”

Epler is very proud of Inquisition, the game on which he graduated from cinematic designer to a lead role (for its DLC). “But one of the things that we ran into on that project was an absentee antagonist,” he says. “Corypheus showed up and then disappeared. You spent ten hours in the Hinterland doing sidequests, and there wasn’t that sense of urgency.”

This time, The Veilguard team wants you to constantly feel the sword of Damocles dangling above your head as you play – a sense that the end of the world is coming if you don’t act. “There’s still exploration – there’s still the ability to go into some of these larger spaces and go off the beaten path to do sidequests,” Epler says. “But there’s always something in the story propelling you and the action forward, and allowing you to make decisions with these characters where the stakes feel a lot more immediate and present. And also, honestly, more real.”

No sooner have you finished character creation than Dragon Age: The Veilguard thrusts you into a choice. As your protagonist, Rook, steps into focus on the doorstep of the seediest bar in town, you decide whether to threaten the owner for information or make a deal. Brawl or no, you’ll walk out minutes later with a lead: the location of a private investigator named Neve Gallus, who can help you track down Solas.

You proceed into Minrathous, the largest city in Thedas and capital of the Tevinter Imperium – a region only alluded to in other Dragon Age games. It’s a place built on the backs of slaves and great mages, resulting in tiered palaces and floating spires – a kind of architecture unimaginable to those in the southern nations.

“When your Dragon Age: Inquisition companion Dorian joins you in Orlais, in one of the biggest cities in Thedas, he mentions that it’s quaint and cute compared to Minrathous,” Corinne Busche, game director on The Veilguard, says. “That one bit of dialogue was our guiding principle on how to realize this city. It is sprawling. It is lived-in. Sometimes it’s grimy, sometimes it’s bougie. But it is expansive.”

Immediately, you can see the impact of BioWare’s decision to tighten its focus. Around every other corner in Minrathous is an exquisitely framed view, a level of spectacle you would never see in Inquisition, where resources were spread much more thinly. “When you know that you’re gonna be heading down a canyon or into this plaza where the buildings open up, you have those perfect spots to put a nice big temple of Andraste or a mage tower,” art director Matthew Rhodes says. “You get those opportunities to really hit that hard.”

BioWare’s intention is to make strong visual statements that deliver on decades of worldbuilding. “People who have a history with Dragon Age have thought about what Minrathous might be like,” Rhodes says. “We can never compete with their imagination, but we can aim for it like we’re shooting for the Moon.”

The people of Tevinter use magic as it if were electricity, as evidenced by the glowing sigils that adorn the dark buildings – street signs evoking Osaka’s riverfront or the LA of Blade Runner. They’re just one of the tricks BioWare’s art team uses to invite you to stop and take in the scene. “A lot of what you start to notice when you’re the artist who’s been working on these big, beautiful vistas and neat murals on the walls is how few players look up,” Rhodes says. “We design props and architecture that help lead the eyes.”

For the really dedicated shoegazers, BioWare has invested in ray-traced reflections, so that the neon signage can be appreciated in the puddles. There are also metal grates through which you can see the storm drains below. “The idea behind that is purely just to remind the player often of how stacked the city is,” Rhodes says. “Wherever you’re standing, there’s guaranteed to be more below you and above you.”

One of BioWare’s core creative principles for The Veilguard is to create a world that’s actually worth saving – somewhere you can imagine wanting to stick around in, once the crises of the main quest are over. To that end, the team has looked to ground its outlandish environments with elements of mundanity.

“A guy’s normal everyday life walking down the streets of this city is more spectacular than what the queen of Orlais is seeing, at least in terms of sheer scale," Rhodes says. “One of the things we’ve tried to strike a balance with is that this is actually still a place where people have to go to the market and buy bread, raise their kids, and try to make it. It’s a grand and magical city, but how do you get your horses from one place to the next? Where do you load the barrels for the tavern? It’s really fun to think of those things simultaneously.”

Normal life in Minrathous is not yours to behold for long, however. Within a couple of minutes of your arrival, the very air is ripped open like cheap drapes, and flaming demons clatter through the merchant carts that line the city streets. A terrible magical ritual, through which Solas intends to stitch together a new reality, has begun.

“We wanted the prologue to feel like the finale of any other game we’ve done,” Busche explains. “Where it puts you right into this media-res attack on a city and gets you really invested in the action and the story right away. When I think back to Inquisition, how the sky was literally tearing open – the impact of this ritual really makes that look like a minor inconvenience.”

Our hero is confronted by a Pride demon, imposing and armored as in previous games, yet accented by exposed, bright lines that seem to burst from its ribcage. “They are a creature of raw negative emotion,” Busche says. “So we wanted to actually incorporate that into their visual design with this glowing nervous system.”

When a pack of smaller demons blocks Rook’s route to the plaza where Neve was last seen, battle breaks out, and The Veilguard’s greatest divergence from previous Dragon Age games becomes apparent. Our rogue protagonist flits between targets up close and evades individual sword swings with precision. In the chaos, he swaps back and forth between blades and a bow. He blends light and heavy attacks, and takes advantage of any gap in the melee to charge up even bigger blows.

“Responsiveness was our first-and-foremost goal with this baseline layer of the combat system,” Busche says. Unless you’re activating a high-risk, high-reward ability such as a charged attack, any action can be animation-cancelled, allowing you to abort a sword swing and dive away if an enemy lunges too close. “We very much wanted you to feel like you exist in this space, as you’re going through these really crafted, hand-touched worlds,” Busche says. “That you’re on the ground in control of every action, every block, every dodge.” Anyone who’s ever bounced off a Soulslike needn’t worry: The Veilguard’s highly customizable difficulty settings enable you to loosen up parry windows if they prove too demanding.

Gone is the overhead tactical camera which, for some players, was a crucial point of connection between Dragon Age and the Baldur’s Gate games that came before, tapping into a lineage of thoughtful, tabletop-inspired combat. Epler points out that the camera’s prior inclusion had an enormous impact on where the game’s battles took place. “We actually had a mandate on Inquisition, which was, ‘Don’t fight inside,’” he says. “The amount of extra work on getting that tactical camera to work in a lot of those internal environments, it was very challenging.”

Gone, too, is the ability to steer your comrades directly. “On the experiential side, we wanted you to feel like you are Rook – you’re in this world, you’re really focused on your actions,” Busche says. “We very much wanted the companions to feel like they, as fully realized characters, are in control of their own actions. They make their own decisions. You, as the leader of this crew, can influence and direct and command them, but they are their own people.”

It's an idea with merit, albeit one that could be read as spin. “It’s not lost on me,” Busche says. “I will admit that, on paper, if you just read that you have no ability to control your companions, it might feel like something was taken away. But in our testing and validating with players, what we find is they’re more engaged than ever.”

There may be a couple of reasons for that. One is that Dragon Age’s newly dynamic action leaves little room for seconds spent swapping between perspectives. “This is a much higher actions-per-minute game,” Busche says. “It is more technically demanding on the player. So when we tried allowing you full control of your companions as well, what we’ve found is it wasn’t actually adding to the experience. In fact, in some ways it was detrimental, given the demanding nature of just controlling your own character.”

Then there’s The Veilguard’s own tactical layer, as described by BioWare. Though the fighting might be faster and lower, like a mana-fuelled sports scar, the studio is keen to stress that the pause button remains as important to the action as ever. This is, according to Busche, where the RPG depth shines through, as you evaluate the targets you’re facing and take their buffs into account: “Matching elemental types against weaknesses and resistances is a big key to success in this game.”

You pick between rogue, warrior and mage – each role later splitting again into deeper specialisms – and draw from a class-specific resource during fights. A rogue relies on Momentum, which is built up by avoiding damage and being highly aggressive, whereas a warrior is rewarded for blocking, parrying, and mitigating damage.

Those resources are then used on the ability wheel, which pauses the game and allows you to consider your options. The bottom quadrant of the wheel belongs to your character, and is where three primary abilities will be housed. “Rook will also have access to runes, which function as an ability, and a special ultimate ability,” Busche says. “So you’re bringing five distinct abilities with you into combat.”

The sections to the left and right of the wheel, meanwhile, are dedicated to your companions. Busche points to Lace Harding, the returning rogue from Inquisition, who is currently frozen mid-jump. “She is her own realized individual in this game. She’s got her own behaviors: how she prioritizes targets, whether she gets up close and draws aggro or stays farther back at range. But you’ll be able to direct her in combat by activating her abilities from the wheel.”

These abilities are complemented by positional options at the top of the wheel, where you can instruct your companions to focus their efforts on specific targets, either together or individually. Doing so will activate the various buffs, debuffs and damage enhancements inherent in their weapons and gear. “So,” Busche explains, “as you progress through the first two hours of the game, this full ability wheel is completely populated with a variety of options and different tactics that you can then string together.”

BioWare has leaned into combos. You might tell one companion to unleash a gravity-well effect that gathers enemies together, then have another slow time. Finally, you could drop an AOE attack on your clustered and slowed opponents, dealing maximum damage. The interface will let you know when an opportunity to blend two companion abilities emerges – moments BioWare has dubbed ‘combo detonations’.

“I like to think about this strategic layer to combat as a huddle,” Busche says, “where you’re figuring out how you want to handle the situation, based on the information you have on the encounter, and how you and your companions synergize together.”

Deeper into the game, as encounters get more challenging, Epler says we’ll be spending a lot of time making “very specific and very focused tactical decisions”. The proof will be in eating the Fereldan fluffy mackerel pudding, of course, but Busche insists this shift to fast action isn’t a simplification. “What really makes the combat system and indeed the extension into the progression system work is that pause-and-play tactical element that we know our players expect.”

The autonomy of The Veilguard’s companions doesn’t end with combat. BioWare’s data shows that in previous games players tended to stick with the same two or three beloved comrades during a playthrough. This time, however, you’ll be forced to mix your squad up at regular intervals.

“We do expect that players will have favorites they typically want to adventure with,” Busche says, “but sometimes certain companions will be mandatory.” Others may not always be available – part of the studio’s effort to convince with three-dimensional characters. “They do have a life outside of Rook, the main character,” Busche says.

"They'll fall in love with people in this world. They’ve had past experiences they’ll share with you if you allow them in and get close to them.”

Being separated from your companions, rather than collecting them all in a kind of stasis at camp, allows you to stumble across them unexpectedly. Busche describes an instance in which, while exploring the Docktown section of Minrathous, you might bump into Neve as she investigates an abduction case. “If I go and interact with her, I can actually stop what I’m doing, pick up her arc and adventure with her throughout her part of the story,” Busche says. “What’s interesting is that all of the companion arcs do ultimately tie back to the themes of the main critical path, but they also have their own unique challenges and villains, and take place over the course of many different intimate moments.”

Some parts of a companion’s quest arc involve combat, while others don’t. Some are made up of large and meaningful missions – as lavish and involved as those along the critical path. “While they are optional, I would be hesitant to call them side content in this game,” Busche says. If you choose not to engage with some of these companion-centered events, they’ll resolve on their own. “And it might have interesting implications.”

The Veilguard promises plenty of change, then, even as it picks up the threads of fan-favorite characters and deepens them, honoring the decades of worldbuilding that came before it. This is perhaps the enduring and alluring paradox of Dragon Age: a beloved series which has never had a direct and immediate sequel, nor a recurring protagonist. Instead, it’s been reinvented with each new entry.

“It’s a mixed blessing to some degree,” Epler says. “The upside is always that it gives us more room to experiment and to try new things. There are parts of the series that are common to every game: it’s always an RPG, it’s always about characters, and we always want to have that strategic tactical combat where you’re forced to make challenging decisions. But at the end of the day, I think what makes Dragon Age Dragon Age is that each one feels a little bit different.”"

Q&A Matthew Rhodes Art director

Q. Early BioWare RPGs were literary, with the emotions and detail mostly happening in dialogue boxes. How have you seen the studio's approach to visual storytelling evolve? A. This has been my entire career. When I first showed up at BioWare, it was at the tail end of Jade Empire, and then I was working on Dragon Age: Origins and early Mass Effect. The games had taken that next step out of sprites and 2D models, and it was like: 'How do we say more? How do we communicate more clearly?' During those early days, a lot of games depended on words to fix everything for you. As long as your character was talking bombastically, you could lend them everything that they needed. But as time went on it also became a visual medium, and it's been this long journey of trying to establish art's seat at the table. I've worked with some great writers over the years, and art is also an essential part of the storytelling. From Dragon Age: Inquisition on, I've been trying to stress with my teams that we are a story department.

Q. Is part of that also letting writers know that your storytelling assistance is available, to help them show rather than tell? A. On The Veilguard, that principle has been operating the best I've seen it. Where you would need a paragraph of dialogue in one of those exposition moments where a character just talks to you, we could sell that with a broken statue or a skeleton overgrown with vines. We've had more opportunities to do that on The Veilguard than most of the projects I've ever worked on combined.

To a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, and so in every department, writing will try to solve it with more words, and art will try to solve it with more art. I've bumped up against moments where it's like, 'As much as we could keep hammering on this design, I think this is actually an audio solution.' And then you take it to audio, and you don't get that overcooked feeling where each team is just trying to solve it in their silo. It's a really creatively charged kind of environment.

[main body of article ends here]

Additional from throughout the article --

Image caption: “Spotlights shine down from the city guards’ base as they pursue you through the streets of Minrathous.”

Image caption: “While most of your companions can be sorted into comfortingly familiar RPG classes, The Veilguard introduces two new varieties: a Veil Jumper and a private investigator.”"

Image caption [on this Solas ritual concept art specifically]: “The name previously given to the game – Dreadwolf – was a direct reference to Solas. Your former companion, now on his own destructive mission, still features, despite the name change.”

Text in a side box:

"RATIONAL ANTHEM The hard lesson BioWare drew from Anthem was to play to its strengths. “We’re a studio that has always been built around digging deep on storytelling and roleplaying,” Epler says. “I’m proud of a lot of things on Anthem – I was on that project for a year and a half. But at the end of the day we were building a game focused on something we were not necessarily as proficient at. For me and for the team, the biggest lesson was to know what you’re good at and then double down on it. Don’t spread yourselves too thin. Don’t try to do a bunch of different things you don’t have the expertise to do. A lot of the people on this team came here to build a story-focused, singleplayer RPG."

Image caption: “In combat you no longer control your companions directly – this is a faster-paced form of fighting – but you are able to direct them in combat, and can even blend their abilities in ‘combo detonations’.”

Image caption: “You’ll be exploring new regions across Tevinter and beyond – Rivain is a certainty, and that’s only accessible via Antiva travelling overland.”

Image caption: “There are three specializations per character class; on the way to unlocking them you’ll acquire a range of abilities.”

Text in a side box:

"MEET YOUR MAKER “Full disclosure: Dragon Age has traditionally not done skin tones well, especially for people of color,” Busche says. “We wanted to do a make-good here.” In The Veilguard’s character creator, you can adjust the amount of melanin that comes through in the skin, as well as test various lighting scenarios to ensure your protagonist looks exactly as you intend in cutscenes. “Speaking of our first creative principle – be who you want to be – we really feel these are the kinds of features that unlock that for our players,” Busche says. “We want everyone to be able to see themselves in this game.” For the first time in the series, your body type is fully customizable too, with animations, armor and even romantic scenes reflecting your choices."

Image caption: “Your companions are a mix of old and new – Lace Harding is a familiar face. Veil Jumper Bellara is new, with a new occupation, while Davrin is a new face with a familiar profession – he’s a Warden.”

Image caption: "Arlathan Forest is home to the ruined city of the elves, now a place of wild magic, Veil Jumpers and (allegedly) spirits".

Image caption: "Bellara is driven by a desire to learn more about the elves, rediscovering the shattered history and magic of her people."

[source: Edge – The Future of Interactive Entertainment magazine, issue #401 (October 2024 issue) - it can be purchased online at [this link].]

#dragon age: the veilguard #dragon age the veilguard spoilers #dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #solas #video games #longpost #long post #simpforsolas #anthem #jade empire #mass effect #obsessed with the idea of helping neve solve cases...

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asapeveryday · 4 months

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SHOCK FACTOR ★彡PART 5

Prev. Next.

Pairing: Paige Bueckers x Rival!Reader

Warnings: swearing

Summary: a lot of media attention and some solo time isn’t enough to keep paige away from you.

A/n: one more chap after this then we done 😛

YOU WAKE UP with a pounding headache, not as engulfing as last night but still enough to induce a groan as you lift your head from your pillow.

The hotel-white pillowcase is smeared with residual makeup and your hair feels tangled and unruly. It was surprising how well you slept, seeing as multiple things had happened the night before that should’ve kept you up till morning. You look around to see the hotel room is empty, then check your phone for the time. It’s 1:34pm, you’ve slept into the afternoon.

Your phone is absolutely filled with notifications.

JUJU-KINS😘

U up?

Coach is lit tweaking rn

U bouta be getting media trained FOR LIFE

ELAINEY 🤞

hey

can we talk pls?

ur only in town for a couple more days

it’s not as bad as it seems i swear

i was drunk

COACH

Call me when you see this message.

I hope you already know what you’ve done wrong so I don’t have to waste my time.

You’re smarter than this!

Collapsing on your bed again, you bury yourself in the sheets. Being in Connecticut had just turned out to be a nightmare, you’ve barely interacted with your teammates, your friendship with Elaine was ruined, you’ve had the most confusing relationship with Paige and you’ve made a fool of yourself online.

You shoot a quick text to Juju as well as some other teammates who’ve checked up on you, being sure to ignore Elaine’s texts. You find yourself re-reading your messages with Paige, thankfully your drunk brain hadn’t texted anything too out of pocket, and though you clearly remember her typing after your last message she hadn’t responded since then.

Your call with Coach was the most dreaded of all, you truly respected and feared her, so sitting through an almost half-hour phone call about your responsibilities, failures, expectations and repercussions was awful.

In short, you were to be off of social media until back in state, live privileges were fully revoked, if you were to be found partying and clubbing you’d be in massive trouble, you had to issue a statement on Instagram and twitter (which was pre-written by some professional), and the next practice you participate in will be the worst practice you’ve ever experienced in the history of bad practices. Most probably an insane amount of sprints.

