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elyvorg · 7 months

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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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whiskersz · 2 months

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I absolutely love your stuff (sent in a matchup and request already) and was wondering if you could do a Husk x reader who almost immediately after seeing him decides that he's their father now (he isn't) the reader is either in their late teens to early 20's and is pretty chaotic and clingy at the same time with them constantly wanting to be around their "father". Have a wonderful day/night!

Hello and thank you so much for appreciating my works! This request was adorable, I went with HCs because I’m a bit uninspired lately? But maybe I’ll add to it in the future :3

Father Figure! Husk x Reader - Platonic

♠ Husk never really thought of being a father, much less in literal Hell. During his life on earth he has always been a bit of a free-spirited individual, travelling from left to right, spending his days in bars and his youth performing magic for others. In Hell, his ‘life’ became a bit more stable, spent inside the Hazbin Hotel serving the residents at the bar, but he still didn’t consider himself a good example or somebody in the condition to care for another soul. So, when you came along and decided to see him out of all demons as a father figure, he was pretty surprised.

♠ Especially considering how different your two personalities are, with him being a grumpy and lazy old man and you being a pretty young and clingy individual, he thought that you two would never get along.

♠ On your first day at the Hotel though, you felt pretty out of place, and the moment he saw you struggling he felt pretty bad for you, so he decided to give you some advice to get along with the others out of the goodness of his heart.

♠ From that moment on, you two became inseparable. Now, you always want to be around your ‘father’, and find excuses to hang out with him at the bar even though he doesn’t allow you to drink alcoholic beverages. He found this a little annoying at first, but with time you and your behaviours grew on him, and he’s always got something non-alcoholic prepared for you on the side!

♠ He also got pretty used to your turbulent personality; if someone questions your behaviour, he'll reply with something along the lines of; "Heh, no need to worry. They're just being themselves."

♠ If you accidentally call him ‘dad’ in front of the others, they will poke fun at you a bit but ultimately think it would be adorable if he was actually your father. Meanwhile he’ll be too stunned to speak; he’ll probably give you a pat on the back and send you on your way, trying not to seem too happy about it, but he’ll be thinking about it all day.

♠ When he went after Angel Dust and came back at the Hotel all beat up, you were very worried for him, and refused to leave his side until all his wounds were completely healed; fortunately the healing process only took a couple hours as they weren’t serious wounds, but you still made him promise to take care of himself and to get into as little fights as possible. He begrudgingly did, giving you a pat on the head.

♠ You also looked out for each other a lot during the Extermination, with him trying to shield you from attacks with his wings and you watching his back while he was occupied fighting against a group of Angels.

♠ He really made sure to let you know how much he appreciates you before the fight, even though he’s not really the type to talk about his feelings. The affection you feel towards him moved him though, so he decided to let his pride aside for once.

#hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin x reader #x reader #husk x reader #husk hazbin hotel #husk x reader platonic #platonic #hazbin hotel husk #husk hazbin #hazbin hotel

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writing-blog-iguess · 18 days

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Online Matchup 9

Summery: Christmas has come and gone, but for y/n it couldn’t have gone fast enough. Y/N is going through some stuff, but so is Jason. That’s okay, they have each other.

Warning: angst, fluff, y/n is going through some stuff. So is Jason.

A/n: being left out from your siblings isn’t fun, 0/10 wouldn’t recommend. I know there are multiple versions of what happened to Jason, but I took this one from Batman: under the red hood. Even then, I there’s a chance I forgot or twisted a little.

And as always, feedback is always welcome!

Taglist: @teapartydreams

ao3 | Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

——————

Christmas

Opening your hotel room door, you dropped your bags once you stepped in, and stood there as the door closed behind you. Your Christmas was just as you expected it to be, and you aren’t surprised how it ended.

Rubbing your face with your hands a bit too hard, you wanted to sleep but you doubted you could.

Teeth, shower, clothes, bed. Teeth, shower, clothes, bed. Teeth, shower, clothes, bed. You repeated in your mind as you forced yourself to move.

Not that you wanted to do any of that, but needs must and all.

After grabbing your pj’s, you made your way to the bathroom and stared at the tub for a few minutes before making the decision of taking a bath instead.

While the tub was being filled, you brushed your teeth and other duties before stepping into the bath. You sank down, and let your mind wonder

Your morning had been fine, fun even. After breakfast, you all went to the living room to exchange presents. Since it was secret Santa, you had to guess who had who. It was fun, laughing at Ellie for thinking you had her when your brother did.

Afterwards, you played some card games before helping your mom with lunch. Everything was fine, it was fine. Until you walked past your sister's room and nasal something that wasn’t there before.

“When’d you get this?” you asked, stepping into the room to take a closer look at it. It was a model car, you weren’t sure what model though.

“Huh? Oh, Dad gave it to me,” Ellie answered, going back to her video game. “Everyone got one.”

“I didn’t,” you said, rubbing your nose.

“Thought you did.”

“Nope,” you said, turning around to find mom.

You shouldn’t have looked for her. Shouldn’t have asked why everyone got a present from dad.

Should have left well enough alone, but no you needed answers. And you got them, and a broken heart too.

Emerging from the water, you gasped for breath, taking in lungfuls of air. “Why does he have to be such an asshole sometimes?” you whispered to yourself. Not having an answer, you finished up your bath and crawled into bed.

Lying in bed, you curled onto your side and let the tears you’ve been holding all day go.

You were almost asleep when your phone made a sound. Scrubbing your face and reaching blindly for your phone. You let out a strangled noise when you read the name.

Why does he have such impeccable timing when it comes to your moods? Sometimes you wonder if he spies on you. But the thought is ridiculous and you shoo it away.

Jason (8:30pm)

Merry Christmas

Y/N

Merry Christmas

How was your day?

Jason

It wasn’t bad

There was a fight over which movie to watch

Popcorn was thrown

It was brutal

I think pillows were used too

Y/N

Sounds better then my day

The phone fell from your hands when it started ringing. Honestly you shouldn’t have been surprised.

Rubbing your eyes, you reached out and answered before it could go to voicemail. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he answered. There was silence for a minute before he started talking about his day.

“Honestly, you should have seen Dick’s face. He claims to be so graceful, but tripping over the couch, he never looked so offended. Like he thought the couch was just after him and no one else.”

You laughed, feeling the weight of the day ease from your chest as Jason continued to talk. And you knew what he was doing, distracting you from your day, and asking about once you feel better.

And the jerk, it’s working. So it was only a matter of time before you spilled the beans. And, to your surprise, you were okay with it.

“What’d he do? Fight the couch?” you asked once you stopped laughing.

“Wanted too, but Bruce shut that down,” Jason answered. “Not sure how you would even fight a couch though. It probably would look stupid.”

“I’m sure if anyone could figure it out, it’d be your brothers.”

“You’re probably right. Dick has hung from the chandelier a few times.”

“What? Why?”

“Don’t know and I’m not going to ask him for you,” Jason warned, though you could hear his smile.

“Booo.”

Silence fell when the conversation tampered off. “Do you want to talk about it?” Jason asked softly. You sighed and rolled onto your back, staring at the ceiling blankly. “Is it your dad?” he probed when you didn’t answer.

“Yeah. It was fine. Today was fine, everything was fine. But then I don’t know,” you said, covering your eyes with a hand that wasn’t holding the phone. “Why does he have to be such an asshole?”

“What did he do?”

