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pinkhoneydrop · 4 months

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Its a Game pt.6

[ A/n ] - Hey everyone here is part 6 i had to cut it a bit short so i could get to the good bits in part 7 that i am currently writing and i also started another multy part story that i think y'all will like!

[ Pairing ] - Harry Styles x Reader!, Dylan O'Brien x Reader!

[ Genre ] - angst

[ Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5 ]

[ Masterlist ]

Harry drove home from seeing you with a million thoughts swimming in his head. Why did he say he loved you? That was fucking stupid. I mean, it is true. He did love you but obviously it was the wrong time. Had he really taken so long to realize your intentions were greater than you let on? He really should have thought about that more. These sequences of events were a product of not needing to think when he was with you. Not seeing you for months then having an awkward encounter with you and then weeks later he pulls up to see you in a parking garage and says he loves you. I mean what the fuck. Who does that? Harry apparently does that now. Gone are his days of confident mystery. Perhaps he should learn to think when he’s near you. To be independent of you. Despite this, he’s regretting the timing of his impulses and now you know he loves you and you still will go home to another man. How was he supposed to process this and now having to see you at the festival? Rehearsal after rehearsal and then a whole weekend of you. Perfect you.

The thoughts consumed his mind the whole drive back to his LA home. The car pulled into his driveway, and he shut the door as he fished for the key to his house in his bag. The welcoming smells of laundry and cleaning products filled his nose with a scrunch. He needed to sort himself out. He used to come home to his NY apartment and smell you. Your vanilla and cinnamon scented perfume. Like cookies fresh out of the oven. Warm and truly inviting the opposite of the chemicals and detergent stinging his nose currently.

The days before the start of rehearsal seemed to drag on. Meeting after meeting and workout sessions in between for both harry and yourself. In total it had been about a week since you asked him to meet you at the garage. Dylan still didn’t know, and you still couldn’t get Harry’s declaration off your mind.

***

“And then he stood there with that fucking smirk of his and was like ‘I Lov youu’ I mean who says that after you just told them why you needed space in the first place.” You punctuated your sentence with a hard smack to a punching bag. You never would have caught yourself in the gym before all this Coachella nonsense. Yes, you were grateful blah blah blah, but this was some serious stuff. Asara joined you on occasion and this was one of those times. Blass your personal trainer he’s heard a ton of drama fall from your lips. Asara grinned and held back a laugh at your impression of the man. The two of you hit the bags in tandem as the conversation continued.

“I think he just misses you. You were on and off for so long you know.” Asara spoke between the sounds of fist hitting bags. You sighed and rolled your eyes.

“Yeah, he missed me while he was fucking another woman high off coke.” You punched the bag and Asara chuckled.

“Y/n he tried to tie you down several times, and I remember you always ran away every time he tried. Now, that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have used his words, but the man did try. And don’t act like you don’t partake.” Asara stood off to the side as she finished her set.

“That’s not what I mean. He just gets carried away and I don’t mind taking care of him after he’s faded but it’s not healthy to do it that much. And as for trying to tie me down�� I was completely loyal to him, and he knew that. I want to be shown off and he wants to be secretive and private.” You paused for a second to remove your boxing gloves. “We never saw eye to eye, but I love him too.”

“Right and now that you can both agree on something what are you going to do about Dylan?” Asara made a good point, and you weren’t sure how to break the news.

***

“Do you think I’m ready for this?” You looked up at Dylan with fear in your eyes. It was starkly different than any look he has seen on your face before. He always knew what to say but this time he just sort of looked at you. You looked to him for something. Anything would have been fine just anything to let you know that he could level with you in this moment. You were searching, reaching for anything in the deep recesses of his eyes and you couldn’t find anything.

His lips turned into a smile, and he pulled you in close. For Dylan in this moment, he was so proud of you that words weren’t enough. You allowed yourself to be pulled to the hug, but your arms stayed at your side. It was eerily frustrating for you. Being spoon fed the idea that he wanted to give you what you deserved, and you deserved more you needed more. You needed what Harry could give you. Out of the corner of your eye you could see him speaking with his production team and you glanced between the two men. When your eyes settled back on Dylan, you knew you needed him to leave. The two of you stood backstage at a mock rehearsal for the night you were to perform on stage at Coachella. Voices and the sounds of metal scraping against each other while the sun beat down on the field. Dylan decided to join you for moral support, but you felt so separated from him. It was like he did understand what you needed in that moment to help you feel better. You stared at the wall and your mind went blank. This had to stop.

Harry stood off to the side with his team. Each of them primping him and measuring fabric for the show. He did a good job at staying impartial when Dylan was around. For the few times they ended up in the same room or when he saw a photo of him on his Instagram feed because you posted him, or he just happened to be in the photo. You didn’t fully warm up to him just yet and Harry knew you didn’t forgive him yet. In his mind he decided he needed to be on his best behavior to win you back and gain your trust. Harry couldn’t lie and say he wasn’t snooping, he definitely was. And he could tell Dylan was doing a shit job at comforting you. The guy looked nervous enough for both of you.

“Um I gotta go Dylan.” You spoke softly and pulled away from him after he placed a kiss to the top of your head. You looked disappointed if harry could even say that. Dylan seemed to take the hint and disappeared off to sit with your friends. The dress rehearsal was dragging on for everyone so harry could imaging you felt stuck right now. Nervous and unsure who to talk to. Having a solution come to mind he made his way over to you. At first you didn’t notice. You were marking beats and paces in your head like he does, and it made him smile to think about you valuing his creative process.

Harry decided you needed space and he leaned onto his team as they finished the preparations. He would be back in two nights to perform, and you would be joining him on stage. His nerves caught up to him and he was glad you were off with your people so he couldn’t make a fool of himself again. You looked good though even in your comfortable clothes to practice. Your hips hit every marked beat and he almost got lost watching you.

The next day of rehearsal went by fast, and you were up late again practicing for the show. Beat after beat and step after step, you went over it in your head until it was time to gather backstage. You arrived at the venue the next day in a pink dress. A car service picked you up and your team met up with you. Flashes of light and screams cold been seen a mile away from the stage. Harry was prepped and ready to descend upon the crowd. You stood off to the side and took deep breaths. Harry saw you from the corner of his eye and looked over. You looked so scared. So different from how he was used to seeing you. You looked so vulnerable.

“You’re going to be great darling.” His voice carried a low register that caught your attention through your in-ears. He had walked over to comfort you. The glitter on his outfit fell to the ground like snowflakes and you stared at the glistening specks. For some reason, the closer he got to you the slower your heart began to beat.

“Give me your hands.” His voice was firm but soft as to not call attention to you. You listen despite all that has happened and how much you wanted to walk away and be alone. Your hands fit into his so perfectly. Harry held onto you gently and rubbed his thumbs onto your palms. Your breathing was shallow, but you stayed in that spot not daring move your sight from the floor.

“Look at me darling.” That pet name would haunt you if this ended up anymore tragically. Harry caught your eye, and you stared right back at him. His eyes didn’t give anything away that he didn’t want them to, and you just stood there looking into his eyes for a few minutes. You wanted to cry. Dylan could have never comforted you like this. All these months and weeks replayed over and over in your mind as you held hands with Harry.

“Just look for me if you feel nervous out there, okay? Focus on me.” Harry let go of your hands and walked up the stairs. You closed your eyes, and you could hear the excitement in the crowd build. The screams got louder and louder as the music began to play and he walked out. Secretly your heart was doing flips. Warmth flushed your face, and you gave Harry a small smile. He brushed his thumb against your face and turned to walk on stage. You stood back and looked at the crowd as he started to perform. The opening notes of adore you began to play, and the audience went crazy.

Three songs and then you heard your cue. Walking closer and closer to the stage you heard your song begin to play through the speakers and the beat matched up with your heart.

Liked by harryswife33…and 3849 others

y/nandharryshipper1 y/nrry for lifeeeeee

458 comments

Harryfan54 stop they are for sure meant to be together.

Y/nnnfan22 y’all acting like she isn’t in a relationship rn

Reply to Y/nnnfan22 y/nrryshipper9 right lol its weird even for me. Like I get it but harry is definitely in over his head with this one.

Liked by assa22, harrystyles and 93820 others

Yyy/nn3 baby’s first Coachella tyyy @\harrystyleshq for inviting meee

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Y/nnnfann0 bae looking so fucking good

Harrystyleshq loved having you

Harryfan96 Harry gets to have that any time he wants and I’m jealous

You put your phone down after looking back at the post. A notification flashed at the top that Dylan had posted and for some reason you wanted to keep him out of your mind. Now Harry isn’t stupid, and he especially isn’t stupid when he’s sober. He saw how fast you ignored the notification. He didn’t quite see who it was from when you put your phone down so fast, but he guessed it was from Dylan. He would be lying if he said it didn’t amuse him but the idea that you still gave an ounce of energy to that man made him feel detached from reality. The room was cold like he asked for it to be, but his neck felt hot. The veins in his arms bulged for a second and then before he could succumb to the jealousy you started speaking.

“Thank you.” You sounded so meek and shy. Fixing yourself like a teenager on a first date. Is this what he’s done to you? His darling used to be a spitfire. Real sassy and sickeningly sweet with her attitude. “Thank you.” If this were almost a year ago, he would have you pinned to a wall already. Fuck your “thank you” He needed that feeling back in full force. This simmering tension was frustrating. Was he just supposed to stay away from you? He knew you wanted him back. You didn’t have to say it, that’s what this whole game was about. Harry has studied you and the way you act the only thing that made this different the other times you’ve played cat and mouse with him is that you found a new toy to fuck around with. “You look fucking amazing.” Harry sighed and shifted on the sofa the pair of you were sitting on. He wasn’t lying the skirt you were wearing was low cut and your waist was twisted and curved like when he used to hit it from behind. He should probably stop but who wouldn’t think about you like that?

You noticed that Harry was staring. Staring in your eyes studying you. Staring at your clothes or lacking thereof. Staring at your lips imagining God knows what and you stared right back. It was almost like how you see in the movies. You moved in slow motion as you scooted closer to him on the seat. Your legs crossed and your hands were cradling your phone. Harry sat opposite of you with his legs spread comfortably. His arms were lying over the back of the sofa. The two of you were sure there were more glamorous couches to be lounging on, but the accommodation wasn’t of concern when your lips met for the first time in months. Something about the kiss was electric. Your phone fell to the floor as harry pulled you closer. The position was awkward with your arm trapped between his body and yours. Your legs remained crossed until Harry’s hand gripped the skin of your exposed thigh. His firm palms and fingertips massaged the muscles you had been using to dance all night. Neither of you broke for air until your phone began to ring from the floor.

Harry leaned forward and picked up the device first. His mood dampened as he saw the name flash across the screen. In a split second it crossed Harry’s mind to decline the call on your behalf. All it would take is one swipe of a finger, one press of a button. He would have his lips back on yours in a second. You sat across from him looking expectantly with wide innocent eyes. Such a loud juxtaposition from the smudged lipstick smeared across your plush mouth. And all the nasty things he knew you could do and say with it. You were so beautiful and the second you answered the call you wouldn’t be his anymore.

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#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles x black!reader #hslot 2023 #harry styles one shot #harry styles x reader #harry styles smut #harry styles fluff #harry styles x reader smut

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ifbench · 10 months

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Pokemon Mystery Dungeon

So, here we are. It's been over three years since the last PMD game, and almost 8 since the last one that wasn't a remake. Where does this leave us? Will we ever get another new PMD game? I don't know. Personally? I have hope that the series isn't dead. That one day, we will get another. But I can't say for certain. But even if this is the end…what a legacy PMD has left us with. Five lovely games, each with their own story to tell, their own joys to be had. Sure, some may be better than others, but they all carry the spirit of PMD within them. Rescue Team is a story about finding yourself in a foreign world, of finding home in the unlikeliest of places, of how even when the rest of the world is against you, you'll always have some people who believe in you. Explorers is a story about overcoming impossible odds, of staying true to oneself, of shining bright at world's end, of how if your legacy is still remembered, in a way, you'll still be alive. Adventure Squad is a story of finding joy in the little things, of how even simple acts of kindness can turn around the hearts of a whole village. Gates to Infinity is a story about holding onto hope even in the most desperate circumstances, of friendships that never truly die, of kindness begetting more kindness, of changing the world for the better, one step at a time. Super is a story of learning who you truly are, what makes you yourself, of how negativity is a necessary part of life, of globe-spanning friendships, of entrusted hope, of how you can do amazing things, of how it's ok to need help. Each one has its own, unique take on PMD. Each one has its own themes, its own joys it wants to share. Each one complements the rest, and all together? They make something truly wonderful. While it's possible that PMD might never return, that attatchement we have to it? That love we have for our partners? That joy we have when we remember our favorite moments from it? That will never truly fade. It might be buried, might be forgotten, but it will never truly die. It will always be there, waiting to return. In a way, PMD will never end. Like Special Episode 5 of Explorers teaches us, if our legacy is remembered, then we're still alive, in a way. Our spirit still shines bright, still affecting others. As long as we continue to cherish PMD, it will never die. I'm crying so hard as I type this all. I love PMD. I love it with all my heart. I think a good way to show why PMD will never truly die is to take a look at the fanworks made for it. There are hundreds, if not thousands of fanworks created about PMD. Comics, fanfics, askblogs, and more, all telling their own stories about PMD. All created because of love for PMD. Silver Resistance. Victory Fire. Hands of Creation. Warped Skies. Quenched Torch. Legends Legacy. Shatter. Daily Life in Pokemon Paradise. Flake-N-Rudy. Askanotslownotking. Free Fiction. The Dreamstone. Places We Call Home. Galaxies Above. On Borrowed Time. Fledglings. Liberators of Fate. Sierra 10. Flowerbeds. Irau's Journal. Psychic Sheep. Zero the Hero. Path of Valor. Even those of us who aren't telling full stories, those of us who make fanart, those of us who make fanmusic and remixes, those of us who just gush about PMD. We're all keeping PMD alive. To everyone who has ever made any sort of PMD fanwork, discussed their love for the series, or even just recommended it to a friend. To anyone who has ever helped keep PMD alive. Thank you. Even if we never get a new PMD game, it will never truly die, as long as we continue to cherish it. Thank you all so much.

I have my own PMD fanworks, if anyone wishes to check them out.

Eternal Shadows, a PMD story taking place post-Super, about a human-turned-Oshawott who wishes to return home.

In Tandem, a hybrid PMD and trainerfic, about a PMD Tropius who wishes to become a trainer in the human world.

Then, Then, and Now, a hybrid Rescue Team and Legends Arceus story, of a protagonist who goes through both.

A Comprehensive Guide to Items, a guide to items in the PMD world, and how they work, written in-universe by the Rescue Team partner.

A Way to Reunite, a Gates to Infinity oneshot, about an alternate epilogue if the Worldcore didn't exist.

Day of Heroes, a oneshot celebrating the four main PMD games. The protagonists and partners of each game celebrate a holiday dedicated to them, together.

I also have a variety of PMD askblogs.

@ask-team-searchlights is an askblog for the cast of Eternal Shadows, and @ask-world-savers-council is an askblog for the cast of Day of Heroes. And @adventuresquadharvest is a new askblog I started today, for giving love for Adventure Squad.

If you decide to check out any of these, I hope you enjoy.

I'm also always available to chat about PMD! I have a bunch of headcanons and worldbuilding about the series that I'd love to talk about more! Feel free to either approach me in DMs, ask me on this blog, or contact me on Discord! My username there is ifbench, same as here.

I hope you've all enjoyed my PMD rambles. Thank you for listening.

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kicktwine · 1 year

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HEY. HEY PLEASE ELABORATE ON BLAINE IN SPRAWL. HEY

so imagine something for me

Imagine a REALLY big robot, like many many skyscrapers tall, on a desert planet, very very old and grown over, but alive, and it has water and electricity for you for free so long as you keep it alive and happy. You build your society around it and keeping it alive because it is not that hard to do, it just needs someone to pilot it, so someone goes and pilots it (and that door stays shut for two hundred and forty seven years, and we all pretend we’re not worried about that because the electricity still runs), and you get water and crops going (in the desert!) and power and a livable house.

Two hundred and forty seven years later, the power shuts down.

The pilot is dead (you bury her and someone grave-robs years later and she hasn’t rotted at all). The big robot needs another, it can't run without someone in the driver's seat. But it doesn’t want some random guy. It wants its pilot back. It nearly kills the person you send to take that position temporarily because it understands how to work with Its pilot, Its friend, not him. It doesn't understand. You need its pilot.

You cannot perform necromancy, but you can cheat to survive. Thousands of years later society still runs on this infinite renewable energy robo-god, but we have figured out that in order for it to run, the pilot must be willing to give up the rest of their life. The pilot must be capable of handling the neural load of a million-ton synthetic system. And! Most importantly! The pilot must act exactly according to script.

That’s not great PR. Let’s only publicize the noble parts, okay? You could make a religion out of this. You do. It becomes tangled when they realize you can use it to justify some things.