You release your statements on Instagram and Twitter, but before deleting the apps you check out Paige’s comments. She’d obviously received a similar order. Her Instagram story consisted of a black screen and a small box of text, simply entailing how spreading love and positivity while uplifting other players is an obligation she intends to follow from this point onwards.

Her twitter had two new tweets:

paigebueckers1 : Me and (Name) have had some truly special experiences in college basketball. She’s an amazing player who is only gonna go higher and get better as she grows. When I was a junior I was stuck in crutches hoping for the chance I have now. (Name) as a junior herself is absolutely killing it on the court and I for one will always be rooting for her, competitive comments online or not. Keep doin what you’re doin @yourusername !

paigebueckers1 : God is good! 🙏

Turning your phone off, the only thing you’re thinking is ‘you’re so full of shit.’

You wonder if she wrote that herself or if somebody wrote it for her and made it seem like it was her own typing. Regardless, it didn’t matter anymore. You’d had your experience with the Big East Champion, and it was enough for a lifetime.

The amount of content coming out regarding you and Paige was insanely overwhelming. Debates online regarding your skills, looks, personality and basically anything the public can grasp were rampant. You and Paige had been a bit of a scandal ever since she shaded you on that panel, and the media had been seriously following you two back and forth between the seemingly friendly interactions and more hostile ones.

Eventually you stumble upon something different. A video of you and Paige in the background of KK and Ice’s live that day in the coffee shop. You can see yourself fumbling with napkins, and Paige approaching. It’s almost entrancing to see everything play out from another perspective, to see how her face eases into a smile at your smartass comments, to relive your own amused emotion at her stare, to watch Paige speedily write her number on a napkin before the camera shifts and the live ends.

You’re unsure how to react to all of this. No matter how close or far you could get with Paige, would it ever amount to anything? To the slightest bit of trust? Her lips were almost on yours that evening in the street, but just an hour earlier she had lied to your face about knowing Elaine.

You recall what Elaine drunkenly spat out during your argument outside the bar.

“N’ I’ll tell you what. She’s going to play your ass and you’re never gonna get over it, cus that’s what she does.”

Was this spoken out of experience, or a mixture of jealousy and intoxication? Had Elaine once been that girl on the street, inches away?

You can’t help but think it wasn’t the case. Paige bit her tongue around you to stifle a laugh or to hold back a rebuttal to your teasing. When it came to Elaine, Paige bit her tongue in a different way. A loathing way. You couldn’t explain it.

Plus, Elaine had said herself that you were not Paige’s usual type. If she meant you and her were not alike, that was the truth. You and Paige had more of a history, more similar lifestyles and experiences, more. At least you assumed so.

Finally, you decide you’ve done enough thinking for the day. It was time to line up some plans, maybe meet up with the team for a couple hours and then hoop solo in the evening. Anything to distract from the situation.

The sound of a basketball against the blacktop, the hollow bounce that always found itself back to your hand. It’s sustenance to you, it’s breathing.

Storrs had been blessed with a hotter Sunday then usual, even in your shorts and t-shirt you were sweating, shooting hoops the same way you’ve been doing since you were a child.

The court was empty and outdoors, perfect for you to hold the ball for a moment and admire the scenery, the changing colours of the sky as afternoon fades to evening.

You hear the bounce of a ball again, but yours is secured in your hand.

“Hey.”

You’re not surprised to see her. The sink in your stomach as you meet her eyes in almost predictable.

“What are the chances.” You scoff. “Don’t you have like, the entire UConn gym to hoop?”

“I come to this court all the time.” Paige narrows her eyes. “It’s usually peaceful.”

“I figured.” You say curtly, turning your head to see the setting sun. It was very peaceful, even with the impending silence between you and the blonde.

“How drunk were you last night?” Paige asks.

You spin around to give her a look. “Drunk enough to get on live,” You scoff. “but sober enough to read a text and send it without regrets.”

At the mention of your short conversation with Paige over text, you can see her cringe. She obviously hadn’t been expecting you to find out about her relationship with your friend, let alone be so upfront with it.

“I never fucked her in my car…just so you know.” She finally manages to breath out.

You almost bark out a laugh at this. “You think I’m mad cus you fucked her?” You ask, walking towards Paige and lightly dribbling the ball. She simply stares at you, mouth slightly agape.

“Are you not?”

“Is the blonde fucking seeping into your head?” You snap, mentally celebrating as her lips forms a straight line. “If you don’t know, you better figure it out.”

Paige brings a hand to her face, rubbing her forehead as if it’s aching. Her eyes are wide and analyzing you, thinking of the best way to respond.

“Go on,” you tease her. “tell me why I’m mad.”

You’re close to her now, too close for comfort. You can see her smile lines, her plush lips, her silver chain glinting beneath the black long sleeve she’s wearing. The sleeves are rolled up, and you can’t help but noticed how veiny her arms are, how her long fingers are holding the basketball against her body.

Biting her lip, Paige finally responds. “You’re mad because I lied.”

“Smart girl.” You scoff, almost choking on your breath when her jaw clenches at your comment. “I’m mad cus you lied to my face. And cus you went on live and shit talked me again for no reason.”

You and her stare at each other for a long moment before she breaks a smile. “That was my bad.” She murmurs. “I was uh, Ion’ know. I was in sum kinda mood.”

“The mood to lie?” You raise your eyebrow. “Or the mood to be a bitch?”

“Don’t call me a bitch.” She scowls, and you’re reminded of the last time you called her that, at the end of your game against UConn.

“That’s what you are, Bueckers.” You say with a smile, eyeing her down and getting in her face just a little more. “Bitches lie, bitches make problems out of nothing.”

Her eye is fiercely trained on you, on the way your lips move as you degrade her. You can’t tell what she’s thinking in the slightest.

“(Name), I’m sorry.” She says softly.

Once again you two are staring in silence. The proximity is intoxicating, you can practically smell her clean clothes.

“Are you still fucking Elaine?”

“Hell no.” Paige shakes her head furiously. “That ended a while ago. We haven’t talked in like months.”

“She still has your location.” You grumble. “That’s how she knew I was with you at the restaurant.”

“Shit.” Paige groans, immediately pulling out her phone. “She interrupted us on purpose then? Psycho.”

You watch as she turns off her location for Elaine and blocks her before slipping her phone back in her pocket.

“We didn’t hookup for long.” Paige says, obviously feeling the need to explain herself. “Jus a couple times. I broke things off, she couldn’t accept how busy my schedule was.”

You shrug, not knowing what to say.

“Guess she couldn’t accept you and me either, huh?” Paige smirks, shooting you a ‘forgive me’ type look.

Ignoring the swell in your heart at the stupid comment, you just chuckle and shake your head.

“Do you wanna 1v1?” She asks almost sheepishly.

You think for a moment.

“You sure I’m on your level?”

Paige looks embarrassed for a moment, remembering what she said on her live. “Quit playin.” She rolls her eyes. “C’mon, show me what you got.”

You’d be lying if you were to say you knew the score.

Was she taking score? You and Paige were equally insanely competitive, but this wasn’t a true test of skill. This was a test of endurance. A test to see who would break first.

You knew this when her hand grazed your waist as she darted past you to the other end of the court, or when she stared you down, tongue between her lips as she blocked your shot. You retaliated yourself, letting your hand linger a bit too long as you helped her up from the ground after tripping her up, or whistling at her as she makes another three.

The heavy breathing, the piercing stares, the cold air as the sun disappeared. You were in a zone you’d never been in before, somehow equally focused on the game and the girl.

You manage to steal the ball from Paige in a swift moment, but suddenly she’s in front of you again. Her hands dart for the ball, attempting to smack it out of your hand. She almost manages to steal it back, but your grip tightens just at the right moment.

She’s stuck to you, her hands attempting to pry the ball out of your own. You can hear her breath, you can see the beaded sweat on her forehead, you can feel her blue eyes watching you, watching your chest widen and shrink with every inhale and exhale, watching your lips.

It’s a replay of the college game that started all of this.

You struggle for a moment longer before the tousle is not longer controlled, the ball slips between both of your sweaty hands. You and Paige both scramble to save it, but it bounces out of your grasps and away from the court.

Neither of you chase after it.

She’s still up close to you, face flushed from the game.

“What was the score?” She huffs, out of breath. Paige’s voice is raspy and tired. You feel something spark inside of you.

“No clue.”

Paige’s face breaks into a small smirk as her hands find your waist, uncertain and soft, just barely ghosting your frame. “That was my ball.”

“Shut up.” You mumble, your heart hammering at the feeling of her eyes exploring every part of you, lingering on your lips before she finally leans in.

Paige’s lips are rough against yours, but fit perfectly as if moulded for your own. She melts into you, her hands finally tightening around your body, her face tilting just right so she can finally taste you. It’s something you didn’t know you’d been waiting for. She kisses with a million emotions, with urgency, passion and the slightest bit of control. It’s electrical.

When you need to break the kiss to breath, you simply tug on her ponytail. You were not expecting the slight whimper as your lips part.

“M’ not done.” She mutters against you, catching her breath.

“I want you, P.” You whisper, looking up at her. Paige’s face immediately changes at this, lips tilting upward in an annoyingly charismatic way.

“I know you do, baby.” She murmurs. “Let me take you home.”

#fanfiction #fanfic #paige bueckers #uconn wbb #paige bueckers x reader #paige buckets #rpf #rivals to lovers #paige x reader #uconn women’s basketball #f/f #series

567 notes · View notes

monsterfuker3000 · 1 year

Text

Call Me ˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡☏♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖

Jesus God, this took an embarrassingly long time. Not sure it’s my best work, most of this was written while I was stoned out of my mind, and when that happens I think with my pussy and not my brain, but I can guarantee this shit filthy. It’s not edited because I’m high again.

Warnings: NSFW, DUBCON, Ghostface!Dazai, fem!reader, p in v, intercourse, unprotected sex, (don’t do that,) creampie (don’t do that either,) uhh sub!reader, dom!dazai, there’s uhhh there’s knives, blood, brief mention of a cut, fake kidnapping, drugging(?) established relationship and use of traffic light system but when I say dubcon I mean dubcon. Look me in my eyeballs. Dubcon. Uhhh restraints? Idk it’s just a little bit depraved so don’t read it if you don’t want depraved. There’s aftercare though bc I’m allergic to not ending my fics on a soft note. Characterization in this is questionable at best. I love you mwah.

To @texas-bitch-yee @genshinsbiggestsimp @cupidszvlvr @dxzxii @vqmpwclf sorry this took so long 👉🏻👈🏻

WC: 4k words of Osamu Dazai lecherously taking you and you being lecherously taken ❤️

Leaves crunched under your feet as you ran, the cool fall air burning in your lungs. The ankle you’d twisted a few minutes previous was screaming at you, but only one thing was going through your mind.

Do.

Not.

Stop.

You knew he wasn’t far behind you, he never had been. Deep down, through all your attempts to lose the man you knew was trailing you, you knew damn well he was never more than a few minutes away. If you stopped now, he’d catch you for sure, and he had every intention of using that knife you’d seen glinting in his hand when he dumped you on the ground in this forest in the middle of nowhere and told you to run for your life.

You stumbled down a small hill, nearly losing your footing but staying upright by some miracle. You paused for just a moment to steady yourself, your heart rate spiking when you heard a branch snap in the distance. Whether it was the man you’d received a phone call from earlier in the night or some woodland creature, you weren’t sticking around to find out, and you took off again.

You’d been at home just an hour previous, curled up on the sofa of your living room as you waited for Dazai to come home. Your phone rang next to you; expecting your boyfriend, you answered without checking the caller ID, not seeing that it read ‘UNKNOWN CALLER’ at the top of the screen.

“Hello?” You chirped, expecting the gentle voice of your boyfriend Osamu on the other end.

“Do you want to play a game?” came the reply, the voice gravelly and unfamiliar. You frowned and checked the caller ID, just now seeing it wasn’t anyone in your contacts. Your blood ran cold for just a moment before you realized exactly what was going on, and you laughed.

“Osamu,” you giggled, “that’s the wrong movie, silly!” The person on the end seemed to falter for just a moment before gathering themselves and resuming conversation.

“Well, if you know so much about movies, belladonna, then tell me, what’s your favorite scary movie?”

“Scream,” you replied simply. “And, Osamu, you’re giving yourself away calling me belladonna like that,” you laughed. He grumbled something inaudible on the other end before you hung up, knowing this was all part of the game.

This had all been in the works for a couple of weeks now, beginning the night you’d popped the original Scream into the DVD player on a movie night with Osamu. He’d had his arm around you, so it wasn’t difficult for him to feel the way you tensed up a bit when the killer came on screen, nor was it hard for him to see the way your cheeks would turn pink when you heard his voice. An idea began forming in Dazai’s head, something dangerous that he knew both of you would like. He leaned in towards you, lips nearly brushing your ear as he whispered softly.

“My, my, belladonna, you seem to like what you see, hm?” he teased. Your cheeks reddened even more as you shrank in on yourself, declining to answer the question. “Well,” he continued, “what if I did something like that to you?”

You froze, then turned around to look at him, your eyes wide and unbelieving.

“Really?” you cautioned. He nodded, that signature smirk on his face telling you he was thinking devious thoughts.

“Really, sweet girl. Take you out to the woods where we can be all alone, let you go and hunt you down.” You shivered at his words, panties slicking up just at the thought. The two of you paused the movie and discussed in detail what expectations and boundaries you would have for each other, which is how you knew exactly what was happening when you received that call.

After you hung up the phone, it only took about five seconds for the phone to start ringing again, UNKNOWN CALLER scrolling across the screen a second time. You answered with a smile on your face, ready to mouth off again, but the voice on the other end beat you to it.

“You hang up on me again, I’ll gut you like a fish!”

You froze once again, the hair on the back of your neck standing on end. You knew this was a line ripped directly from the movie, but the way it was said sent shivers down your spine. The voice on the other end was rough, sharp, nothing like the Osamu you knew. For the first time tonight, you felt a stab of cold, genuine fear. The voice continued.

“Now, belladonna, I’m somewhere in your house. Do you want to guess where?” he urged. Your eyes darted around the room, trying to gauge whether Dazai could hide behind anything in front of you. But you’d hear him, right? That meant he had to be somewhere else in the house, somewhere he could call you from and you wouldn’t hear him.

“Tick-tock, sweet girl,” the voice on the phone purred. “I’ll give you just one guess. If you get it right, I’ll let you go. If you get it wrong, however,” he laughed darkly, “well, belladonna, you should start running.”

Your heart rate quickened, your palms slicking with sweat. Where the hell could he be?

“You have until the count of three, sweet girl.”

The kitchen? No, too open.

“One.”

The bathroom? No, you’d just been in there a few minutes previous and it was empty.

“Two.”

The dining room? No, you’d hear him from there. Ah! You knew where he must be.

“Three.”

“The bedroom!” you cried, just as the final number left his mouth. Then, silence.

“Tsk-tsk, oh, belladonna,” he sighed. “I thought you’d be better at this. How disappointing.”

Your hands shook, your blood like ice in your veins. You knew you had to run, but where? You guessed wrong, you had no clue where he was. You were going to have to take your chances.

You dropped your phone and started running toward the front door, immediately regretting not holding on to it, but knowing that it wouldn’t help you anyway. Focused more on getting out than staying undetected, you ran clumsily out of the living room into the hallway leading to your front door, your socked feet slipping on the hardwood. The front door was only twenty feet away. Fifteen. Ten. Five. You reached the doorknob, fighting with your other hand to unlock the deadbolt. Then, out of the corner of your eye, a flash of black and white, a rag thrown over your nose and mouth, wet with a faintly sweet smelling substance, and then darkness.

You awoke on the ground in a dark, unfamiliar clearing surrounded by thick forest, your hands taped behind your back. The only light afforded to you was from the full moon and the headlights of the dark SUV you assume you arrived in.

A man stood in front of you, slender and tall, dressed all in black and holding a large hunting knife at his side that glinted in the moonlight. His face was concealed by the traditional Ghostface Halloween mask. How original. How perfect.

You noticed that he’d been kind enough to change you out of your pajamas and into thick pants and heavy boots. A genuinely kind gesture, one that reminded you that you could truly trust the man in front of you. You held on to this feeling, knowing this would be the only mercy afforded to you tonight.

The man knelt in front of you, lifting the corner of his mask to reveal that he was, in fact, the one and only Dazai Osamu. His expression was soft, almost concerned.

“Hey, give me a color, angel,” he urged.

You took a deep breath. “Green,” you answered. Dazai’s mouth curled into a smile, one that once again sent shivers down your spine, and he winked at you. He readjusted the mask, completely covering his face again, and stood.

“Little bunny,” he purred. “Whatever are you doing in the woods all alone, hm? He knelt once again as he lifted his knife to press the blade to your face, softly enough that it didn’t break skin, but hard enough so that you could feel just how sharp it really was.

“Do you know what happens to little bunnies all alone in the woods, sweet girl?” You shook your head, not trusting your voice. “Sometimes they encounter wolves.”

You could hear the smile in his voice, it twisted your stomach but shot straight to your core all the same. He used his other hand to pop the button and lower the zipper on your pants, sliding his hand into your panties to press two fingers to your pussy, gathering the slick there. He sighed deeply, shuddering at the feeling of just how wet this was all making you.

“Oh, little bunny, you look so scared but you feel so wet,” he moaned, withdrawing his fingers to slide them into your own mouth. You took the hint and began to lick them clean, moaning at the taste of your own slick. He was kind enough to button your pants back up before flipping you over onto your stomach, caging you in with his arms. He cut through the tape binding your hands, just barely nicking your arm in the process making you gasp. He bent down to whisper in your ear again.

“It’s time to run, little bunny.”

He lifted himself off of you enough for you to scramble out from under him onto your feet, elbowing him in the process. He held his side, hissing in pain. “That hurt, bunny. I’m going to give you a thirty second head start. You better run for your life,” he growled. You weren’t sticking around to find out how serious he was, so you turned tail and ran into the darkness.

Which is what landed you here, stumbling through the forest on a twisted ankle, covered in scrapes and cuts from running through branches you didn’t see until it was much too late.