“Nothing, at least I don’t think so. I don’t know… I discovered that he bought presents for my siblings. When I asked my mom about it, she said that he had said that she wanted them to have something to remember him by in case this was the last Christmas we would all have together.”

“But you didn’t get one,” Jason said, filling in what you didn’t say.

“Like was I such a horrible child growing up? Did I do something to him to make him hate me?” you asked, voice cracking as tears pooled in your eyes. “Is there something wrong with me?” you said, voice small.

“No,” Jason replied without thinking about it. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Whatever it is your dad is going through, or whatever it is, you are not to blame. You once told me that you and your dad don’t get along because you’re too similar. Maybe he sees himself in you and that’s why he is the way he is. But it’s not your fault.”

You were crying now and couldn’t stop the tears. You rolled over and hugged the pillow tightly. “It doesn’t hurt any less.”

“I know,” Jason whispered. “Life isn’t fair but we do what we can and be thankful for the people in our lives. And love them for who they are.”

“Speaking from experience?” you asked, sniffing.

“Yeah. Someone I know said that Bruce was trying, that I should let him. And I’m trying it’s slow going, but at least it’s going.”

“Sounds nice,” you mumbled sleepily. You had stopped crying, and wiped your eyes.

“It is,” he said. And he switched the topic, causing a small smile to creep on your face. You listened as he talked, and found that you liked his voice. And how lucky you were to have found him.

You fell asleep as Jason talked about everything and nothing.

Some hours later, you awoke to a knock. Startled slightly, you look around confusedly before remembering you were in a hotel room and not your apartment.

The knocking continued, and you turned towards the door, eyes narrowing as if you could see through the door.

For a second you thought about going back to sleep, but you didn’t want the front desk calling you about the unnecessary noise at three am.

Sighing, you rolled off the bed and dragged your feet towards the door and opened it. You stared dumbly at Jason as he stood there giving you a small smile.

“Why are you here?” you asked before your brain could find its filter.

“You sounded sad,” he said, taking a step forward. “And no one should be alone when they’re sad. And it’s Christmas, I thought you could use the company.”

You’re not sure if he’s standing in front of you or the emotional stress of the day or if it’s everything that started the tears. But you know you're not surprised that you do start crying.

You barely see the alarm look on his face before he has his arms wrapped around you in a hug, and you're clinging onto him like a lifeline.

“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he whispered, genty moving the two of you into the room. The door falls shut behind him, and he’s gently rocking you, arms tightening around you. “It’s okay, I’m here.”

After a while, when your tears have stopped, you take a deep shuddering breath. “Feeling better?” Jason asked, rubbing your back. You shrugged, and buried your face further into his jacket.

“I need to stop crying on you,” you muttered, feeling him laugh though you smiled.

“I don’t mind,” he said, hugging you tightly. “Nice to know that you feel safe enough to let yourself cry when you're with me.”

“I always feel safe when I’m with you,” you said without hesitation. “Did you drive all the way here?” you asked after a minute.

“Can neither confirm nor deny that,” he answered. You moved back slightly to look at him. He gave you a smile and turned you around to push you into the bathroom. “Go wash up, and let’s go to bed. We can talk once you feel a little better.”

You hummed ready to argue, but you shook your head and did what he suggested. After washing your face, you took a minute to yourself, finding that you did feel better after crying.

Taking a deep breath, you left the bathroom to find Jason sitting on the bed, changed in pjs. “Seriously, did you just ditch your family just to comfort me?”

“Like I said,” he started, reaching over to grab you by the hips and pulled you towards him. Immediately, you wrapped your arms around his head, running a hand through his hair. Jason wrapped your waist and closed his eyes at the feeling of nails lightly scratching his head. “I’ll always ditch my family for you. Doesn’t matter where you are, you can count on me being there.”

“Saying things like that might get you a kiss,” you teased. Jason hummed, and tipped himself backwards onto the bed, bringing you with.

“Yeah, but I’m okay with waiting. Besides I’m tired, I don't think I have the energy to kiss you. Because if I do, I don’t think I’ll stop.”

“Fair enough,” you mumbled, moving around until you were laying on his chest with his arms around you. A comfortable silence feels between you as you let the sound of Jason’s heartbeat lull you to sleep.

“I’m glad you're here,” you mumbled just before falling into a deep sleep.

“Me too,” he whispered, placing a kiss on the top of your head before falling asleep.

You’re jarred awake a few hours later, though it only feels like a few minutes. You blink slowly, trying to figure out what has woken you up.

Eyes roaming around the room, you tried to find out what woke you up. When nothing jumped out, you closed your eyes and snuggled into the blanket. But that’s when you heard it. A pained groan came from behind you.

Sitting up, you turned to see Jason tangled up in the blanket, face twisted in pain. You reached out to wake him, but froze at the idea. You weren’t sure what would happen if you woke him up, if it was a good idea or not.

But Jason was in pain and that was worse than any night terror. Besides, what’s the worst he could do? Elbow you? Not really worried about the outcome, you reached out and shook him awake. “Jason?”

Evidently, being on your back with his hands snaked around your throat was not what you expected. To say you were surprised would be an understatement.

You don't know how it happened. One minute you're kneeling on the bed shaking Jason awake, the next, he tackled you onto the bed, win your airways restricted.

"Jason," you choked out, but he was not responding. And you can see it in his eyes that he was in a different place than here. You wondered where, but right now you can't question it. "Jason, please. It's me," you managed to get out only for his grip to tighten.

You're starting to panic slightly, afraid this might have lasting damage if you don't do something. Trying not to let the panic over take your thoughts you wiggle out one of your legs that's pinged underneath Jason’s legs.

"S...sorry," you choked out before kneeing him in the balls. Not hard enough so hurt, but enough that his grip on you loosened. With that, you plant your foot on his chest and push him off you. Shoving him until he’s off of the bed.

You roll away and onto to floor gasping for breath, only turning around when Jason calls your name

"I.. I don't know what happened,” Jason said, staring at you in disbelief. He took a step towards you and you couldn't help but flinch at the movement. Hurt crossed his features before he sealed that away. And your heart lurched at that. Like you were the one who had hurt him. And maybe you had.

"Right. Um, I need a minute alone," he said and all but ran out of the room.

At a loss of what to do, you just sit there on the floor, rubbing at your sone neck.

Half an hour into his sulking, he hears the door to the roof access open. He doesn’t have to turn around to know that it’s you, so he tracks your movement by listening to your feet crunching on the fresh snow.

He’s a little annoyed that you found him so fast, but pushes the feeling away. You had given him time for him to be alone. But not too much that he knows if he had, he’ll spiral into self deprecation.

His shoulders tense when you stand behind him, and relax when you drape his jacket onto his shoulders. You don’t touch him, and he can’t tell if he’s relieved by that or longing for you to. Maybe both, but he won’t voice it.

He watches from the corner of his eye as you turn to lean against the ledge of the roof he’s sitting on. You're not standing too close and facing the other way, a thoughtful expression on your face. Like you’re trying to solve world peace.

He spots the scarf around your neck, and something twinges inside of him. He knows what’s underneath because he’s the one who put those bruises there.

He shifts his eyes towards the horizon, and shuffles a little closer to you, you don’t mention it. For a few minutes, silence surrounds both of you, while Jason tries to figure out a way to say he’s sorry.

“Wanna talk about it?” you asked, breaking the silence first. Jason shrugged and he could see you studying him from the corner of your eye. He keeps his face neutral, or tries too at least. He’s tired and he’s done hiding.

“Kind of,” he answered, “but I don’t know…”

“How? Like the words are there but they get stuck?” you finished for him when he trailed off.