You are now Brain. You’re in the program that trains pilots with your friends, you’ve been a disciple for at least ten of your eighteen years, and you are very good at what you all do! You’re proud of yourself. Even if you don’t become Candidate, the pilot, even if you don’t make it there since there’s only one of those every few hundred years, you’re on track to becoming a Foreteller, one of the actual leaders of society (Candidacy is an important, but ultimately figurehead, position. Pilots don’t legislate, really). You all go through the graduation process to the next class up and receive chips that will allow you to converse directly with the big robot — the Divine, let’s call it by Its title.

And then everyone else in your class seems to hear something you don’t.

Let’s get this clear; you can hear when It says “stop”. You can hear when your trainer says stop. But you don’t have to stop, when you hear it. Your friends will stop when commanded. Something went wrong, with you.

This whole agency and self-determination thing sends you into a spiral and you are determined to keep the fact that you’re 100% your own person to your darn self as long as possible.

(Your friends are fine. They’re not mindless, that’s cruel. Remember: a pilot is a person, but a person acting according to a script. Foretellers, which you will be if you’re lucky, are people acting according to their wills. You are playing dangerous games).

You have to leave. You have to leave a place there is no leaving because everyone chose to be here, everyone knows what’s happening, everyone is fine with it. You have to leave a place where the only way to leave at this point in your journey is to die. You should have left last week. You didn’t know last week.

You, however, are very, very smart. You are a clever, lucky, stubborn brat.

You leave.

It’s a long story. It involves convincing your friends to come with you without getting the deity or your trainers involved. It involves a loooooot of secrecy and quite a bit of learning code, surprisingly. You need to make your friends hear what you hear, which means making their chips work like yours. But you leave, in a mech you had one of your friends hijack for you (he’s useful, even if he’s a little spacey these days, he’s a class above you and having deity in your head 24/7 is a little disorienting, you imagine, and suddenly hanging up the phone a bit more so).

And then you crash.

There’s other cities, aside from yours, that don’t appreciate a military vehicle flying straight into them. You were going to leave the planet, but escaping the sights of a very large robot is very hard, even if you left while it was asleep. It’s not anyone’s fault, it almost worked. So you crash, angry at yourself, and your friends are gone, and you will die, but.

But.

The one who finds you wants what you have. What he wants, he says, is to let everyone hear what you do. What he wants is to carry out what is basically revenge on your behalf. (What he wants is to show the world you had been following a false god. That you don’t need to do any of this, really, he knows the truth, he can show you, you can show everyone. You are dying though. You don’t stick around for the details). All you have to do is give up the thing in your head.

You have yourself a deal. You die. You haunt.

#Brain's theme song in this au is Sirens by Bear Ghost!#ask #anon #sprawl au

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theresattrpgforthat · 1 year

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You've done pokemon, but what about Digimon? I realize there will be some overlap, but I feel like Digimon as a whole focuses more on the relationships between mon and human.

THEME: Digimon

Hello there, I’m not super familiar with Digimon but this is what I can recommend!

Predation, by Shanna Germain (Monte Cook Games).

Welcome to the Cretaceous. Our ancestors won’t climb down from the trees for another 66 million years, but here we are now. Time travel seemed like a good idea. Exploring the ancient world. Building. Creating an entire society here in the jungles of our primordial Earth. Until those SATI guys messed it all up.

We’ve got gear. We’ve got guns. We’ve even bioengineered a few dinos to our liking. And that’s good, because we’ll need it all to survive. History says there’s an asteroid headed our way, and there’s no one left alive who knows how to get back to the future.

I’m recommending this game because of the unique way it creates the relationship between dinosaur and human. In Predation, players will embody their character… but they’ll also play the dinosaur companion of another player. The Cypher System itself is designed to work with a variety of genres, so it might even be possible to re-skin the setting to make it look more like the Digimon universe - especially if you want to send your characters to a digital world, rather than to the Cretaceous.

Shatterkin, by Scribbles and Dice.

Shatterkin is a tabletop role-playing game about kids with evolving monster pets. Each player takes on the role of two different characters — a small-town kid and a strange evolving monster (known as shatterkin), who have formed a bond to help each other learn and grow.

Defend your small town from dangers — wild shatterkin, agents of the secretive Syndicates, or the mysterious power known as the Malice. When the situation is dire, your shatterkin can evolve to new levels of power, to face ever-greater foes. Be careful not to put too much strain on your shatterkin — you don't want to break their trust!

Shatterkin is a Forged in the Dark game — it's based around the same core mechanics as John Harper's Blades in the Dark, but with alterations and new systems to best capture the excitement and challenges of childhood adventure, and the evolving monster genre.

I’ve recommended this game under the Pokemon theme before, but I think it mirrors some strong conceits with Digimon - primarily the fact that each character has only one Shatterkin that they are responsible for. Right now Shatterkin is in early access - which means it’s Pay What You Want, but there’s incomplete sections. If you really want to focus on a trainer’s bond with their companion though, this is worth checking out.

Monster Care Squad, by Sandy Pug Games.

Long after the crowns have fallen, long after greed has had it's day, long after war, poverty, hunger, and tyranny passed into memory, Ald-Amura's peace is broken by The False Gold, a terrible sickness spreading through its greatest guardians and most beautiful Monsters. Unified by community and driven by a love for the planet and each other, The Monster Care Squad rises. Do you heed their call?

Monster Care Squad is a tabletop roleplaying game set in the tranquil world of Ald-Amura. The peaceful state of the world is threatened when a mysterious poison known as The False Gold finds its way into the veins of the world's Monsters, causing terrible, maddening Wounds, which drive these incredible beings into uncontrollable rages. The once unbreakable bond of harmony and respect between Humans and Monsters is on the brink of collapse, and it's up to you and your allies to set things right.

You aren’t directly connected to the monsters you help here; rather you act as doctors and similar specialists working to heal creatures infected by a terrible sickness. Because this takes place in a world where humans and monsters are usually living in harmony, you have plenty of opportunities to highlight the relationships people might have had with these creatures before they became sick. The game uses a 2d6 plus stat system, but occasionally uses other dice, like a d4 or a d8. What I like best about Monster Care Squad is the new focus of combat: you’re not here to kill the monsters, even if they’ve become violent. Instead, you'll wrestle them just until you can push the medicine down their throat, and then watch them until you know they're no longer a threat. Now that's a challenge!

Games I've recommended in the past:

Animon Story, by Zak Barouh.

#dnd #game recommendations #indie ttrpgs #tabletop games #asks #digmon #monsters

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anghraine · 1 year

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Here's the GW1/Gwen Thackeray rambling post I promised @venndaai a ... while ago. It is extremely rambling, and also, I feel like I should probably warn for something. GW1 keeps the true brutality of the Charr invasion offscreen, but it doesn't really conceal what's happening.

Um—okay, CW for, hm, military conquest, mentions of large-scale killing and enslavement, including sometimes specific references to the means of death. Also spoilers for a lot of GW1.

As I've mentioned before, Gwen is my favorite character in the entire series, despite the GW1 writing being more uneven than GW2's (I think GW1's writing tends to be conceptually/structurally "better" but the execution on the sentence level is very unreliable). I can't remember everything I've said about it before, so here are ALL of my Gwen/Ascalon Blorbo Emotions.

GW1, especially the original game (re-titled Prophecies), tends to be very railroad-y in story terms, even by comparison to GW2. As a Prophecies character, you're an Ascalonian living in your home before the Searing, and a new member of the elite Ascalon Vanguard led by King Adelbern's son and heir, Prince Rurik.

As the game starts, you're finishing up your training in Ascalon City. You receive the command to go just outside the city to meet the trainer for your profession (usually mesmer in my case). The moment that you walk out the front gates, you see a shrine on your left, attended by a female monk, and a dark-haired little girl skipping around. Both the monk and the girl have quests for you.

The girl, of course, is the young Gwen (she had no other name back then). We're not told her age at the time, though if I recall correctly, the lore says she's ten. In my opinion, she looks and acts considerably younger.

In any case, she has lost her flute just across a nearby river. She's too afraid of the local skale to fetch it herself, and asks you to do it for her. However, when you kill the skale and go across the river, you discover the flute is broken, much to her dismay.

You do your various early adventures, and when you go back to the city to sell to the merchant, you have the option to buy things like a flute, a fairly expensive red cape, and the like. These are things you can give to Gwen. If you buy her the flute, she always has it afterwards (well, until the Searing...), and if you talk to her again after buying her a new flute, she'll follow you around and periodically heal you by playing the instrument.

You can also give her red iris flowers, to her delight. They're her favorite flower and spawn throughout the pre-Searing zones (if you talk to the right person, you'll discover that she uses them to make flower wreaths for a friendly dolyak). If you do this enough, she bonds with you, and will eventually give you something she considers valuable: a red shred of a tapestry (its purpose would not be revealed until the third expansion—it's part of a hall of achievements).

As she follows you around, she also chatters quite a lot about various things, including what little we know of her early history. Unlike a lot of NPC major characters, she has no ties to royalty or aristocracy or anything like that. She's the daughter of a random adventurer and of a village woman near Ashford Abbey. She sort of wants to be a warrior, but she really likes the mesmers' superior sense of fashion, and it's a struggle (#relatable; also, she does ultimately become a mesmer).

She mentions one specific mesmer, incidentally: Lady Althea, the daughter of Duke Barradin. Althea runs a theatre outside of the city, teaches students in illusion magic, and true to mesmer form, wears one of my favorite outfits in the game.

—but which tragically has yet to be ported to GW2. Anyway.

As the pre-Searing game progresses, we learn that after the last king died, the next person in the line of succession would have been Duke Barradin, Althea's father. He stepped aside for Adelbern, a war hero, and thus far, a competent and largely popular king who is loyally supported by Barradin, among others. The only opposition to his rule at this point comes from obnoxious snobs.

Anyway, Althea is engaged to Prince Rurik, Adelbern's son, and little Gwen wants to go to the royal wedding. She's never actually seen the prince and wonders if she ever will (she doesn't, in the event).

*deep breath* Then the Searing happens.

The Searing is devastating for both the land and the Ascalonians. The earth is turned into a cracked desolation marked with burning crystals. Rivers turn to sludge. Thousands of people are killed in the Searing alone and thousands more flee from the Charr invaders. Althea Barradin is taken captive and burned alive, down to ashes. Other people are captured and enslaved. Even GW2 says the Ascalonian aqueducts ran red with blood after the Searing.

As for the PC, you belatedly discover the details of this upon returning from a two-year Vanguard mission away from the heart of Ascalon. The full Charr invasion force is still being held back by what remains of Ascalon's armies, but Charr forces break through at points, and it's obvious the Ascalonians are now losing.

Meanwhile, the Ascalonian people are deeply traumatized. Enough of them went insane after the Searing that Ashford Abbey has been converted into a mental sanitarium. NPCs are trying to put together a census to figure out who is even alive at this point. In the battered but still standing Ascalon City, the random guards are like:

By and large, GW1 does not pull its punches.

As for Gwen, you have no idea what happened to her at this stage, though you find her flute—broken again—out in the desolation beyond Ascalon City. In fact, Prophecies never reveals what happened to her, and the two stand-alone expansions are in totally different locations with different, Charr-unrelated, plots (they're set in Cantha and Elona respectively, and for the full stories, you would make new Canthan and Elonian characters to play them).

Meanwhile, Prince Rurik (who adored his fiancée Althea) and the PC gradually realize the Ascalonians can't win this war. They need to accept the help offered by their traditional enemies in Kryta and take refuge there for the sake of their people. King Adelbern is ... not the same after the Searing and increasingly irrational. He refuses and disowns his son when Rurik argues with him.

Rurik is like ... fuck it, and he leads anyone who will go with him into the Shiverpeaks to get to Kryta, including the PC. Some friendly dwarves help out (there were lots of dwarves back then), while the malevolent Stone Summit (who I think oppressed the dredge??) try to kill the refugees and end up just murdering Rurik for no particular reason. This series of events is why the Ascalonian sector of Divinity's Reach is "Rurikton," though he himself never made it to Kryta.

BTW, Rurik's sword would be found and seized by Rytlock many generations later. This is what Logan is referring to in GW2 when he snaps at Rytlock, "Gut me? With what? That human-made sword you looted from Ascalon?" And 200+ years after the fact, Adelbern is still grief-stricken by how terribly wrong things went with Rurik. His mental state seems to have declined even faster after Rurik's death, which Rytlock mocks him over in the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon. This is a tangent, but, well.

After Rurik's death, you lead the refugees the rest of the way to Kryta. There, the also-theocratic but ostensibly benevolent White Mantle leadership of the country has offered you a settlement for the Ascalonian refugees. (The settlement is continually besieged but still standing in GW2, though the Ascalonians there are treated fairly dismissively.) You help the settlement and White Mantle for awhile before discovering the latter are super evil. You end up switching allegiances, and helping to overthrow them and place the daughter of the former king of Kryta (who fled during the Charr's triple invasion of Kryta, Orr, and Ascalon) on the throne.

(This post doesn't get into the invasions of Kryta and Orr, which don't have even the tenuous justification of the invasion of Ascalon. But they also happened around the same time, and the Orrians were terrified of experiencing what the Ascalonians did.)

The plot continues but is mostly unrelated to this arc. So you deal with Canthan stuff in Factions and then Elona stuff in Nightfall. And then, some eight or nine years after the Searing, you end up traveling wayyyyy north into Norn lands (this is the first time we encounter Norn) and discover a sanctuary there, the Eye of the North, which is actually home to a bunch of Ascalonians.

I can't remember if it's a GW2 retcon or not, but the Norn were actually pretty pro-Charr as far as the invasion went, apparently because they thought it was super badass, so they let the Charr pass through their lands. But they also let Ascalonian strike teams have a base up north, presumably also because they found it badass (I don't actually remember the rationale for the Ascalonian base otherwise).

Anyway. These Ascalonians are the early Ebon Vanguard, who at the time, are an elite force answering to King Adelbern and operating deep behind Charr enemy lines. Their numbers have grown, however, through the rescue and recruitment of human former slaves, prisoners, and refugees of the Charr. This matters because you're greeted by one of them when you arrive—a Vanguard member named Gwen.

Yup, it's her, at last.

So we find out what happened to her. She has some quests, and becomes both a hero (an NPC companion with a lot of player control options) and actually playable in a sort of mini-episode where you try to finagle her escape from the Charr and find out what her life was like before then.

Real bad, it turns out.

Back in/after the Searing, her mother was killed, and tiny Gwen wandered desperately around the devastated landscape, looking for help. This is kindly illustrated!

Instead, the Charr found her and enslaved her, which was apparently their standard practice for children. According to Gwen's official story, she "toiled under the constant lash" of Charr masters for seven years. Many other human slaves around her either broke and/or were killed. Gwen herself was afraid of the Charr but also developed a seething hatred of them.

At seventeen, she tried to escape and was quickly recaptured and judged useless by the Charr, except as a final entertainment. See, they had this fun practice of setting up gladiatorial matches inside their camps "for the glory of the legions." They'd set unarmed human slaves against wild animals and get a kick out of the humans being disemboweled (this is 100% canon!). So here's 17-y-o Gwen right before her planned disembowelment:

However! Gwen was smart and tricky enough to outwit the beast supposed to kill her, and she managed to kill it (iirc) and escaped into the labyrinthine tunnels below. These turned out to be the Charr's grisly depository for the bodies of those killed in the death matches over the years. Gwen was hardened enough by then to make her way through the dead, determined to escape for good. On the way, she discovered a book of mesmer spells and was able to learn them as she continued on.

She knew she'd be killed in an even more painful way if she were ever captured again, and the only thing to do was to keep going. She emerged from the tunnels and fled her pursuers, striking out for the mountains. On the way, she was discovered again—this time, by members of the Ebon Vanguard operating in Charr territory. She escaped with them, joined the Vanguard, and served them loyally.

That's not the end, though. By the time the PC meets Gwen, she is still very psychologically damaged, and part of her ruthlessness and rage comes from lingering fear. In the course of the plot, you end up freeing some Charr dissenters—not dissenters from the conquest or the Searing (this is explicit), but from being subject to theocratic rule based on gods who have turned out to be false (this is why Charr in GW2 are so hung up on trusting weaponry and "not false gods"). One of these dissenters is Pyre Fierceshot, a Charr hero by GW2 (and also a playable companion-hero in GW1). Gwen is immediately and intensely hostile towards him, as might be expected, while he proves to actually be trustworthy.

He calls her "mouse" (as Charr call all humans) and vaguely trolls her, but is ultimately fairly understanding of why she's so angry and scared. He turns out to be kind of trying to help her overcome her terror, and when the PC asks if he blames her for her rage and fear, he responds, "No. She was a prisoner of the Charr." But in his view, her fear is still crippling her and he's trying to get her to overcome it (because she's not useful!).