You stumbled into another clearing, your heart racing. You let yourself feel a bit of relief before you noticed the SUV in the clearing with you. The same SUV you arrived in, and the same clearing you’ve been running from. Dazai had herded you in a circle.

Your heart dropped into your stomach, knowing he couldn’t be far behind you. You scanned the tree line all around you, finally spotting the glint of metal to your right. You gasped, finding yourself unable to scream, and whipped around in the other direction, trying to get away as fast as you could, but the heavy footfalls behind you came closer all the same.

Two arms shot out from behind you, one on each side to wrap around your body. He broke your fall a bit, but wrestled you to the ground all the same, pinning you flat on your back with his arms once again caging you in and a strong thigh pressing between your own.

You finally found your voice, screaming in fear as you tried to worm your way out from under him. You worked an arm free and swung it at him in an attempt to get him off of you, but you only succeeded in knocking off his mask. The face underneath was almost as scary as the mask itself, Dazai’s eyes sharp and his cruel smile much too wide.

He pulled a short length of rope from his pocket, recapturing your arm and tying your wrists together in front of you. You opened your mouth to scream once again but he clapped a large, gloved hand over your mouth before you could even make a sound.

“Little bunny,” he taunted. “Looks like I caught you, hm?” He brought his other hand to his belt where he’d tucked his knife, pulling it free and raising it to your face. He pressed it to your cheek, making a shallow cut there, barely enough to break the skin, sighing at the tiny trickle of blood gathering there before removing the knife as you whimpered beneath his hand.

“I’ll do that again if you don’t keep quiet, bunny,” he warned. “I’m gonna take my hand off of your mouth. Are you going to scream, or can you keep quiet?” He took your fervent nodding to mean that you agreed to keep quiet, and he removed his hand.

Instead of saying anything, you immediately spat in his face, causing him to rear back on his knees for just a moment to wipe it away.

“You’re really starting to get on my nerves, bunny,” he said, flicking the wetness away from his hand. “I think it’s time you learn a lesson.”

He moved again, quick as lightning, to use his knife to cut a sizable slit out of your pants, waistband to crotch, before ripping them in half the rest of the way to hang loosely below your knees. He ripped your panties off of your body in one clean motion, and you flinched when the cool night air met your soaked pussy.

You thought he might cut you again, whining in confusion when he flipped the knife into the air, catching it by the blade. That confusion ended quickly when you felt him press the blunt handle to your pussy. You struggled uselessly against your bindings, but between the rope around your hands and the man never letting go of one of your legs, you weren’t getting away.

“Ah-ah, bunny,” Dazai teased. “Spitting on me wasn’t very nice, you know. I think you know that you deserve to be punished.” His voice was low in his throat, jarring compared to the usual gentle whispers he afforded you when he fucked you.

You shook your head, hard enough to make yourself dizzy. “I’m sorry! I won’t do it again, I promise I’ll behave- fuck!” Your pleading was cut off when Dazai pushed the knife handle into you in one clean thrust.

You cried out at the intrusion, fighting it instinctively even though it hurt in such a delicious way. Tears collected on your lashes as you tried to keep from showing him you actually liked this, but unfortunately Dazai knew your every tiny expression like the back of his hand.

“Oh, belladonna, you like it when I fuck you with my knife, don’t you?” He purred. You shook your head again with a whine, not trusting yourself with words at the moment. “Yes, I think you do, pretty. Come on, tell me you like the filthy things I’m doing to you. Tell me you love it.”

You cried out again, tears finally spilling from your eyes as you admitted, “love it, love it, love it,” chanting it like a mantra with every thrust of the handle.

He bent down towards you again to whisper against your ear. “I know, belladonna, I can hear how much you love it,” he murmured, his breath hot against your neck. Whether he meant your cries or the filthy, wet sounds he was drawing from your pussy, you didn’t know.

His words pushed you over the edge of a cliff you weren’t even fully aware you were standing on as you came on the handle, slicking it up along with your thighs and Dazai’s hand.

“Oh, what a good little bunny,” he praised, an edge of malice in his words. “Such a good girl, cumming on my knife like the dirty little thing you are,” he continued, pulling the handle out of you and admiring the way it now glistened with your slick in the moonlight. He stabbed it into the ground next to your head, confident he’d made you pliable enough to not struggle as he flipped you over onto your stomach, prone with your legs together between his own. You tried to push yourself up on your forearms, but a large hand square in the middle of your back kept you from even getting your hands under you with any efficiency.

“What are you-“ your question was cut off when he slid that same hand up to the back of your head, quick as anything to press your face into the mossy forest floor, muffling any protests.

“Shh, no talking, bunny,” he soothed. You whined, the sound still muffled by moss. He laughed, the motion driving his hips lightly into your ass where you felt his cock straining against his pants, and you were so tightly wound that such a small action made your hips buck just a fraction of an inch.

Dazai noticed your reaction, of course, driving his clothed hips into yours much harder this time, taking his hand off the back of your head and allowing you to cry out.

“Fuck, please!” you cried, not sure what you were even begging for, pushing your upper body up onto your still bound forearms, high enough to twist your head around and allow Dazai to see the tears still rolling down your face. His cock twitched in his pants at the sight, and he rolled his hips into yours again.

You whined again and his patience began to wear thin; you heard the clank of a belt and the rustling of fabric behind you and you jumped, squirming uselessly beneath him until you felt the head of his cock brushing against your ass and you froze again.

“Wait, wait!” you cried, hands scrabbling on the ground beneath you. He chuckled deep in his throat and used his legs to push yours even closer together, tipping your hips up to line his cock up to your entrance. He pushed it between your thighs, gathering the slick dripping down your legs before pushing it into your waiting pussy with a sigh, ignoring your pleas all the while.

He worked himself in, inch by torturous inch, the gentle way he reached up to pet your hair contrasting with the harsh way he drove his hips into you as you cried.

Halfway in, your eyes flew open, the stretch becoming too much.

“Wait! Not gonna fit, ‘s too big!” you slurred, fighting a bit harder to get away, still to no avail. “Too tight like this,” you whined. Dazai tangled his fingers into your hair, yanking you back so he could speak directly into your ear, his warm breath tickling your neck.

“Little bunny, you think it isn’t going to fit? You always take my cock so well, and now that this pretty little pussy is drooling down your legs, you think I can’t fit it in? You’ve never been this wet before, belladonna,” he murmured. “I’ll fucking make it fit.”

He snapped his hips into yours doubly hard now, sheathing himself completely with just a handful more thrusts that pulled a genuine wail from your throat, your mind screaming at you that the cock drilling into you was tearing you in half.

His pace was breakneck, his hips colliding with yours so hard they were driving you inch by inch across the forest floor, matting your tangled hair with leaves. You shifted your hips a bit, keeping him from hitting quite so deep. He didn’t take kindly to this, letting out a growl and letting go of your hair to reach out and yank the knife out of the ground next to you, holding it up to your neck and nicking the skin there, whether by accident or on purpose you weren’t sure. You whined as you felt a thin trickle of blood run down your throat.

“Keep those fucking hips where I put them,” Dazai growled. You whined at him to please, fuck, just slow down! and he finally relented, dropping the knife and switching instead to rolling his hips against yours, driving the tip of his cock directly into your g-spot and pressing his balls to your clit with each thrust.

The sharp pain slowly began to give way to pleasure as your cries gave way to moans, each sensation so overwhelming it caused your legs to shake. Dazai took hold of your hair once again, this time much gentler, the action causing a stir in your belly and already bringing you close to cumming.

“Fuck yes, little bunny. You like this, don’t you?” he teased. “You like it when I fuck you nasty,” he continued, punctuating his sentence with a particularly slow roll of his hips that drew a high-pitched cry from you, tears still rolling down your face. “You gonna cum, sweet girl?” he urged. “You gonna cum from me taking you from behind, on the ground like a fucking animal?” he urged.

Your eyes rolled back, your breath catching in your throat as your hips stuttered beneath him; Dazai knew you were close, you just needed one more little push.

“You want me to fill you up, bunny? Fuck yeah, I felt you squeeze me just now, of course you do. ‘M gonna fill that soaked little cunt up so full of my cum, leave it to leak out of you since you’re such a filthy girl.”

His final sentence and a well-timed thrust pushed you over the edge and you came hard, whole body shaking as you gushed around him. You soaked his legs as well as your own, the rest of your cum pattering on the leaves below you as you cried out his name.

He fucked you through your orgasm, the relentless clenching of your pussy bringing him closer to his own. Your arms finally gave out on you, your head dropping to the ground softly, but Dazai was kind enough to turn it to the side for you so that you could breathe.

“‘M close, belladonna,” he whispered.

“Osamu,” you whined, quickly becoming overstimulated, “I’m tired.”

“Shh, sweet girl, it’s okay. I’ll take care of you,” he soothed, placing an almost shockingly sweet kiss on your cheek, a sharp contrast from the way he’d just been treating you. His hips began to stutter, sloppy and almost clumsy, before you felt him shake above you, spilling his load into you as deep as he could get it.

Dazai shuddered as he came, his arms very nearly giving out, but he wasn’t through yet. He pulled out suddenly, the sudden friction on your already sore pussy making you’ll help. He clumsily pulled his phone out of his back pocket, readjusting to take a photo of his cum already spilling from your pussy, then another, a selfie with his fist tangled in your hair, yanking your head up next to his as he smiled at your completely fucked-out expression. Satisfied, he rolled away from you before he collapsed to avoid crushing you. Flipping onto his back, he pulled his jeans back up where they belonged before gathering you in his arms, resting your head on his chest and wiping away at your tears with the sleeve of his shirt.

“Such a good girl for me, honey,” he whispered, squeezing you tight. “Anything hurt?”

“A-ankle. . .” you whimpered, deciding the twisted appendage was your most immediate problem after your completely abused pussy.

He clicked his tongue teasingly, assuring you he had an ice pack in the car, along with a blanket. He stood, gathering you up in his arms before starting toward the car. The passenger door had been left open, so he placed you onto the seat, wrapping you in a blanket before wetting a rag from a water bottle, wiping away at the blood on your face and neck as you began to drift off.

“‘Samu?” you asked

“Yes, belladonna?”

“I love you,” you slurred. He laughed softly.

“I love you too.”

WEEEEEHOOOOO do u feel it? Cumming in the air tonight?

651 notes · View notes

allieebobo · 1 year

Note

Do you have any if recommendation?

Ooh! I have really, really bad memory(!!) but these are current faves that I have played/replayed recently that I can think of. A lot of the authors are also THE BEST HUMAN BEINGS EVER. So, double recommendation.

I probably missed a bunch out, so take this as a non-exhaustive list! In no particular order:

(Edit: Added some descriptions but yeah I got a little unhinged so I'm sorry nothing makes sense or if the quality of the write-up went down over time/did not actually give you any useful info)

WIPs with demos

Citadel, @bouncyballcitadel (I think of all the IFs on this list, this one makes me sweat the most. And I've said it once and I'll say it again: the dialogue is so snappy and well-written, and characters are SO DAMNED LOVEABLE.)

Infamous, @infamous-if (I've been manifesting Band/Musician IFs for the longest time, and then this popped up! I've even played Choice of a Rockstar, that's how desperate I was... Anyway, this is legions better than that. Angsty ex routes are my kryptonite, and Seven is just. Inevitable.)

Defiled Hearts: The Barbarian, @defiledheartsblog (I went into this wanting something juicy and fun/historical—and it's all of those things, but I didn't expect it to be so damned funny, too. The ROs are all impeccable.)

Raiders of the Caravan and Apartment 3-3, @leftski-if (A'ight listen, fantasy slice-of-life is my fave genre, and these are IT. Like, everything I never knew I needed in my life, and SO cozy/wholesome, with a cast of characters that I want to befriend in real life.)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: An Affair of the Heart @doriana-gray-games (First off, the customization in this game is INSANE, and the branching too. I've replayed a couple of times and the little variations I discover each time just blows my mind. Secondly, it's so funny and written so well. Ngl I'm not a Sherlock fan but that's just testament to how amazing this IF is.)

When Life Gives You Lemons, @when-life-gives-you-lemonssss (Modern slice-of-life with an adorable kid, a bunch of hot ROs, CC. Hill's humor, what can I say?)

Golden @milaswriting (Really interesting world-building, one of the coolest fictional cities I've read in an IF, AND I'm obsessed with the ROs, in particular K de la Renta. Also Mila is such an awesome writer, I'm beyond excited for @beyondthegame.)

A Tale of Crowns @ataleofcrowns (This game is beautiful, polished, and SO exciting. Honestly, it looks like the kind of game created by a whole-ass game studio and would cost $50 to buy, it's that good. I really got swept up by this IF—probably played it all in one go.)

Rougi @rougi-if (Again, another game with scrumptious visuals/UI and also is just so well-crafted. I love the premise too, it's so original and fresh.)

Scout: An Apocalypse Story @anya-dev (Unfortunately this one might be on hiatus but I am/was really, really obsessed.)

Wayfarer @idrellegames (Love the game mechanics of this one, and the visuals. Probably controversial, but I like the D&D / random dice effect. And I also like the fact that it feels like an old-school RPG.)

Chop shop @losergames (The premise is all I needed to be sold, really—I'd always wanted to buy GTA as a kid but my parents were like NO WAY. Anyway, this IF did not disappoint, and let me live all my childhood dreams.)

Edit: AHH! How could I forget, one of my recent faves, Folksaga @folksaga-if (Lush atmospheric writing, super unique premise—norse mythology, plus I'm head over heels for Katla).

Completed IFs

Butterfly Soup 1 and 2 @brianna-lei (these are completed and I will never not promote them. Honestly the most adorable, wholesome, funny sports/coming-of-age IF I've read)

Elsinore: After Hamlet @lapinlunairegames (Insanely cool premise, insanely cool execution)

The Thick Table Tavern @manonamora-if (I love bar/tavern games, and this one actually lets you mix drinks! Instant fave.)

Other HGs/COGs I love: Slammed, Tin Star, Fallen Hero, If it pleases the court, A Player's Heart (these last two are so underrated, though I guess cause it's mainly wlw)

#asks #if #IF recommendations #other IFs #interactive fiction

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sc0tters · 9 months

Text

Baby Fever | Matthew Tkachuk

summary: on your wedding day Matthew thought he’d get you to himself, but seeing you with his cousins gives him an idea he just had to see through.

kinkmas: day four (breeding)

warnings: sexual themes, p in v, nipple play? swearing.

word count: 2.18k

authors note: can we believe that this is my first wedding fic? sorry it took so long but I think we got to a good place! Matthew is a man I haven’t written for a lot but I love it when I do get to. If you want to read more from kinkmas you can find the masterlist here!

You knew you had always wanted a winter wedding.

The cold had been your favourite kind of weather as it meant you could sit at a fireplace with a blanket over your lap. Now living in Florida you weren’t promised your white wedding, but Matthew found a cabin that you two had fallen in love with. After being together for five years and countless jokes from his family as they would ask how Matthew got you locked down and even moving to a different country for him.

A mere six years ago you started off as his neighbour who knocked on his door early one Saturday morning as you needed eggs to fulfill your pancake recipe. In return for those eggs he got himself a free breakfast that morning and your number after weeks for trying to muster up the courage to talk to you.

Yes you, the girl set on pursuing her dreams was the one who made Matthew a mess.

Now you were sat a few seats across from him as his younger cousins giggled recounting the story of how Matthew was in love with you “hey now let’s not embarrass me to my wife.” Matthew shook his head as his hand squeezed your shoulder “can we talk for a bit?” He asked motioning to you to follow him “I’ll be back.” You offered the girls as you nodded “didn’t know I’d be chasing my wife on my wedding day.” The hockey player mumbled as he wrapped his arm around your shoulders as he pressed a kiss to your head.

It made you smile “what can I say I’m a hot commodity today.” You teased as you two began to head outside where it was quiet “are you okay?” You furrowed your eyebrows sensing that something was on his mind “can’t get over how fucking gorgeous my wife is.” His confession made you scoff as your cheeks turned red “Matty.” You warned as his hands went dangerously close to your ass.

He laughed as he leaned down to kiss your lips “let’s go to the room.” Matthew proposed as you were all staying at the hotel tonight.

But of course you stood there like the good wife that you were as you shook your head “what about our guests?” You whisper yelled as his hand pressed against your lower back pushing you in the direction of the elevator “if anyone asks you can tell them I wasn’t feeling well.” He rolled his eyes pressing the button that illuminated your floor number as he waited for the elevator doors to shut before you dared to lay a hand on your now husband.

However Matthew didn’t feel the same way as you as he turned to you with a grin placing his hands on either side of your face as he leaned down to kiss you “fuck you’re so pretty.”He groaned swiping his tongue across your lower lip as you moaned into his kiss.

You two remained like that as the boy peppered kisses along your jaw and neck “I need to open the door Matt.” You coughed as you struggled to grab the keycard from his pocket.

Matthew opted to behave for a few minutes offering you your focus as you huffed opening the door as you both pushed in not letting your feet stop you until you were met with the couch. He took the opportunity to unzip your dress revealing your white lingerie “god.” Matthew mumbled watching as you stepped out of your dress that was now a mere blob on the floor. Leaving you in your underwear and heels.

What you didn’t expect was that he’d move to sit on the couch before he dared to touch you once more “c’mere.” Matthew motioned to you to sit on his thigh as he spread his legs open stretching the fabric of his pants over his muscular legs.

Your mouth watered as you straddled his thighs “so glad to finally have you all to myself.” The hockey player smiled as you gripped at his shoulders “been yours all along.” You quietly clenched your legs as his thigh bucked beneath your clothed cunt.

His lips brushed over yours “been thinking about you all damn day.” Matthew nipped at the skin of your neck forcing your breath to be caught in your throat “what about me?” You groaned feeling his eyes undress the little amount of clothes you had left on.

Matthew let his fingers brush over the strap of your bra “these boobs.” He began pulling the straps to your arms revealing your nipples that peaked from the cool air that hit them. His smirk looked up at you as you whimpered pinching your lower lip between your teeth as you oozed anticipation “please.” You begged giving Matthew a nod as his lips latched onto your left breast leaving his tongue swirling around your nipple.