“Yeah.”

Silence falls, and the only things Jason can hear are the early morning commuters and your breathing as you take a deep breath.

“Then tell the moon,” you say after a while. Jason turned to look at you with raised eyebrows. “What?”

“You want me to tell the moon?” he asked, and you could only shrug. “It’s nearing sunrise, Y/N.”

“Exactly,” you said, turning to look at him with a small smile. “Tell the moon as it’s going down. That way it can carry your secrets away.”

“Why?”

Jason watches as your cheek colour, and you turn to look away. “I had a friend once, and we told each other everything. Sometimes, when it got too much for either of us and we didn’t want to know what the other was thinking. So we would turn off the lights and tell our secrets in the dark. There was no judgment from either of us, no arguments. Just the space between us and our secrets.”

Silence settles again, as he mulls over your words. After a time, he nods. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, let’s give it a shot,” he said with a smile, which you return. Before he could start, you sat down and shuffled a little so you were sitting behind Jason.

Hugging your knees to your chest, you ignored the cold snow seeping into your clothes, you leaned your head back onto his backside and waited.

You felt his laugh more than heard it, and your heart warmed at the sound. “Whenever you’re ready.”

He didn’t talk right away, and you didn’t push. Knowing that this was probably something heavy and needed to find the right words. So you watched the sky in front of you. Watched it change colours, and marveled at how something you see everyday can be this breathtaking.

You're in the middle of studying the colours of the sky when Jason finally talks.

“When I was fifteen, I was in an accident,” he starts with, but the way he said accident made you think it was anything but. But you don’t press, not now, not when he’s finally opening up. “The building I was in blew up with me in it. No one made it in time to save me, and I was…stuck I guess. So I couldn’t have left either.”

You sucked in a breath as you imagined a fifteen year old Jason, scared and alone. Fire surrounded him, as he lay motionless in the middle of it. It was not a pleasing picture, and you closed your eyes to fight it off.

Jason leaned back putting a little weight onto your head, and it brought a little comfort. Knowing that he was here and alive.

“I’m not sure about the details after but…I’m pretty sure I died.”

“Then how?” you whispered before you could stop the words passing through your lips.

“Have you ever heard of the Lazarus pit?” You shook your head and could feel the shaky breath that went through Jason. “Basically it brings people back from the dead. The leader of League of Assassins uses it to heal his wounds and stays practically immortal. They had gotten a hold of my body and brought me back.”

“But not without consequences,” you mumbled when the silence got too loud.

“Yeah. When I woke up, I had this need to spill blood. Didn’t matter who it was, good or bad, I just wanted to hurt them. Kill them even. So I stayed there and they helped me control it. But there are days where it gets bad that I’m too afraid to leave the apartment.”

“How long were you there?”

“A few years. Five at the most I think,” he answered, “I came back when I realized that Bruce thought I was still dead. I didn’t take it well, neither did he.”

“I take it that’s why you have such a strained relationship with him?” you guessed. Jason hummed but didn’t elaborate and you didn’t push.

Silence blanketed the two of you as he left you alone to process everything. But there was something more to the story, something that would tie all this up. The reason why everything that had happened, happened. But you didn’t push, sensing that he wasn’t ready to say. So you promised to wait until he was.

“I won’t ever hurt you,” Jason voiced, bringing you out of your thoughts. “I promise, I’ll never hurt you again,” he vowed and you unconsciously brought a hand to your neck and tried not to wince.

“What happened last night shouldn’t have happened. I am so sorry for hurting you. But I promise I won’t hurt you ever again.” You could hear the unasked question in his promise.

Do you still trust me?

“I know.”

Yes, you answered, without a doubt.

And as if to prove it, you shifted over and heaved yourself onto the ledge beside him. You wrapped an arm around his, and rested your head on his shoulder. After a moment, he rested his head on yours. A silent comfort for the two of you.

And the two of you sat there in the cold, as one watched the moon sink, and the other watched the sun rise. And a heavy secret that sat between the two of you.

#jason todd x reader #jason todd gn!reader #online match up #jason todd #batman imagine #my writing #jason todd imagine

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crystalelemental · 7 months

Text

Character Analysis - Carmine and Kieran

I have been trying to write something on this for the majority of the week and haven't been able to organize it in a way I like. So this will not be coherent, but since I've had my second go through the DLC story, I have...a lot more to say on Carmine and Kieran.

Seeking Strength Kieran's big focus by the end is on not being strong enough, and needing to become stronger than you. I think it's largely accepted that this is to defeat you, that he has it out for the protagonist. I disagree.

Consider why strength is important, and when it became clear. The first time Kieran mentions strength, it's in front of the ogre's cave. He talks about wanting to battle, thinking maybe that could impress the ogre. And he loses. Which is whatever, the ogre didn't show. But then it does. To you, and to his sister, but not to him. Internally, the connection is clear: the ogre doesn't trust me, because it sees me as weak.

This goes back even further, though. Think about your introduction to him. Carmine battles you to kick you out, and you win. Carmine's response here is interesting. She comments on everything, and actively makes fun of you if you use a not very effective attack, snarking that you must not know your type matchups after all. She oozes confidence and control, to excess. But when she loses, there's a bit of a fist shake, but rather than anger, she turns away and looks...sad. Losing upsets her, and while she bounces back, that moment suggests a deeper vulnerability and need to seem strong.

And to Kieran, she does. She's constantly in control, and by and large, he seems to follow her pace. If she asks him to do something, and by asks I mean tells, he generally follows through. And he saw someone beat her. There's someone stronger than his sister now. And that's interesting. I think there's a lot more to it, but I'll save that for a later section. For now, the point is, Kieran's always been focused on strength, because he admires Carmine's strength, and wants to be more like that.

I think this recontextualizes your final fight a bit, too. Carmine tells Kieran that he can't make Ogerpon go with him, she has her own will to choose. Kieran still insists he needs this battle, and it seems like the perception of this is "he's ignoring it." But I don't think he is. At this point, he's lost multiple times, each time thinking it's his lack of strength that resulted in him not getting what he wanted. It was, at first, to meet and befriend the ogre. And yeah, he'd still like to. He's still trying, given the stipulations of the fight. But he's also fighting for his sense of self-worth. He feels he's not strong enough, and that lack of strength is holding him back. He's seen his sister lose twice now, yet she's still confident. But he lost, and feels like he's losing more of what little he had to start with.

Belonging and Isolation Carmine's hostility toward outsiders is, as expressed, a matter of feeling like her hometown is becoming a tourist trap. I think what often gets missed in this is that Carmine herself is...fairly traditional. She cares about the customs of the village, the sanctity of the crystal pool, and the prominence of the Loyal Three. She even remarks that obviously she likes the three better, Kieran just likes the ogre because he's a ten year old boy and they're always into weird monster things. She considers integration with the village something important, and deep down, cares about it as a whole.

That's not to say she gets along with everyone. The Caretaker seems more than happy to make the conversion if it helps the town thrive, and Carmine actively disagrees with that. Her hostility is clear to us, and she makes her reason known, but it's not clear how much the villagers seem to understand this. They tend to treat Carmine's responses as part of an attitude problem, more than anything. The Caretaker is pre-emptive in calling out Carmine to get along with everyone. They know she's not happy about it, but expect her to just deal with it, and kinda treat her like they expect problems. Calling them the "Lousy Three" gets an almost exasperated comment about her attitude and a correction, like they fully expect her to be this way, and don't consider the why behind it.