Gwen and Pyre end up cooperating in order to accomplish assorted things, but mainly working to spark a Charr revolution against the shaman caste whom Gwen and Pyre both have reasons to want gone (as does the PC, especially if you're a Prophecies character—and therefore an Ascalonian survivor of the Searing). Gwen does ultimately end up processing (some of) her trauma and overcoming her fear, and faces Pyre again. He asks if she's come to apologize, and this is what she says:

I want you to know: I do not like you. I do not forgive you. But most of all, I do not fear you. I hate you. There’s a difference.

me: 😍

I was concerned that her arc would culminate in her being shown to be wholly unreasonable and forgiving the Charr dissenters even though they're deeply complicit in what she, the PC, and their people have suffered. But no! She never forgives the Charr (at least in life), and she is never anything but a relentless opponent of them who seeks revenge and gets a lot of it, because she kills so many Charr that they remember her with fear and hatred as Gwen the Goremonger.

What an icon <3

Sometimes people will be like, well, the conflict depends on your POV, the Charr did bad things, but so did Gwen to become the Goremonger #bothsides. And I'm just like, "how dare you besmirch the honor of my blorbo, Gwen did nothing wrong in her entire life, THANKS."

But then we get to my least favorite part of her arc, though she remains incredible overall. It's the obligatory het stuff that I was complaining about awhile ago.

I don't know when they decided she was going to be the ancestor of the human mentor in GW2—maybe it was planned the whole time for Eye of the North (third expansion), maybe not. They had a sort of proto-Living World thing with new releases after the core Eye of the North story while working on GW2, which were meant to culminate in the founding of Ebonhawke. The arc got cut short because of a push from higher-ups to get GW2 out (RIP, Ebonhawke arc that I would have been incredibly into).

Some of what we did get, though, involved Gwen's romance with Keiran Thackeray, another member of the Vanguard. He made "advances" that she coolly rebuffed, but this turned out to be more a product of her trauma and difficulty connecting with people or trusting them than anything else. When she thought he and his unit had died, she was deeply upset that she'd never get the chance to make things right blah blah blah. It's got shades of Han/Leia in ESB, which would normally be a compliment (my favorite movie!), but isn't from me (I dislike the Han/Leia dynamic in 80% of ESB, actually!).

Anyway, he's not actually dead, and she's super relieved, and they end up getting married, and I suspect this whole "she needs to get over being cold and hard and he's just the guy to do it" dynamic exists mostly for the sake of Logan's existence in GW2. There's also a subplot involving her dead mother being on Team Keiran that I won't go into, but it all just feels kind of forced "of course our strong female character needs a man" to me.

It might annoy me a bit less if Logan, the result and likely partial cause of Gwen getting slated for romance, were not as bland as the romance itself. But while I generally like him, he is very milquetoast. I used to call him the beige heartthrob and even so, only realized how bland he is when I played a sylvari, and discovered the mentors are not all like that.

On the bright side, the obligatory het romance does not prevent Gwen from a life of righteous bloody vengeance. If anything, her husband likely helped out, which makes him slightly less annoying. They served together in the north until Adelbern sent the Ebon Vanguard and a suspicious number of civilians south to establish/fortify/defend Ebonhawke. Gwen's superior had died earlier and Gwen was in charge by then, and to go by the account in GW2, she made for an inspiring and hardcore leader on the way to Ebonhawke and in its defense over the rest of her life. She's a beloved hero and icon to the Ascalonians of over 200 years later, and her grave is still imbued with the magical power of being that cool.

#anghraine babbles #(this time very definitely for real)#long post #guild wars #guild wars 2 #gwen thackeray #althea barradin #prince rurik #adelbern #anghraine's pics #anghraine's gaming #ascalonian grudgeblog #pyre fierceshot #keiran thackeray critical #gwen x keiran critical #logan thackeray critical #anghraine's meta #gw1 spoilers

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forwantofacalling · 6 months

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hi bestie, i want to know your opinions for that lab partner/elevator/employee trainer ask game! you don't have to answer all/any of these but. i am so curious hehe

jing yuan, fu xuan, qinque

march 7th, dan heng, stelle/caelus

aak, hung, waai fu

furina, neuvillette, arlecchino

oh this is so funny okay

fuck/marry/kill except its get them randomly assigned as your lab partner for a whole semester, get trapped with them on a broken elevator for ten hours, or they’re your employee trainer for your new job at McDonalds

jing yuan/fu xuan/qingque:

first order of business i dont trust qingque in the lab OR in a kitchen so into the elevator she goes. I'd love to say jing yuan for that one because then i could probably just take a nap for the full ten hours but hey she can teach me how to play celestial jade or something. at least there's nothing to set on fire.

fu xuan and jing yuan is honestly a toss-up based on how much fu xuan cares about the task. she would be so very insufferable but i trust her to get the job done when it matters...that probably means I'd perfer her as a lab partner. honestly not a bad option ive probably had worse partners than her. at least she'd do her half of the report.

that leaves jing yuan to teach me how to work a frier. sure, i'd let him do that. he'd probably teach me the ropes and then come to work like 30 minutes late and once in a blue moon. i wouldnt be killing myself with any of the machinery though so i think thats a win.

march 7th/dan heng/stelle

i would let dan heng do any of these things. so the real question is with the other two.

...I'm not letting stelle in the kitchen. im also not letting march in the lab. she would drink the chemicals and i would be responsible. come to think of it i shouldn't let stelle in the lab either. shit. that leaves me with her in the elevator.

that's probably fine. its a closed metal box. i trust my ability to deal with stelle more when its not around dangerous tools or chemicals.

dan heng would get me an A in every lab no questions asked. he'd be the guy i never talk to outside of class and we'd speak in like five word sentences max but i'm not failing unless hell freezes over. he's probably actaully interested in the material too. 10/10 please introduce me an archiving job pleeeeeaseee

i want march to be able to cook. i think that would be cute. let her teach me how to stack a hamburger in the most aesthetic way i would absolutely let her do that. i would pose for her instagram stories. I would listen to her gossip. this job would never get boring.

aak/hung/waai fu

easy. hung mcdonalds, waai fu elevator, aak lab partner. now hear me out.

hung can cook so fucking well that if hes in somewhere as close as a mcdonalds im sure as HELL jumping for the chance to learn from him. also hes so goddamn nice. and strong. he can do handiwork and also beat the shit out of assholes i dont see any issue with this. 10/10.

waai fu is just friend shaped have you heard that girl talk i wanna be her friend. we would be so chill in that elevator yessss tell me all about your deadbeat dad and your found family i hope you kick that man's ass one day. good for you!!!! also she would let me take a nap without disturbing me. hung would too. honestly she and hung are interchangable i just worry that waai fu would end up being sued for punching someone during customer service.

okay look being lab partners with aak sounds like a terrible idea this boy is a genius pharm student who acts like a litearl child and would absolutely stab me in my sleep with a concoction from his mad scientist lab. BUT. he's a genius pharm student. as long as i DO ALL THE WORK and he agrees to answer my questions we're fine. we're fine. also i have his entire family on speed dial if that syringe gun gets anywhere near me waai fu would have him in headlock in two seconds flat sir i am calling your DAD.

furina/neuvilette/arlecchino

i feel like im being called out for not playign the fontaine quests yet 😭😭😭i only have a vague impression of what these guys are like pleaseee

furina i do NOT want to be stuck in an elevator with. i dont want to be in a closed space with arlecchino either. i feel like theres a good chance i would be fucking dead in the first two hours. or incredibly annoyed. ill take neuvilettte. this guy is fine. talk to me about water for 10 hours id listen.

now the question is who's mentee do i want to be. I feel like i should refuse arlecchino just on principle of whatever shes got going on with the siblings. she can be my lab partner. as long as we dont talk about anything except the work and she doesnt freaking kill me for messing anything up i think i'd survive. once the semester is over i can book it out of there. if furina was my lab partner i think the teacher would HATE us and i'd be dead by glitterbomb explosion by the second week.

that leaves furina at mcdonalds. i would not enjoy this and i would also not learn anything but its the lesser of three evils. i love furina but if i had to deal with her in real life i don't think there would be any way to win. i would just have to have her dragon on speed dial.

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realpokefarmconfessions · 2 months

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Niet in general just hates being told that hes wrong and never takes accountability for his own actions lol

With the account lockings he was busy making up numbers that werent even true to try to make it seem like it wasnt even that stressful, when it was. people who had dedicated so much time to his game were forcefully shoved out and were terrified they would lose all the progress they had made. sure people can go and say "oh well they shouldnt be so chronically online" or whatever, but clearly if niet is over here having a conversation through discord statuses, then he knows what its like being chronically online and hyperfocused on something. He should know how terrified ppl were when their accounts were locked. He should be able to tell by the amount of people telling him hes doing something wrong, that he is in fact DOING SOMETHING WRONG??? Also when he said "My 10 year old code just wasnt built for this much activity" and then him or a mod i cant remember got mad when someone said to fix his outdated code....

Instead of fighting everyone who disagrees with him he should learn to take some critizism for once and start actually acting his age. You cannot moderate a site correctly and be this immature and self centered.

People stay on his site because theyve already invested so much time into it before they learn all the crappy stuff the mods have done and the fact that niet never listens to users. of course they're not going to want to leave. the other trainers on the site are some of the nicest people ever and people again have dedicated so much time into the site, whether it be thru coding or forums, or collection, or how far theyve gotten in the pokedex. The concept of the site is great, and its the best we've got of its kind, but it still sucks in some aspects and niet refusing to acknowlege it is insane.

All joking aside Niet, seriously, where are you now for this post and others before this? Or are you sticking with it being "that's enough of that" now that your fun and games are over with? This is why people don't want to talk to you.

#pfq #pokefarm q #pokefarm #pokefarm tea #pokefarm drama #pfq drama #pfq niet

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mishy-mashy · 2 years

Text

Sinnoh OC ("Liv") that's employed by Riley to take care of Iron Island

Even if Riley's her boss and (based on the idea that he) owns the island, you wouldn't be able to tell by how they act

More than once has Roark seen her breathing fire and chasing Riley around the island after, admittedly, Riley did something

Riley saying "Yes ma'am" more than once

Liv knowing the island better than him

Riley getting berated in public and over the phone

Liv having him help out with chores when he drops by

Not Riley, but Liv being the one who sets the rules and boundaries of the Island to visitors

Liv being the only one allowed to, and capable of, negotiating quarrels between the wild pokemon

The wild pokemon like her, so she won't get attacked unless they want a pokemon battle

Riley struggling to carry two stacked crates of supplies while she walks hands-free, Gravellers following her and carrying everything else over their heads

Her only human interaction comes from passing trainers and Riley checking in on how everything's going. Occasionally, she'll leave by boat to go shopping

Once, Volkner beat up half of Iron Island in search of a challenge. Since her job is to keep Iron Island in order, she had to beat Volkner in a 1v1 to get him to leave. Volkner was about to go after the Steelix in the caves then

Copious amounts of medicine, stress, and some enraged gibberish at Riley over a communication device later ("None of your pokemon can heal someone that's not them?"), are things finally "manageable"

Then he gave her an egg to help her out, and it hatched into a Ponyta. This is the second egg he's given her; the first was to help her settle in to the job, this one is to help her around the island after The Volkner Incident

Flint has been banned in fear of him pulling a Volkner Incident v2.

She still has no pokemon that can heal others.

Thanks to that incident, she knows how to make medicinal items from scratch

The egg that hatched into a Ponyta had an Eevee evolution as a parent. If it hatched into an Eevee, it would've been shiny

She has a team of three. She can only do 1v1 because only one of her pokemon has any experience in trainer battles. Her two other pokemon are literal babies (a 3-month old baby pokemon and a just-born Ponyta)

Say it was game-formatted, she's like one of those trainers you could fight at the start of the game. A Lvl 11 Happiny and a lvl 8 Ponyta? Easy plucking! She'd even have a dialogue at the end about "I knew it was a bad idea..." when she loses

If she wins,

"... ... ...

... ... I'm sorry."

Riley has a line that might appear if you keep talking to him, and it hints at her lore

"A while ago, Oreburg Gym wasn't always a rock-type Gym.. when she stepped down, no one could blame her, really.."

Away from that game-format, her partner pokemon saw her from childhood, to the league, to now, and is lvl 71. But personal HC, if a pokemon doesn't train, its level can go down from deteriorating experience, so instead, he's around lvl 54.

Her partner pokemon is friends with Riley's Lucario, since they would snack on berries while watching their trainers - her more irritated than him - chase each other around the island. Plus, they can both sense aura

Fights with his Lucario(independent from their trainers) often end in stalemate, because they both sense aura and are very close in skill. To stay in shape, he goes through a lot of the courses of the Island

He sighs at everyone a lot, so when he's not around, Riley's Lucario picks up the slack and does it for him

"Ruu.."

"Liv, stop giving my friend bad habits."

"Wha-"

She did learn the hard way not to use Flash in the caverns because it startles the wild pokemon. So she mainly has her Happiny use Flash on people if she's annoyed at them

It's why Flint always arrives in sunglasses when he tries to enter Iron Island.

"Flint."

"Hmmm?"

"You know what you did wrong, get back on that boat."

It's also why he calls her Happiny a menace. Luckily, she doesn't understand him because she doesn't know that word, and has started seeing it as his nickname for her. Thus, she always starts laughing

It does not help that Flint begrudgingly thinks this Happiny is cute

"Hrrgh..."

Volkner is unaffected by this pokemon's flying hearts, sparkles, and smile innocent of all evil.

".. Why is it smiling at me?"

Meanwhile, Flint is enabling her Happiny by feeding sweets behind her back, so she always has to deal with an energetic baby pokemon running around faster than she can blink

Her Happiny likes Roark because he gave her the roundest stone she's ever seen, but she also stole Riley's egg once, and sometimes, she picks up so much pebbles that she gets stuck at the shore and starts crying

If the Island's wild pokemon didn't recognize Liv and her younger pokemon, her Ponyta and Happiny would've died long ago from natural causes that are otherwise, completely avoidable

She nicknamed the Steelix in the cave

There's a shiny Tentacool in the waters that Riley has had his eye on for the last month, and it always ends in poisoning that Liv has to treat at the shoreline, while holding a conversation with said shiny Tentacool

"I know, he's really dumb, isn't he."

She got bubbling water in response, their purple body half-surfaced in the waves near her.

"Thanks for bringing him back again." She reached for a Pecha berry, before holding it over his mouth and crushing the berry.

He usually gets a cold because he always dives into the water to find it, since chasing with a boat just disturbs all the pokemon and gets him tipped over by some territorial Tentacruels

The wild pokemon originally had it out for her, until she just wouldn't leave, that they got used to her. Then she got hired by Riley

Thing is, she didn't want the job at all; but Riley thought she was ideal for the job and that she needed it the most (personal circumstances were all over the media), and eventually, she caved

She doesn't have to pay rent, but occasionally for extra funds, she hosts a typical "1V1, double your money!!" on the mainland for anyone willing to step up

Other than that, she'll go to small tournaments.

When Riley brought Diamond over for training, she interrupted their fight and kicked them to another area because they were fighting too close to her home. The tremor even knocked down her Happiny's pebble tower she was in the middle of making with all the joy in the world.

Riley and his Lucario sensed her annoyance immediately, so Diamond was confused when they suddenly just.. doubled down, took a step back, and raised their hands in surrender

"Uh oh."

"Uh oh?"

"Riley."

So after a crying Happiny, a too-bright Flash to the eyes, some scolding, and being booted out, they proceeded to do their thing on another part of the island.

When they went down to the cave, they encountered a wild shiny Crobat that Liv somehow never told Riley about. He would've tried catching it, but he remembered this wild pokemon had a friendship evolution; it had to have befriended someone to evolve. So he didn't, because this Crobat already had someone else it liked

Multiple times a day, she walks around the Island shore to throw washed up Tentacools and the occasional Tentracruel back into the ocean

Once, Cynthia came over for tea. Just for tea. A girls' chat in her living room. That's it.

#pokemon #sinnoh #oc #since shes always on Iron Island her activities center around the place #riley #flint #Liv #volkner #so her human interactions also center around whoever comes by. especially the most #so usually Riley #and Byron and other gym leaders #maylene is awkward around her because she always tries giving her food (she does this to everyone)#and because of Liv's once-gym-leader-status

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seita · 3 years

Text

— better than (m.)

pairing : iwaizumi/reader

wordcount : 3.087

genre : fluff, smut, pwp

cw : college!au, athletic trainer!iwaizumi

tags : implied age gap (hes 27 reader is in college- age nkt specified. he's older tho), size kink, dom!iwa, pussy job (a lil bit), multiple orgasms, sensitivity kink (if u squint), squirting, fingering, creampie, aftercare.

note : this was just an excuse to write about how iwaizumi is better than any other boy <3 thank u to @toshisins for beta'ing this for me <3

+ summary : you're so tired of dumb college boys who hump and dump, with no stroke game, and can never even try to get you off. that is, until you meet 27 year old iwaizumi hajime.