His eyes fluttered shut as relief painted his body as he hummed at the taste of you on his tongue. Matthew continued his movements sucking and swirling the sensitive bud until you’re slick with his spit rocking your hips against his thigh. Your chest is heaving as you whined feeling goosebumps prick at your skin. Heat shoots from within you and it settles in between your legs “fuck!” You moaned making him sink his teeth against your nipple.

Matthews lips were plump as he brought his hand up to cup your other breast to equally share his attention with “gonna make a mess on your pants.” You warned tugged your fingers through his curls as he rolled your nipple between his fingers.

If this was any other day Matthew would have watched your eyes roll back into your head as you came by the mere flex of his thigh. But as his cock throbbed against the fabric of his pants and the knowledge that your loved ones would soon notice your disappearance “baby I need to fuck you so badly.” Matthews confession made you moan as you nodded.

Within the blink of an eye Matthew had his shirt unbuttoned and his belt unbuckled as you pulled his cock out from under his boxers “been thinking about your tight little pussy too.” The hockey player watching in awe as you drove the head of his cock over your clit making your body shake with pleasure “what about it?” You groaned smiling to yourself as you let your cunt swallow his cock as your walls adjusted to his size.

Foreheads pressed together as it seemed you both forgot how to breathe. The mere gesture of embracing each other almost being too much for you both but he couldn’t handle it as the first to pull away “how you’d look so full with my babies.” Matthew cupped your stomach brushing his thumbs over where your uterus sat beneath your skin. It was a topic that neither one of you had ever gone into depth with as you both agreed that kids would be in your futures “how your breasts would grow full.” You began to move your hips as you smiled settling into your rhythm.

Matthew watched as your eyes adjusted to the dim lights that lowly illuminated the room around you both “I want you to put a baby in me Matthew.” You pleaded clenching around his cock at the thought “want to be full of your come.” You had gone off of the pill last month as you knew you were getting to the stage of wanting kids, now it was beginning to matter that he wasn’t wearing a condom either.

It was hot hearing those words fall from your lips “I’m gonna fuck my pretty little bride so hard she forgets her name.” As soft as Matthews words were you knew it was a serious promise when he picked you up and lay you on the couch bringing himself back to the driving seat of this moment. Your response came in the form of a yelp as Matthew wrapped your legs around his waist “please Matt.” You begged as his pace ruined your once slow one.

The hockey player was desperate to fulfill his desires of seeing you full as he watched his cock bottom you out, hitting your g-spot resulting in your moans painting the walls. Sure to be heard by anyone who dared to be on this floor away from the party. It was dirty how your swollen lips and squashed curls that pressed against your back acted like encouragement to Matthew as he laughed “and to think you acted like you wanted to be down there with all of them.” The hockey player clicked his tongue as he shook his head mocking the innocent act you upheld when you were downstairs smiling at his parents like you didn’t have thoughts of having their son between your legs.

With the only response you allowed to let leave your lips being in the form of whines “but now you’re sat here fucking my cock dumb.” Matthew cupped the back of your head bringing you even closer to him as your hand went behind your bodies finding your clit “want it so bad.” You felt your breathing grow irregular as you struggled to focus “fill me up Mat.” You pleaded beginning to cry as pleasure built up in your body.

Those words were like butter to your husband who tugged at your lower lip between his teeth “won’t last when you speak like that.” Matthew groaned shaking his head as your cunt clenched around his throbbing cock “me too.” You stammered feeling the room around you grow hot as your legs began to shake.

Sounds of skin slapping echoed between you both as your face began to contort “go ahead baby.” Matthew ordered as his cock could only handle so much of this before he came himself “milk my cock pretty girl.” His tongue swiped over your ear lobe finally sending you over the edge.

Low grumbles left your lips as you clamped around his cock in spurts as the movements of your fingers strumming against your clit struggled to keep you focused “s-shit Matt.” You croaked out as your vision went blurry making your eyes screw shut as white specks cascaded over your eyelids “don’t stop.” You pleaded finally getting shut up when he embraced your lips in a hungry kiss.

Matthew wasn’t far behind you as his chest began to grow tight but at the moment he was focused on fucking you through your orgasm “such a pretty girl.” He mewled flaring his nostrils as the coil in his stomach snapped “fuck!” Matthew took the hand that was once behind your head and now pressed it against the arm of the couch to keep himself up.

Your cunt was coated with his release making you smile as he continued to slowly fuck you “gotta make sure it all stays in there baby.” Your husband teased as he pecked your lips.

The moment that was so small was full of so much love between you both that you almost didn’t hear the knock at the door.

Key word, almost.

Brady had been sent up to see where the two of you were “I get you’re a happy couple you two but if we could go downstairs and act like I haven’t just heard that I’d be happy.” His words made your cheeks turn red as you were only met with the sound of Matthews laughter.

Matthew pecked your lips as he smiled “down in a sec!” The panthers player yelled back as he sat up straight hearing the sounds of his brothers footsteps leaving the hallway. His hand reached down to your panties that were on the floor as he smiled “you serious about wanting my babies?” Matthew looked to you for confirmation as you placed your legs in his lap “so serious.” You nodded smiling as he did the same.

The hockey player helped slide your panties over your legs and pressed against your cunt “gotta make sure you don’t lose any of that then.” It made you squirm as you thought about keeping his load of inside of you “now as much as I wanna stay here with you.” Matthew sighed as he brushed your hair out of your face.

You let your lips form a pout already thinking about what he was going to say “we should probably get back before they send him back up here.” There was a hint of amusement in his voice as he pecked your lips “would hate for him to have to hear what you sound like when I have your cock in my mouth.” You smirked seeing Matthew process the image in his mind.

Using the little energy you had you got up and giggled “you’re sending me to an early grave.” Matthew groaned pressing his head into the pillow behind him.

As he watched you place your hands on your hips “that’s why you married me Tkachuk.” You spun around and walked to your dress letting him stare at your ass.

Matthew was living, the life.

#ambers kinkmas 2023 #Matthew tkachuk imagines #Matthew tkachuk smut #nhl smut #hockey smut #nhl imagines #hockey imagines #nhl oneshots #hockey oneshots #imagines #oneshots #amber writes fics

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thydungeongal · 3 months

Text

Anyway so my whole thing with Paranoia 1e is that it basically takes the idea of "hey these games could empower someone in the GM role to act like an arbitrary tyrant, what if we lean into that and use it to enhance the point we're trying to make about authoritarian institutions powered by paranoia"

'cause like taken at its own word Paranoia can seem like just a gonzo little game but idk it feels to me like the absurdity is there to enhance the point. Sure, it's patently ridiculous that one of the conspiracies is basically Disney Adults gone RETVRN, basically a group that harkens back to an imagined past that only exists in popular culture. But there's literally a whole genre of guys online who have made "harkening back to an idealized version of the past that only existed in advertisements and TV shows" into their whole personality. I don't think Paranoia predicted those guys, but because it's actually well-written satire it's likely that the writers probably saw similar types of guy around them or they were simply able to identify the fact that a lot of "we used to be a country" type of nostalgia is actually based on a set of myths instead of any kind of real past.

Anyway, Paranoia puts the GM in the role of a bureaucrat that expects people to conform to an impossible set of rules and encourages its players to play their characters against each other because it actually serves to accentuate its themes. Good game.

(and I say Paranoia 1e because that's the one I've read)

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pitchsidestories · 4 months

Text

part of me wants forever II Sara Doorsoun x Barça!Reader

masterlist I word count: 1672

a/n: hi, it's inspired by this request here, we hope the time jumps aren't too confusing. Let us know what you thought of the oneshot.

This was how it all begun. You didn’t expect your love story to start on an ice-cold evening in November after your team has played a Champions League group stage game against Eintracht Frankfurt, but it did.

“Sara, this is y/n. Y/n, this is Sara.”, Ingrid introduced you to each other, her eyes were shining as the stars above you in the night sky. Maybe it was written somewhere up there, what would be happening in the following days, weeks and months.

You knew the person you fell for would say that it was fate which brought you two together. But for you it was Ingrid who did.

“Hi, Sara, nice to meet you.”, you greeted her smiling.

“Nice to meet you too.”, the older defender replied. The brown eyes who wee looking back at you were so beautiful like the person to whom they belonged too, they were something you could get lost into if this wasn’t an away game and you’d have to leave soon to the hotel you were staying at.

“You guys played really well.”, you complimented Sara in an honest tone. It was true, especially in the first half they had a stellar performance, in which Laura Freigang scored the opening goal, but in the second half your team turned it around and you won fairly comfortably with a 3:1.

“Thank you. So did you.. obviously.”, the german player answered with an amused grin on her lips.

“Y/n, we got to hurry up!”, Mapi reminded you impatiently.

“Don’t worry, Mapi. I’m coming.”, you reassured her, trying to shake off her fingers on the hood of your jacket.

“See you soon.”, Sara waved at you.

“I literally can’t wait.”, you told her. Even though you only shared some polite words with each other you had a feeling that this wasn’t the end of your script together.

On the next day your team was on the way home, the bus taking you from the Barcelona airport to the place where your cars have been parked.

“Y/n?”, Ingrid looked up from her phone to turn her attention towards you who was sitting on the seats opposite of Mapi and her.

“Yes?”, you responded, lifting your gaze from the book you were currently reading.

“Sara messaged me.”, the Norwegian informed you, wearing a mischievous smile on her face.

“You mean Sara as in the cute Frankfurt defender.”, you replied innocently.

“Who else, genius!”, Fridolina laughed, sitting right behind you, she and Ingrid had to play with the player during their times in Wolfsburg.

“Do you know how many Sara’s there are?!”, you asked the Swedish player.

“Yes, but none of them looked at you the way she did. So, what was in Sara’s message, Ingrid?”, Fridolina stated.

Ingrids face split into a wide grin as she read the message on her phone screen: “She asked for her number.“

“You know what? You can give her my number.“, you said in a burst of courage that made Ingrid only smile brighter.

“I’ll.“

“Thank you.“

You watched the Norwegian type on her phone. “You’re welcome.“

Sara had immediately texted you that night. And as the months had passed, texting her became a daily habit for you. From good morning to good night, you shared your free-time with her. You haven’t felt that connected with someone for a long time.

One day you decided to jokingly text her about your shared taste in music, not expecting anything from it.

“Fletcher has a concert in Barcelona. You should come with us, Sara.“

“To a Fletcher concert?“, she wrote back, seemingly unimpressed.

“Yes, Jana got tickets.“, you answered.

You waited impatiently, the three dots appearing as she typed.

“I can’t say no to that.“, appeared on your phone screen.

You smiled happily: “Perfect.“

A few weeks after your text conversation, you found yourself at the concert, singing along while Sara had her arms wrapped around you. It was a casual gesture as you swayed from side to side with the rhythm.

Jana rolled her eyes: “Ugh, stop, you two lovebirds!“

“We’re doing nothing!“, you laughed, full of innocence.

“Literally.“, Sara agreed, continuing to move you with her.

Jana pulled out her phone: “Wait, let me at least take a picture of how annoying you two are.“

She snapped a few photos, a fond smirk on her face. You turned your attention back to the singer. This night was perfect and you wanted to enjoy every moment of it.

The Fletcher concert was something you liked to think back to during your busy football season.

The same was true for the biggest game of the season, the Champions League final. As expected, it was a tight game, Lyon made it hard to get through their defense. Only Aitana and Alexia found a way. So when the final whistle sounded, you were overcome with a mix of relief and happiness.

You hugged your teammates tightly, still processing what you had just achieved when Ingrid tapped you on the shoulder and pointed towards the stands. “Y/n, look who came.“

You only blinked at her for a moment before your gaze finally followed the direction of her hand gesture.

Saras face grinned at you from the stands. The sight of her was enough to make your heart pound in your chest.

You left Ingrid standing and ran over to Sara, stopping right in front of the Frankfurt defender: “Sara, I thought you couldn’t be here?!“

She only flashed you a wry smile: “Change of plans.“

“That’s amazing.”, you muttered, exchanging a short, but soft kiss with your girlfriend.

“You’re welcome.”, Sara smirked at you, as she wrapped her arms around you into a hug.

Mirroring the happiness Laura Feiersinger appeared next to her former Frankfurt teammate:” I almost lost her at the place when they sold the cake.”

“Very typical.”, you giggled, it was no secret that your lover has a sweet tooth.

Nervously Sara put a loose string of hair behind her ear:” That’s not true.”

“Sure.”, the Austrian midfielder smiled amusedly.

“It just looked so delicious.”, the German player defended herself, while a blush crept onto her high cheekbones.

“To be fair it did.”, Laura admitted.

“See?”, Sara responded satisfied.

“Well, I do.”, you tuned into their conversation, before your girlfriend kissed you, to celebrate the Champions League win properly.

Having Sara with you during all the chaos which was going on in the night was very special to you. In the morning you two chose to go on a walk to see a bit of the city. It amazed you to watch your girlfriend being so in peace with herself.

The defender was a warm person and over the weeks you’ve been together she started to share some pieces of herself and her history which you found admirable. Her late coming out, a father who wasn’t saying anything against that, but also didn’t like to talk about it anymore.

The heartbreak Sara felt when the first woman she fell for broke up with her. It impacted her so much that during an important game she scored an own goal. And her questioning if she could ever fall in love like that again? The German player knew the answer now, she was capable of loving again, you showed her how.

Fast forward and it was time to be with your national teams again, you both couldn’t wait for the upcoming free days afterwards which you planned to spend together.

“Sara, we got to talk.”, Lena Oberdorf yelled at the older woman who just sat down with Felicitas Rauch in the dining room of the hotel they were staying at.

“About what?”, Sara frowned who didn’t know her best friend in the team knew what the young midfielder was thinking about.

“I was suspecting you fell in love again, but now Obi found proof of it multiple ones.”, the fellow defender who played in the USA explained with a cheeky smile on her lips.

“What are you talking about?”, the Frankfurt player asked her teammates innocently.

“You and y/n, who football wise is so out of your league.”, Lena replied grinning.

“Beauty wise too.”, Felicitas added in a teasingly tone.

“Excuse me? That’s not what friends are supposed to say.”, Sara protested, her mouth formed to a little pout.

Felicitas smiled apologetically: “Just kidding… but playing wise not. She’s at the best football club in Europe!“

“And she and her team won against you this season. Twice.“, Lena added, rubbing salt into the wound.

“I’m aware of that.“, Sara shrugged unimpressed.

“Just a friendly reminder.“, Lena said.

Sara rolled her eyes: “That doesn’t mean we can’t go out.“

“True. I guess she’s the reason you can’t visit me in the US in your free time?“, Felicitas asked, casually changing the subject.

“That’s not true! You’re always busy!“, Sara protested.

Her best friend raised her eyebrows: “So are you apparently!“

“It’s not because of her. I’m still a football player.“, Sara explained, cringing at the thought of how packed both of their schedules were.

“I know that. So when will you introduce me to her?“, Felicitas continued.

Sara only groaned in response.

In the evening, you were on the phone with Sara as she recounted the details of the talk she had with her teammates.

“So they know about us now?“, you concluded, a smile on your lips.

“Yes, apparently we’re on Ingrids photo dump.“, Sara replied with a laugh.

You shook your head about your Norwegian teammate: “Ingrid might have done that on purpose. Sorry for that.“

“Typical.“, Sara sighed, slight fondness for her former teammate sneaking into her voice.

“She said she had a feeling when she introduced us and I believe her.“

“There’s no way!“

You sucked in your breath in feigned shock: “And I thought you were the romantic!“

“Oh, I am. I just like to think that it was fate.“, Sara replied. You could almost hear the wink through the phone.

Lowering your voice, you whispered: “Me too. I want this to be forever.“

pictures are from pinterest.

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canirove · 6 months

Text

Mason Mount Imagine | seven

Author's note: I hadn't written an imagine in ages, but yesterday after seeing these gifs of Mason at that charity event the other day I got inspired, and here we are 😁 Hopefully this will give me the last push I need to finish my next story, who also happens to be about Mason 👀 As always, I hope you like it, and thank you for reading! 💜 Little summary: Your dad works at a chairty auction and has asked you to be his plus one. You expect to bore yourself to death, but a cute guy with a dimple has other plans 👀 (Female reader/pov)

Masterlist

“Dad, do I really have to go?”

“Yes, honey. You must.”

“But it is going to be so boring…” I complain. “What am I going to do at an auction full of old people?”

“Thank you for the compliment” he chuckles. “But you will be supporting your father after months of hard work. And there will be young people too.”

“Sure” I snort.

“There will be. Now c'mon, I can't be late.”

“But…”

“Chop, chop, honey.”

“Ok, fine” I sigh. “Just promise me you won't call me honey in front of everyone.”

“I won't” he smiles, opening the door of our house. “You look beautiful, by the way.”

“Thank you, dad. But I feel like I may rip this dress any moment now” I say as I walk past him, crossing all my fingers so it actually doesn't happen, and I end up making a fool of myself in front of all his work colleagues and some of the richest people in the city.

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━

“Ok, this is your seat, hon… Your seat” my dad smiles after I give him a murderous look.

“Aren't you sitting down with me?”

“I still have to take care of a bunch of things.”

“Are you leaving me alone? And surrounded by strangers?”

“You'll be fine, honey” he chuckles. “I promise I'll come and have a drink with you. Now try to have some fun.”

“But dad…” I start, not being able to finish my complaint since he is already gone. "Great" I sigh.

“So, do you come here often?” someone says, taking the empty seat next to mine.

“I beg your pardon?” I say, turning around to face the owner of that voice.

“That was bad, wasn't it?” he laughs.

“Worse” I say, my eyes fixed on him. On the cutest guy I have ever laid eyes on.

He is wearing a classic black suit with a black tie, nothing too shocking. But paired with the smile on his face and the dimple on his left cheek… wow. Simply wow.

“What are you doing at an event like this, tho?” he asks me. “I wasn't expecting to meet anyone younger than 50” he chuckles, his dimple showing once again. Is it possible to fall in love with something like that? Because I think I just have.

“My dad convinced to come as his plus one and support him tonight.”

“Is he part of the auction?”

“He is the guy running around like a headless chicken to make sure everything is ok” I laugh, looking at him when he suddenly shows up running up and down the stage.