By contrast, Kieran...successfully talks them into abandoning their ancient beliefs and understanding of the past in the course of a single afternoon.

For all the emphasis on Kieran seeming lonely, and I do believe he himself feels that way, Kieran...seems pretty well accepted by people. Think about how significant it is that they're willing to listen to him, with such seriousness, that they'll believe him when he says their understanding of history is wrong.

I think this plays into an interesting dichotomy with the siblings. On the one hand, Kieran is pretty well accepted, but genuinely lonely. On the other, Carmine seems perfectly fine being by herself, and doesn't seem to interface well with the others. But when you look at what they want? Kieran doesn't seem to care that he runs contrary to everything the village stands for. The ogre is cool, he likes that best, and sees little of interest or value in the three. He doesn't really care to integrate with the village. But Carmine does care, and isn't successful at it. By all accounts, she doesn't seem to have friends either. But when a new kid rolls in, and her brother takes an interest in them, she still focuses on him first.

Justice and Fairness Carmine is, at her core, pretty focused on what's right. Despite being more aligned with tradition in her village, when her grandfather reveals the truth, she's immediately furious on Ogerpon's behalf. She has no reservations about telling the rest of the village, until he appeals to her sense of reason, and she understands where the concern might be.

Carmine's reactive, but she's not a fool. She's pretty grounded, but in that way where I think it causes her to miss some things and seem unconcerned with feelings. But she does care about how people feel; quite a bit, really. When Kieran tries to give his ogre mask to you, Carmine intervenes and tells him not to. That's his favorite mask, and he shouldn't have to go without. Besides, practically speaking, we just buy the new kid a mask they like at the festival. It's pragmatic. But it also misses that Kieran was okay with sharing his mask for his friend. She cares about his feelings, enough to worry about him giving up something he cares about. But it's in a more...avoidant sense. More on that later.

By contrast, Kieran seems focused more on fairness. It doesn't matter the reason or intent, you left him out of what you knew. You didn't tell him about the ogre. You ran off with Carmine and pushed him aside, and that's not fair. He was your friend first, and he cared about the ogre first, and it isn't fair that suddenly that all doesn't matter. In that sense, he's very emotional, but doesn't really consider the rational cause of things. It's all about how he feels. This runs very counter to how Carmine is, being very emotional, but focusing more on the practical reason than how she's feeling.

I think you can also see this in how they express themselves. Kieran has no trouble opening up the instant you're on your own with him. He'll tell you all about how he thinks the ogre is cool, and that he was only scared of getting yelled at for going to the mountain. But Carmine legitimately struggles with it. She has a tough time being honest with people, and her sense of what being mean to someone is, boils down to "I didn't hit him." It's as if she doesn't really understand that her words can hurt people, or perhaps why someone would be hurt by them. The idea of "What you're saying was rude" is secondary to the practical outcome. If it's true, it doesn't matter how I say it. If it's what has to happen, it doesn't matter that it comes out as "Kiki, get out of here." Her mentality seems to be that she knows best, and is going to act on that, and there's no reason for people to be upset with her if she's right.

Sibling's Bond In one of the earliest scenes, we get a very good sense for the dynamic the siblings have. Kieran has taken an interest in the player, but barely speaks to them, turning his face away and not even listening to them. Carmine intervenes by explaining what he's thinking and asking for you to battle on his behalf. Kieran shies away, Carmine takes control, and Kieran is more than willing to cede that control to her. In this situation, it works out, as he gets to spend time with a new friend. It is the first, and only, time this dynamic works in their favor.

Every other instance of this particular dynamic coming into play hurts more than helps. When Carmine interrupts you talking about the ogre, and insists Kieran not find out, that's her assuming control like usual. Same with telling him to just leave the next morning. Kieran shies away from staying to help with the mask quest, rather than confront that someone else gets along better with Ogerpon. This is a dynamic they've had for a long while, and there is evidence to prove it.

"I hate when he gets like this." Carmine's clearly annoyed, but the phrasing evokes the sense that this isn't just something that happened before, it's happened often. And she's not happy about it. Kieran running off crying is the only time she really expresses anything truly negative about her brother, and it's telling of what she herself can't handle.

If Kieran's crying, it's because something's bothered him, and as the one who takes care of him, that feels like it's her fault. I talked about how Carmine is integrated with the beliefs of the village, if not its people, but there's a bit more to it. Carmine's generally apathetic about whether people like her, she's more concerned with being right, and doing right. Carmine cares about being a good person. And if her brother's throwing a fit, it's putting her in the position of the bad guy, and criticisms about being nice to him evoke an outrage. "It's not like I hit him" isn't just telling of her lack of awareness for how her words come across, it's indignation that her grandfather is implying she's at fault. Kieran crying is the one thing that she cannot tolerate.

And for Kieran, that makes it a very effective play. Because I keep going, I need to be clear: I am not saying Kieran is being manipulative. He's like ten, and highly emotional. He's not sitting around thinking that if he just cries, Carmine will do whatever he wants. He's just having an emotion, and Carmine has a reaction. It's the dynamic that turns this into a recurring feature of their relationship.

The behavioral term is Negative Reinforcement: an outcome that increases the chance of the behavior occurring in the future, by removing an aversive stimulus. When Kieran wants something, and it doesn't happen, he'll get emotional and cry. Carmine, feeling guilty or responsible, folds to make him stop. The initial aversive - not getting what he wants - is removed as a consequence of his crying, making it more likely to occur again. But the same is true for Carmine. She cannot stand that crying, so when she gives in, the crying stops, reinforcing capitulation.

It's a situation where neither is really at fault. They're both kids, and have that sibling dynamic. Older siblings take care of the younger ones. When you have an older sibling who feels responsible for the wellbeing of the younger, and cares deeply about taking care of them without knowing the difference between "helping them do it" and "doing it for them," you get Carmine. When you have a younger sibling who is particularly emotional and withdrawn alongside them, you get Kieran.

And the DLC is the breakdown of this dynamic.

Another really fun behavioral term: Extinction Burst. Extinction refers to when reinforcement is removed as a consequence of a behavior. Effectively, you decouple the behavior and what typically happens. An extinction burst is the oft emotional blowup that comes as a result of a behavior no longer meeting its typical, expected reinforcer. Think about when your computer won't turn on. How many times mashing the button does it take before you check the power cord? Do you stay calm during that or start cursing it out, maybe worrying that something's broken and desperately hoping it turns on if you just hit it right, or hold it long enough? That's the extinction burst in play.

That's what's going on with Kieran. He's finding his independence, but as part of that, he's learning what it means to have it. Sometimes things don't go your way, and you have to live with that. Even crying won't get the situation to change now, and he...hasn't figured out what else to do. Unintentionally, by handling things for him, Carmine's left him in a situation where he's unequipped to manage circumstance. All he can think is pushing for strength, and battling you over and over and over in hopes that this time, he'll win.

By contrast, Carmine's doing...really well. She adapts well, makes quick friends with the player as well, assumes a sort of leadership role in the quest, and demonstrates the reality that for all her bluster, she does care and is fairly well adjusted. She's had the experience to manage frustrations and setbacks, even if they're difficult, to the point that by the end of your last battle, she can earnestly smile and congratulate you. Her dynamic with you is thriving. And, for a while, your dynamic with Kieran was too, before his perception of inadequacy interferes. It's sad but worth noting: the happiest we see either of them is when they're away from each other.

