#meanwhile kieran is wrestling bears and being force fed food by adults and the clans low key have beef over who gets dibs

[applesjuice]

How are the others taking Kieran's death ? Won't they think there's something fishy ? (Legends AU)

I'm SCREAMING this is the first ask I've gotten in ten whole years and it's about KIERAN 🤣

Putting beneath a read more because this got stupid long...

But real talk, Carmine would be taking it the hardest she'd be a mess for a while. In my mind the plot of LA takes places over about two years to complete the pokedex, so by then she'd have graduated school, and is trying to redefine who she is since so much of her identity was tied into being a big sister. She'd be antagonistic towards Briar for a while, blaming her for bringing them down there in the first place. But I like to think Carmine comes to understand that adults are not perfect after the fallout that comes to Briar and the Paladean Pokemon League as a result of a minor dying on a sponsored exception.

Briar I think would write her book but she'd have fallen out of favor in the academic world due to her irresponsibility. She'd face harsh criticism from the public and the guilt she'd feel would be tremendous because Kieran, despite being a little shit at the time, was a child. I like to believe two years later she's really struggling with her career, getting denied grants and project funding, having her papers get denied by academic journals. She's a mess.

Geeta and the Paladean Pokemon League would face harsh scrutiny over allowing this specific expedtion to occur. For years they refused to allow expeditions down in Area Zero due to a lack of strong enough, accredited (re: champion level) trainers who were not bogged down by workload. Its a media shitstorm. A research team with only three children as the safety trainers? Yes one of them is a certified Champion of their league but they are still a child with only a few months experience, and the other two were strong trainers in their own right but not accredited under Paladean standards. There wasnt enough prep or vetting. Geeta would as a result step down as chairwoman due to the backlash. Atm there is no top champion so if someone beats the elite 4 there's a hold on becoming a champion level trainer while Nemona is being trained for the position.

Now the BB Academy Elite 4, they're shook. Drayton takes it the hardest because he turned down going, so he's like "what if I was there what if there was one more trainer could I have prevented this". The other 3 did see Kieran as a friend, despite his recent behavior. Before that he was Carmine's little brother, and Crispin and him were pretty friendly too, what with being in the same grade. Yeah the kid was a bully but imagine coming to school one day and there's an announcement one of your clasmates died. Thats traumatic!

Now, the protagonist. Oh boy. Regardless of if they're Juliana or Florian, they'd be pretty traumatized. They considered Kieran a friend. At one point they loved his company, he was so kind and sweet and they already blamed themselves a bit for the whole Ogerpon situation. Yeah Kieran took it to the extreme with his reaction, but I find Kieran a really interesting character with how the game wrote him. He's a child, was lied to by the people closest with him, and he doesnt seem the type to easily connect with others. But the one time he finally finds someone he connects with, we continuously and unrelentlessly crush him at something he enjoys, join his family in treating him like he has no agency by hiding the truth of his special interest from him, and go out of our way to disinclude him with his sister.

And like of course Ogerpon got close to us we spent so much time with her, getting her to trust us and know us. I see this take a lot that Kieran just wants to enslave legendaries but thats definitely not it. He's trying to get back at us. We took something special from him, and he never really had the chance to put in his bid for Ogerpon's attention and he knew it was selfish, but he cared so much for her as someone that was always disincluded, bullied, looked down on by others, and he had to at least try because Ogerpon to him, is a projection of himself. He had to TRY even if as he stated, he knew it was wrong.

And then we take his spot as Champion from him that he like, harmed himself and those around him for so he could at least have *something* that put him on the same level as you. Like we as the protagonist are the villain of Kieran's story (sorry for the tangent I swear it's relevant), but he's 14 and had a mental breakdown. And he got killed before we could reconcile or get through to him.

I think the protagonist would do a lot of soul searching because their first thought is "i should have taken the blast." Or "i could have stopped it" and then they had the humbling realization of "what could i even have done? We're the same age. That could have been me, i could have died" because even if the protagonist would never like, try to catch Terapagos immediately with a Masterball, its still a wild and untrained monster with too much power. There's no telling what would have happened if Kieran wasn't there. It'd incredibly eye opening and humbling and I think they'd strive to be a better more understanding person from this. The whole game people are hyping them up, telling them theyre so strong, they're the best, etc. Thats gotta give you a bit of a big head. I think they'd look to the adults they can trust, their mom, their teachers who are genuinely amazing people, and lean on them for support.

And when Kieran gets back and kind of has no idea who they are, and here's that sweet kid they remember with all of his love for pokemon and battling, except he's so much healthier and confident about it (and traumatized in different ways thanks Kamado and Volo). They'd probably be so amazed by him and thankful for this second chance.

Tldr: i should probably just write a fic for this it got stupid long...

#ask #not art #here i traumatize and entire generation of characters over the “death” of one child #meanwhile kieran is wrestling bears and being force fed food by adults and the clans low key have beef over who gets dibs #its sneasler #sneasler has dibs because this child is purple obviously its a poison type #kieran #legends arceus au