boobookeys. yuyukeys. anyways updated yuki ref specifically for basegame to teal mask. i have to do three more for him for indigo disk forwards. sigh

hey guys it's me mr. oc x canon gay rivals with a little oc x canon gay rival compare/contrast for you. Long winded infodump incoming

by now you may be aware that hop and yasuta have known each other since they were like 8 years old. ever since they met the two of them have sort of just hung off of each other all the time like. hop's always just been a very physically affectionate person and yasuta latched onto him (quite literally) because he was a very anxious child and trusted hop as a sort of "anchor". so as they get older they continue kinda just being Like That yknow. and as they start developing feelings for each other they don't really... Realize? the line between platonic and romantic is just so blurred for them and the process happened so slowly and gradually neither of them realized. there is no very distinct "oh shit i think i'm in love with him" moment for either of them. like there was of course a realization for both of them but it was sort of just "oh wait huh. that makes sense" and they're both pretty comfortable with the idea of being in love with each other. like the realization perhaps isn't as nerve-wracking as you would think it might be. sure there's some nervousness in the form of "would anything change if i told him" (mostly on yasuta's part tbh) but the IDEA of loving the other feels very natural and like. i think the best way i can put it is that it doesn't feel foreign to them because of the way it was built up SO slowly over time and how they've always behaved around each other.

now on the flip side. yuki and kieran did not meet that long ago. by the end of mochi mayhem and after yuki's uh. Little Plan. it's been a couple of months. kieran obviously fell for yuki fast and hard but i think until end end of indigo disk it was largely infatuation. it gets Very real after ID though. and like... he Knows how he feels about yuki and is having a lot of trouble figuring out how to deal with it. obviously he doesn't wanna fuck up their friendship and figures yuki does not and never will feel the same. kieran doesn't even really feel like he deserves the second chance at friendship he got and the fact that he feels the way he does kinda scares him! he sort of bounces between moments of boldness in which he strongly tries to make gestures that imply how he feels and moments of getting really nervous and being like "what am i doing i have to stop before i scare him away he would never feel the same"

and yuki. So yuki i think did develop a little bit of a crush on kieran in teal mask but it was not like. on the same level of kieran's infatuation with him. and i also don't think he like... Realized he had even DEVELOPED that little crush in the first place. much like his brother before him he just goes "i feel a little differently about him than my other friends. how quaint!" and moves on without thinking about it further. weirdly enough i think it was during ID where those feelings started getting a lot stronger as his worry for kieran grew. and at somepoint between ID and MM he has a very distinct "i think i'm in love with him" moment.

so. that's the big thing i think. unlike hop and yasuta, yuki and kieran did not grow up together and sort of have time to grow into those feelings so that they didn't seem so scary. when yuki realizes this it is SCARY because it's such an unfamiliar thing and like. it also requires him to think about himself which he doesn't like doing. nevermind the fact that he was a disaster between ID and MM so this stacked on top of all of that did not do him any favors emotionally. but even after those other things are resolved it still makes him SOOO fucking nervous. i mentioned it earlier but it literally makes him so nervous he gets nauseous over it sometimes. and it's unusual because yuki is typically very headstrong and just Goes For Shit and nothing makes him this visibly nervous. but like i said this requires him to consider his own feelings and i do not think he likes that ❤️ this isn't even to mention that he is somehow FULLY UNAWARE OF THE FACT THAT KIERAN LIKES HIM AS WELL AS IF IT WASN'T THE MOST OBVIOUS THING ON PLANET FUCKING EARTH. he's still working on distancing himself from the idea that he's not a burden and deserves to live and feel and this whole situation is really putting that to the test i think

no context terastal heart spoilers

your terastal heart

So. by this point you may know that yasuta did arceus a favor in PL:A. long story short once he was sent home arceus sent jirachi to grant his deepest wish and it was just yoinked from his brain rather than giving him time to think about it. as a result yuki, who died very young, is alive again!