I don't have any profound thoughts beyond this, nor guesses to how Indigo Disk might play out. But I think it's interesting how they managed to create a story with a compelling conflict, where these is no true "bad guy." I was initially kinda down on the DLC, I felt like the legendary stuff was kinda bland. But I've really come around on these two, and look forward to the next part.

#pokemon #carmine #kieran #teal mask #pokemon scarlet and violet

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cyber-celeste · 1 year

Text

All Twst Characters with a S/O who likes J-fashion

A/N:

Um hi i know i havent been active like at all for a few months especially right after i started matchups but a lot of things have been going on in my personal life such as me recovering from anorexia and self harm at the same time not to mention my home life is super shitty so i hope i can get back on schedule and ill update some stuff

Warnings : i am not the most knowledgable on j-fashion but it has been my special interest since i was 7, i use different j fashions for each dorm,Fem reader, maybe mischaracterization, no sebek

Heartslabyul(Yami)

Yami kawaii, translating to sickly cute, takes doctors equipment, stuff used by the mentally ill, and cute clothes to promote mental health awareness in japan.

Riddle Rosehearts

Riddle doesn’t seem to be very interested in fashion at all so seeing you at first it might confuse him

Before he overblots he may not understand or even accept the style but after he will be at least interested in it

When figuring what yami kawaii is about he is very intrigued he doesnt understand that most fashion trends/styles have true and nice meanings such as bringing awareness to mental health

He doesnt really understand why someone would dress outwardly “different” but that doesnt mean he doesnt think it looks good

He’ll get you little gifts of accessories, shoes, skirts, dresses, etc on random occasions

Trey Clover

Trey may be a little caught off guard when he first sees the fashion but he doesnt think anything bad about it

He really likes that it promotes mental health awareness but he was super concerned at first without knowing that

He’ll help you dye your hair

Trey doesn’t really see anything wrong with dressing in what makes you happy

If anyone makes fun of you or stares he’ll defend you in any situation

Overall 8/10 nice guy

Cater Diamond

Cater is surprised like everyone else yet he is excited to talk to you about it more

He might even try out Yami Kawaii with you for magicam or just for fun

He makes you do OOTD for his magiciam

He defends you in comments dream man am i right

He’ll, for a special occasion, buy you like tons of Yami kawaii clothes

Deuce Spade

He doesn’t really mind different styles unless it hurts yourself or others

Deuce gets super scared if you use like nooses, bandages or fake blood/scaring in coords

He doesnt really love fashion all that much, he probably just wears whatever is most comfortable, but he likes seeing your outfits a lot

Deuce is super protective in general since you are the first person to just treat him normally so if anyone made fun of your outfit in anyway he’ll confront them

He likes showing you off to his mom in a ton of ways not just for your appearance

Ace Trappola

He called you emo the first time he saw a coord

Seriously i dont think he cares at all like anyone can wear what they want so why does that stop when you wear something different?

He does tease you though

Any time you dress up for a date, for school, or any other event where you can dress up expect him to be teasing you the whole way

Savannaclaw (Gyaru)

Gyaru was started in the early 2000s as a movement against japans beauty standard on women, they instead of staying pale and modest tanned and wore all the less modest and bright clothes they wanted! Styles like mamba and ganguro were started by girls who liked the movement while a style, kogal, was started by rich highschool girls who could do whatever they wanted.

Leona Kingscholar

I know i keep saying this but leona does not give a shit what you wear

He does admire the effort you put into your appearance everyday, plus your a girl so he already has a ton of respect for you

If you are more a extreme style gal he may think its a little bit of an eye sore but he still thinks its good that you can express yourself despite others opinions

If you have a more toned down style then he may not even expect you were a gyaru (if he even knows what that is 💀) probably just thought you were some popular girl but doesnt even say anything

No matter what ever substyle you aren’t gonna be bullied, teased or even have anything some what bad said about you ever.

Ruggie Bucchi

He thinks you spend to much money on it you should spend that much on him

He doesnt care about aesthetics or fashion he just wears what he can buy or what is most efficient

He does think that the effort you pit in everyday is admirable

Jack Howl

Wow yet again someone who does care about fashion

He finds it pretty inefficient for PE or any physical work at all

Thats why he helps you with all that!

He’s interested in how it started and less about the actual makeup and outfit part of about it, but that doesnt mean he doesnt care about it.

Octavinelle (mori kei)

Mori kei tends to keep a more natural and forest like color Palette, the style focuses on layers and they try to add as many layer they can!!

Azul Ashengrotto

Azul cares about looking elegant so people take him seriously but seeing you dress like earthy pretty girl it really makes him feel… a little jealous… he’s not as confident as you but he does feel happy for you.

He loves showing you off at school or to clients

He will take silly little photos for you in front of random ass plants or trees

Your lucky to have a boyfriend that also has 2 6 foot bodyguards willing to protect you also

Jade Leech

He loves you so much

All the forest themed outfits remind him of his terrariums

He’ll go on hikes with you to take photos of your coords

He’ll buy you a little mushroom dress or shirt

Floyd Leech

He cares about shoes and thats about it

If you wear something with mushrooms he’ll act a little disgusted ngl

He doesnt care about what you wear he cares more about what you are like as a person

Scarabia (cult party kei)

Cult party kei usually consists of white and accents of red to resemble purity and slight signs of evil

Kalim Al-Asim

Expect tons of clothes

I means tons of clothes, hes rich as hell and will fund all your hobbies and interests

Hes very sweet about your fashion he likes to show you off and just loves talking to you about cult party kei

He helps you with coords all the time

Jamil Viper

He doesnt care about what you wear 💀

Nah seriously he cares about how you act more than how you look cuz hes a decent human

He does think your style is cute, maybe a little risky for going outside with all that white, but he likes all the flowly dresses

Piomefiore (kawaii)

Kawaii fashion is about wearing what truly makes you happy which in their case is bright pastel colors and, as some would say, childish clothes.

Vil Schoenheit

He is a little taken aback at first… he’s seen the style, not a lot, and he doesn’t know how to feel about it.

I mean he obviously warms up to it, he even thinks its adorable.

He loves helping you with makeup and coords.

He shows you off on magicam and isnt afraid to admit you two are in a relationship

Rook Hunt

Rook is insufferable with all his comments

He is too nice

Both in french and english he tells you how pretty and cute you are on the daily

He knows like every brand you wear and recommends you 10 more totally not bc he stalks you

Epel Felmier

You guys are like kind of the opposite

You being very cute and wanting to be cute and him being very… not as manly physically… and wanting to be manly instead of cute

He likes you dressing really feminine and cute because it makes him look more manly

Ignihyde (Visual Kei)

Visual kei is all about shock, the whole point of it is to shock the beauty standard, these people will wear dark clothes and big face paint that almost looks like corpse paint.

Idia Shroud

Idia loves visual kei tbh but having a S/O who likes visual kei??? Hes actually dying on the floor currently

Bro is confused how he got someone so cool to like him

He likes all the makeup he’ll even let you put it on him

He loves how you look and would show you off if he wanted to go outside

Diasomnia (Decora kei)

Decora kei is all about decorating your body a lot.