“Martin?”

“Yep, that's him. Do you know him?”

“I do. He is a really nice guy.”

“I may be a bit biased here… But he is, yes” I smile. “He has put so much work and sleepless nights into today's auction… Like, I don't know how many coffees I made for him while he tried to convince this football player to be part of it.”

“A football player?”

“Yeah, a super famous one, I can't remember his name. He kept telling my dad that he was super busy with other commitments” I snort. “What commitments could have a guy who makes a living from kicking a ball? Spending lots of money in ugly clothes just because they have a certain logo, and buying huge cars?”

“Don't forget about the ugly haircuts and tattoos” he chuckles.

“That too.”

“Aren't you into football, then?”

“Nah, not my thing. What about you?” I ask him, finally daring to look him in the eyes. Which is a big mistake, because even in the kind of dark light of the room, I can see that he has the most beautiful brown eyes ever. Eyes that are currently giving me a mischievous look I can't understand.

“Not my thing either. Footballers are a bunch of twats” he says, making me laugh. “Anyway... I know we just met, but I'm gonna need your help with something.”

“Mine?”

“Yours” he says with a smile that matches the look on his eyes. “I'm about to be auctioned.”

“You what?”

“It sounds bad if you say it like that, but people are basically going to bid money to have a personal experience with me.”

“That isn't making it sound any better.”

“Oh, you dirty mind” he smirks, making my cheeks start to burn. Thank God he can't notice with the low light. Or can he? “But some people here may be expecting that kind of experience. Earlier I overheard a couple of women talking about me and looking at me in a way that… Well. You can imagine.”

“I don't blame them, tho” I say, speaking before thinking.

“Thank you” he smiles, that dimple I'm definitely in love with showing in all its glory. “So, what I need you to do, is to win my auction.”

“What? With which money?”

“Mine.”

“What?” I say again. “Is that allowed?”

“I don't think so. But since it is for charity, I think your dad can look the other way and allow it. What do you say? Will you win this for me? I promise you you will have the best date ever.”

“A date?” I say, almost choking with my own words.

“Unless you have a partner and I'm making things weird.”

“No, no. There is no one” I quickly say, my cheeks burning once again, and especially when I notice how I've made him smile.

“Great” he says. “It'll be very easy. They will say a number and you…”

“I know how an auction works.”

“Yes, of course. Of course you do” he apologizes. “Will you do it, then? Pretty please?” he pouts, making me focus on his lips. Lips that look so kissable and so…

“Fine, I will” I sigh, giving up and focusing on a different part of his face. But even his hair looks attractive.

“Thank you” he smiles once again, kissing my cheek. “And that's my cue, I have to go. Don't worry about the amount of money, ok? I can pay whatever they offer.”

“Ok” I nod, my brain still thinking about the feeling of his lips on my cheek, on how my skin tingles.

“And you have number 19 on your bidding paddle, that's my lucky one. Everything will work out, you'll see.”

“Yes” I nod again.

“See you in a bit” he winks before leaving our table and me trying to understand everything I'm feeling and that just happened.

“And now for our next bidding… Mr. Mason Mount, Manchester United player and football star!” a voice announces from the stage.

“What?” I say, snapping out of whatever is going on with me and focusing on the guy walking up the stage. “No way” I gasp.

It's him. The cute boy with the dimple who just convinced me to bid for him and win this auction… It's Mason freaking Mount. The football player my dad spent hours trying to convince to attend tonight. The one I basically called a twat to his face.

“Remember that the winner will get to enjoy a personal experience with Mr. Mount. Not that type of experience...” the auctioneer chuckles as some women start giggling. “Are we ready? We'll begin with £1,000.”

The moment he says that number, a bunch of bidding paddles are raised.

“Ok, what about £2,000? Does anyone offer £2,000?”

More paddles around me. People definitely are eager to spend some time with him, with Mason. And once again, I don't blame them.

I've spent five minutes with him, and you could say they have been some of the best five minutes of my life. And not because of how handsome and cute he is or because I'm in love with his dimple. There is something about him, about the way he talks, looks and listens to you, that makes you feel… I don't know. Comfortable.

“What about… £5,000!”

Still the same amount of paddles. No one is giving up. And it keeps being like that as the number keeps going up and up until it makes it to…

“£50,000! Does anyone offer £50,000?”

People start whispering among themselves, trying to decide if they should make an offer or not. And then, a blonde woman raises her bidding paddle.

“We have an offer! Anyone else?” the auctioneer says.

That woman is going to win, and Mason doesn't seem to be too happy about it. The look he is giving me from the stage is saying it all, and also reminding me that I should be bidding for him too.

“And we have another offer!” the auctioneer says when I raise my paddle, Mason smiling from ear to ear while my dad looks at me as if I've grown another head.

“What the hell?” he mouths.

“Trust me” I say back.

“Ok, what about £51,000? Does anyone offer £51,000? Ladies?”

Once again, I can feel Mason's eyes fixed on me.

“And we have £51,000 from the lady in the back!” the auctioneer announces when I raise my paddle, everyone in the room looking my way. “£51,000 at one… £51,000 at two… £51,000 at three! We have a winner!” he says, hitting his little hammer so loud that I can feel it in my bones, Mason pointing in my direction with a smile that could make anyone's knees feel like jelly. Dear God, what did I just do?

“Honey, what did you just do? Are you drunk?” my dad says, suddenly showing up next to me.

“I can explain everything, I swear.”

“Miss, could you please join us on stage?” the auctioneer says.

“You better. Now let's go, they are waiting for you.”

“But dad, wait. I can't. I can't go in there.”

“You won the auction, honey. You must go up there” he says, helping me get up.

“Dad, I can't. I…” And then, I hear it. The back of my dress ripping. “Dad!” But he isn't listening, already dragging me to the stage where Mason is waiting.

“Please let's give a round of applause for this young lady!” the auctioneer says.

“Thank you for… Hey, are you ok?” Mason says as he takes my hand and helps me up the stage.

“I'm pretty sure I just ripped the back of my dress” I say while everyone claps.

“Oh, shit” he says, looking at my back. “I'll help you, don't worry.”

“Do you have magical fingers?” I say with a nervous laugh. “Like fingers that can sew” I quickly add after seeing the smirk on his face.

“I do have magical fingers, and among other things, they can do this” Mason says, putting his hand on my back to make sure the dress doesn't open, the feeling making me gasp.

“Thank you very much for your generosity, Miss” the auctioneer says, unaware of everything that is going on. “We hope you enjoy your time with Mr. Mount.”

“Thank you” I manage to say, my brain only being able to focus on Mason's hand on my back, on one of his fingers touching my skin. I'm pretty sure he can feel it burning.

“Now, onto our next bid!” he announces as we leave the stage, my dad already waiting for us.

“What have you done, honey? £51,000! We don't have that money!”

“But I do, Martin. I asked her to bid for me” Mason explains. “Here, put this on” he says, taking off his jacket and putting it around my shoulders. “This should help cover the back of your dress.”

“Thank you” I mutter, missing the feeling of his hand and especially that one finger on my back. Though it doesn't last long. He is so close to me while helping me with his jacket, that I can smell his perfume all around me, and it smells so good…

“What do you mean you asked her to bid for you?” my dad asks, completely ignoring that I may be melting.

“I didn't want one of those women to win. I don't trust them, to be honest” he chuckles. “And this is for charity, isn't it? It should not matter if the money comes from me or them.”

“I guess, yes. But…”

“Martin? We need you” someone says behind my dad.

“Yes, of course” he tells them. “We'll continue this conversation later” he says, looking first at Mason and then at me.

“That went well” he chuckles as we watch my dad walk away.

“Did it?”

“It did. They now have £51,000 they will definitely put to good use, I am free from that woman, and you just got yourself a personal experience with Mason Mount” he smiles.

“Hasn't all this been an experience already?”

“It definitely has, yes” he chuckles. “But the one I'm offering you will be more enjoyable. We could go shopping for ugly and very expensive clothes” he says with a teasing smile.

“I could actually do with a new dress seeing that this one… Well. It has seen better days.”

“You look beautiful, tho.”

“Thank you” I mutter, looking down and starting to play with one of the buttons on his jacket to hide that my face is about to burst into flames. “Sorry about what I said earlier, by the way.”

“About what?”

“About calling you a twat.”

“I called myself a twat, you didn't. And if someone has to apologize, that should be me for not telling you who I really was.”

“I guess...”

“I think this makes it a tie in the apologies department. Don't you agree… honey?”

“I beg your pardon?” I say, finally daring to look him in the face.

“Ok, ok. Forget that I said that” he laughs. “The look you just gave me is scary as hell.”

“You deserve it. That is my dad's nickname, and no one else can use it. Sometimes not even him.” Like tonight, for example.

“I'm sorry. I truly am” Mason says, getting serious. “I just thought it was really cute.”

“When you are a kid, maybe. But I'm not five anymore.”

“I'm sorry” he says again. “I guess I'll have to think of a good nickname for our date. Something that doesn't sound too childish and that…”

“Wait, wait, wait” I interrupt him. “Our date?”

“Or personal experience, call it what you want” he shrugs.

“Are we actually doing it?”

“Of course we are. You paid for it, didn't you?”

“You paid for it” I correct him.

“Small details” he replies. “But you and I are going on a date, and I promise you it is gonna be an experience you won't forget” Mason says, taking my hand on his and kissing it, the way he is looking at me when he does it, plus the smile on his face (dimple included) and the feeling of his lips on my skin, making me feel things I can't explain.

I'm going out on a date with Mason Mount. The Mason Mount. A freaking football star.

And oh... my God.

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━

Authors note: I know some of you may now be like, I need a part 2, I need to know what do they do on that date! 😅 But I've run out of ideas, so if you can think of something they could do or where they could go, let me know and I'll try to write something. Though I can't promise anything.

#mason mount #mason mount fanfic #mason mount imagine #football fanfic #football imagine #masonimagine

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tvhsleb3ww · 7 months

Text

LOVE IS NOT OVER! - OIKAWA TOORU

yeah i used a bts song as the title bc i ran out of ideas 🥴

summary, your blind date is your ex boyfriend from high school!?

minor swearing, praise (cute, hot, sexy), depression, heartbreak, tooru being dumb

read part 2 here!

now, there were plenty of beautiful women in Tokyo. millions! but why oh why did the universe hate him so much to the point they sent you as his blind date.

that's right. you. his ex. his first love, his high school sweetheart, his best friend and the same girl who stole his heart and stomped on it until it broke into a million pieces. it was simply unbelievable.

you turned him into a depressed man after you broke up with him because you thought it was better to go seperate ways. okay, maybe it was for the better because now he's a superstar volleyball player and now you're doing whatever. and he's one hundred percent sure that you're succeeding in whatever the hell you're doing because holy fuck do you look like a goddess right now.

of course, dating his ex was not written on his workbook. he never would go back to his exes. that he can swear he'd never do but right now he's starting to contemplate whatever mindset he has going on. in full honesty, he's still bitter and upset at you for dumping him due to stupid reasons. it has been years since you last saw each other.

Third Year of High School

" you're not even giving me a chance here! "

his voice broke as tears welled up in his eyes. his hands holding onto yours as he intertwined his fingers with yours. his lips remain a frown as he looked at you. you sighed and remain your gaze on him.

" tooru, it's not that like that "

he clicked his tongue at your words. bullshit. that's all he thinks right now. he lets go of his grip on your hands as he looked at you with glassy eyes. he bites down his bottom lip to control himself from actually breaking down in front of you.

" so, you're gonna give up on us? "

his question remains unanswered as you stayed quiet. he sighed, looks like he got his answer. you sighed and crossed your arms. you couldn't bare to look at him right now in his vulnerable state. you feel like you just got shot by a million arrows from how bad you're hurting him.

" i just think it's better if we go on our seperate ways"

back to the present, he didn't expect you. first of all, he didn't even want to go on this stupid blind date in the first place but his awful yet amazing friends kept pestering him to do this. saying that "you're too obsessed with volleyball get a life", blah blah blah. he just rolled his eyes to their statement but he still went.

so, it wasn't his friends' fault for setting him up with his ex. or is it?

both of you sat in silence for a whole minute inside the busy yet quiet café. both of you had ordered your drinks and tooru swears that his matcha latte is almost finished from how often he kept sipping it.

he quickly clears his throat before finally saying something.

"long time no see"

okay that did not sound as badass as he thought it was gonna be. it kinda sounded corny. he took a second to cringe at himself before looking at you. god, he wanted to curse the heavens because how dare they make him hate this amazing woman!?

from head to toe you're perfect. tooru would fight anyone who says the opposite. you got so much prettier in the last couple of years too. your hair, your eyes, your lips, your face, your ass-

that was a little overboard, he thought. he's not supposed to be thinking this! you broke his heart and he hates you!

" yeah, you look great "

god, he wanted to melt on the spot. the same voice that haunted his dreams for years. still so sweet and so good to listen to. he looks great? woah! does that mean you're complimenting him? what is great? his physique? his personality? he had to bite his bottom lip to cover his smile and remain his scowl.

" pfft- i know "

you rolled your eyes at his words. ah, tooru always as smug as he can be. but he did in fact looked great, he looked healthy and more muscular. indeed, seperation was better for both of you. of course you knew about his growth in the volleyball world, he was the talk of the year. based on the scowl on his face, you're sure he's still being petty about what happened between the two of you.

" i see that your ego is still bigger than your ass "

he gasped at that statement. his eyes narrowed down at you as he crossed his toned arms. he's gotten tan too from the Argentina sun. it's a good look on him, not gonna lie.

" at least, i didn't leave people at their lowest points "

touché but it was a terrible comeback. tooru has always been horrible at comebacks. it did however managed to shaken things up a little bit. you clicked your tongue and rolled her eyes. same old petty tooru.

" i'm sorry, alright? that was a long time ago "

" you don't seem sorry "

" at least i'm apologizing "

" yeah but years after that- "

you groaned loudly making him snicker. he always enjoyed driving you crazy. to him, it was cute to see you all fired up and he just likes to piss people off in general. he leans back on his chair as his gaze remains on you.

" so quickly agitated, (y/n) "

he commented making you huff and roll your eyes.

" you're still as annoying as you'll ever be "

" annoyingly hot you mean "

" maybe because you came from hell "

his smug grin falters and drops at your comeback. he scowls and huffs at your now smug expression. this interaction was gonna be interesting. you just wiggled your eyebrows at him to piss him off even further.

ugh, he hates you. he hates how sassy and teasing you can get. he hates the fact that he finds it cute and sexy at the same time. why is it so sexy when you put him in his place!?

he clears his throat again after a minute of whole silence.

" you know, i hate you right "

you sighed softly and rolled your eyes for what seems about the nth time now.

" and it's completely my fault, i know "

he wanted to say yeah it is. you're to blame for the heartbreak pain he felt for years.

after he flew away to Argentina, he couldn't sleep at night wondering about you, he devoted himself fully to his career because he didn't want to think about you, he tried going out with other women but they all just weren't you.

but right now, it's as if he wanted to push that ego away and forget everything that has happened in the past couple years and just grab your face and kiss you with everything he's got.

and he's not leaving this date until he does exactly that.

#oikawa x reader #oikawa tooru #haikyuu #haikyu x reader #oikawa fluff #oikawa tooru x reader #hq oikawa #haikyuu oikawa

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otaku553 · 8 months

Note

What did you think of Sabo when you first saw him (both as a kid and as an adult)? I knew of aces existence before watching one piece and it was inconceivable to me that Luffy had a brother, so I was actually reluctant to believe that he also had a noble looking blond brother too lmao, I was in shock

This got long again so thoughts in the read more!

Ok so honestly!!! I didn’t know what to think of him at first! I thought it was very expected and slightly cliche at first to have him be a runaway noble because it was rather obvious just by the way he dressed! It wasn’t particularly compelling to me beyond a general feeling of found family. I didn’t really see a problem with him at that point, I just figured he’d be written off or dead because he’d never appeared up until that point

I think the flashback arc was very excellently executed though and I really did find sabo endearing by the end of it! It makes a lot of sense that sabo would have had to act as a voice of reason to Ace’s much more aggressive behavior. I also think that I didn’t like him at first because it felt like he’d run from a place of privilege because of selfish and self-serving reasons, without truly knowing why he hated nobles beyond the fact that they were using him. But he developed fascinatingly into someone who was actually well aware of the atrocities they committed and had a strong sense of moral justice despite whatever conditioning he must have received as a child, and that stuck with me a lot

I didn’t expect him to pop back up again but I will admit I got really excited! Especially because they kept teasing the revolutionary army as a key player before his appearance and having him meant a much more concrete tie to them. I also think it’s rather thematically appropriate to give him Ace’s fruit, especially in the context given afterwards. Sabo is such a fascinating character because his entire life has been ‘too little too late’. He couldn’t stop the gray terminal fire, he couldn’t set sail and become a pirate on his own, he couldn’t save ace, so what can he do besides making sure that ace is remembered, making sure that despite his past he is doing his best to undo the damage that nobles have done?

Sabo is such a great case study of guilt, in a way that is very different from ace. He fits into the three brothers perfectly precisely because of how he is born to a legacy he does not desire and what he decides to do with it.

#one piece #sabo #turning him around and around in my head #I for some reason. tend to gravitate towards blond twinks or twink adjacent characters #specifically who are either internally tormented by something from their past or a key part of their identity #anyways I like sabo a lot. *slaps his head* this boy can fit so much guilt and trauma in him

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elyvorg · 1 year

Text

Kieran Part 1: It’s All About Strength

I’m a longtime Pokémon fan who happily plays through every mainline game, but I’ve never been more than mildly fond of the occasional character here and there, because Pokémon isn’t much for deep and nuanced character writing. Then I played The Teal Mask DLC and came out of it with many, many Feelings and Thoughts about Kieran – enough so that it warrants a full, juicy analysis about all of his subtleties and issues. I never expected I’d write one of these character analysis rambles of mine on a Pokémon character of all things, but here we are. Colour me surprised and impressed.