hey surprise i am alive and still drawing funny pictures Erm anyways. yeah the terapagos fight went a little differently in the floretverse so let me explain a little

HOWEVER! yuki's soul was never really resting. he sort of just followed yasuta around until becoming a phantump. he still followed him around just with a physical form now. eventually yasuta notices and opts to keep him around because this phantump is clearly attached but HE DOES NOT KNOW THIS THING IS HIS BROTHER. so imagine his surprise when jirachi grants his wish and his fucking phantump turns into his brother.

what's important to note about this is that yuki, to a degree, still has some lingering pokemon DNA. it's why he has those weird red pupils among other things. without going into depth it makes him a human sponge for terastal energy. the problem is only the pokemon part of him can handle it. the human part can't. if he absorbs too much it basically threatens to tear the pokemon half from the human half. it crystallizes him like how the AI professor does during the paradise protection protocol segment of their battle basically. it hurts, saps his energy, and could kill him if allowed to progress.

this is not to say he can't handle some terastal energy. he can! he can use the tera orb just fine, though touching it tingles a little. he can be around regular tera crystals and do tera raids fine. HOWEVER! area zero's crystals are dangerous for him and get even more dangerous the further down you go. needless to say the area where terapagos lies has terastal energy so strong he can feel it physically.

so. when terapagos emits its own uncontrollable energy and nearly hits kieran. And somebody else steps in. yeah things don't go super great. terapagos absorbing terastal energy and therefore interrupting the crystallization process repeatedly bought enough time to end the battle without yuki just fucking dying. so yeah there was a lot at stake here and kieran really DID need to step in. narratively it's about him seeing that yuki is not infallible and realizing they stand on equal ground but the symbolism isn't what i am explaining i just wanted to explain what is at stake

i need to do a followup of this explaining the emotional impact on the characters and the narrative purpose of it all but i felt it pertinent to give a rundown of what happens physically and WHY it's so dangerous. i have to explain the whole tera heart thing eventually too but yknow. that's also a symbolic thing

scarvio in my fucking head. have i ever talked about the yukieran kerchief thing here. i do not believe i have. time for evil

okay. so during the festival of masks yuki wore a kerchief which he does on the occasion to kinda like. keep his head with the damn flowers partially covered without having the hat on + to keep his hair back. sometimes he wants to feel a little more free you know. to feel the breeze through his hair. the hat is partially there to cover up part of him that he wants hidden and i like the idea of it coming off during the festival and him sorta letting loose a little bc it's the most comfortable he's felt being. Himself. for a while....... But. he's still not fully baring himself. hence him still wearing smth but it's like. Less than the hat right.

but yuo see........ he left it in kitakami by accident. and who found it but one kieran yamashita. and who Kept it and wears it around his wrist under the sleeve as some sort of reminder (a reminder of exactly what you may ask ? Great question it's multiple things and it depends on the day). he Does not know that yuki's been sending him letters. he does not know that one of them contained a friendship bracelet as he likes to do with all of his friends when he learns their favorite colors

my point here is is that the kerchief represents kieran's obsession + the fact that he's holding onto the false idea of yuki that he has (keep in mind that symbolically it's literally something yuki wears to hide "the truth" about himself). and he eventually gives it back to yuki after ID. and then he finally opens those Fuck Ass letters post ID he gets the bracelet. something something trading the obsession/false image for proper equal-footing friendship

yeah whatever who cares. yukieran

and now i talk about the way yuki presents himself and his emotions and how it ties into his relationship with kieran. Nightmare incoming

so when yuki speaks on his Not So Great past experiences to people i think he walks a very treacherous line bc there is an inherent emotional aspect to them and like. he has to share emotions sometimes for the sake of other people. the only time he's really willing to do to it is if he thinks it'll help someone else. for example he has to do it to show dahlia he understands her plight. he has to express to kieran how Not Fun things have been for him to a degree.