Malleus Draconia

Malleus isn’t used to many things in recent times even decora which came about a while ago

He does like the style on you, it makes you stand out and look very unique

He’ll let you put little hair clips in his hair and he’ll wear them all around

He doesn’t mind anything you wear because you truly have been the sweetest to him in all the school (maybe besides Diasomnia)

Lilia Vanrouge

Lilia knows what decora kei is

He likes j-fashion i dont make the rules

He’ll help you dress up and help with any acessories you cant reach or simply dont want to do

A good 8/10 great war criminal bf

Silver

Silver doesnt really care what you wear i mean its not really his place to say anything about it whether he likes it or not

That saying he loves decora and compliments you all the time

He may think it would be uncomfortable but if it makes you happy he wont stop you

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betrayalbracket · 1 year

Text

Welcome, one and all, to the very probably third or fourth ever betrayal bracket!

What is this bracket for, you ask? Simple! We're collecting all of the top 10 32? 48? 64? anime anything betrayals, and then pitting them against each other! All of your favorites. All of your least favorites. Love that guy? Send them in. Hate their guts? Great! Send them in anyways! However, before we get started, of course, we have to cover:

What counts as a betrayal?

A betrayal is, roughly speaking, any time a character acts against another character they claim to be allied with. A betrayal must be willful and conscious to count- if a character is under effects of mind control, being possessed, etc, they are not betraying anyone they act against. However, characters who have been manipulated into acting against their close ones do, for the sake of this bracket, still count- It is still them acting against their friends.

A character needn't be a villain to betray someone! If a hero or a protagonist infiltrates a villain group, pretends to be one of them, and takes them down from the inside, that is still a betrayal. Heroes can betray villains, villains can betray heroes, villains can betray villains, and heroes can betray heroes. Nothing is off the table here. Except, of course, for things that are off the table.

So what is off the table, then?

Any real people. This means the guy who scammed you on Animal Jam, the guy who said they would trim your armor on Runescape, any and all politicians, so on and so forth.

1a. If they're funny, I might consider it. What's funny? What's not funny? We'll see. As an example, though, I might be inclined to include, say, Brutus, of stabbing Caesar fame.

2. Spamming submissions. Just... don't. If you do, I'll steal your porch, ㅤokay?

3. Please, please, PLEASE when you're submitting someone, explain ㅤhow they have betrayed their allies. I live under a rock, so I most ㅤ ㅤlikely don't know. Yes, even that one. Yes, even the obvious ones. ㅤYes, even ones that are in my header. Thank you!

4. That's it! I might limit submissions from a single source if one ㅤㅤ ㅤsource has too many submissions, but for now I simply want to see ㅤwhat we can get!

How will the matchups be determined?

Great question! Matchups will be seeded by the amount of submissions each character gets. The characters with the most submissions will be pitted against those with the least submissions during round 1. This means that the first few rounds will largely be landslide victories, and not very suspenseful. However, it wouldn't be nearly as fun if Reigen vs Sans had been the first poll of the sexyman bracket, would it? We want the real competitions to come later, that's where all the suspense comes in handy!

Wow! What a fun bracket! How can I submit someone!

You can't!

Submissions are now closed. Thank you

Did anyone inspire this bracket?

Oh, absolutely! Our inspirations will be shown under the cut!

@time-traveler-tourney @mad-scientist-showdown @ultimatepinkboy @epicdivorcemantournament @they-are-so-gender @sleepsmackdown @affablyevilshowdown @yellowcharactershowdown @tricksterswagtournament @he-would-not-fucking-say-that @orangecharactersmackdown @autismswagsummit @evilfoundfamilytournament @tournament-winners-tournament @best-support-character @dragon-tournament @babygirl-beatdown @fictional-malewife-tournament @haterbracket@ultimate-tragic-couples-showdown @frogsbrackets @ultimate-rat-bracket @plural-swag-competition @pink-character-tournament @best-train-conductor-competition @servescuntcompetition @artificialkids-2k23-official @battleofthebandstournament @ponysongbracket @bestfictionaldivorce @stachebracket (We have a lot of inspirations, hope that's alright!

#tumblr bracket #tumblr poll #tumblr tournament #betrayal #betrayal bracket #betrayal tournament #tournaments #tournament #brackets #bracket #info

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shxtodxroki · 1 year

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𝙷𝚢𝚙𝚘𝚌𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚎

Send me the name of your favorite character and I’ll write a drabble for them! :)

“Tenya, you really should set the books aside and lay down for the night. It’s past 11, and you’re always telling me how important proper rest is.” You gently spoke to the visibly exhausted man in front of you, watching his shoulders sag in an uncharacteristic mix of exhaustion and stress as he turned to face you.

“I know, I’m being quite the hypocrite right now. But I need to study for tomorrow’s exam.” He responded, pinching the bridge of his nose as you slowly made your way over to where he sat at his desk. “Usually I understand our course materials so easily, but I haven’t had the time to study as much recently with all that’s been happening with these wretched villains, so I don’t understand the material nearly as well as I typically do.”

Your hands gently rested on the boy’s shoulders as you finally reached him, tenderly massaging his shoulders in an attempt to ease his stressed mind. You used one hand to reach across his desk and slowly push the book he was using to study closed, a sigh of resignation leaving Tenya’s mouth as he gave in to your pleas to relax and turned around, nearly collapsing in your arms as you hugged one another tightly.

“Tenya, you’ll do amazing on this test. You always do, and you’ve been studying the material for hours. I have faith in you.” You reassured your companion, rubbing your fingers along his back and tracing light shapes into his skin to soothe him. He was quickly giving in to the sense of relaxation and comfort you brought him, following you without a word when you pulled back just enough to lead him by his hand to his bed.

“You really shouldn’t be in here, you know.” The boy spoke as he laid down in his bed, you immediately making your way in beside him. Despite his words, you knew he’d never ask you to leave at this hour. “Aizawa doesn’t like it when we don’t stay in our own dorms at night.” Nonetheless, Tenya found himself curling his head into your chest, eyes drifting shut as you ran your hands through his hair.

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, at least every once in a while.” You retorted, though your comment had no bite as you watched the boy beside you quickly drift off. You swiftly pulled his glasses off of his face to protect them from getting crushed between the two of you, setting them down on his nightstand and turning out the lamp that had been the room’s sole source of light at this late hour before allowing yourself to succumb to your own sleepiness, wrapping your arms around Tenya’s head gently as the two of you fell into slumber together.

Request - @lemonadae-caekie said: I know I already sent a Matchup, but I saw that you where looking for ask drabbles so how about me and my favorite character Iida Tenya?

A/N: First drabble done! :D I haven’t gotten a chance to write for Iida yet so I was really glad to see this request hehe, it was a lot of fun! I’ve had the energy to put out more writing lately (probably because I’m finally catching up on the show, I’m about halfway through what we have of season 6 as of now) so I hope you guys are enjoying what I’ve been putting out, feel free to send in a request if you have any and thanks for reading! :]

Taglist: @pasteldaze @lady-juliette

If you’d like to be added to any of my taglists, you can fill out this form here! Thank you for your support <3

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merbear25 · 1 month

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Matchup trade for @karusenka

Thank you for suggesting doing a trade! It's been a lot of fun chatting with you too. I hope you like your matchup 💜

I match you with...

Killer

I was actually leaning towards another character, but then I remembered that Killer exists! I almost slept on this omg 💀

You would offer a nice sense of balance to his life: you're good natured, joyful, and a general ray of sunshine.

Your sunny disposition would be the first thing he noticed about you. It's genuine, which sets you apart from the others. This also makes you approachable, so he wouldn't really see a reason to refrain from getting to know you.

The kindness and the sincerity behind your actions: these would make a lasting impression on him. He'd admire that you help others even knowing there'd be a good chance your actions wouldn't be appreciated.