When you first met Iwaizumi Hajime at the bar near your college campus, you noticed how good looking he was. Well, that was an understatement - he was tall, fit with tanned skin and a confident aura that made you weak in the knees.

You hadn't actually had the courage to approach him, however. Instead, you let some college boy buy you a cheap drink and take you home for some mediocre sex before kicking you out after not even 15 minutes of his reckless humping.

The second time you met him was at the same place. He was sitting at the bar, nursing a glass of whiskey that was almost empty. His back was to you and it gave you a wonderful view of his broad shoulders.

The mediocre lay from the last time you had been there attempted to chat you up again with false confidence, as if he had been the best fuck of your life. Naturally, you weren't having any of his bullshit - he tried to rub your clit like a scratch and sniff, forcing you to pry his hand away from it, there was no chance in hell you were giving him another second of your time. He definitely wasn't the type of guy who took rejection well, if not evident by the way he exploded and went off calling you a wide, colorful variety of names paired with numerous hurtful insults that had tears of humiliation filling your eyes.

“Hey now,” a smooth, deep voice had interrupted his very public spiel, “Don’t punish the girl for your own short comings, if she doesn't wanna fuck you again, don't you think that says more about your abilities as a man?”

The other man sputtered, muttering even more curses before storming out - probably not wanting to tussle with a guy who looked like he benched every second of his day.

There was something about Iwaizumi that just immediately had your heart skipping a beat over him. He was kind, a gentleman, and never seemed desperate or overbearing. He was confident and comfortable with himself and where he was in life.

You quickly learned that Iwaizumi was 27, almost 28 and worked as an athletic trainer so he traveled a lot.

For a while, your relationship seemed one sided with him. You'd text him and he’d reply but he rarely ever actually reached out to you. You tried flirting with him, asking him out for drinks, but it never seemed to pull him in.

It was frustrating. In basically no time at all, you had developed a stupid puppy dog crush on him. You felt like a middle school girl with a crush on a high school senior - like he was never going to give you the time of day. You were simply too young for him.

You eventually stopped trying with him, choosing to delete your message thread with him and continued on with your life.

You went through more college-boy hookups - all of them ending in disaster. Quite frankly, you were fed up with mediocre cock and being treated like shit when they were done with you. It wasn't a nice feeling, being kicked out after they didn't even bother trying to make you cum.

You couldn’t help but wonder what Iwaizumi would be like in bed. He was just so attractive, you knew he had gotten his dick wet more times than he could count. He definitely seemed the type who preferred relationships over hookups.

That's when it occurred to you.

You pulled out your phone and scoured your contacts. It had been a couple weeks since you spoke but you couldn't resist bugging him just one last time. You opened a new message thread with him and quickly typed the question that was now plaguing your mind.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

It was the question that had changed the course of your relationship with him.

When you asked, it was like everything fell into place. Perhaps it finally relayed to him the interest you had. All that really mattered was the fact he suddenly began talking to you, starting conversations and even venturing into phone calls with you.

You lost all interest in those college boys you once hung out with and went home with to get laid. None of them made you feel the way Iwaizumi could with a simple text message. He was everything a girl could ask for and you were shocked he was single.

Which was why you were quick to ask him on a date, not caring if it made you look desperate -- you practically were. You would be damned if he went off the market while you were busy beating around the bush.

Going on a date with Iwaizumi was like a dream. You were so used to dates at sleazy bars for a couple of drinks just so they could hurry up and take you home for a quick fuck.

Iwaizumi took the time to take you on several dates -- dinner, movies, walks around town to obscure shops he thought you might like, before it finally led to the bedroom.

You had never been nervous with sex but with Iwaizumi it was different. The routine was dumb college boys who usually fawned over your tits for a few minutes before their hard ons became the center of their brain function.

You found yourself completely bare on his bed as he stood at the foot, fully clothed. The way his eyes raked across your body like a lion eyeing its next, delicious meal had you curling in on yourself shyly.

His lips quirked up as your arms came across your breasts, shielding them from his predatory gaze, “Oh now, you know better than that, don’t you? What kind of good girl hides herself, hm? Acted so eager for my cock all this time, now you wanna be shy?”

You gasp, cheeks flushing hot as you register his words -- he’d known you wanted him that badly all this time?

He clicks his tongue, “You didn’t think you were subtle did you? Bet you would have done anything to get your paws on my dick when I got off work early the other day, hm? Showed up at your apartment...you were starin’ real hard at me, I’m right aren’t I?”

You think that to that day, lashes fluttering against your cheeks at the memory. He was wearing loose gray sweats and a muscle tank top that showed his biceps flexing with every movement he made. Your eyes had immediately been drawn, however more down to his crotch instead. Where you could clearly see the outline of his cock through the material.

You had stuffed your little fingers in your cunt for hours that night, thinking about how big he looked -- even soft, couldn’t imagine if he was hard.

“Ah, there you go again,” he muses, snapping you out of your haze, “Maybe if you ask real pretty for me, I’ll give you just what you want.”

“Please,” you immediately gasp, “Want you so much Hajime, i-it hurts. Can’t stop thinkin’ about you…”

“It hurts?” he huffs, finally reaching up to pull his shirt off, leaving you to ogle his pecs and defined abs, which flex as he works on removing his jeans, “Needy little cunt hurts ‘cause you don’t have a nice, fat cock stuffing it full? Such a dramatic little baby. I just know your phone is full of some little college boys’ numbers...why don’t you give them a call?”

You shake your head, “Don’t want them! I just know they’re not as good as you, Hajime, please...please make me cum, I'll do anything?”

“Aw, those idiot little boys don’t know how to make a pretty girl like you cum, is that it?” he asks, climbing onto the bed, making the mattress dip beneath you as he slots himself between your thighs.

“No,” you pout, letting him spread your legs, hands under your knees to open you up to his greedy gaze.

“So compliant with me, you just need a real man to get you off, huh?” he smiles when you nod, “Don’t worry, I’ll take real good care of you.”

Oh, you knew. Just from the way he moved his hips against yours, parting your folds so the head of his cock glided from your clenching little hole, dragging your slick up to your clit -- you just knew that he knew what he was doing.

As you looked between your legs, you felt yourself gush at the sight. His cock was so big, long and fat, drooling precum over your slick little slit, making a mess. He wrapped his fist around his length, making you whimper as his fingers couldn’t even wrap around the girth of him. He slapped his cock against your cunt, groaning at the strings of your slick that clung to him.

“Such a messy cunt,” he sighs, making sure to spank your clit with the head of his cock, laughing breathlessly when your thighs jumped in response to the sudden stimulation, “So fucking eager for me, aren’t you?”

“Uhuh,” you sigh, arching your hips, “Want you to fuck, please, Hajime, need it so bad.”

Much to your dismay, he shakes his head, “Can’t just put it in, pretty baby,” the pet name makes you whimper, “It’ll hurt too much, want you to feel good, yeah?”

“I can handle it,” you breathlessly reassure, canting his hips upward once more to drag your clit against that ridge on the crown of his cock, “Jus’ put it in…”

He doesn’t respond this time but still makes no move to put his cock inside. You’re distracted, however, by the way he now focuses on playing with your clit. Using his cock, he drags the underside across the hard little bud, slaps it once with the tip and before you know it your body is seizing up and you cum.

You let out a string of curses, falling limp against the bed as he works you through the quick high.

“See, that was so easy,” he chuckles, “Those stupid little boys you’ve been letting screw you have no idea what they’re doing, do they? Little cunts so sensitive, I barely even had to do anything to make you cum.”

You’re still trembling when you come down, licking your lips as you give him a dopey little smile and a nod at his cooing. He can’t resist leaning down, and pressing his lips against yours almost desperately. You wrap your arms around his neck, holding him in a deep kiss while his hand finds its way between your legs, two fingers sliding easily into your slick little cunt.

You moan into his mouth, “Hajime ah! ...please, make me cum again.”

“Fuck, you’re so desperate for me,” he hisses through his teeth, “Clenching around my fingers so tight. If I crook my fingers...right here...I bet you’ll just…”

As if on cue, his fingertips hook on your g-spot and you squeal, legs kicking out as you gush around his fingers. He bites his lip and continues to fuck his fingers against that spot, watching your eyes roll back, mouth falling open in a silent cry as you cum for the second time in mere minutes.

“Y-You’re so good, Hajime…” you praise softly, “Fuck, please, give me your cock now!”

He laughs and sits up properly again, pulling his fingers from your cunt. He examines them for a second, slick with your cum and streaks of cream covering the digits before he pops them into his mouth with a moan, savoring the taste of you.

“Alright, baby,” he sighs after pulling out his fingers with a pop!. He grips you beneath the knees again and scoots closer until his tip prods at your entrance. You shudder at the feeling, “Relax for me, pretty girl, let me in…”

Iwaizumi begins pushing in, letting out a soft groan as the head finally buries itself in your cunt. You squeal at the feeling, pulling your knees closer to your chest. The sound of you moaning and whimpering just from his head has him throbbing almost painfully against your tender cunt.

“Almost there…” he huffs, grinning at the sight of your eyes rolling back, “Ah, does that feel good?”

“Yes!” you cry out, “Biggest cock I’ve ever had…’s full…”

“Yeah, baby? It feels so good to finally get your cunt filled with a nice, big cock huh?” he laughs when you nod eagerly, “It’s alright, baby. You won’t have to deal with any mediocre college boys anymore, yeah? This cock’s all yours now…you hear that? All yours.”

Your hand flies down between your legs, finding your clit. He watches with lidded eyes as you circle the little bud and squeal, keeping his hips still to let you cum around his cock nice and hard like you need.

“That’s it, pretty girl,” he hums, “Get yourself off, you know what you need...atta girl…”

You sigh happily at his praise, licking your lips and relax against the bed once more. He takes that as his hint that you were ready, pulling his hips back before roughly slamming back inside your sensitive cunt. It knocks the air from your lungs and you cry out, unable to hold back your noises as he fucks you senseless.

He uses his strength to keep you pinned, forcing your knees against your chest, leaving your cunt open and vulnerable to his pistoning cock. Iwaizumi is so big that the stretch burns every time he sinks back into you, the tip touching your cervix with every calculated thrust, making your entire body ache with the deep pain of it.

But it all feels so good, you’d never been fucked like that before. He knew exactly where to aim his cock, keeping his eyes fixed on your face to watch your reactions, gaze flicking down to where his cock stuffs your cunt full to watch you coat him in your cream whenever he grazes that sweet little spot deep inside you -- a spot no other man had ever tried to find before.

“Feel good?” he questions, though he knew the answer even before you cry it out.

“Ah, yes! Yes, yes, yes!” you sob, “I-It feels so good, Hajime! Fuck, you’re so good at fucking me! You make me feel like a virgin all over again!”

He grins, “Yeah, I know I am, baby.”

His cocky, confident response would have been a turn off with any other man, but with him -- it only made you moan. He had every right to be cocky, he knew just how to use his cock and it was exhilarating.

“You gotta cum again for me, pretty,” he pants, “Cum again, one more time, let go.”

Your throat burns from how much you scream for him, the messy noises coming from him fucking your sloppy cunt should be embarrassing -- you’ve never made such a mess before. You’ve never been so wet, creaming and gushing all the way down his balls.

He didn’t seem to mind, instead he seemed to only be turned on by it.

“I want you to squirt, can you do that for me? Make a pretty mess for me.”

You shake your head, “D-Don’t know how...Can’t.”

“Yes you can, baby,” he purrs, “I can make you, you know that I will.”

You didn’t but, you couldn’t help but nod -- immediately believing him and trusting him. He shifts his knees just slightly, changing his center of balance before his palm curls over your pubic bone, thumb effortlessly finding itself pressed against your clit.

The change in angle lets him hit your g-spot even more brutal than before. You’re immediately arching and crying out for him, eyes rolling back into your head as you feel your orgasm slam into you faster than you’d ever experienced.

Instead of slowing you down, he works you through it, keeping the same, animalistic pace and keeps his thumb pressed against your clit, the rough pad of his thumb has you ogling. If anything, the calloused hands of Iwaizumi proves to you how much of a real man he is, those college boys have nothing on him.

“Give it to me, c’mon,” he urges, clenching his teeth together from the effort it takes to keep going to this hard and fast pace.

“H-Haji…” you cut yourself off as you feel yourself get thrown over the edge again. This time, something feels different and you can’t help but sob, “Please! I-I’m gonna-!”

“That’s it, fuck!” he moans, pace stuttering when you squirt -- your cum splashing against his abs as you shudder and squeal, “Good fuckin’ girl, my good girl. Shit, where do you want me to cum?”

“I-Inside! Fuck, please! I need your cum!” you immediately sob, nails biting in his biceps where you reach out to grip him -- trembling and crying from overstimulation as he works towards his own high.

“You sure? Shit,” you nod, breathless pleas falling from your lips as he finally stills, spilling his load deep inside with a long, drawn-out groan.

Everything is still for a moment and then he’s pulling out with a hiss. You whine at the feeling of your cunt gaping, yearning for his cock again, as his cum leaks out.

He hums, “Sorry about that, let me get you cleaned up.”

You sigh, and close your eyes, trying to relax and let your body settle its trembling. He comes back and quietly works on cleaning the mess between your thighs.

“Alright, up you go,” he sighs, taking your arm and helping you to your feet. You whine and wobble for a second, making him laugh, “You good?”

“Y-Yeah…” you stumble a bit and lean against his dresser, looking for your discarded clothes.

He has his back to you as he strips his sheets. Suddenly, you feel shut out -- like you shouldn’t be there anymore.

He brushes past you to his closet, pulling out some fresh sheets. You feel silly, standing there naked while he gets ready for bed. You bend down and grab your panties, clumsily putting them on before moving to pick up your dress, where it’s crumpled on the floor.

“What’re you doing?” he laughs, “That won’t be comfortable to sleep in.”

“Huh?” you tilt your head to the side and he pauses fluffing his pillows.

“What...you didn’t think I was kicking you out, did you?” he asks and scoffs at the face you make.

“Well I...usually I…” you shift on your feet nervously and he frowns, walking up to you.

He cups your cheeks and makes you look at him, “Jesus, who have you been fucking?” he laughs and gently nudges you towards the bed, “Lay down before you fall over.”

Fighting back a smile, you do as you’re told and sit on the bed, watching as he puts on a fresh pair of sweats, waiting for him to join you. When he does, he immediately pulls you into his arms, pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

“Take a nap, and then we’ll take a shower.”

“It’s 11 at night, it wouldn’t be a nap,” you counter with a giggle.

“Well,” he sighs, “Take a shower in the morning then, and then we can go get breakfast, yeah?”

You smile and relax against him, “Sounds good.”

#haikyuu smut #hq smut #iwaizumi smut #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #iwaizumi x reader #iwaizumi hajime smut #hajime iwaizumi smut #iwaizumi hajime x reader #hajime iwaizumi x reader #afton.writes

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waka-chan-out · 3 years

Note

Ok concept/request, you're riding Iwaizumi in the Aoba Johsai locker room and Oikawa walks in on you two and you feel like everything is about to get really awkward, but then Iwaizumi asks if he could join in?

(I ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ your stuff so much btw!!!!!!!)

Cool Down

i am OBSESSED with this idea. y’all know how much i like writing multiple characters, huh? 👀 sorry for taking so long on this but thank you for sending in a request! i’m flattered you like my content baby i hope you’re doing well

i exclusively write post-timeskip characters so i’m going to change this to argentina national team oikawa and athletic trainer iwaizumi if that’s alright :) but the concept shall remain the same.

word count: 2k

content warnings: she/her afab reader, established relationship, threesome, oral (m. receiving), double penetration, “sir,” “good girl,” LOTS of pet names, ass play, very low risk public sex, light teasing, light dacryphilia, creampie

You could still hear players shuffling out of the arena from the locker room. Tooru had told his team not to wait up, that he was going to stay and catch up with old friends. Instead, he had pulled you into his team’s deserted locker room and pushed you against the cool concrete wall, too hyped up from his game to even manage a shower.

Somehow that made it even hotter as you tangled your fingers in his lovely blue jersey, holding on as tight as you could as you shifted up and down in his lap.

His breath rushed heavy into your ear, face screwed up in pleasure and pressed into the crook of your neck. Both of you were so wrapped up in each other that the ability to speak was stripped away entirely, leaving behind pants and groans and the occasional high pitched moan.

Your brains and bodies were occupied, and that made it impossible to hear the locker room door clunk open and the heavy footsteps approach the back row of lockers.

“Oikawa.”

The voice fell like a bucket of cold water. You couldn’t run, so you clapped your hands over your face and buried into Tooru’s shoulder. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Tooru turned around, an exhausted smile on his face.

“Iwa-chan.” He let out a cough, unable to catch his breath. “Thought you would’ve gone home by now.”

“I figured you’d pull something like this.”