For anyone reading this in the future: this was written before The Indigo Disk came out and therefore only talks about the events of The Teal Mask. Assuming The Indigo Disk doesn’t completely drop the ball on the best character-writing job that mainline Pokémon has ever done (please; please don’t), there will probably be a Part 2 to this analysis coming in a few months. (Aaaaand here it is! But you should read this one first, of course.)

(I’ll be referring to the player character as “you” here for ease of wording, but rest assured, this doesn’t mean I’m accusing you the reader of any of the questionable ways the player character treats Kieran. I was also very annoyed at being forced to lie to him, believe me.)

His weakness, and your strength

Kieran is a kid gripped with a crushing sense of inferiority and weakness. We don’t see all of where this came from, although we get a pretty good idea of part of it – his sister. So many times when Kieran tries to protest against things and assert himself, Carmine snaps back at him for doing so. Over time, that kind of thing would have made him feel like he’s wrong for trying to stand up for himself, leading to him letting people walk all over him. I don’t want to give Carmine’s behaviour all of the blame for Kieran’s issues, though, because there’s bound to be more to it than that. I expect some of it also came from him being bullied and outcast during his time at Blueberry Academy – I hope The Indigo Disk gives us glimpses into what Kieran’s life there was like before all this.

As a result of feeling so weak and inferior, Kieran admires and idolises people he sees as strong. This becomes clear early on with how much he looks up to you just for being able to beat his sister, someone else he also sees as strong. Apparently, he couldn’t stop raving about how cool you were and how he wanted to battle you all evening back at home.

He doesn’t want you to know that, though, based on his protest when Carmine comes out and tells you so. Kieran's probably rather embarrassed for you to hear how much he idolises you, after all. He also seems to think his request for a battle would be annoying and a bother – he says “You don’t mind?” in surprise when you accept, even though asking people for battles is supposed to be just what trainers do. Why would a strong trainer like you want to waste your time battling someone weak like him?

Kieran’s comment in the battle if you land a super effective move is also very telling: “Oof, ehehe… I guess I got a lot of weaknesses…” He tries to play it off as light-hearted, but, hm, that sure is A Way for a rival character to comment on you knowing about type matchups. And he most certainly does not seem to agree with his sister when she says he’s almost as strong as her.

(Fun fact: the game actually lets you lose the first battle with each sibling while still continuing the story. If you lose to Kieran in that first battle, he assumes you were holding back against him, as if that’s the only reason he’d ever be able to beat anyone. Perhaps he’s experienced people holding back against him out of pity before – maybe Carmine used to?)

He's flustered when Carmine partners him up with you, too, even though you’re the only option that he has at least a vague rapport with now – he’s still assuming someone cool like you wouldn’t want to waste any more of your time on him than you have to. Kieran worries he’ll “get in your way” if he sticks with you, so he hangs back and stays well out of your way instead. It’s a cute way for the game to justify him not actually following you around in the gameplay even though he’s supposed to be following you according to the plot, but it also just makes perfect sense for Kieran’s character. This is a kid who constantly tries to take up as little space as possible because he’s convinced that nobody wants him around. And it’s important that he seems to feel especially this way towards the people he looks up to (with the exception of Carmine, because she’s family and he spends most of his time with her already).

Then there’s the scene where he meets Koraidon/Miraidon. At first, I assumed it was there to introduce Kieran to our lizardbike friend because they’d be relevant later somehow. But they’re not! So the only reason this scene exists at all is for the purpose of illustrating to Kieran that, in his words, “you’re special”. You are A Protagonist, capable of befriending super special, rare, strong Pokémon with ease. (Just like a certain other special legendary Pokémon you’ll be meeting soon, how about that.)

Admiring the ogre

So, as you begin the trip to visit the signboards about Kitakami’s legend, Kieran starts to open up about how much he likes the ogre. Perhaps he feels safe telling you, because you’re an outsider and won’t frown upon him for it like the locals are prone to do. He probably gets that from them a lot and has learned not to bring up the ogre in town – another thing that makes him feel left out.

Even so, Kieran starts from the angle of “it’s so strong and cool because it won one-on-three”, since that’s a more acceptable reason to like the ogre that doesn’t question the validity of the legend, and is less personal to his issues. If you agree with him that the ogre sounds cool before he’s explained why he thinks so, he responds with “I knew you’d get it!” – you, who’s also really strong and cool, would obviously recognise that same strength in the ogre right away, right?

If you’re sceptical at first instead, he stresses that “it was all alone!” and still managed to hold its own – the more personal side of the reason he likes the ogre coming out just a little. By the second signboard, Kieran’s gotten a bit more comfortable with you, enough to start touching on that more deliberately. He mentions that it’s shunned, and that he likes its strength because he admires that and wishes he could be that strong himself.

Then he invites you to see the ogre’s den, something completely unrelated to the purpose of the school trip, because he trusts you enough to feel sure that you’ll get what he’s trying to illustrate about the ogre there. He points out that it seems like a lonely, miserable place to live, and that he’d happily let the ogre stay at his house if it wanted. He’s not quite explicitly saying so, but Kieran clearly empathises with the ogre because he relates to that kind of loneliness. Though he doesn’t want to outright say that the legend is wrong and the ogre isn’t actually the bad guy – maybe he’s got backlash from the villagers before for suggesting it – he's got to believe that to be the case.

(I’ve seen one or two people suggest that Kieran fawning over the supposed bad guy in the legend is an early hint to his potential for darkness, but I really don’t think that’s it. There’s plenty of reason for Kieran to relate to and see the sympathetic side of the ogre in the story due to his own status as a social outcast, without it needing to be a case of “he just likes bad guys because he’s Edgy”.)

Later, at the festival, Kieran has a quiet chuckle to himself when Carmine’s talking about the Loyal Three being heroes, and says it’s funny that she doesn’t know anything about the ogre. Then he conspicuously changes the subject when she implies that it’s just that he likes edgy bad guys, because that’s not it – but at least now he has someone who does get it. Carmine mentions later that she feels Kieran is trying to one-up her about the ogre, and maybe this is true. Perhaps this is one small way in which he can privately feel superior to his sister, because he’s more right than her, or than anyone in the village, about the ogre’s true nature. And while that’s more due to luck and a large helping of projecting his own issues onto it than out of any genuine inside knowledge of the truth, Kieran is the one person who understands the ogre best.

Or, at least, he understands it best… for the most part. Because there is one very key way in which Kieran is actually thoroughly wrong about what Ogerpon is truly like.

Misunderstanding the ogre

This begins to be apparent at the second signboard, when Kieran’s gushing about the ogre’s coolness and says “it didn’t even care when everyone shunned it”. From meeting Ogerpon later, we know that this is patently not true about her – she’s terrified of humans because of how they see her, so really she hates being shunned! But Kieran doesn’t imagine that to be the case about her, even though he empathises with her presumed loneliness and is basically projecting his own onto her. He sees the ogre as somebody who is shunned and alone, like he is, but who, unlike him, is strong enough to not let it get to them. Someone in the same bad situation as him, but with strength that he only wishes he could have to deal with it.

In that same conversation at the second signboard, Kieran then goes on to talk about how his sister always does everything for him, and he’d like to become stronger and more independent and reliable. And, “then, just maybe… I could be that ogre’s friend.” As if he doesn’t think he’d deserve to be Ogerpon’s friend unless he was already strong, just like she is.

He mentions a couple of times that he comes to the Dreaded Den a lot but has never once seen the ogre, which might seem a little strange at first. Obviously Ogerpon kept well hidden from him because she’s scared of humans – but, did Kieran never try to call out to her? To tell her that he’s not afraid of her, that he admires her strength and she must be lonely and hey, maybe they could be friends? If he had, then surely over time, Ogerpon would have grown to trust him and shown herself – so apparently, Kieran never did try to call out to her in an attempt to befriend her. Because he felt he wasn’t worthy of her friendship, not when he’s so weak, so inferior to someone as strong and cool as her. (A lot like how he wouldn’t have had the courage to tell you how much he admired you, if his sister hadn’t blurted it out for him.)

While you’re visiting the den with him, Kieran assumes that “a powerful ogre like that would only show up if it heard some kinda battle”, leading to him challenging you again. Since he admires the ogre for its strength, he’s assuming that the ogre also values strength just as much if not more than he does, which really isn’t necessarily true about Ogerpon!

During the battle, Kieran says he’ll “put up a good fight” this time. Which is to say, he still feels so thoroughly outclassed by you that he isn’t remotely expecting or even trying to win – he just wants to at least not go down quite as pitifully as last time, not when he’s potentially being watched by his idol the ogre. And when he loses (the game requires you to win this and all future battles against him), he laments how he’s ever going to be able to beat you, and then he muses, “If the ogre saw that battle, I’m sure it’d be thinking, ‘That kid’s got some real strength…’” He is assuming that Ogerpon would like you, far more than she’d ever like him, because of how strong you are. This is very important.

(As it happens, Ogerpon was secretly watching that battle, but as for whether she’s actually thinking what Kieran imagines she is about your strength – who knows?)

Friendship! Or is it…?

By the end of the den visit, Kieran has just enough confidence to invite you to the Festival of Masks, and to his own house to get ready to go together, which there’s no way he’d have been able to do at the start of the day. He’s so surprised but thrilled to hear that you consider yourself his friend – based on that and his grandparents’ reactions, you’re likely the first friend he’s ever made, which would not be surprising. It’s lovely watching this shy but sweet kid actually smiling and feeling comfortable around you and happy to have someone he can call a friend for the first time ever. And GHHHH it is so painful in hindsight knowing where things are headed.

Even with you calling yourself his friend, though, Kieran still feels inferior to you. He dejectedly offers to give you his mask for the festival when you find yourself without one, even though it’s the ogre mask, his favourite, his thing – because he instinctively feels that if anyone should be the one who gets left out, it should be him, like always, and not you.

The whole time, Kieran’s bound to be feeling thoroughly insecure about this new friendship. The idea that he’s actually made a friend, and not least someone as cool as you, likely feels far too good to be true, more than he deserves, and I suspect he might be constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. When he mentions to Carmine that you’re coming to the festival with him, her response is vaguely evasive, and Kieran responds to that in a very prickly, defensive way. It reads to me like he thinks Carmine is jealous of him befriending you before her, and that he’s afraid she might try to take you away from him as a result. Whether that’s actually true or not isn’t really the point (I think Carmine might indeed be a little jealous, but she would not do something that deliberately malicious) – what matters is that Kieran believes this may be the case and is liable to view all further interactions with you and Carmine in that light.

Then, at the festival, Carmine pressures Kieran into playing Ogre Oustin’ even though he doesn’t really want to. She’s probably doing this in an attempt to encourage him to have fun, but since he doesn’t find it fun (because he doesn't like this game where he's pretend-killing the ogre!), it’d be easy for him to feel like she only did it because she wanted him out of the way so she could hang out with you. And it’s while Kieran’s doing that that you and Carmine meet Ogerpon without him. Of course, that’s nothing but pure unlucky bad timing – Carmine had no idea Ogerpon was about to show up – but from Kieran’s point of view, with his obvious history of being maliciously left out of things by others, it’s easy for him to feel like there was some deliberate element to it.

At first he doesn’t know it has anything to do with Ogerpon, though. But still, when he gets back from Ogre Oustin’ and asks what you two were up to, Carmine abruptly shuts you up before you can speak and is blatantly hiding something – which Kieran takes to mean that you were laughing at him behind his back. That’s something else he must get a lot, for him to be automatically assuming it’s happening here. Really not so far off from his fear that his sister’s going to try and take you away from him, either.

Carmine’s lie isn’t done out of any malice – she is genuinely trying to protect her brother from feeling bad over being left out of meeting Ogerpon – but she sure is doing so in a way that’s going to make him feel even worse over being left out on purpose once he realises the truth. Carmine does care about her brother in theory, but this girl has zero social brain cells. And we the player are forced to play along with the lie whether we want to or not, which awkwardly turns our player-insert character into a very specific kind of character who would do so. I guess they either also have zero social brain cells, or they’re kind of a doormat who’s swayed by a forceful personality like Carmine’s. This part is frustrating, but I have to accept it because of the delightful things it does to Kieran’s arc, which really is the important part here.

Learning of the lie

The next morning, it seems like Kieran’s largely managed to brush off the weird bit last night where you and his sister were maybe laughing at him behind his back, because he greets you with a smile, ready to go see the last signboard. And then Carmine… forcefully demands that he finds somewhere else to be, because you’ve got business with her. Kieran protests that it’s not fair that you’ve been spending all your time with her lately – score two for his fear that she’s trying to take you away from him – and when she snaps back at his protest like always, he runs off.

But he doesn’t run off that far, because he stays close enough to listen in on the conversation. The discussion of Ogerpon’s story goes on for long enough – and takes long enough to get to the important part – that Kieran pretty much has to have stayed to eavesdrop on purpose, which is a little sketchy of him. Still, I can’t blame him all that much, what with his background of being mistreated, and the way Carmine’s behaviour gives him ample reason to be afraid there’s something going on here – of course he’d have wanted to know for sure. Perhaps he was even trying to hope that listening in would prove that you’re not actually hiding something bad from him and he was just being paranoid.

Except that actually, it turns out the truth is so much worse than Kieran had feared. Never mind just laughing at him – you and Carmine met the ogre without him and then hid it from him as if he didn’t even deserve to know. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, it then turns out that he was right all along about the ogre being a good guy, and his own grandpa didn’t even think it was worth telling him that, and now you’re still just going to keep lying to him about it all and leaving him in the dark.

(Really, I have to side-eye their grandpa a lot more than Carmine here, because he’s a grown dang adult and has so much less excuse. He says he’ll tell Kieran the truth “when the time is right”, but what does that even mean? The “right time” would be right now! Heck, it should have been the moment he realised that Kieran had already intuited the truth!)

And all this being lied to and shunned and left out of things (like always) stings even more for Kieran because it’s coming from someone he’d thought was his friend. He’d actually dared to hope that someone – and not just anyone, someone really cool and strong – actually wanted to be friends with him? Of course that was too good to be true. Why would someone as cool and strong as you have ever wanted to befriend a weak loser like him, anyway? (After all, cool strong people only ever want to be friends with other cool strong people; that’s how it works, right?)

Probing about the lie

The correct thing for Kieran to do with this situation would have been to simply come right out and confront you about the lie. But of course he doesn’t have the courage to do that. He’s far too used to being shot down whenever he tries to assert and stand up for himself (no thanks to Carmine). And since he only learned about this because he was eavesdropping, it’s easy for him to imagine having that turned against him, and the whole situation being treated like he’s the one in the wrong for doing that.

Still, it seems like Kieran might want to at least indirectly give you the opportunity to tell him the truth. He heads off to the village shop to act like he was there the whole time, and then casually asks you what you were talking about back there. He’s maybe trying to hope that you don’t really want to lie to him and only got swept up into doing so by his sister’s forcefulness, and that you’ll tell him everything now that she’s not here, because, you said you were his friend, right? Later on, too, at the third signboard, the way Kieran brings up that his family is descended from the mask maker feels suspiciously relevant, as if he only thought to do so because he overheard the story and is trying to give you a chance to go, “Hey, speaking of that mask maker, actually…”

But no. It sure seems like you’re very deliberately choosing to keep him in the dark. As such, he’s bound to be feeling extra small and awkward at the signboard, just wanting to “get this over with�� and be done spending time with you, because you clearly don’t want to waste any more of your time with him than you have to, right? The awkwardness of the third signboard photo, with Kieran obviously not wanting to be there, and your character’s very strained thumbs-up, is heartbreaking in comparison to how cute and happy the first two were.

During the conversation there, Kieran mentions the ogre being alone and treated like an outcast in a way that is very clearly also talking about how you and Carmine are treating him right now. The game pointedly lingers on his response to your comment, regardless of which dialogue option you choose. If you agree that that sounds awful, he says, “You think so too, huh?” – you think that it’s bad to treat someone that way, and yet, you sure are treating him that way anyway. If you instead mutter an awkward apology, Kieran asks, “For what?” This could read like he’s calling you out for not being able to admit to what you should be apologising for, but actually, I’m not sure that’s it. It could also be him genuinely asking that, because he doesn’t realise you need to apologise for anything. Hold this thought, I’ll go into it more in a bit.

It's because he’s weak

The other thing that happens at the third signboard is Kieran challenging you to another battle. He doesn’t really explain why, but I suspect he’s hoping that if he wins and proves his strength to you, you might just tell him the truth, or at least it’ll give him the courage to confront you about your lie. This is the first battle in which he says he wants to win and is actively trying and hoping to do so, rather than just accepting his loss before he’s even started. His optimism is pretty fragile, though, as he laments “it wasn’t supposed to go like this” if you hit him super-effectively, and “why does it have to be like this?” when he’s down to his last Pokémon.

But of course, he loses, just like he must secretly have been expecting to all along (how could he ever beat someone as strong as you?). And so he concludes, “it’s all ‘cause I’m too weak” – not just losing the battle, but everything. Why he’s always left out and shunned by everyone, why you lied to him and went behind his back about something you knew was important to him – it’s because he’s weak. He was battling you to try and prove that he’s stronger, strong enough to deserve better than that… but of course he isn’t.

A particularly important little subtlety is that he mutters “That’s why I…” – because it would have been easy to expect this line to say “you” instead. That you lied to him and shunned him because he’s weak, that it’s your fault for choosing to treat someone weak like this. But Kieran isn’t framing it that way. He’s thinking of it as his fault, simply for being weak, and that’s why he will always inevitably be treated like crap by everyone around him. As if that’s nobody else’s fault for choosing to do that, but simply the natural way of things when someone’s weak. As if he deserves this for being weak.

(So: what are you sorry for? You shouldn’t be sorry for anything; it’s his fault, isn’t it? Someone as strong and perfect as you could never be conflicted or in the wrong.)

By the end of this signboard visit, Kieran’s leaving on his own, saying that he’s got to get stronger with his Pokémon. All of this is happening because he’s weak, so he needs to be stronger – and apparently, that means “strength in Pokémon battling”. In reality, even if he did become the best battler out there, that wouldn’t necessarily make him any better at standing up for himself in social situations or being independent and reliable in other ways, but he’s very much conflating the different kinds of strength. This probably has a lot to do with his schooling at Blueberry Academy, which teaches Pokémon battling, leaving him overly focused on battling strength as the only kind of strength that matters. Perhaps he was picked on at school because he wasn’t very good at the battling classes, which wouldn’t have helped. I hope we see some glimpses of this in The Indigo Disk.