He'd get why you'd be upset when you put so much effort into extending your generosity to others and receive nothing in return. He'd make a mental note of this and be sure to return your kindness whenever possible. Hopefully, this would encourage you not to lose the light in you he loved so much.

To show his appreciation, he may buy you a plushie he'd come across or he might buy it just because he thought you'd like it.

Your sense of humor would probably catch him off guard - in a good way! Despite hating his own laugh, you'd always seem to bring it out of him fairly easily. It might've taken time to get comfortable laughing around you, though he didn't think much of it now. You'd never make him feel bad for his unique laugh, so gradually, he regained some of his confidence.

You, my dear, are lucky you're a fan of horror. He, along with the rest of the Kid Pirates, never shy away from the sort - meaning you'd fit in perfectly with his friends.

In spite of his name, Killer is rather sensible, level-headed, and practical, so he'd be the voice of reason in your relationship and the more serious one when the situation called for it. He'd be there to help ground you and be your emotional support.

He's got pretty solid reflexes, as well which would mean that you'd never have to worry about getting hurt - he'd be there to catch you.

The juxtaposition of you being an avid horror fan and a lover of cute plushies would be absolutely adorable to him. And it'd be quite cute to see you get excited about a scary movie or game only for it to scare the living daylights out of you. Don't worry though - he'd be there for you to cuddle up to.

He'd be more than willing to fulfill any fantasy you'd want to play out in the bedroom. Seeing you smile and making you happy would be his main goal in the relationship, especially when it came to intimacy. Watching your reactions would only encourage him to keep going and provoke him to be more experimental, so make sure you mentally prepared yourself before unleashing this beast in the bedroom!

#matchups #matchup trade #one piece matchup #one piece #op #one piece x reader #x reader #massacre soldier killer #op killer #killer #killer one piece #one piece imagine #killer x reader #killer x you

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 1 year

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missed opportunities

This isn’t meant to be a summary or a translation of the Sunset Savanna event!! I just wanted to share my thoughts surrounding the actual tournament and the characters involved in the overall story.

I felt like??? This event was originally meant to be much bigger and much more elaborate than what we got. Is that just me?? Don’t get me wrong, what we ended up with was… okay. It was serviceable. It worked. I just feel like it could have easily been more, but there had to be significant downsizing for some reason.

One thing that kind of confused me was the hyping up of the Catch the Tail tournament versus what we actually got?? (Loved the tourism part though, hearing about local foods, stories, and customs is fun!) I understand the cultural significance of the game, but a tournament arc doesn't work that well if we're only invested in one side; obviously, we'll be rooting for NRC to win because we know them the best and have spent the most time with them, but... They have no significant rival or opposition to go against (which is at least one thing episode 5 had going for it in the form of Vil vs Neige, and even in the Harveston event when the Seven Dwarves reappear). We don't even really have names or faces to think of as their foes. We aren't really given the chance to cheer for anyone else. Like???? NRC's first opponents get no artwork at all, and then their second opponents are supposedly Cheka's usual trio of guards--except they're just beastmen mobs A, B, and C. What happened to the lore about "most of the important roles being fulfilled by female warriors"?? You really going to sit here and tell me that the people assigned to guard the person who is essentially the future of your country aren't roles traditionally fulfilled by strong "lionesses"? All three of the roles just happened be occupied by easily reused assets? Even the replacement/temporary guards assigned to Cheka were women, and the way the originals were foreshadowed made it seem like they would later be a big deal or the "rivals" NRC had to overcome in their final matchup. They technically were, but they were just your typical run-of-the-mill mobs. They have some investment, being that Kifaji trained them and they are bitter about having won previous years but Leona stood them up for training. It’s basically one big ploy to circumvent Leona not wanting to give the warrior lessons to the winning team, a way to counteract his laziness. It makes sense for the story, but it isn’t very high-stakes.

The other team NRC fought against was even more unremarkable; they cheated just as much as NRC did and didn't even compensate for it with at least recognizable artwork or personalities. In fact, they got NO art at all. If anything, this team should have been the run-of-the-mill mobs from how generically mean they were.

It feels like this event had a handful of red herrings and cheeky lines thrown in to tease at the reveal of significant new characters, only to never follow through on them. I like Kifaji, and it's reasonable that Leona says tourists like the NRC kids can't possibly meet the head of state (Farena/Falena). However, I don't like that a lot surrounding Cheka's guards amounted to nothing?? They even mention they have a member to substitute in that's a retired imperial guard, but that ends up being of no real importance either… (he throws the match because Kalim showed him great kindness.) It’s more like a convenience that lets Leona swap in and cinch the win for NRC). It's so... anticlimactic????? Especially since the competition is supposedly for the best warriors to prove their wits and might.

Another missed opportunity is that??? The competition is supposedly open to anyone, even those from outside the Sunset Savanna. That may very well be just a writing loophole for Leona to easily shoehorn Kalim/Jack, Vil, and Lilia in as competitors, but there's so much more you could do with that idea!

Maybe there are other outsiders come to fight for the title. Maybe Rook shows up as a competitor to spook them if the devs don't want to design that many actual "rivals" with unique designs or new faces. Maybe there are your "non-traditional" fighters as well, people that are very young (just for the lols, imagine a kid Cheka's size kicking butt, using their small size and speed to their advantage) or very old (Rafiki weaponizing his wisdom and experience in combat, idk) but are still skilled enough in their own right to participate. Maybe show us more types of beastmen and how they use their specific animal’s physical traits to their advantage! I don't know how likely it is for merfolk or fae to join (since those races seem like recluses compared to beastmen and humans and merpeople don't do well in arid climates), but it would have been cool to see others throw their hats into the ring!

There were probably just limitations in place due to this being a hometown event…? It wouldn't be fair for the others to only feature one new character while this one features a TON of them, nor would it be fair for this hometown even to be significantly longer or more detailed than the others. Basically only the Halloween events are super extensive. In which case, I get it. I still would have really liked to see this concept more fleshed out and fully realized though!

#twisted wonderland #twst #Leona Kingscholar #Vil Schoenheit #Kifaji #Farena Kingscholar #Falena Kingscholar #Kifaaji #Cheka Kingscholar #Nala #Rafiki #Rook Hunt #Jack Howl #Lilia Vanrouge #Kalim Al-Asim #spoilers #notes from the writing raven #Neige Leblanche #disney twisted wonderland

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thebestofoneshots · 9 months

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✩ Star

hey luvv!! can i please request a romantic matchup for marauders era :) ? you don't have to rush it, take your time in writing! 🪽💕🌸🤍

i'm a capricorn, infp, and an asexual sapphic. though i don't mind being matched up with a man because i'm sapphic and not lesbian :) maybe you can match me both with a girl and a boy hehehh

i'm 173 cm, i have brown long hair (with bangs) and brown eyes. i love doing skincare/just taking care of my body. i love the colour pink! i'm quite girly and feminine. my clothing style is basically this fashion brand called ozlana. i love wearing pearl jewelleries. i feel prettiest when i do my hair well. i also love barbie fashion! i'd love to be a fashion designer and have my own fashion boutique one day.

i'm a good listener and i can understand people well. i consider myself as open minded. i'm a huge feminist (gender equality and really just social equality in general 🫶) and i resent people that makes fun of others for being excited over something they love. i love reading (preferably english classics). i love the wizard of oz a lot. i would love someone who respects women and a gentleman.

i consider myself as quite smart :) (don't wanna be too self indulgent tho). my hobbies are reading, stargazing, and making dresses/clothing. i love plants and flowers <3 i also love fruits! my favs are strawberry, grapes, and blueberry. i enjoy baking too! love making french desserts recipes. i'm scared of being a failure. my biggest fear actually. so i tend to push myself as hard as i can to ace what i want.

i think that's all!! don't wanna make this too long. if you don't want to write this then i totally understand 🌸🤍💕🪽🫧

If you want to participate in "TBOS' 400 Followers Celebration" too, you can look at this post for all the options of prompts you can choose form <3

☆ Star: send a short description of yourself and I’ll tell you who I ship you with!