“But you won’t tell, will you? Because you’re our good little Iwa-chan.”

Iwaizumi’s face screwed up in disgust.

“I wasn’t going to tell as long as you were in a generous mood.”

You perked up.

“What?” you asked. Iwaizumi crossed his arms.

“Shitty-kawa needs to learn how to share if he’s going to make a mess in our locker rooms.”

Your eyes grew wide and Tooru laughed.

“I don’t know whether to take you seriously or not, Iwa-chan.”

“I could just report you.”

“I didn’t say no, but I’m not the one you have to ask.”

They both turned to face you and your mouth grew dry.

Scanning Iwaizumi’s body, you couldn’t say you’d never thought about it. The few times you had met Tooru’s Iwa-chan in person he had such a presence around him. No matter how out of control Tooru got, Iwaizumi held the reigns, able to shut situations down in only a few words. Not only that, he was almost infuriatingly good looking. His uniform polo looked uncomfortably tight around his chest and biceps, and that’s not even mentioning the way his legs fit into his dress pants.

You wanted his arms around you. Immediately.

“Does the door lock?” you asked. Tooru grinned.

“I knew you were fun,” he said, pressing kisses to your neck. Iwaizumi’s lips curled into a smile and he disappeared for a moment. You heard an echoey click and he returned, already pulling his belt out of its loops. Tooru laughed again.

“Cocky, Iwa-chan. At least get them warmed up first.”

Iwaizumi approached you, continuing to undo his slacks.

“I think you’ve already taken care of that,” he muttered, pushing down on Oikawa’s shoulder so he would laid down on the bench. Iwaizumi leaned down and pressed a gentle but warm kiss on your lips.

“You’ll be good for me, right?” he whispered as he pulled down the front of his briefs. You grinned and tugged him closer by the belt loop.

“Yes.” You punctuated the word by wrapping your lips around him. He was slightly shorter than Oikawa but significantly thicker. You looked up at him and took him as far into your mouth as you could.

“Shit,” he breathed, cupping your chin and running a thumb over your cheek. “What did you do to bag this one?”

Oikawa laughed and laced his fingers behind his head.

“I’m very charming, Iwa-chan. You should know that by now.”

You smiled as much as you could with Iwaizumi’s weight still in your mouth. He looked down at you and combed your hair out of your face.

“Wanna make him shut up for me?” he asked. You became keenly aware of the fact that Tooru was still inside of you and circled your hips. He hissed and tipped his head back against the bench.

“Mean, Iwa-chan,” he gasped. You continued a steady rock in his lap and he let out small, sharp breaths, trying to remain composed as he watched your eyes focus on Iwaizumi’s. “Don’t push her head,” he warned. “She doesn’t like that.”

“Yeah?” Iwaizumi said. His hand cupped your face, gently following your movement as your head dipped and pulled back. “You don’t like when he shows you what to do, huh? What if I show you what to do? Will you let me?”

He pulled you off of him, gently swiping at your lip to clean your face. He pushed his index and middle past into your lips, dragging them over your tongue. You closed your eyes at the feeling and you heard him let out a content laugh.

“That’s my girl. Why don’t you bend over for me?”

You quickly leaned forward so you were laying on Tooru’s chest.

“You really are an obedient little thing, aren’t you?” he said, running a hand through your hair. “Why don’t you behave this way with me, hm?”

“Because you don’t command any respect,” Iwaizumi grumbled. He ran his hands over your ass then down, circling your entrance. You gasped and held Tooru tighter.

“Don’t act so shy,” he said through a laugh. “You’ve done that before and you know you like it.”

“Oh? Is that true?” Iwaizumi asked. You nodded, but he ran his hand over the back of your neck and tugged your hair lightly. “Words, darling.”

“Yes,” you stammered. He chuckled and unceremoniously pushed a finger inside of you. You let out a choked moan and pressed your face further against Tooru’s chest.

“Aw, Iwa-chan, be nice.”

“I am being nice. Feels good, doesn’t it doll?”

“Y—” You paused as Tooru leaned up to your ear.

“Call him sir. He’ll lose it.”

Iwaizumi landed a quick smack on your ass and pushed in another finger.

“What did I say about your words? Does it feel good?”

“Yes, sir.” The words were rushed, nervous. You were sure Iwaizumi could hear the hesitation in your voice, but the low groan that left him was assurance enough.

“Oh, fuck. What a good girl.” You could hear him readjusting his pants and gasped when he pressed up against you from behind. “You gonna be good and take all of me? I know you can do it.” You hummed as he started pushing forward.

“Yes, sir.”

He laughed aloud and continued to slowly sheath himself inside of you. He was going agonizingly slow, and though you knew you needed time to adjust, all you wanted was more.

“That’s right, baby. Take him like you take me,” Tooru said, running his hands over your waist. “I’m still better, though. Right?” Iwaizumi finally bottomed out inside of you and you let out a short, strangled sound, pressing your forehead against Tooru’s. “See? You’ve sent her right back into my arms.”

“We’ll see about that.” Iwaizumi pulled back slowly, dragging a shocked gasp from your throat. “You can’t fill her up like this. Right, sweetheart? Tell me how full you are.”

“So full,” you groaned. As his hips pushed forward again you mumbled, “please.” His laugh was even louder this time.

“Please what? Come on.”

“Please fuck me, Iwa.”

“I think that’s what I’m doing right now. You asking for more?” He moved his hips quickly once and you moaned.

“Yes,” you breathed.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, sir.” You leaned up and looked Tooru in the eye. “Yes, Hajime. Please fuck me harder.” His eyebrow raised and a smirk pulled at his lips.

“Oh, fuck.” Iwaizumi’s voice rumbled in his chest as he gripped your hips, snapping them against you hard and fast.

“Look at you, doll.” Tooru purred. “Taking his cock when I’m still inside of you. You that desperate? You want me to fuck you too?”

You nodded, face screwed up in a wince as Iwaizumi found a perfect angle inside of you.

“No sir for me? Greedy little thing. I guess you can have my cock. Next time you’ll have to beg.” He joined Iwaizumi in holding your hips, lifting them slightly off of him so he could gain leverage. Then he began slowly moving, cock dragging inside of you and, oh fuck, did it feel good to have both of them pushing inside of you. Tooru quickly build up his pace to match Iwaizumi’s, each of them thrusting into you at the same time. The feeling was overwhelming and quickly brought a sob to your lips.

“Aw, baby don’t cry. You were so ready for us. What happened?”

“Don’t be mean, Oikawa. She’s taking it well.”

“Sure, Iwa-chan, but she doesn’t seem very grateful, does she?” He grabbed your chin and brought your face up to look at him. “Say thank you.”

You choked on a moan as Tooru halted mid-thrust, pushing right up against where you wanted him most.

“Thank you,” you murmured. Tooru laughed.

“Come on, princess, Iwa-chan couldn’t hear you. Say it so he can hear it.”

“Thank you, Hajime.”

Iwaizumi let out a strained laugh but said nothing, too focused on the rock of his hips.

“Now me,” Tooru purred. There was a delicious glint in his eye. You couldn’t decide whether it was frightening or devastatingly sexy. “Say thank you, Tooru. Thank you for fucking you so well and letting my Iwa-chan have his way with you.”

“Thank you, Tooru,” you gasped. “For everything. Please.” You leaned forward and captured his lips. His eyes widened before settling into a smug expression.

“Fuck I’m gonna cum soon,” Iwaizumi said. Tooru broke your kiss.

“Not inside,” he warned. Iwaizumi scoffed.

Tooru seemed to realize that he was close as well, face screwing up and hips moving more erratically.

“Are you going to cum with us, princess? Make a mess all over our cocks?” You whimpered and buried your face into his neck. “I think that’s a yes, Iwa-chan. Just wait. She’s so pretty when she cums.”

“Tooru, please,” you begged, but you didn’t know what for. You were climbing fast, body giving in completely to the feeling of the two men inside of you. You felt so good and so full you almost couldn’t stand it.

“Be nice, Oikawa. Let her cum first.” Iwaizumi’s voice was strained.

“Won’t be too long, Iwa-chan. Just look at her.”

You were so close. You could almost taste the orgasm about to rack your body, more overwhelming than ever due to the second man buried inside of you.

“Please,” you begged, but you didn’t know who you were begging to. “Please, let me cum.”

“Let go, baby. We’ve got you,” Tooru said, staring past you at Iwaizumi. Your body locked up and you let out a small sobbing noise, tightening your grip on Tooru’s jersey. Your body shook and the men seemed to follow soon after you. Tooru mumbled a small flurry of “that’s it”s before holding your hips tight and spilling inside of you. Iwaizumi let out a long groan, continuing a slow slide in and out of you. Despite Tooru’s warning, Iwaizumi’s hips remained flush against your ass as he groaned through his orgasm, making you feel lightheaded but forcing a scowl onto Tooru’s face.

You all lay there panting for a moment, unsure of how and when to move. Your entire body was buzzing. The slightest movement forced a gasp, and a long hiss left your lips as Iwaizumi withdrew.

“Iwa-chan, what did I tell you?” Tooru said, but there was no fight in his voice. He sounded exhausted. Iwaizumi didn’t respond. He tucked himself back into his pants and leaned down, pressing a kiss to the top of your head and rubbing your arm. He stared at you for a moment longer before smirking.

“Make sure you stretch before you leave, Oikawa. You missed the cool down at the end of the game.”

Then he turned on his heels and left the locker room, leaving you and Oikawa alone with the echoes of what you had just done.

———————————————————————

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#i’ll say it again #iwaizumi is the one character i don’t think i could dom #so…..this is the product #anyway happy b day tooru ily #i know it’s a lil late but i’ve got the spirit #there’s no one i’d rather have absolutely destroy my body 🥰#oikawa smut #iwaizumi smut #iwaizumi x reader #oikawa x reader #oikawa x reader x iwaizumi #iwaoi x reader #haikyuu smut #haikyuu x reader

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your-world-with-nct · 3 years

Text

— @doyoungcore ty for the inspiration for this post joyce 🥺 consider this a very belated bday present hehe (also apologies for the late post, i hope this longer blurb makes up for it 🙈)

💌 • 4:56pm

browsing the clothing racks for items that caught your eye, you sighed as you checked the price tag of the pair of jeans you’d been considering getting for a while, groaning at the fact that it hadn’t gone on sale yet.

you dragged your feet to the next aisle, looking down at your worn-out sneakers and heading for the shoe section instead, immediately spotting some reasonably-priced stylish boots along with your favourite shoe brand’s name splashed above the display.

“hey, excuse me, hi, do you have a minute?” you would be lying if you said that the man standing in front of you panting and swiping at his forehead wasn’t the most beautiful person you’d ever laid eyes on, your throat drying up at his unbelievable looks.

“oh, me? yeah, i have a minute, are you okay?” you questioned why this man who could pass off as a model was acting as desperate as those people in the town centre who passed out flyers that nobody ever paid attention too, pausing to take in his breathtaking physique.

“i’m so sorry to bother you, but my name is doyoung, and my ex is here with her new boyfriend. i was wondering if you could just pose as my partner for a bit, y’know, until she’s gone,” stranger!doyoung nervously smiled at you, his eyes flitting all over as, you assumed, he was searching for his ex, “if i’m interrupting your shopping, i-i’ll go but, i, i just don’t wanna look pathetic in front of her.”

the request shocked you, but there was a small voice in your head that wanted to go along with it. not only because you felt sorry for doyoung and you didn’t want him to embarrass himself in front of his ex, but also the fact this gorgeous boy thought that you were believable enough to be, well, in his league and dating him, inflated your ego and you had to repay him for doing wonders with your confidence.

“no, no, that’s fine, doyoung! i’m y/n, by the way, and don’t worry, you’re not really interrupting anything,” you grinned at him, trying not to scream when an adorable gummy smile appeared on his face, “just do what you need to do, i’ll go with it.”

contrary to your statement, you couldn’t hide the shock on your face when doyoung went straight for your hand and interlocked your fingers, leading you to those shoes you’d been eyeing, while gazing at you with his twilight orbs, “how about those, babe? i remember you saying you needed more shoes to go with those pants you bought last week.”

considering how jittery doyoung was when he approached you, you were beyond amazed by how easily he transformed into an endearing ‘boyfriend’, helping you reach shoes on higher shelves and asking employees for your size, all whilst making light-hearted conversation with you and calling you the cutest nicknames.

within a few minutes, you were immersed in your role, completely embracing doyoung’s kindness, and even forgetting that it was all an act at times, especially when he tidied away the shoes you didn’t want and wordlessly handed your sneakers back to you, as if it was his silent way of showing affection.

except… it wasn’t; he was just trying to save himself from embarrassment and it meant absolutely nothing to him, whilst, you, on the other hand, basked in the undeserved attention he gave you. the feeling of being cared for was so unfamiliar to you that the slightest acts of service from a handsome stranger had you melting.

it had been almost ten minutes since you were parading around as doyoung’s lover, yet you still hadn’t seen his dreaded ex nor her new boyfriend. seeing as he was currently too focused on picking out his own shoes, you examined the adjacent aisles, looking in all directions just to find that there was quite literally no other couple in sight. either his ex had already left the store, or doyoung was the smoothest man you had ever met.

the new discovery had your brain running at a hundred miles per hour, eventually deciding to keep playing along with doyoung’s little game, you know, have a little fun before you went back to being single and lonely.

“hey, doie, not to alarm you, but i see a couple on their way over here,” you whispered in his ear, coming up behind him as he was returning a shoe box to its rightful place on the shelf, “is that your ex over there?”

doyoung didn’t know if it was your statement or the close proximity that had his heart racing, clearing his throat in an attempt to soothe his erratic pulse, “oh, is it? i-i don’t wanna risk checking though, let’s just–”

taking a page out of the romcom protagonist book, you smirked as you stepped closer to the blushing boy, forcing him to take a step backward against a wall of branded trainers, cocking your eyebrow when you noticed the coral shade spreading across his face, “let’s just stay like this for a bit, i’m sure she’ll hate seeing her ex like this with someone else, huh?”

the confidence oozing out of you had doyoung in mental shambles - when he tried the elaborate pick-up ploy on an unsuspecting you, he didn’t think it would go this well, and now he felt obliged to tell you the truth, although that would mean he was risking rejection and, judging from what he learned about your personality in the past fifteen minutes, possibly an emotional response.

however, it occurred to him that, if he played his cards right, he could walk away today with your number, and a date at the cafè his best friend owned, all he had to do was not to react, which was proving a difficult task right now as he felt your hand on his waist and your breath ghosting on his collarbone.

“okay, okay, fine, there is no ex!” doyoung blurted out, not being able to last any longer with your intense gaze on him, “i-i made it up as an excuse to try and talk to you because, well…”

“because what?” you sat down on one of the small sofas to give doyoung some space, scattered with abandoned shoes that had no pair.

your nonchalant reaction had him furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, brushing off his bewilderment to answer your question, “i just, i thought you were really pretty and i wanted to talk to you. how was i supposed to know you would go along with, all that, so quickly and easily?”

doyoung couldn’t explain the relief he felt when you began giggling, as he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“it was easy enough to pretend, when you’re probably the most likeable person i’ve ever met,” you chuckled, the shyness from before evaporating the longer you stared at doyoung’s beauty, “since you basically tricked me into hanging out with you, how about we actually go do something? y’know, where you don’t have lie to me about what we’re doing?”

“wait, really?” doyoung’s eyes widened, surprised that you still wanted anything to do with him.

“yes, now, let me pay for these and we can head to your friend’s cafè down the road. unless that was a lie too?” you both broke out into wide grins, as you took his hand and led him to the counter, whilst he balanced your purchases in his arms.

you couldn’t explain where that courage cane from, nor why a mere twenty minutes with a stranger made you feel more content than ever; but meeting doyoung was like listening to a song for the first time and immediately knowing it would be your favourite.

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greaterawarness · 3 years

Text

Arc Training Program Ch. 4 "Getting To Know The Cadets (Part Two)"

(Sorry for the long wait! Here is part two! Hope you enjoy it!)

The next stop on hunting down his cadets is the library. He scans the room seeing some odd number of clones and Kaminoans scattered about but none were one of his. He starts walking slowly around the room until he finds someone curled on the floor with stacks of books surrounding him. His face is hidden by a large book that he is completely entranced by. He reads the cover The Species of Gree. Alpha clears his throat, but the boy doesn’t hear him. Alpha walks forward and pulls the book down so CC-1004’s eye would finally register Alpha. The boy jumps surprised and scrambles to his feet.

“Sir! Sorry sir! I didn’t see you!” He says much to loudly for a library. He hears a few shh hissed at him and winces. “Sorry… sir.”

“What are you doing?” Alpha asks realizing all the books scattered around the boy are books on different types of species. The boy’s face turns a deep shade of red.

“Uh…” Is all he manages to get out. Alpha kneels down to look at the book he was reading.

“The species of Gree?” He says before giving a deep hm while flipping through the pages.