And on the topic of Kieran fixating on getting stronger at Pokémon battling: his Furret is never seen in his team again after this point. It was one of the first two Pokémon he used against you, so it’s presumably one of his closest Pokémon partners, which makes it heartbreaking that he ditches it from his team because, clearly, it’s too weak. Even worse, he’s inflicting being left out and shunned on someone else – someone he probably cared about – precisely because it’s weak. That’s just what happens to people who are weak, right? Guh. Poor Furret.

Outburst at Loyalty Plaza

Kieran most likely spends the next 24 hours alternating between fervently training as hard as he can, and stewing in his feelings of loneliness and rejection and betrayal. His grandpa mentions that he spent that night in his room after not even eating dinner, which, yeah, when he’s sharing a house with two of the people who are lying to him, not surprising. Oof. And more than just pain and betrayal, he’s got to be feeling so much anger, anger which he’s never been able to truly express, because every time he tries to stand up for himself he always gets shot down – but that only makes the suppressed anger worse.

The correct thing to do would have been for Kieran to confront everyone calmly about the lie as soon as he became aware of it. But because he couldn’t just do that, his resentment festered inside of him with no real outlet, until finally it becomes unbearable and explodes out of him and he has to do something to express it, no matter how questionable. So he steals the Teal Mask and runs off with it.

I don’t think Kieran actually has much of an idea of what he’s going to do with the mask. The one logical thing would have been to give it back to Ogerpon himself, but that can’t be his intent, because he doesn’t go anywhere near her den with it. And I highly doubt he’s planning to break it or anything like that, since he’d never do something that’d hurt Ogerpon. Really, I think he just wants you and Carmine to notice and acknowledge what he’s going through and what you’ve done to him – and if he steals the mask, you’re going to have to confront him to get it back.

He heads to Loyalty Plaza in particular because he’s conflating his own situation with Ogerpon’s. In amongst his pain and anger at the way he’s being treated, he’d have also been feeling a lot of anger at the injustice of how Ogerpon was and is treated, because he was right all along that she was never the bad guy, but she’s shunned undeservedly while the “Loyal” Three are lauded as heroes. Even though this outburst from Kieran is really all about his own situation, he makes it about Ogerpon first, because that’s easier for him to openly be angry about. He only brings up his own treatment as a comparison to how Ogerpon is treated like an outcast, as if the only way he can frame it as wrong in his head is by comparing it to something that’s definitely wrong. (After all, he deserves to be shunned because he’s weak – but Ogerpon didn’t deserve any of it, because she’s so much stronger!)

During Kieran’s outburst, Carmine blurts out an apology on realising that she’s hurt him – but Kieran basically just ignores it and continues to vent. Which tells us something interesting: that Kieran never did this out of any attempt to get you and Carmine to apologise for lying to him. If he’d wanted that, he’d have reacted in some way when Carmine did just that. So I think, in keeping with Kieran’s belief that all this is his fault for being weak, he doesn’t actually think you two need to apologise for anything. He’s lashing out because he’s angry and in pain and doesn’t know how else to deal with it, but he’s not consciously thinking that you and Carmine are in the wrong.

He’s also still holding onto the idea that you and Carmine were just laughing at him behind his back, which is of course not true, but when Carmine tries to say that, Kieran snaps back that she’s a liar. Given that she undeniably has lied to him about one very important thing, of course Kieran would find it easy to believe that she could be lying to him about anything and he can’t trust any reassurance she gives him. This poor kid must have such a history of being mistreated and patronised by others to jump to assuming things like this.

Lashing out with a battle

Then Kieran challenges you to another battle, promising to give back the mask if you win. Since there’s no way he is truly expecting to be able to beat you, this means that he never really intended to keep the mask forever. But he also doesn’t just want to seem like some weak pushover who’ll roll over and give in as soon as he’s confronted, so he at least wants to make you fight him for it. And based on his line at the beginning of the battle – “I know this isn’t right, but… I can’t just hand over the mask to you!” – he doesn’t want to just give up one of Ogerpon’s possessions so easily to someone who treated him like an outcast the same way those villagers back then treated Ogerpon.

Really, I think the battle – and the notably forceful way he asks for it, unlike the previous times – just comes a lot from Kieran’s anger, and his need to externalise it somehow. He even insists that he needs this battle, if you’re hesitant about accepting the challenge. There’s probably a part of him that wants to lash out with physical violence, maybe punch you or something, but he knows that’s wrong and that it’d look pathetically impotent of him anyway even if he tried. Happily, this world has a socially-accepted form of violence-by-proxy instead, so Pokémon battle it is!

As for the battle itself, Kieran’s switched up his team some more, removing Furret as previously mentioned, and adding two new members instead of just one like the previous times – but the Cramorant he uses here doesn’t stick around either. This is less sad to me than Furret, though, because he wouldn’t have been very close to it. Cramorant may even have been taken onto the team with the condition of “I’m trying out new team members to see who’s strong enough”, at which point ditching it is less of a betrayal and more of it simply failing a job interview.

(Meanwhile, the other newcomer, Gligar, clearly impressed Kieran a lot with its strength, as it becomes his ace for the final fight. Fitting that his ace there is not a long-time partner, but one obtained only after he began to fixate on getting stronger.)

He’s also more openly determined to win (despite his suppressed conviction that he could never beat you), and remains more optimistic than before even when things aren’t going so well for him. In fact, this is the only battle in which Kieran has lines for hitting you with a super effective move or a critical hit. That said, he’s still a little insecure, based on an optional line: “I need to get this right… I’m gonna make sure to give the right commands!” which tells us that he feels like his losses are his fault for making mistakes and choosing the wrong moves, rather than blaming his Pokémon for not being strong enough. He also has an absolutely great comment in this battle if you land a critical hit, which I have to highlight: “What can’t you do? You’re like the hero in a story…” It’s purely luck, but despite that, he’s seeing you as this impossibly perfect hero that he could never ever measure up to, and this delights me.

Losing the battle just seems to make Kieran’s frustration at his own inferiority even worse, to the point that he does indulge in some physical violence, towards the shrine. Which is as pathetic as he must have been expecting, and should in theory have been harmless enough. (Of course, it appears that this is what somehow resurrects the Lousy Three, but there is no way Kieran expected or wanted that to happen, so he can’t be blamed for that.) Then he gives the mask back, just as he promised he would, and (ignoring another attempt by Carmine to apologise – again, this was never about that to him) he runs off back home.

So I find it really hard to condemn Kieran for… any of his actions here? Sure, he stole the mask, but he didn’t do anything bad with it and gave it back just fine (and must have always been intending to). All he was doing was lashing out – unhealthily, but basically harmlessly – over the really very callous way you and Carmine had been treating him. And if he hadn’t done this, you two would probably never have told him the truth about Ogerpon, and he’d have remained out of the loop and never met her at all! That would have been awful!

And yet: making you and Carmine bring him into the loop about Ogerpon and getting the chance to meet her is also not something Kieran was aiming for here. Just before leaving in a sulk, he says, “Say hi to the ogre for me” – which means that he never expected to get to meet it himself. He is still, even by the end of this confrontation, labouring under the belief that you and Carmine don’t want him there with Ogerpon and that he doesn’t deserve to meet her at all.

Apologies, and a lack thereof

After you rescue Ogerpon from being bullied by the resurrected Lousy Three, Carmine shows up with Kieran in tow. Apparently she found him moping around at home and dragged him here to apologise to you about his stunt with the mask. Which, yes, does warrant an apology – but what really frustrates me about this part is that Carmine doesn’t apologise for what you and she did wrong. Sure, she blurted out a couple of cut-off apologies back at Loyalty Plaza, but those never had the intended effect when Kieran was in no emotional state to accept them. Here and now, he’s calmed down enough that he would be able to take on board an apology… but Carmine doesn’t give one. It’s possible that she already apologised at home before bringing him here, but if she’d done that, then she really ought to have got you to also apologise for lying to him, and she doesn’t – so I can only assume that didn’t happen. And you the player can choose to apologise to Kieran here anyway, but since it’s optional, it’s not given nearly the attention it deserves.

Since Kieran never gets a proper apology while he’s in a state to listen, it means he never actually ends up internalising the fact that you were in the wrong to lie to him and he didn’t deserve to be treated that way. Which would have been a really, really important thing for him to realise! As it is, he continues to quietly assume that all of this is his fault for being weak, with nobody to tell him that this way of thinking is flawed.

It's frustrating, but I do kind of get it, from Carmine at least, because she’s also a pretty flawed person. Her deal seems to be that she’s only able to be emotionally sincere in uncontrolled outbursts when she’s worked up, and when she’s calm she covers up her true feelings with bossiness and vanity. Which makes her not at all capable of apologising to Kieran when he’s in a calm enough state to be capable of registering it. These siblings’ issues do not mesh well. Still, here’s hoping that Carmine’s able to self-reflect enough to acknowledge her partial responsibility for Kieran’s suffering by the end of The Indigo Disk.

She does seem to realise her mistake here enough to make a point of trying to include Kieran in their Ogerpon adventures from here on out, at least. But it’s too little too late in terms of how Kieran views things. He seems to have assumed that Carmine dragged him here only to apologise, and not to properly meet Ogerpon or be involved in helping her out, because he expresses surprise when Carmine casually includes him as part of the Mask Retrieval Squad. He was expecting to be shunned and left out as always – what do you mean, she wants him there?

Meeting Ogerpon

The only interaction Kieran was expecting to have with Ogerpon here was giving the fixed-up mask back to her, because he wanted to be the one to do so – but she shies away from him when he offers it. Carmine comments that she’s probably scared of new people, and this is likely the truth, but Kieran’s silent response suggests that he’s not necessarily agreeing with that assessment. Remember, from earlier: Kieran is convinced that Ogerpon values strength. And he’s so used to being shunned by others, especially strong people, because he’s weak. It would be very, very easy for him to come to the irrational conclusion that the reason Ogerpon refuses him is because of his weakness, even though his sister’s suggesting something else.

Despite Kieran’s key misconceptions about Ogerpon’s values, he does continue to understand her better than most people in certain ways. When you try to head into town with her, Kieran’s the one to point out that she’s probably afraid to go in because of the way she’s been treated by the townspeople. He also comments that she’ll feel safe going to retrieve the masks from the Three as long as she’s with you. He empathises with that insecurity and social anxiety enough that, seeing it from Ogerpon in person, he can instinctively see that’s the case about her too.

And yet… seeing Ogerpon’s fear, and understanding that she’s scared of being shunned just like him (which he previously said the ogre didn’t care at all about!), doesn’t actually change the part of Kieran that is also irrationally convinced that she only cares about strength. There’s no moment in which he seems to be re-evaluating Ogerpon or realising anything new about her upon seeing her being afraid. The part where she’s shy and afraid, and the part where she’s strong and cool and therefore values strength in others, manage to be separate enough in his mind that he never actually cross-references them to realise that one of these surely can’t be as true as he thinks it is. So his false conviction that things are about strength to Ogerpon still remains, unchallenged.

Staying behind

Then, even though Carmine is making an active point of trying to include him, Kieran… chooses not to come with you on the mission to retrieve the masks. This is despite the fact that this’d be his best chance to spend time with Ogerpon and hopefully get her to warm up to him, which you’d think would be his priority when he’s quietly hoping to maybe have the chance to become her partner.

But even though it would be a logical choice for Kieran to come with them, it makes perfect sense to me why he doesn’t. As far as he sees things, you and Carmine are way stronger than him and already have the fights against the Three covered – he’d be nothing but a useless third wheel hanging back, only there out of Carmine’s pity for him and not because he’s needed. And in terms of Ogerpon, Kieran is the kid who visited her den countless times but never had the courage to call out to her and ask to be friends. Of course he knows he wouldn’t have the confidence to actually try and get closer to Ogerpon, especially not when she’s already got someone she likes (someone who’s strong while he’s weak, which is clearly what matters to her, right). He knows he’ll just spend the whole time watching Ogerpon obviously like you way more than him while not being able to do a thing about it, and it’ll just make him feel even more jealous and left out.

(Trust me, as someone with social anxiety who spent a lot of my childhood being low-key outcasted by my so-called friend groups, I get it. When you’ve lived like that, integrating yourself with new people can feel downright impossible, no matter how much you may want it.)

So Kieran doesn’t come on the mission – but it’s not like he just uselessly sulks around, either. He spends the time doing something else to help Ogerpon, something neither you nor Carmine seemingly thought needed to be done: telling the town the truth that she was never a bad guy. Because of course Kieran understands best just how hard it is for Ogerpon to be shunned and outcast by everyone, and of course he has some Strong Feelings that people deserve to be told the truth, hmm I wonder where that might have come from. This task is really difficult and scary for him, too, because he hates talking to people – but he does it anyway, for Ogerpon’s sake! What a brave lad!

(I’ve seen people side-eye the fact that the villagers accept the truth and turn around their view of Ogerpon so easily, but honestly it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. I get the mask maker way back when being persecuted because the villagers of the time saw Ogerpon kill the Three and made assumptions, but, like, it’s been generations. All of the witnesses who had that emotional gut reaction to the fight are long dead. Most of the people alive today didn’t even truly believe the story of the ogre was real until the Loyal Three showed up – they just thought it was a fun folktale that gives their village some unique culture. So for them to be told ��hey, the ogre is real, but also the story’s backwards and the ogre’s actually the good guy”… so what? I was always sceptical of Grandpa’s conviction that the truth must never be told to the village (because… people will get angry that they were lied to? So therefore you should just keep lying to them so they never find out they have something to be angry about? Yes, great tactic, it worked so well on Kieran). Kieran basically just went and proved that there really was nothing to be worried about all along and the people should have been told the truth ages ago.)

His final chance to be strong

So now we reach the end, where Ogerpon makes it clear that she wants to stay with you, and… and even though he must have seen this coming, Kieran can’t accept it happening without trying to fight against it.

This isn’t even really about Kieran wanting Ogerpon’s friendship in and of itself. It’s more about what the concept of being partners with Ogerpon means to him. This whole time, he’s been obsessed with the ogre, and yet only letting himself imagine that maybe one day when he’s stronger, he could be its friend. He’s fixated on the idea of befriending Ogerpon as something that will mean he’s strong and no longer alone and everything is good now. Obviously this is extremely irrational and not necessarily true nor the sole way to fix his problems, but that’s how things are in Kieran’s head.

And so, with recent events making him feel even more weak and outcast than ever, you being effortlessly strong and cool enough to befriend Ogerpon on top of everything else feels to Kieran like it’s about to take away his one chance to turn things around, forever. Of course he can’t just let that happen without at least trying to have things his way. He says right at the beginning of the battle: “I know you’re probably a better trainer for Ogerpon, but I… I…” – and he can’t even voice the end of that sentence. He can’t put into words why he feels like he needs to become Ogerpon’s partner even though he knows he's being selfish and she’d be better off with you, because it’s not based in any conscious logic and is all just one big subconscious irrational mess of his issues and inferiority complex.

I’ve seen a lot of people condemn Kieran for this part, saying that he’s ignoring Ogerpon’s wishes because he’s planning to force her to join him whether she wants to or not if he wins. However, I firmly disagree that Kieran has any such thing in mind here. Remember, he’s still labouring under the misconception that what Ogerpon cares about most is strength. He thinks she likes you so much because you’re so strong (remember the previous time he battled you in front of the den, where he commented that the ogre must be thinking how strong you are if it’d seen that?), and that she refused the mask from him that one time because he’s weak. So Kieran has convinced himself that if he can prove himself to be stronger than you, by defeating you in a battle while Ogerpon’s watching, then she’ll naturally choose him to be her trainer over you. Right?

When Carmine says that he has to consider Ogerpon’s feelings, Kieran’s simply silent for a moment before saying “…I want to battle anyway.” He’s not denying that Ogerpon’s choice is what matters – he just believes, or is at least trying to believe, that her choice will be determined by this battle. And of course he doesn’t say anything like “Ogerpon will choose me if I’m stronger than you”, because – well, perhaps because a lot of this is also subconscious enough that he can’t articulate it, but even if any of it was conscious, he knows it’d sound stupid. Especially the part where he’d be talking like it’s possible for him to beat you, because deep down, he still completely convinced that’s impossible.

Plus, nowhere in this does Kieran bring up the fact that he told the village the truth about Ogerpon as a point in his favour for why she might choose him – which supports that it’s not about any kind of friendly gestures to him and he’s convinced she’ll make her decision entirely based on strength. (And it also proves that he did that out of a genuine desire to help Ogerpon, without any ulterior motives of trying to get her to like him!)

Just before the battle, he says: “Whoever wins gets to be Ogerpon’s partner… So don’t… don’t you dare hold back!” – making a point of demanding you don’t hold back, even though you might think he’d want any advantage he can get towards supposedly winning Ogerpon’s favour. But this makes perfect sense when you realise what this is about to Kieran. He believes that Ogerpon will choose (and deserves to choose) whichever of you is the strongest, and this battle won’t actually prove that if he only wins because you were holding back against him.

Kieran also thanks you for not holding back when you land your first super effective hit, which I enjoy. He’s so used to being patronised and seen as weak and pathetic, so he’s actually glad that you’re taking him seriously and viewing him as a legitimate opponent.

And, hey, he is! His team is pretty stacked: a full six Pokémon with solid movesets, and even strategic held items (at least in the postgame version). Assuming you’re not over-levelled, it’s quite a challenging fight, as it should be. Kieran is trying so, so hard to be strong enough, because this poor kid has convinced himself that all of his problems and pain are due to him being weak, and he is so desperate to fix that by proving himself even stronger than you, strong enough to win Ogerpon’s favour.

When he loses, he just crumples, and it’s heartbreaking. Kieran had so much more riding on this battle than just befriending Ogerpon – this was what felt like his one and only chance to stamp out the part of him that feels crushingly inferior and like he deserves to be treated like dirt. Guhhh.