Chasing Butterflies

Pairing: James x Lily x reader Prompt: The story of how you ended up dating James and Lily. Word count: 1.5 k Warnings: None, (bit angsty / what feels like unrequited love but actually isn't).

Hey beatiful! I ship you with Lily and James! The first time you saw Lily, you thought she was the prettiest girl you’d seen in the world. She was wearing this beautiful flowery pink dress and looked so in awe of everything around her that you couldn't help but stare. Having been born into a magical family, it was interesting to see it from a different perspective. You were just about to approach her when she said hi to a disagreeable-looking boy that stared down at you as you took a step forward, which deterred you from doing so. Instead, you scurried away inside the train. That’s where you met James Potter and Peter Petegrew.

James was a very well-spoken boy who saw you wandering the train by yourself and invited you to sit along with him and his friend. He had been the one to introduce you to Peter and had also bought a bunch of treats for everyone once the Trolley Witch came around. James had been so nice to you that day that you felt like a princess. When both of you were put in the same house, you became close. James was always really, really nice to you, and you liked that about him, especially compared to the way his friends treated you - Sirius always trying to flirt and Peter being so awkward all the time. You also became close with Remus, and he would lend some of his muggle books, and you would borrow some magical ones to him. It became a habit, and Sirius would call you both nerds for it. You didn’t mind it all that much; you knew it was all playful banter.

In 5th year, when you discovered your passion for making clothes, the first person you told was Lily. You politely asked her if you could design a dress for her, and she felt honored. Once you handed her the dress, she instantly put it on, and it fit her like a glove. That weekend, when you went to Hogsmeade, she wore the dress, and even though you thought she looked absolutely lovely, you couldn’t help but feel a pit in your stomach whenever you realized people were staring at her. It was as if you didn’t want them to look, and their staring was affecting you somehow.

“That sounds an awful lot like jealousy to me,” Remus had told you. You gasped in that moment, but the more you thought about it, the more it made sense. Maybe you didn’t just like Lily as a friend. Maybe you liked, like her. Romantically liked her. And it made you feel miserable because you were very aware, like pretty much the entire school, that James was absolutely hung up on her.

At Marlenes’s party, organized by Mary a year later, someone had the brilliant idea of playing spin the bottle. When Lily had to kiss Marlene, she didn’t budge, which made you both jealous but also a little curious. Could that mean Lily was interested in girls too?

You, in turn, had to kiss James, and even if he was your friend, you had to admit he was a really good kisser. You were both panting a little when you separated and awkwardly went back to your places in the circle. From that day on, James stuck to you like gum, following you around and carrying your books and bag a lot more often than he did before. And even if you appreciated how nice he was, making you feel like a princess again, you were also bothered because you felt like you were his second choice, his consolation prize after he gave up on chasing after Lily.

“I’m not a pity prize, James!” You told him one day as he tried to hold your hand.

He looked at you, hurt in his face. “I’d never see you as one, kitten. I thought you knew.”

You looked at him taken aback. “What about Lily?”

He averted your gaze. “She… She’s like a star. Unreachable.”

“And I am within reach, right?” You continued, a little angry still.

“That’s not what I…”

“James, I like her too!” You somehow blurted out.

He looked at you in shock, eyes wide open as you told him the truth. “You like–" he started, confused "–like I do?”

You looked to the side and nodded. “Yes! Like you do.”

“And you don’t like boys like that?”

“I… I wouldn’t say that either…”

“Then what’s the issue?” He said, reaching for your hand again. You stared at him with a frown, thinking of pulling your hand away. But his hand was warm, and just as James always did, it made you feel nice too.

Both you and James started to spend a lot more time together since then. People would find him sitting beside you at dinner and in some classes. He made sure to always keep some kind of contact with you, whether it was holding your hand, having his arm over your shoulder, or a hand on your waist. You actually grew to like it; you felt appreciated and loved. Maybe you really weren’t a second choice to him, maybe he really had chosen you over Lily.

But then it was Halloween, and somehow you convinced him to dress as Ken while you'd dress up as Barbie. You designed both of your outfits, and he even hung out with you while you were sewing and adding beads and glitter to both of your costumes. Even Peter was helping you with the costumes, since you’d promised to help him with his. You were all sitting in the common room, and you were on the floor, sitting between James’ legs and resting your head on his chest as you sewed some details onto a coat when Lily walked in.

You smiled and waved at her, but she just looked at the two of you, looking hurt, and stormed out. “What’s with her?” Peter asked with a shrug. You and James looked at each other with a frown and nodded, both getting up and chasing after her.

“Lily!” You shouted as she picked up the pace.

“I’ll take a short cut,” James told you. “We’ll intercept her.”

Soon enough, James was blocking Lily from the front, and you stopped her from behind. “Hey! Lils, stop running, will you?” You told her, breath a little ragged, as she tried to walk past you. Her eyes started to water, and you looked at her concerned, placing both hands on her shoulders. “Hey love, what’s wrong?” You asked.

She started to cry then, and your heart broke. Whatever you had done, you were sure to never ever do it again; you could not bear to see her cry. James looked as mortified as you did.

“Evans,” he said, not daring to place a hand on her, like you already had. “What’s wrong, darling?” He asked softly.

“I… I don’t know… I…” She started between sobs. “I just, I suddenly felt so angry at the two of you being together like that. I just… I didn’t…. I’m an asshole.” She said as she placed her hands over her face to hide it from the two of you.

Realization hit you like a truck. “You like James,” you said dryly. James looked shocked at the two of you. “You’re jealous.” You said with a bitter laugh. “I’ll leave you to talk,” you said as you started to leave.

Lily finally raised her head from her hand and shook her head, you couldn't be more wrong. She grabbed your arm. "I wasn't jealous of you!" You turned surprised. "I wanted to be James!" You looked at the two of them, shocked. James looked so confused in that moment; if it hadn't been for the situation, you would've loved to capture that expression in a picture. "Or rather, there, like… in between the two."

You looked at her even more shocked. "Does that mean you like… both me and–"

"–Me?" James finished.

Lily just looked at the two of you in desperation. "See? I AM an asshole!"

You shook your head and exchanged a glance with James. He nodded, and the two of you embraced Lily in a tight hug. You buried your head on Lily’s shoulder, relishing in the smell of her signature lavender perfume, while James wrapped his long arms around the two of you, drawing you both towards his chest. From that moment on, the three of you somehow started dating each other. Lily was the perfect companion; she understood and related to all of your girly needs, gifting you a pearl necklace on your birthday and wearing all the dresses you made for her. James always cared for the two of you like you were goddesses, giving you the best cuddles in the world and enjoying all the desserts you prepared for him. He was absolutely obsessed with the way you baked. You were so happy together; you almost couldn’t believe it was real. But it was, and it was beautiful.

A/N: Hey sweetie! I really hope you enjoy this little ship (it totally got out hand and ended up being a mini ficlet, but I hope you like it); also I really hope all the cuddling doesn't bother you <3

Much Love, Lilly xx

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