“The Gree species is one of the oldest civilizations in the galaxy. They even predate the Republic.” 1004 explains. Alpha gives another small hm. 1004 looks down while squeezing and unqueening has hands in and out of fists nervously. “I know this probably isn’t the best use of my time but… I think studying different species and their civilizations could benefit the Republic.”

Alpha stares at the boy. He looks like he’s about to be scolded but shows no regret.

“Just don’t let your other training fall through the cracks.” Alpha hands the book back to 1004. He takes the book with wide eyes.

“I wont sir!” He says with a big, excited smile on his face. Reading has never been a big priority when training the clones. Most bounty hunters wont even take their cadets into the library. Alpha might have been the first to not scold the boy for wanting to pursue reading for leisure. Unfortunately, he had nothing to offer like he did for 2224 and 7567. Alpha never felt he had the time or patience for reading unless it was a report.

“Seen any of the others around?” Alpha asks before the kid can get to lost in his books again.

“3636 was in here not too long ago… I think… I kind of lost track of time when I picked up this book.” 1004 admits.

“Understood.” Alpha starts to turn away before looking back at 1004. “Don’t slouch when you read. You’ll mess up your back.”

After walking around the entire library and seeing no sign of 3636, he leaves. He walks with his hands behind his back and head held high. Other’s salute or acknowledge him politely as they pass through the corridors. When he makes a turn towards the mess hall, he spots Shaak Ti. She speaks with two bounty hunters. When she notices him staring, she smiles softly with a slight nod of her head down a different corridor. Alpha nods his thanks and heads in that direction.

He finds himself walking above different training rooms where other batches perform practice battles. He spots 3636 staring down at one of the ongoing battles. Alpha quietly walks to his side to watch the batch below. The batch is slightly younger then his cadets and have sloppy movements. Alpha can predict the ending but looks to 3636 who barely flinched when he approached. 3636 lets out a tsk before pushing away from the railing. Alpha raises a brow at him as the batch below fails.

“Something wrong?” Alpha asks calmly. 3636 half turns with his lips pressed into a thin line. His eyes stare at the floor in tense frustration.

“Why is it so easy from here?” He asks finally. Alpha tilts his head slightly so he continues. “From here I can see their moves before they make them. But when I’m down there it’s like I have tunnel vision. And when I slow down to see the big picture its usually to late to do anything before I realize what’s happening.”

He shakes his head and turns away. Alpha feels the corner of his mouth turn into a grin.

“What did you do before?” Alpha crosses his arms before brining one hand up to his chin pondering with great curiosity.

“Before, my batch would move ahead and I could see it all. Not at first but with trail and error I eventually learned the different battle sequences my trainer had us practice. But the ones you have us run through seem to be random. Or its like the droids have a mind of their own. I can’t predict their moves and what the others will do.”

Alpha stiffens.

“CC-3636, there are thousands of battle scenarios. Are you saying you memorized all of them?”

“Yes?” He says it as if it were obvious. “There are 1,325 to be exact. Well, 1,326 but I think one was a glitch that combined 453 and 34.”

He’s living breathing protocol droid.

Alpha stares at the boy not sure if he should be amazed or terrified. Instead, he motions for him to follow. He takes 3636 to the part of Tipoca City that only the ARC Troopers were allowed. They passed many familiar faces who acknowledged Alpha in a head nod, smile, or even gesture. When they spot 3636 following behind him, they turn cold and watch suspiciously. He eventually turns into a break room currently occupied by two ARC Troopers, Hull and Raff.

“Leave us.” Alpha’s words were cold and blunt. They pause and exchange glances pondering if they should protest or not. They make the right choice and vacate the room. 3636 doesn’t look troubled or even scared to be surrounded by true ARC Troopers. The only thing Alpha can find in the cadet’s cold analyzing eyes is curiosity. Alpha sits on one side of the holochess board and gestures for 3636 to sit on the other side. He hesitates for the first time but eventually lowers himself down studying the board intently. When Alpha turns it on, he frowns.

“What is this?”

“Dejarik. You have to use wit to win.” Alpha smiles with the holographic creatures buzzing in front of him. 3636 says nothing so Alpha does a quick run through of the rules. When he’s done, he begins. The first round Alpha goes easy on the kid letting him get a feel for the game and truly understand how it works. He still manages to win but the kid doesn’t look fazed. He merely leans back slightly with eyes narrowed on the board in deep thought. When they play their second playthrough Alpha thinks he might lose but comes through in the end. Still, 3636 doesn’t look deterred. On the third playthrough Alpha can tell there is a clear difference. The kid leans forward with eyes glued to the bored. Other ARC Troopers have begun to fill into the room to watch. Alpha has to choose each move carefully. Halfway through Alpha rubs the back of his neck wondering how he will pull the win when he lifts his eyes. He freezes when his eyes meet CC-3636’s. They stared at him like a wolf that just locked onto its prey. Alpha looks back down. He makes his move and leans back. The rest of the men in the room watch the kid, murmuring amongst themselves. Alpha wonders how many have placed bets. 3636 smiles while making his final move.

“Holy shit.” Alpha chuckles to himself. The room is in an uproar. Fordo leans against the doorway full body laughing. 3636 sits pleased with his victory. Alpha holds a handout, and they shake hands. He gets to his feet to lead the kid out of the rowdy room of ARC Troopers. No need to subject him to that horror. Fordo pats his shoulder as they pass. When they’re finally in the quiet corridor 3636 looks up at him.

“So, what was the point of that game?”

“There are very few troopers who have the strategy capabilities that you have CC-3636. Tell me, while playing the game did you win the first try? Or even the second?” Alpha places his hands behind his back and glances at the cadet as they walk.

“No.”

“Exactly. But on the third try you got the hang of it. Just like with all things it takes practice to be able to strategizes in the heat of combat. We’ll work on that. Soon you’ll be dominating on the battlefield as much as you do in holochess.” Alpha smiles at him. 3636 stares forward intrigued. He might have even smiled if Alpha wasn’t looking.

Alpha leaves 3636 to continue studying other batches so he can continue his hunt for his other cadets. He doesn’t have to go far it seems when he spots CC-1010 leaning against the windows overlooking the mess hall. Alpha frowns when he approaches. 1010 stands up straight when he notices Alpha.

“Sir.” He says plainly. Alpha gives a displeasing hm.

“What are you doing? I told you to be doing something productive not lean against a window and people watching.” Alpha crosses his arms. 1010 raises his eyebrows as if shocked but his eyes remain plain.

“Sir I assure you I am using my time wisely.” 1010 places a hand on his chest offering a small grin. Alpha frowns. “You see I am not people watching but studying. You would be surprised of what secrets you can learn from simply observing others.”

“Explain.”

Alpha decides to bite. Perhaps he’ll catch him in his own lie. 1010 gestures down to the people eating below. It’s mostly other clones but some Kaminoans and bounty hunters are mixed in.

“You see that bounty hunter there? She’s been fucking one of the Kaminoan scientists.”

Alpha frowns at 1010. “This is gossip cadet.”

“Patience, Sir, patience. I’m getting to the good part.” He assures him. Alpha settles again and looks to the female bounty hunter. “Now she is also fucking the bounty hunter over the Bravo Squad. Well, that or she wants to fuck him and is just working with him. I know this by watching their mannerisms. She acts the same around the city unless she is with the Kaminoan scientist or with the bounty hunter over Bravo Squad but there is a clear difference between the two. With the Kaminoan it’s very forced and overly flirty. Very out of her character. Almost like she’s trying to fool the Kaminoan. Then I compared that to when she is with the other bounty hunter. It’s more natural but much more secretive. Little whispers and glances here and there. A small hand gesture no one would notice you weren’t looking for it.”

“I’m failing to see the point of all this.” Alpha sighs starting to lose patience.

“I’m almost to the good part,” He assures him. “All of this intrigued me, so I followed her one day. It intrigued me because why force a romance she clearly didn’t want and hide one she clearly did. Didn’t seem right. After following her I found out that the Kaminoan scientist she’s interested in works in the genetics lab and she often convinces him to have meetings in the lab. Then after having a meeting, she would have an interaction with the other bounty hunter. One no one would notice if they weren’t looking for it.”

“Besides a serious health violation what are you getting at?” Alpha crosses his arms intrigued. He leans against the window with a smug grin.

“I believe our female bounty hunter is stealing from the genetics’ lab with the bounty hunter of Bravo Squad.”

“That’s a serious allegation. What proof do you have?” Alpha drops his arms. 1010 frowns while looking down at the mess hall at the female bounty hunter.

“Nothing but what I’ve seen.”

“Why haven’t you come forward yet?” Alpha shakes his head at the boy. CC-1010 turns to meet his eyes.

“I’m a cadet. Who’s going to believe me?”

They stare at each other for a moment as Alpha calms down. 1010 looks back out the window.

“I believe you.” Alpha says finally. 1010 stands up straight meeting his eyes again, confused.

“You do?”

“Yes,” Alpha nods confusing the boy more. “I’ll have others look into this matter.”

He looks down shocked for a moment.

“Thank you.” He says showing a genuine smile for the first time. Alpha leans against the window again prompting 1010 to mimic his stance.

“So, what made you start watching her?” Alpha asks now analyzing all bounty hunters in his site. When 1010 doesn’t answer immediately he glances over at him. He wears a grimace.

“Words often spoken are lies.” He says finally. Alpha waits for him to go on. “The bounty hunter over my batch was a master at manipulation. I learned very quickly I couldn’t take her words at face value. Instead, I learned to read her body. From there I was able to find the truth. Body language gives most liars away. When I started getting good with her, I started looking at others for practice. Our lunch lined up with the female bounty hunter’s and that’s when I noticed what was happening.”

Alpha nods while turning so his back was against the glass. He glances up at the ceiling remembering his time under Jango’s instruction.

“Jango would play mind tricks on us at times. He did it to try and push us mentally. Made most of us stronger. I know of bounty hunters like the one that taught you. They don’t use those tactics to help you but more to control you. But as long as you pass the simulations then the Jedi and Kaminoans are happy to let you graduate.”

1010 looks up at him.

“You don’t think those cadets should graduate?”

“I think those cadets will deal with more obstacles later down the road then most others.” Alpha says meeting his eyes again. The cadet nods but Alpha wonders if he really understood what he meant. Alpha clears his throat deciding to turn the conversation to a brighter note. “Do you watch everyone’s mannerisms then?”

“Yes, it’s become second nature now.” 1010 crosses his arms with his back to the glass now mirroring Alpha.

“So, what are mine?” Alpha arches a brow at him. CC-1010 pauses with eyes staring forward. At that moment Shaak Ti approaches making 1010 stand up straight.

“Sir, I see you and the General have business to discuss and I should really get back to blaster training.” He says before walking quickly down the corridor.

“Hey wa—never mind.” Alpha shakes his head with a chuckle. Shaak Ti gives him a look, but he just shakes his head.

“Something wrong?” She asks.

“No… well? Possibly. I have good reason to believe that two of the bounty hunters here are selling Kaminoan genetic secrets.” Alpha says pointing out the female bounty hunter below.

“That is quite a claim. And what reason do you have to support this?” she asks.

“I have on good authority that it is so. If it’s not, then I will personally apologize for any damage done.” Alpha insists. This surprises Shaak Ti.

“Alpha, you have never apologized for anything.” She says eyeing him slightly. He gives a nonchalant shrug.

“Times are changing.”

“It appears so.” She chuckles softly. Alpha notices a datapad in her hand.

“Did you need something?” He asks.

“Yes, I’m afraid there has been an incident with two of your cadets in hanger bay three.” She hands him the datapad. He reads the CC numbers and groans. He immediately takes off for the hanger bay.

When he arrives to the bay he finds CC-8826 and CC-1138 sitting handcuffed on the floor surrounded by a group of troopers.

“These are my cadets. What’s going on?” Alpha has to hold back his anger. 8826 and 1138 look nothing but bored while sitting at the feet of the troopers.

“Sir, we caught these two trying to steal a ship.” The trooper shoots a look at 1138 when he yawns. Alpha felt his anger boil in his chest.

“Sorry for any damages or inconveniences. I’ll take it from here.” Alpha squeezes his hands into tight fists already running through every exercise and drill he was about to make them run through and then he contemplated if he should just fail them and put them on sanitation duty. The cadets are uncuffed and follow behind Alpha.

“We weren’t trying to steal a ship.” 8826 says breaking the tension between them. Alpha whips around to face them. They still look unfazed by Alpha’s furious face.

“Then what pray tell were you doing?” Alpha shouts. His voice echoes through the corridor. He hears someone scurry out of the hall.

“I just…” 8826 starts but stops. Alpha shakes his head.

“No, go on. Explain yourself!”

“I just wanted to know how it works.” He says at last. Alpha shifts his weight taking in his words. He must not answer in time because 8826 goes on. “The ship. I’ve studied the design like everyone else but when it’s put together it looks nothing like the holograms. I wasn’t trying to steal the ship I just wanted to see what the inside looked like and how it all connected.”

Alpha felt his anger begin to simmer. He looks to 1138.

“He couldn’t lift one of the panels.” He shrugs. Alpha feels himself chuckle a laugh. He rubs above his eyebrows.

“You really weren’t trying to steal the ship?” Alpha feels like he just experienced a crash landing.

“No.” they both say. Alpha studies their faces. They didn’t appear to be lying but both boys have always been hard to read in the past. Of course, neither boys would be his first to suspect of desertion. Alpha lets out one final sigh releasing the anger he had only moments before.

“Very well.” He says turning away. He leads them away from the hanger by to one of the distant larger storage rooms near their barracks. He has to find 99 to open it for him. inside they cough and cover their noses from the dust collecting on all the items inside. Most were outdated gear and weapons with some obsolete spare parts here and there. 8826 and 1138 walk around taking in all the things while Alpha follows 99 to the back. He helps 99 pull a tarp off an old speeder bike. 8826 and 1138 stare at it intrigued.

“This is an old speeder bike left here by one of the Mandalorian bounty hunters. It’s rundown and needs a lot of work. You want to know how things work? Start by taking this apart and putting it back together.” Alpha places his hands on his hips watching 8826 squat in front of the bike inspecting it. He gets the same crazed look in his eye that he does when he’s in combat. Alpha leans against a crate glancing over at 1138.

“You interested in building the bike too?” He asks. 1138 has always been silent and calm. He only ever showed real anger when he lost and continued to fail at something. Every other time it’s the same blank expression. 1138 crosses his arms and nods. Alpha leaves it at that not forcing a conversation. 99 helps them clear a path to push the bike back to their barracks. Alpha didn’t want the kids let loose in this room to often. When they reach the barracks they walk in at the same time CC-4477 does. Alpha pauses. He had almost forgotten about the cadet.

“CC-4477,” he calls over while 99 leads 8826 and 1138 to the back wall with the bike. 4477 walks up to him. “Where have you been all day?”

“Sir? What do you mean? We passed each other in the corridor several times today.” He says plainly. Alpha frowns trying to think back. Did he really walk right past one of his cadets and never notice? He almost wants to ask more questions when the doors open and CC-1010 walks in with CC-1004. CC-4477 walks over to greet his brothers leaving Alpha feeling odd. He would have to keep a closer eye on 4477.

When the rest of the cadets return, the quiet barracks become loud with chatting cadets that prepare for the night. Alpha stays in the room helping 1138 and 8826 dismantle the bike and providing what wisdom he could all the while keeping an eye on the others. 1010 and 4477 sit on their extended racks chatting about their day and what they noticed while 7567 and 2224 sort through their gear. 99 shuffles around cleaning up here and there before getting pulled into a conversation with 3636 and 1004. Alpha feels a sense of peace wash over him. A feeling he hasn’t felt in a long time. If ever.

When the night drags on he leaves the cadets to bathe and get to bed. He walks back to his room to find Shaak Ti watching one of the cadets practice battles. He walks over to join her at his table. She smiles at him while sliding a data pad his way.

“What’s this?” He asks while examining it.

“It seems you were correct about that bounty hunter. She and her accomplice have been detained. It seems the Kaminoan she manipulated had no idea. Still, he will face his own punishment from the Kaminoans.” She leans back in her chair.

“That fox.” Alpha says softly to himself. He puts the datapad down wearing a proud smile.

“It seems taking an off day was good for you.” She smiles warmly at him. He rubs the back of his neck.

“What can I say? You were right. Each boy is very different and has their own set of skills.”

“Now you must find a way to utilize those skills to get them to work together.” She rests her arms on the table leaning forward slightly. Alpha nods before reaching over to turn the holovid off. The sit in silence enjoying the peace.

“Thank you.” He says suddenly. She tilts her head. “For helping me.” “Your success is all of our success.” She says making him roll his eyes slightly. After a pause she adds. “You have changed Alpha.”

“I believe you’re right.” He nods with eyes falling on the table where his hand rests. He looks up to meet her eyes. “You have changed as well. From the first time we met.”