And of course the first thing out of his mouth is, “Figures.” His inferiority complex runs so deep that, no matter how hard he’d trained and how genuinely really good his team had grown, he never truly believed that he ever had a chance at beating someone as cool and strong as you. He was just desperately trying to convince himself that he at least had a shot, because he couldn’t bear to give up without trying.

I really wish you could tell Kieran how good he was in this battle! It truly is impressive how much better he’s grown at battling since the first one, in such a short space of time, too. Just because he’s not quite as strong as you doesn’t mean he’s weak, not by a long shot. But nobody tells him any such thing, so Kieran continues to view things in that irrationally all-or-nothing way. He lost, so he's weak, end of.

Then he has to stand there and watch you battle Ogerpon in order to catch her. Before all of this happened, Kieran would have been so stoked to see his hero the ogre showing off just how cool and strong she is – and hey, her powers really are pretty awesome to behold! But here, despite the amazing spectacle in front of him, Kieran just looks supremely awkward. Like he doesn’t feel like he deserves to be here. Like he doesn’t even have the right to get to see Ogerpon’s full strength in all its glory. You’re the only one who’s strong enough to have earned this.

He does make one possible comment during the battle, if you land a critical hit on Ogerpon: “You really are good… I’m no match.” Which is a bit excessive, considering that really anyone is capable of critting Ogerpon if they get lucky – but apparently Kieran’s thoughts during this battle are still incredibly hung up on just how strong you are and how he’ll never be able to measure up to you. This goes to show that his issues at this point have shifted to be more about you than about Ogerpon. Which tracks, since his admiration for the ogre was never quite about Ogerpon herself and was more about what her strength represented to him – and now you’ve come along and given him an even bigger example of impossibly cool strength, in a much more painful way.

Once you’ve captured Ogerpon, Kieran manages to awkwardly congratulate you on it – hey, he’s doing his best not to be a sore loser! – laments once again why he can’t be like you, and then runs off. No doubt he’s feeling a huge heap of uncontainable painful emotions that he does not want to show in front of you or Carmine and needs to go let out in private. This kid is Not Okay.

So, in summary: Kieran comes out of all this with the message that all of his pain and suffering and loneliness is his fault because he’s still too weak, and he will only ever be strong enough to put all that behind him once he’s stronger than you. And to do that, he needs to get so, so much stronger, almost impossibly so, no matter what he has to do to achieve it. I’m sure this will be Just Fine leading into The Indigo Disk. (: (: (:

And one last thing: the game doesn’t let this happen, but if Kieran had won that final battle against you, I believe things might actually have turned out better. Because let’s face it, Ogerpon would probably still have chosen to go with you anyway, and if she had, Kieran would have been forced to face the fact that it was never actually about strength to her. It wouldn’t even be that hard for him to understand that, given that he’d already noticed the indications that she was scared of being shunned by the townspeople and that she liked you because you made her feel safe. This would help Kieran recontextualise things a little and stop focusing so unhealthily on gaining more battling strength as the One Thing that will solve all his problems. He still wouldn’t exactly be suddenly fixed and happy, but… things wouldn’t be quite so bad, at least. Alas, you are Too Protagonist to lose and let that happen.

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon sv #kieran pokemon #pokemon kieran #the teal mask #the hidden treasure of area zero #ogerpon #pokemon carmine #character analysis #my buttons #ramble #kieran did nothing wrong #he is just a suffering kid with bad coping mechanisms #because nobody has taught him healthy ones

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mitraoki · 2 months

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Hi hi! I'd like to rq a Ken Sato x Gundam pilot (pilot of a giant war robot, similar to a transformer) reader, fem or gen if possible!

She's slightly older and used to work with the KDF but quit due to realising the problems KDF has caused.

OR! She could have worked for the Japanese army but due to a horrible accident during a mission she could've been injured badly and was forced to retire early.

Possibly low-key sassy and stoic personality that she acquired after years of working for the army, that undermine her politeness and sweet personality.

And if possible, can she wear an eye patch?

If you don't like this feel free to ignore :( But I really like this concept and your writing style so it'd be really nice to see it written out :)

Don't tire yourself out!

😧🪒😦 - Anon

hot and cold. (ken sato x gn! reader)

note; HELLO anon!! thank you soo much for requesting. this is a REALLY good background you've given me, i just hope i've done it enough justice for you🥹🥹please let me know of your thoughts about this! i always welcome feedback <33

as usual, requests are open!! refer to my rules for a better view on what i write (✿◕‿◕✿)

masterlist.

i would say that after ken's experiences with emi and bonding with his dad, he becomes more open to various possibilities. yes he's happy he's slowly recovering what he'd lost long ago, but there's definitely something in particular that's missing in his life.

he hasn't thought about love in a long, long time. back in america it was always crushes, or simple dates but nothing ever lasted longer than he wanted it to. ken sato hates cliffhangers.

you, on the other hand, weren't hoping for much. all your life you've worked - very obviously - as a tool for the KDF, but what good did it bring you except to push yourself away from people?? so you did, not wanting to be around people quite often, so much as to even isolating yourself.

after learning of your boss' potential demise, what good is there staying in an organization that left you completely shallow? gone was the need to remain in KDF, signing the very last paper regarding your resignation.

"i should get an eye patch," you muttered, staring into the mirror with a dull look. it was no news for the frontliners to experience heavy injuries, but you definitely did not expect one of your eyes to become completely dysfunctional.

it had only been a few days since your departure from the shackles when you just had to bump into the well-known, ecstatic baseball player, ken sato in a convenience store. purely out of coincidence, of course. squinting your eyes, you sent a nod his way.

"heard of you," you uttered, stretching your lips into a thin line as you headed towards the counter, paying for the stuff you'd picked out for dinner later.

....leaving the man himself completely speechless.

who were you? why didn't you say anything else about his plays? have you attended any of them? were you pissed that he wasn't playing to his full potential? and what was with the eye patch?

he needed to know more of you.

i'd like to think he'd ask more about you from mina, gaining as much information as he could about you. if you had any specific history, some kind of secret that he was yet to uncover. lo and behold, he dug far enough to find out you once worked with his enemy. emphasis on worked.

a shiver ran down his spine when he read those words. he didn't need to see it, but he could tell there was more to than what meets the eye.

"something the matter, ken?" mina questioned, her holographic screen dissipating.

"oh- how difficult do you think this is gonna be?"

"....i cannot give you a definitive answer, ken. i would depend on the way you'd choose to approach her."

and approached you he did. not exactly, but again. it was purely out of coincidence when he saw you sitting by the window of a quaint cafe, sipping on your favorite beverage.

"baseball boy?" you called out behind him while he was "trying his best to order his favorite drink." his words, not yours.

"fancy seeing you 'round here."

"yeah! well. you know me - super down to earth," he chuckled nervously, clearing his throat after.

but you can see just how bad he was suppressing himself from throwing the biggest questions he had for you. out of respect, you had hoped. nodding, you walked back to your seat after grabbing your long-awaited dessert.

that was - until - the same baseball boy practically begged to sit at the same table as you. there it was. one would expect the fan to do most of the questioning towards their idol, but in this case it was different.

you were no fan, and ken surely wasn't one himself. the KDF doesn't really have a good image going on, after all. it was the slight glimmer of hope in your heart that this man had a pure heart, just wanting to explore what he hasn't in this big, cruel world.

heaving a huge sigh, you gave in. this can go on. what's the worst that could happen?

and it did. for hours. hours turning into days. days turning into weeks. months. suddenly a year had passed, and you were now in his arms, being the little spoon you had desired for so long.

he hears story after story of yours. all the secret missions you'd gone through before resigning. the eye that you'd lost a long time ago.

ken sato was careful with your heart, soul and you. he cares for you like the world's most fragile glass, holds you in his arms like he might lose you the moment he lets go. he kisses every single scar of yours like he was silently acknowledging the sacrifices you'd made through the years.

and for the first time, you felt like there was some meaning. you needed to see this through. you wanted ken sato more than ever now. the way he smiles, the way his eyes glimmer when you tell him something new. the way he cups your face and reminds you of your worth.

it's mind boggling to know someone slightly younger than you has such a vast and mature mind, ready to accept you when no one else has. life had always been stagnant. you wake up, you face the days ahead. some conversations with or without you. unwanted noises that bothered you to the core.

it was just something about ken, his voice perhaps. or it could be the way he wants to listen. he chooses to listen even when he doesn't understand, because this man would do anything in the world to be in yours.

"i don't know what the others have told you, y/n. but in my eyes, i can keep them on you forever and i'd never grow tired."

and those were the words that left you speechless, the fresh warm streak of tears flowing down your cheeks. it was such a rare sight to see someone so stoic, so persistent break down. but even then, ken sato was there to hold you tight, whisper soothing words into your ear and pepper you with endless kisses.

you'd grown absolutely smitten for this man, and i would say you'd never regret a single moment with him.

all created content belongs to mitraoki. reposts/remakes are not allowed.

#snow.writing #ken sato #ultraman rising #kenji sato #ken sato x reader #kenji sato x reader #kenji x reader #ultraman rising x reader #ken sato x you #ken sato fluff #ken sato ultraman #ken sato fanfic

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sc0tters · 1 year

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In The Break | Mat Barzal

summary: the Barzal house is at its breaking point without their key member their to save the day.

request: yes/no

warnings: swearing, grammar that I think a four year old would use.

word count: 2.09k

authors note: this is officially probably one of my favourite (soft) things that I’ve written. Like I can’t get over how cute everyone is. But like weirdly enough I can’t tell if I acc like this so I’m just going to how that it had the luna stamp of approval.

You didn’t think would had ever been more excited to have Mat back home as you were in that moment.

Tilly had been teething and James wanted his father at every waking moment.

Your energy was practically nonexistent as your one year old wasn’t sleeping through the night and that meant that you weren’t either.

It seemed that all three of you were at your wits end and as both kids were sat in the playroom with Tilly sporting her red swollen cheeks. James had gone on about how he couldn’t wait to see his father you knew you were being stupid but it hurt you hearing his praise as he had done nothing but spew the negative words that were in your four year olds Arsenal.

You tried to brush his hair wanting to get him ready for the day “I’m home!” Mat called out as he opened the front door making both kids turn their heads in the direction of him.

Before you knew it you were shoved to the ground as they both seemed to finally behave as they stopped their negative moods “hi baby!” Mat cooed as he crouched down and wrapped his arms around the boy.

Tilly waddled after her brother causing her father to gasp at her improved abilities at walking “where is mama?” The hockey player’s eyes lit up as he saw you tuck your hair behind your ears.

A smile formed on Mat’s lips as he so effortlessly held the children to his sides “hi pretty lady.” It seemed that he didn’t take note of the dark circles that lay under your eyes “was thinking we could go get ice cream with them?” His words cause the kids to cheer as Mat kissed your lips.

That was honestly the last thing you needed to hear. Both kids had won the battle of avoiding nap time until their father got home “Til hasn’t had her nap yet.” You pointed out with a sigh.

You weren’t expecting any shut eye during this time as Mat had been gone for two weeks and you did miss your husband. But you knew that if both kids didn’t try for their naps you would be the one to truly pay the price later on “they won’t be that bad.” As all three sent you a smile you couldn’t help but sigh as you nodded conceding defeat.

It was almost like you could have been a fortune teller. Tilly had cried herself to sleep as she was so grumpy without her teddy that not even Mat’s arms could put her mind at ease.

And your sweet little James had been sat on his fathers lap with every chance he could get.

So now you were not only sleep deprived but you were also feeling neglected.

Mat loved seeing how his kids looked up at him but as he held James in his arms and had Tilly in the carrier as you walked ahead of them to the front door.

Getting Tilly to sleep was easy as you simply placed her in her cot where Mat offered to take over in changing her into her pyjamas. James on the other hand began to have a fit as he realised that his father was nowhere in sight as you sat down on his bed with a book “daddy daddy daddy!” He complained kicking his legs “J daddy is with Tilly right now.” You sighed opening the book.

Yet that seemed to aggravate your son further “I want daddy not you.” Again you knew that James didn’t know the gravity of his words but in that moment you wanted to just break down.

You tried to ignore him as you began reading “I hate you momma where’s daddy!” Having children was another moment of learning how to bite your tongue and you had been doing so much better “you think I want to be here either!” You yelled back finally letting your anger go “I’m tired and for the last two weeks you have treated me like I’m not here!” As James flinched your eyes went wide.

Not once in the four years of being his mom had you ever raised your voice “J I’m-” before you could reach out to apologise Mat walked in “daddy!” James cheered.

Mat sent you a look of concern as you got up “think he wants you to read this.” You mumbled shoving the book into his hands as you let the door shut behind you “momma always said this was a book huh?” Mat smiled as he nestled into the mattress as James rested against him.

Guilt drowned you as you sat with your hands around your knees letting the warm water from the shower land on your back before the droplets slowly dripped down your skin. Tears painted your cheeks as you so badly just wanted to wake up and see that this was all just some bad dream “baby?” Mat called out as he walked into the bedroom.

It didn’t take him long to realise that you were in the shower “shit y/n!” Your husband didn’t care that he walked into the shower with all of his clothes still on.

In one quick movement Mat helped you up before he pulled you into a hug “Mat!” You cried as the hockey player reached behind you to turn the shower off.

Your tears soaked his shirt as you realised all the things you are frustrated about, not being able to make Tilly feel better as she teethed, James deciding that he hated you and how you let it get to you. But most of all how Mat came in and ruined the schedule you set with the kids.

Usually you wouldn’t have cared if they missed a day but you were tired and felt unloved and for that you let it irritate you today.

So you pushed Mat away as he handed you a towel “baby?” He was surprised to see the glare you sent him as you wiped your eyes.

Mat stood there with wide eyes “you went against me today.” The only rule you had about being parents was that you two had to remain united and that’s kind of hard when he ignores your scheduling.

He remained silent as you continued “how am I meant to keep it together here when you come in and play god or some shit becoming their favourites all over again.” You knew you were being stupid but it made you want to cry as you thought about it when your throat grew tight.

The hockey player scoffed “sorry that when I don’t see the kids for two weeks I want to go do something fun with them!” He felt like your statement was beyond aggressive as it quickly turned into a screaming match “Mat I told you that they needed to sleep and you still went with what you wanted!” Before he could even think about his rebuttal the baby monitor went off.

Tilly’s cries pulled your attention away from your husband “I would go but I’d hate to fuck with her sleep schedule.” Mat’s words had you rolling your eyes as you wrapped the towel around your body “fuck off Mat.” You spat shaking your head as you walked out of your room and down the hall to hers.

Her eyes grew full as she turned her head to see you “hi my love.” You cooed picking her small body up letting her head rest against your shoulder.

Usually you weren’t one for picking her up and rather just showing her that you were there but tonight you needed a hug from someone who seemed happy to see you.

So you two stood like that for fifteen minutes as your gentle swaying of your body caused her to finally settle “good night my girl.” You placed her back into her crib before you brought your fingers to your lip kissing them before you let them press softly on her forehead.

The darkness of the hallway back to your room reminded you of the state that of chaos that you had left Mat in.

You nervously chewed at the inside of your cheek before you took a final deep breath and pushed the door open.

Mat seemed like a shell of himself as he had the baby cam in his hand as he replayed the footage of you humming some random rhyme as Tilly fell asleep “I never know how you do that with her.” Mat blurted out as you were always the one to save them when the kids woke up in the night.

It was a taken that Mat could never even fathom as he tried everything but most of the time their own tiredness would come back and bring them into a deep sleep.

Wanting to discard the towel you found one of Mats shirts that you had folded that morning so you put that on instead of your own clothes. You remained quiet as you brought the towel to the bathroom unaware of how Mat followed you “I don’t mean to always play good cop with them it’s just that I’m not always around in the season and-” Mat rambled on as he ran his fingers through his hair.

Now your guilt about lashing out at him came out “it’s fine babe.” You shook off his thoughts as you turned to face him “no it’s not.” It was clear that the hockey player wanted you and the kids around more than he got to see you “you’re their great mom and an even greater wife to me.” His hands wrapped around your neck as you hugged him.

Somehow that contact felt different to the one from thirty minutes ago. This time it was with love and care as he watched you smile when his lips pressed against your head “you deserve to be treated better than you are.” Mat had tried coming up with the lecture for James but he didn’t know how to do it without getting angry at his son.

Sure two years ago James was a total momma’s boy who refused to be with anyone who wasn’t you but Mat knew that if James spoke to him the way he had spoken to you, Mat would have lost it.

Maybe it sounded stupid but you had both gone through your insecure moments with the kids and you were now realising that “can we go to bed then?” You yawned finally wanting that sleep that you had waited so long for.

Mat laughed as he nodded “let’s go.” He watched as you pulled him out of the room back into your bedroom where your bed was a sight for sore eyes.

The next morning you woke up to the sound of giggles and Bluey blaring through the speakers of the tv downstairs. Mat wasn’t next to you so he had obviously woken up to spend time with the kids.

You yawned stretching out as you smiled to yourself letting your back comfortably rest on the mattress “momma?” A soft voice came from the door causing you to look up.

James stood there with his plushie that Tito had brought him back from Vancouver over the summer “hi J,” before you could say anything more your eldest was running into your room as he jumped onto your bed and quickly into your arms.

The sight warmed your heart “what is it my baby?” You cooed running your fingers through his hair “I love you,” James looked up at you with tears in his eyes causing you to frown.

Your finger wiped at his cheek “I love you so much love why are you crying?” You didn’t mean for your words to come out confused as you tried to soothe the boy.

James fiddled with your bracelet, a habit he picked up watching you do it when you were nervous “sorry I yell at you in room.” Your mom had told you that you were going to have moments where you knew you were a good parent and this felt like it was that.

You gave the boy a squeeze as you kissed the top of his head “I’m sorry too.” You mumbled with both you turning to the door as you heard someone walk up the stairs “you two got room for two more?” Mat asked as he pressed a kiss to Tilly’s cheek drawing a giggle from her lips.

The sight gave you so much joy as your heart felt full “always.”

#Mat Barzal imagines #Mat Barzal x reader #mat barzal oneshot #hockey imagines #hockey imagine #nhl oneshot #nhl imagine #hockey oneshot #imagines #oneshots #amber writes fics

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