however! he fine-tunes the way he talks about it to make it as unspecific as he can i think. like he will acknowledge the existence of that guilt and such but not his very specific experience with it and personal thoughts. and he's pretty good at being avoidant about it in a way that makes it seem like he has it under control.

he just kind of hopes nobody thinks too hard about the implications and if they do he can skirt around it if they ask and make it sound like he's got it all together.

it's interesting because i think like. generally speaking he isn't great with words right. like when he is speaking candidly. but if you pay attention you notice when he talks about this kind of stuff, it sounds like he's speaking naturally until you remember HIS way of speaking naturally is kind of scattered. like this is all shit he has rehearsed in his head a million times and just managed to figure out how to intone himself to make it SOUND natural.

so tying into all of that. an important facet of kieran and yuki's dynamic before the ending of ID is that the yuki kieran is that kieran is idolizing is a very idealized version of yuki. like... he is Blinded by this idea of someone strong and kind who seems to go on all these crazy adventures that he's only ever dreamed of right. because he felt like that kind of fantasizing was the only thing he ever really had and now that he sees someone ACHIEVING that he's like. that needs to be me. and i feel i need to Prove to him that it CAN be me. but here's the thing right.

kieran (albeit in a very strange way) is only seeing what he WANTS to see here. he is not seeing what got yuki to this point. he is not seeing that that is NOT something you would ever want to go through. and while he should not be putting yuki on a pedestal the way that he does or behaving the way that he is by any means. it is not entirely his fault for not seeing just how bad it really is because yuki is a fucking professional at hiding the circumstances that got him to where he is and the feelings that come with it. he is excellent at maintaining the persona of a friendly, extroverted open-book type because to a degree... he is actually like that! he genuinely is very friendly and extroverted but the open book part isn't as simple. he's open until you start asking about. certain personal things. and the way he avoids it/plays it off makes it seem like he's made peace with it/has his feelings under control and just prefers not to discuss it for personal reasons when the truth is he Absolutely Fucking Does Not Have It Under Control. in floretverse canon it is essentially inevitable that if you are the kind of trainer like yasuta or yuki you have been and will be exposed to Horrors Unfit For The Human Experience. and kieran does not know this. the first idea he gets of it is after the terapagos battle in which yuki just like. makes frighteningly intense eye contact with him (keep in mind that this is also the first time kieran REALLY looked into his eyes) and basically goes "you do not want to be me i promise" and does not elaborate further. and that's when it starts to sink in that there is more that he doesn't know. because in all reality he hasn't known yuki that long and Couldn't know and it makes him feel terrible for being so naive about it.

not only does kieran feel terrible about being naive about yuki's situation and how he glorified it in his head but now that he's picking up on how. Off. yuki is because he's really paying attention now. He's Worried. and if anybody knows what it's like to avoid talking about something and will be able to spot it from a mile away even at its most well-hidden it is him. he's already seeing what yuki's doing. all he had to do was get out of his own head and look a little closer. interesting because he spent so much time trying to get into yuki's head before he kinda snapped out of it but the yuki he was trying to replicate sort of. Wasn't real. but the second he is not so blindsided by his own desires and this Idea Of Him that he's created…!

anyone want hypothetical ripley brothers battle themes. no. too bad this is my city. all music from other media i just think suits them bc i am Not a composer

so. yasuta's regular like. rival battle theme i suppose (picturing this as if you were actually playing as hop or ziggy) would be Cerebrum Dispersio (TBoI). his semifinals battle theme would be Armageddon (TBoI). themes of inevitably losing to your rival or whatever... erm

and yuki. so i have not figured out just a regular battle theme for him BUT...! i do have ones for the three phase fight against him at the end of ghost's reburial. So

phase 1: Throw Away Your Mask (P5R)

phase 2: Infanticide (TBoI)

phase 3: reprise of the koraidon/miraidon battle theme. yknow the one from the end of the main story against the AI professor