“That is the nature of time. It changes us. For better or for worse.”

His eyes drop to the table again this time staring at her hand resting on the table.

“Do you think it’s for the better?” he asks staring at her hand resting loosely on the white table. She takes this time to stand, pulling his eyes towards her face again. Before she walks out of his room she pauses and says.

“I hope, Alpha. I hope.”

Read full story HERE on AO3

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goineedsleep · 3 years

Text

i am cursed, and also delusional

i got sick recently(not covid, i am a fully vaccinated bitch), so i'm writing this on caffeine and pain

i hope you enjoy the shitshow

-trials of octopath is todays awful fusion idea

-for those of you unaware of trials of manas existence, it's a lot like octopath(and vice versa). trials is a game where you pick 3 characters out of 6 possible options to play as, and the story changes drastically depending on who's in your party. im' gonna have to cut a couple of the octopaths to fit this AU, but i'll be putting them elsewhere- you'll see them eventually

-i'm not even getting into story pairs! every two characters in trials of mana has the same final boss. if you put two characters together who have the same story(say, the fighter/duran or the mage/angela), it gives more information on those characters and their shared story.

-we have olberic the fighter(replacing duran) first. after an invasion of his home, he trusts erhardt with protecting it while he chases after the perpetrator

-then there's cyrus the mage(replacing angela)- he is the prestiged son of a famed scholar. he cannot use the same powerful magic his father could, and thus is chosen to be executed by him. cyrus unleashes enough magical power to teleport out of that situation(this happens in-game), and runs away to seek guidance from the Archbishop of the Church of the Sacred Flame.

-now we have therion the thief. he is a close friend of the leader of the Thieves Guild of the Ravuses, a man known as Heathcote. Darius, an "old friend " of his, saved Heathcotes life from being missing. this results in Heathcote acting very weird from the day he returns- at least, if you ask therion. Heathcote has never expressed the want to start a nation and invade another country until now! he gets help from Heathcotes son, the doctor of their group, to find out what's going on with Heathcote. It turns out... that Darius is using mind control to manipulate Heathcote to follow his bidding. man come on therion was just starting to not punch you in the face every night just when you were about to fall asleep again

-Darius uses dark magic to seal Alfyn away to another realm, and frames Therion for the kidnapping. Therion can't tell the truth about the situation either or kill Darius- Cordelia, Alfyns little sister, will die as well if he even dares due to a cursed article of clothing given to her by Darius.

-luckily for him, Tressa has mercy on him a couple months later and breaks him out of jail. therion decides to investigate the curse in order to find out how to stab Darius in the most affective way imaginable. Also to save Cordelia, but that isn't his priority at the moment

-now we have the warrior princess Primrose

-she's the captain of the woman-led guard of the country of Azelhart

-her mother died during childbirth whilst giving birth to her little sister tressa, and so she decided to take care of her to the best of her ability. her father is very proud of her for taking charge like this, but he still is the parent in this version. he is the one that technically raised tressa since I do not want to force primrose to parent someone when she's like 6

-primrose was just a dedicated babysitter

-she wants tressa to practice her dancing, and when she finds her she's being held at knifepoint by 2 thieves. the barrier protecting Azelhart from enemy forces is broken, tressa is kidnapped, and -Azelhart is no more. Now Primrose is no princess or noble- she's just Primrose

-She goes to the Priest of Light so she can pray for forgiveness from Aelfric before she kills all of the Ravus thieves guild

-H'aanit is the princess of the werewolves. they've been oppressed and marginalized by humans for years, so they've taken up the forest as their home. she's a hunter like most of them are, yet she's never been able to harness the power of her bloodline: it may be due to her being half-human, but she's never been capable of transforming into a beast like her brethren.

-she meets the snow leopard Linde in front of her dead mothers corpse, and starts feeding it

-she has a new pet now -linde and herself work together and they sometimes do better than full-blooded werewolves when they work together

-Z'aanta forms an alliance with Mattias, a man who's worked with the Church of the Sacred Flame a million times -immediately following the forming of this alliance Linde attempts to kill H'aanit -H'aanit doesn't wish to hurt her friend, but she has no choice: she turns into a werewolf for the first time in her life and loses control of her thoughts in her despair

-oh welp the cat's dead(I'M SO SORRY LINDE YOU ARE A VERY GOOD KITTY) -H'aanit heads back home to cry for a minute... then she overhears Mattias admitting that he killed her cat -H'aanit attempts to attack him, and then gets yeeted to Jadd -good job ham, you complete and utter pokemon trainer

-last up, we've got ophilia -she's the adoptive daughter of the Archbishop of the Sacred Flame -she hears Lianna's gonna be going somewhere, she gets an awful vision of Lianna never being seen again following this mission, and goes with her in secret -Lianna gets kidnapped regardless by Mattias -so ophilia decides to find this guy and punch him in the face

-alright that's all of the character backstories

-THANK GOD

-all of these people(save alfyn and tressa, who is being held hostage by the ravus thieves guild) go to jadd first- h'aanit is yeeted there by mattias

-h'aanit notices that her people are invading this town and will be invading Flamesgrace- her next goal is to stop this -olberic wants to stop this as well, so he and h'aanit team up first

-Primrose looks for Tressa in some desperate search, and meets Cyrus during this search. they decide to journey together to Wendel, figuring going together would be better than being alone -they think it's a dumb idea to fight the beastmen, so they decide to escape at night like the bartender suggested

-ophilia finds therion at the bar while looking for food, and overhears his story while she eats soup and bread -she leads him to Wendel, wanting to do help another adventurer before she goes off into the unknown herself

-olberic and h'aanit free the town from beastmen and go to the cavern that leads to flamesgrace(which i am going to keep calling Wendel on accident because that's what it is in trials, srry) -they get there and there's a barrier -archbishop put it up to protect them from the beastmen, and then h'aanit and olberic find the lakeside town of astoria -the villagers keep mentioning how a divine light has started appearing in the area, and olberic shrugs it off and takes a very long nap. the poor man is very tired -ophilia and therion head there as well and follow the light to where it falls- ophilia touches this flame and has to fight a giant robot w/ therion -they win, and ophilia doesn't see it anymore -she shrugs and heads back to astoria, where beastmen have wrecked the town. it is g o n e -ophilia holds a memorial service for them, where she tells therion about how she's a cleric of the Sacred Flame -therion shrugs and suggests they keep going. they don't have much time before it's day and the beastmen attempt to attack Flamesgrace, too

-h'aanit, olberic, cyrus and primrose are having a picnic at the barrier when ophilia and therion arrive -ophilia attempts charging into the barrier, and then it sets on fire and they can all go through -after a long and awkward icebreaker, they all decide to travel together. it's pretty dangerous out there anyways, with the beastmen attacking and atlasdams rumored invasion of Hornburg. the ravus nation is also a major worry, therion reminds them, but they arent' gonna be in the area for a while

-these guys make it to flamesgrace to receive advice on what's coming next -olberic is told to become stronger before challenging atlasdam, and not to do so alone. he continues being in the group due to this -cyrus is told to learn how to understand his emotions- magic is not the forms they teach at school, but rather what comes from the heart. he decides to accompany the travelers so he can escape imprisonment by atlasdam forces -therion first learns of how the dimension Alfyn's been tossed into is inaccessible by humans. it is the birthplace of galdera, and is a realm of which sinners reside after they've lived their lives. Alfyn is probably not going to last very long in this realm- he's as good as dead -therion is then told of how ancient and deadly of a magic the cursed choker is, and that darius is not human. what he is is a mystery, and to save cordelia he must find the sword of aelfric. he cannot save alfyn, so he may as well save his sister -primrose is advised to find her sister and that if she chooses to destroy the ravus nation, aelfric will not support her actions, though they are understandable. if she finds the Sword of Aelfric, she may gain the power she needs to destroy the Ravus nation. -h'aanit is told that Linde will live on through her, and that Mattias is a warlock of Galderas. he has been rejected by the Order of the Sacred Flame as a result, though he does lie very affectively. to save the Kingdom of S'warkii, she must take down Mattias. and since mattias is going after the Sword of Aelfric she may as well accompany Ophilia and make Mattias's efforts worth nothing at all -ophilia is told to find Lianna, since she has been chosen by the Ember. she is now the only person who can rise the Sword of Aelfric from its resting place

-the Sword of Aelfric is hidden within the Sanctuary of Aelfric, which needs an insane amount of power to be opened. normally this power can be leached from the Aelfric Stones, but doing so could let loose ancient and terrible demons. therefore, the 8 gods that reside next to these stones need to be called upon in order to open the portal to the Sanctuary. -Therion suggests going after Aelfric first, since he's the closest one to them. after that, they need to find someone who knows where the rest of them are and also how to get there -they all agree that it's a good plan, but cyrus brings up that the Aelfric Stones each belong to a specific nation or people. going there and borrowing the gods power would be going after large civilizations that have grown around these stones -olberic suggests that they plan this out later, when they have more information and time -they all agree and go ahead to find the first of 8 gods

#trials of mana #octopath traveler #olberus #will happen eventually trust me #i am trash like that

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voltimer · 3 years

Text

'The Magic of Johto's Level Curve'

(or, 'a leisurely analysis of the singleplayer balance of Pokemon GSC and HGSS')

The Johto games - especially HeartGold and SoulSilver - seem to have a very good reputation. Some often put the aforementioned HGSS into their top 3 or describe it as the core Pokemon experience. I personally agree with this sentiment and HGSS is either #2 or #1 depending on my mood (it usually competes with Black 2 and White 2).

Despite all its praise though, there seems to be an incredibly consistent point raised against it: the level curve. I see it described as unbalanced, janky, and generally bad.

There are two main problems people tend to cite. First is the level progression in Johto itself, with Gyms 5, 6, and 7 not exactly being a smooth progression upwards and then Team Rocket's Archer and the 8th Gym having a notable level spike compared to those last three. Wild Pokemon levels are also usually a lot lower than the major boss fights they are ahead of, making raising new 'mons harder and grinding for boss fights longer. The other problem is Kanto, whose problems can essentially be said to take Johto's levelling issues and ramp them up. The jump from fighting Blue to the Elite Four rematches and Red is also very significant.

What I'm not going to do here is refute that the above isn't true - these level scaling inconsistencies are certainly present. It's also very different to the vast majority of main series entries, whose level curves are more linear and gradual. Gens 5 and 7 even have a feature which multiplies exp gain based on how much lower or higher you are than the Pokemon you defeat which in a way acts like a rubber band around each game's level curve, ensuring you can catch up easily but not go too overlevelled either. Playing GSC and HGSS when the rest of those entries are like that is a bit jarring. Pokemon is so well-known for having quite a formulaic design across its main series and when compared to that formula with regards to level progression and the like, the Johto games do seem a bit off-colour.

What I am going to do though is try to explain why this so-called bad level curve is at the very least not actually that bad, or, if I can convince you well enough, that the Johto games actually have a unique and (what I call) magical singleplayer game design not properly replicated in any other entry. It goes to the core essence of Pokemon's theming, and it fits with the fact that Johto's narrative also happens to put the most focus on those themes than the rest of the series.

When I say the core essence of theming, I mean the very basics of every Pokemon adventure: you, the player, leave home to go on a journey around your region, meeting various people and overcoming various challenges along the way together with your partner Pokemon. Challenges you overcome are all thanks to the bonds you share with your partners and how you raise them with love and care. As you get older, this is the sort of thing in Pokemon that you probably end up taking for granted. It's typical "power of friendship" stuff, and most people will tend to come to conclude through learning about the game mechanics that this sort of thing is superficial and that stats are all that matter in the end. The more modern Pokemon games also have such a big focus on larger-than-life stories with big climaxes featuring the box Legendaries that it's easy to lose this basic level, down-to-earth narrative theming.

Johto is significant for not having any larger-than-life aspects overshadowing its core. Instead, the core takes centre stage. There is no real overarching story besides your adventure. Team Rocket's antics take a sub-plot role but in the end act as a foil to your story, being one of the more major obstacles you overcome. Catching Ho-oh or Lugia is no cataclysm either, but rather a reward for your achievements throughout the game and thanks to your good and pure heart - recognised by the Legendary in question. Moments throughout the game like how you deal with the situation at the Lake of Rage, or the Dragon's Den trial where you're asked questions to test your ideals as a trainer (which, of course, you pass with flying colours) all contribute to this core as well.

The way Professor Oak congratulates you after defeating Lance ties the knot perfectly on the main campaign:

"Ah, <player>! It's been a long while. You certainly look more impressive. Your conquest of the League is just fantastic! Your dedication, love, and trust for your Pokémon made this happen. Your Pokémon were outstanding, too. Because they believed in you as a Trainer, they persevered. Congratulations, <player>!"

These are just examples of the main story events, though,and Johto has a lot more than that. The region is filled with things to do beside the main campaign - Berries/Apricorns, Pokegear calls, the Ruins of Alph and other optional caves, the Bug Catching Contest, and (in HGSS) the Pokeathlon and Safari Zone, just to name a few of the more notable ones. Tama Hero's review of Pokemon GSC talks a lot about this and it's well-worth a watch even beyond the section describing the games' breadth of side content.

Tama Hero also touches upon the supposed level scaling issue, and her response to the complaints is that there is a "sprinkling" of opportunities for small bits of exp gain throughout the game which should help you stay on track in most cases, and where you can't match levels, you can outplay your opponent.

I certainly agree with the latter. It always feels entirely possible to beat bosses at a level deficit throughout Johto. The Johto League is one of the key cases where you'll probably end up at level disadvantage, but I've consistently been able to defeat it with a team of lv 40s on average (so nearly 10 levels behind Lance's peak), and I'm pretty certain that my not-even-10-year-old self did so as well, even though it took me many, many attempts. From various people I've talked to and bits of let's plays I've seen over the years, this seems to be the common experience too. I think only a minority of people have had to grind to match Lance's levels in order to beat him at all. Granted, it might take you a couple of tries at that level disadvantage (or a great couple of tries more, like little ol' me), but that's surely not an unreasonable expectation. The concept of getting stuck at a difficult stage in a game could be called a universal one, and I think most people agree that it's always pretty satisfying to finally surmount a challenge like that. This can even be said about other Pokemon games - Kanto, Hoenn and Sinnoh also all have large level spikes at the end. In fact, at least when it comes to the end of the maingame, I'd argue Hoenn and Sinnoh have a larger level spike than Johto, but they're not considered impossible or anything

Regardless, though: it's certainly possible to win difficult battles in Pokemon at a level disadvantage. Tama Hero argues that the strategy required to do so isn't something the game teaches you very well, but I think this is a tad pessimistic. In the end I think that most wins will just come down to understanding of more fundamental skills that you've probably learned through the course of the game naturally - using type matchups (gyms are all type themed), using moves with stat changes (the earlygame is full of moves like Growl and Tail Whip), using status moves (no doubt you're going to see the effects of Paralysis and Burns throughout the game at least), and apt use of items (bosses always use potions and often use held items). Players also have more control over the battle than the enemy, with the default Switch mode and a huge amount more items available. It's true that the games don't teach you the deeper, untold mechanics very well, but learning about those only unlock even more ways to succeed for the numbers-minded veterans.

On the topic of those deeper, untold mechanics I also want to talk about something which Tama Hero doesn't mention at all - Effort Values, or EVs. Most of you reading will probably know about these by now, but for those who don't, EVs are hidden values which can increase a Pokemon's raw stats by a certain amount based on the other Pokemon they defeat. They were present in a slightly different form in Gens 1 and 2 in the form of "stat exp" but the premise was the same: your Pokemon grow twofold when you defeat Pokemon, by gaining visible exp for levelling up and visibly gaining stats every time that exp bar fills, but also by gaining stats little by little every time they defeat any Pokemon. Your Pokemon's EVs weren't visible to you in-game until Gen 6 with the Super Training graphic, and numerically weren't until Gen 7 where you can press X on the Pokemon's stat screen to show what are called "base stats".

EV optimisation is crucial to competitive play because the stat boosts they give are quite significant. Competitive players will "min-max" spreads, putting as much as possible into 2 stats to maximise strengths and not wasting any on stats they aren't making use of. In maingame playthroughs, though, EVs will usually end up being a balanced spread because you'll invetivably be facing a variety of Pokemon with different EV yields throughout the game. EVs can also be increased with the Vitamin items (Protein, Calcium, etc.) which you find a handful of throughout the game (and can buy at a premium) and can be used to manually raise EVs, though only to a certain point.

In Gens 3 and onward, a Pokemon can have up to 252 EVs in 1 stat, and 510 in total. At Lv 100, 4 EVs in a stat grant 1 point extra to it. For the singleplayer campaign the conditions are a bit different, but if we assume as a standard that by the Elite Four your EV total is maxed out and you have an even spread, your stats will all be up to 10 points higher than they would be without EVs. In Gens 1 and 2, you can actually max out all of a Pokemon's stat exp values but you're unlikely to cap them all for a good while beyond the maingame so we can consider them about the same as in the later gens for this.

But why is this important?

Firstly, the difference EVs make in the above scenario account for what is usually about 5 levels' worth of stats. Depending on your exact distribution, it could be a couple more or less levels' worth in each stat but the bottom line is that they make your Pokemon's strength higher than it may seem based on level alone.

This means that the wild Pokemon grinding that is criticised for being too tedious in Johto as a result of low levels is also better than it seems because even when you don't level up, you're gaining EVs for every one of those you defeat. The stagnant levels in the midgame of Johto also contribute more to your Pokemon's growth than it may seem from the slow level gain. The Pokegear rematches which you gain access to after defeating Team Rocket before Gym 8 may also be a little infrequent, but they also very often give you Vitamins afterwards to add to all of this.

Secondly is what seems to be a fairly unknown fact: in-game trainers do not have any EV spreads. Thanks to the work of speedrunners, we have exact data of enemy trainers' Pokemon to show this. Trainers do have IV spreads based on their "AI level" (more 'advanced' AI levels will have up to 30 IVs across the board) but the difference near-perfect IVs will have on their Pokemon is not as great as the combination of random IV spreads and relatively balanced EV spreads yours.

That 10 level deficit vs Lance is suddenly more like 5 in practice. Some of his Pokemon also happen to have pretty high stats naturally in Gyarados and the Dragonites, and the level deficit will still be slightly present, but once we factor in strategy again, you can abuse their type weaknesses and make good use of items, status and whatever else have you to swing the odds in your favour.

The only way you can find out anything about EVs in Johto is from a NPC in Blackthorn City who gives your Pokemon the Effort Ribbon if they have reached their total of 510, and the only practical way for a player without the technical knowledge to have achieved this is to have spent time throughout the game doing lots of little bits of training - in other words, putting in the effort - to have incidentally capped their Pokemon's EV total. It's only fitting that you find this NPC towards the end of the Johto campaign because it's likely that by this point a couple of your team members will be eligible for the ribbon.

This finally ties back to the point of core theming. EVs are an invisible stat giving your Pokemon an extra edge over their in-game opponents, or, at worst, one closing a gap in strength between them, as a result of all of the time you've spent raising those Pokemon throughout the game. In other words, EVs are essentially the statistical representation of the "dedication, love, and trust" you have for your Pokemon which gets you through seemingly difficult challenges. Levels, then, are only a surface representation of your Pokemon's strength: they create the feeling of an uphill battle, but you can win against the odds by believing in yourself and your partners. It's probably exactly what you thought as the naive and uncynical child playing through a Pokemon game for the first time, and probably one of the ways you made such fond memories of it. In hindsight, this is definitely how it was for me. It is a sort of magic, really.

There is still a big Red elephant in the room, and I do think that the level gap between the end of the Kanto Gyms and Red is maybe too hard to go and beat immediately after even with the power of EVs and such, but Red is by all means a superboss and final challenge of the Johto games, and I don't think it's unreasonable to have to grind for a while to build up for and to finally be able to take his team of Lv 80s on. The same can be said about the Elite Four Rematches in this game and others, Steven in Emerald, or that one Barry fight in Platinum if you do decide to beat the E4 rematches 20 times to make his levels nearly match Red's. If you're setting out to fight a superboss like this, the grind is part of the prerequesites. It's definitely still possible to beat someone like Red with a 10 or even 20 level deficit if you play well, though. I admit, I haven't beaten Red in a long time, but I have beaten Emerald Steven with a ~15 level gap before. Tama Hero also said she has beaten Red with a team of level 50s in Crystal in the review.

I said before that the other games in the series haven't replicated this sort of thing as well. Gen 5 was the beginning of a marked shift away from this design, with its overarching story-driven style and a change to exp gain which would honestly be incompatible with the level curve in Johto. Gen 6, whilst returning to the exp system without level deficit multipliers, saw different means of statistical representations of the 'dedication, love and trust' trio in Pokemon Amie, which can break the game almost as much as the Exp Share when enough Affection is built up. Gen 7 brings back Gen 5's exp system whilst retaining the Exp Share and Affection systems, and actually ends up even diverging from the EV design which went before by having in-game trainers and Totem Pokemon with competitive, min-maxed EV spreads from as early as the Trainer's School. Whilst I am yet to play Let's Go and Sword and Shield, their Exp system with a 'permanent Exp Share' of sorts makes it a huge amount different and from what I've seen and heard, overlevelling is quite easy despite the game being designed around the feature. I really hope that Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl at least return to Gen 6's exp mechanics, or better, reunite us with the held-item version of the Exp Share which doesn't make me feel like I'm cheating whenever I use it.

Before I go too off-topic, though, I should probably return to the original thread of this post to make some concluding remarks. What can't be denied that the way GSC and HGSS are designed may not be for everyone. I know for sure that a lot of people prefer to be able to breeze through a Pokemon game at a brisk pace without many roadblocks, but as someone who in recent years has come to appreciate much slower-paced and immersive singleplayer Pokemon playthroughs, I can't help but love the way GSC and HGSS are designed in the way I've explained, or appreciate their unique identity amongst the rest of the series. Coming to think about this has also shed light on why I adored HeartGold as much as I did when I first played it way back 11 years ago. I poured hours and hours into the game, and as a result, its magical design put me under its spell.

_____________________________________________________________

Though I linked to the references I did use when they appeared, here they are again. Do check them out if they're of interest to you!

Tama Hero's GSC review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgtMVKP2T6Y

speedrun.com trainer data for HGSS: https://www.speedrun.com/pkmnhgss/guide/k2zij

speedrun.com trainer data for SuMo: https://www.speedrun.com/pkmnsunmoon/guide/d2683

Tama Hero (YT) is one of the few people I know who actually makes longer-form Pokemon analysis content besides Aleczandxr (also YT), who whilst not being a 'PokeTuber' has made some brilliant analyses of storytelling through setting in Sinnoh, Hoenn, Johto, and just recently, Unova. I did not refer to them here but I can highly recommend their content, at least.

Thank you very much for reading to the very bottom here. This is my first time writing something like this and I appreciate it.

#voltimer longpost #pokemon #gsc #gen 2 #gold and silver #crystal #gen 4 #heartgold and soulsilver #analysis #hgss

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pop-punklouis · 4 years

Note

top five HL fanfic!!!!

biiiiitch you all know how hard it is for me to choose only 5. but sigh FINE here’s my all-time favorite list that isn’t 5 sorry i can’t choose 😔:

• Here in the Afterglow (89k)

“If you hadn’t noticed, I don’t have many friends,” Louis whispers, the blossom of insecurity in his stomach unfurling and clawing its way into his throat.

Harry is silent for a long time, and then he speaks; a soft, slow uncurl that makes Louis’ stomach shake. “I’ll be your friend.” 1970’s AU. In a tiny town in Idaho, Louis’ life is changed forever by the arrival of a curious stranger.

• Coax the Cold (86k)

England, 1897.

English Professor Louis Tomlinson’s passion for the occult has been a source of mockery and derision for most of his life. When he hears whispers of a travelling freak show newly established in London claiming the existence of a monstrous sea hybrid, half-man, half-fish, Louis sees it as his ticket to credibility amongst his peers. The summer he spends undercover working on the show, however, gives him much more than that.

• Wild and Unruly (124k)

Harry is a cowboy sitting on the biggest oil reservoir in Wyoming, and Louis is the paralegal assigned to pressure him into selling his land.

• This Wicked Game (70k)

An AU in which The Bachelor is gay, Louis is a contestant, Harry is the bachelor, everyone drinks a lot of champagne, the entire world gets to watch them fall in love, and no one plays by the rules.

• Love is a Rebellious Bird (135k)

AU in which the boys still make music. Louis is the concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra, Harry is the New! and Exciting! interim conductor/ex-cello prodigy who "has made Mozart cool again" according to Esquire Magazine (Louis hates him immediately, which is definitely why he internet stalked him in his dark bedroom late at night that one time), and Niall is the best. Zayn and Liam are around too.

• Fixated On One Star (53k)

Louis is just a boy with the world on his shoulders, and Harry's just a boy from the wrong side of the galaxy. A little thing like love doesn't stand a chance against a thousand years of war, at least until the right two come along to break the mold.

Or: space Romeo and Juliet AU

• Finding Lou (60k)

Louis is the nomadic stranger who wanders into Harry’s bookstore. Harry is the skeptic who falls for him.

• California Sold

Notoriously closeted boyband member Harry Styles is famous on a global scale, meanwhile Louis, as his best friend, is back home in Manchester, living the typical life of a 24 year old. When Harry needs Louis with him in LA, a publicity stunt gone wrong changes their friendship forever.

A fake-relationship AU between two lifelong best friends.

• Empty Skies (134k)

For three years, Harry has been running from his past. Now, he is moving to London and pledges to fulfil his only dream -- making it big in the music industry. Not everyone has a place, though, and the competition is tough. As is his past catching up on him.

Louis is part of the biggest boy band of the world, and getting there had meant a lot of hard work, as well as sacrificing parts of his heart and soul. He's still happy. Maybe not as happy as he could be, but who is he to complain?

• And Then a Bit (159k)

“We’d like to give the fans what they want.” Magee states, placing his hand on the table in front of him and leaning forward. “We want to give them Larry Stylinson.”

Or, take a parallel universe where Louis and Harry were never together, mix in a two year hiatus and an impending comeback, pour in a dash of lost fans, two tablespoons of strong friendship and a Modest! employee with a good idea. Add a squeeze of pretending to be a couple, lots of kisses and a tattoo or two. Stir. Serve: the mother of all publicity stunts. (aka Harry and Louis fake a relationship for publicity. Eventually it becomes a lot less fake and a lot more real.)

• Dream Awake (31k)

The sun leaks through the tent wall behind him the way it leaks through eyelids, bathing the boy in an ethereal half-light as he croons. The crowd is mesmerized. Louis is mesmerized. This is the most important person in the world, he thinks wildly, and then can't figure out how to take it back.

On a hazy day in August, Louis sees Harry perform at a music festival as an unsigned act and convinces him to spend the rest of the weekend in his company. Harry gets signed; life changes. They never really wake up from the dream.

• Say You’ll Remember (93.5k)

au. louis and harry are best mates that are only half aware that they're also soulmates. alternatively, louis goes to university and harry travels the world, and they always manage to find their way back to each other.

takes place over nine years, in which they love and hurt, make mistakes and learn, and above all, grow.

• Outwit, Outplay, Outlast (61k)

Survivor All-Stars AU in which Harry and Louis are just in this game to win the million dollars, but they end up with something better.

Featuring Harry's yellow swim shorts, Louis in snapbacks, and OT5 shenanigans.

• Nothing Else But Us Right Here (35k)

Louis sighs and gives himself a mental pep talk as he smooths his jumper down over his hips. He can do this. He can resist the draw of Harry Styles, because he is a responsible, mature adult, and as much as he wants to tangle his fingers in that mess of hair and map those ridiculous tattoos with his tongue, he does not want to get his daughter’s favorite teacher fired.

• Wings to Break Your Fall (103k)

strip club AU. Harry’s work and family are keeping him busy. He really isn’t looking for a relationship, doesn’t want one. He just wants Louis. Problem is, Louis has other plans.

• Leave it to the Breeze (81k)

Louis couldn’t be prouder of his bake, but there’s something—there’s something. Something about Harry Styles and the earnest way he measures, pours, mixes, scrapes. Something about the tip of his tongue poking out of his mouth as he knocks the air out of his batter.

or a great british bake off au in which louis cares about winning and winning only, harry is made of sunshine and rainbow sprinkles, and niall sticks his nose into other people's business. also featuring liam as louis's best friend-slash-concerned mother, and zayn as a macaron connoisseur.

• You Come Beating Like Moth’s Wings (81k)

Harry smiles. He's only known Louis for about two hours, knows nothing about him past his first name, but he's nice and sarcastic and helpful and so, so pretty. And Harry's still got a few days left in Barcelona, and he thinks he wouldn't mind spending them with Louis.

Also known as, Harry takes the summer before uni to travel Europe and meets Louis in Barcelona, and they end up traveling together.

• Hold Me Closer (36.5k)

Louis Tomlinson is one of the most promising dancers of the English National Ballet, on track to become the youngest principal dancer in the company's history. That is, until forces conspire to significantly complicate his life, including: a surprise ballet, an unfairly attractive guest choreographer, and being pushed into a rivalry with his best mate. Featuring lots of wine, dancing, pining, and a happy ending.

• In Vogue (121k)

Fashion AU. Louis is the editor in chief of Vogue magazine, and Harry's running British GQ. Featuring Zayn as the crazy creative director and Louis' confidant, Liam as the sports writer that gets to sit front row at fashion week and DJ Neil as the only sane person in the whole story. (There are no skinny jeans in this fic)

• These Things Will Never Change for Us at All (1.5k)

The room falls silent as they stay wrapped up in each other. Harry can feel Louis’ soft breaths on his neck, and he almost thinks Louis’ fallen asleep until he says softly, “How did you know you were in love with me?”

Or, Harry and Louis look back on five years.

• A Runaway American Dream (15k)

AU. they take route 66 with only each other and their secrets.

• Things Have Gotten Closer to the Sun (49k)

it’s strange, making the choice to face his past—it almost feels like he’s heading for the sun straight on, like he’s screaming come on and burn me, i deserve it.

when a solar flare is announced to end the world in twelve days, harry reunites with the people that he used to know better than the back of his own hand.

• Here (in your arms) (60k)

the one where Louis is a successful real estate agent and Harry works at a retirement home. They’ve never had a real home. Up until now.

(Starring Liam Payne as a fitness trainer, Zayn as an artist, and Niall, who busks.)

• These Inconvenient Fireworks (190k)

Future AU in which nobody tries out for X Factor but the boys end up finding one other eventually anyway. Louis is a jaded bastard who owns a cat named Duchess and teaches drama to teenagers, Harry is an idealistic aspiring photographer/part-time footy coach, Zayn teaches English lit and wears leather jackets, Liam saves people from burning buildings, and Niall is Niall.

• In Dreams (23k)

AU. When Harry moves to a new city, his new flat come with a number of sweet, anonymous gifts and surprises that brighten his days. Could it be a friendly ghost? Another friendly presence in his new building is his tattooed neighbor, Louis, who seems determined to put a smile back on his face.

• My Heart is Breathing for this Moment in Time (160k)

When Louis first saw Harry at the 2010 X Factor Auditions, he thought he was watching a peculiarly special stranger. But Harry has known Louis ever since he was five years old. Because Louis has a rare genetic disorder that causes him to Time Travel to important moments in his past and in his future - and to Harry, always to Harry. When they’re put into a band together, it seems like everything Harry has been waiting and wishing for has finally come true. Except for the small fact that Louis doesn’t know that Harry is in love with him- that Harry’s always been in love with him. Fate, it would seem, is just getting started.

A story about growing up and growing together, and the impossible love that makes it all worthwhile.

• Paint the Sky with Stars (63k)

On 10 April 1912, Harry Styles boards the finest ship the world has ever seen. Still grieving the death of their mother, he and his sister are being sent to America to live with a callous uncle who cares more about his business connections than family. Harry prepares himself for a long, disappointing voyage alone in his stateroom. Louis Tomlinson has borrowed and saved, and finally has enough to purchase a Third Class ticket to America. With all of his belongings in a single ruck sack, he boards the Titanic filled with hope for a brighter future. Never one to sit still, he can’t resist exploring the massive ship, and soon goes sneaking into First Class in a stolen steward’s uniform. By a twist of fate, Louis finds himself in Harry’s stateroom, entranced by the most attractive man he’s ever laid eyes on. He keeps returning day after day, even if he doesn’t understand what it is about Harry that continues pulling him in. That’s all right; Louis has a week to figure it out, and Harry is plenty willing to help. Except they don’t have a week. They have four days. Because on 15 April, their entire world will be turned upside down.

Or, the historically accurate Titanic AU with a happy ending.

• Through Eerie Chaos (102k)

For as long as anyone can remember, Old Hillsbridge Manor has always been believed to be haunted. Everyone in the village agrees and keeps a respectful, fearful, distance. New in town after a bad breakup and an internship that led to disappointment rather than a permanent job, Harry Styles figures taking pictures of the decrepit building could be a great new creative project. Or at least a much-needed distraction while he searches for a job and crashes at his parents’ new house. No one warned him about the apparitions though; about the music, the laughter, the people who flicker and vanish when you call after them, the echoes of a past that should be long gone… Harry has never believed in spirits but even he can admit that there’s something weird going on. What starts as mere curiosity evolves into a full-blown investigation and soon enough, Harry finds himself making friends with an aristocrat from the 1920s and struggling with finding the best way to tell him that he’s dead.

The Ghost Hunter AU where Niall lives to prove ghosts are real, Zayn is a skeptical librarian and Harry gets caught up in a century-old mystery and catches feeling in the process.

#whew!#favorite fics #grey

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