A Little Kieran Drawing I Did Before The Dlc Came Out

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Kieran Part Bonus: I AM SO PROUD OF MY BOY

And now for my really actually final analysis post about Kieran, covering both the epilogue and also his scenes in the League Club room once you’ve finished that. Somehow both of these relatively short pieces of content still managed to be packed with delightful nuance showcasing both how Kieran’s still struggling with his issues and yet also how much he’s grown since his main arc. They are absolutely lovely and fill me with so many warm happy feelings about my boy.

Honestly, it’s remarkable, not just from a Pokémon-writing perspective but as a piece of fiction in general, to have this kind of satisfying follow-up for a character arc. Usually once a character’s arc reaches a resolution, their story just ends there, and we don’t get to see more of how they’re processing what they’ve been through and learning to grow further in the aftermath. So it’s a really wonderful breath of fresh air to get to see something like that for once here with Kieran! The Pokémon writers absolutely did not have to make the epilogue and postgame content focused on showcasing this, and yet they did. I am, once again, pleasantly boggled by how much they cared about doing Kieran’s story justice. Just, wowzers, man. There really is no more appropriate word for my amazement than that.

(This is an epilogue, if you will, to my previous two analysis posts discussing Kieran’s character arc in The Teal Mask and The Indigo Disk! Reading those before this is probably recommended.)

Before even getting into things that are strictly from the epilogue itself, can I just say: I really love that Kieran took a mental health break from Blueberry Academy to give him some time to process things? (Okay, the game only calls it a “break”, but let’s be real, it is for his mental health, and this is Good.) It just makes me very happy that the writing acknowledged that he’d probably need something like that after what he’s been through instead of going straight back to business as normal at school – and in an in-story sense, it’s lovely that Kieran realised he needed this and didn’t try and force himself to just keep going as if nothing had happened. He’s starting to learn to take care of himself and not push himself way too hard!

Making new friends

The first lovely sign of Kieran’s growth that we see in the epilogue is that, not only does he want to catch up with you, he also wants to meet your friends from Paldea! He must have spent some time during his break thinking about the fact that you mentioned you had friends from there.

And the thing is, with Kieran’s insecurities, it would have been so easy for him to slip into a mindset of “your friends are probably way cooler than me, why would you need me”. But instead of letting himself get caught up in that jealousy spiral again, he fought against it and did the healthy thing of asking to meet them himself. Hopefully he can become friends with them too and then he’ll have nothing to feel jealous about! He outright says when he meets them, “Any friend of [yours] is a friend of mine!” Look at him go. (Arven should take notes on how not to act insecure about one’s best friend having other friends, because damn, Kieran’s managing to be more well-adjusted than him now.)

All this is also just a sign that Kieran’s hoping to try and make more friends in general. He’s such an introvert that he must have figured that’d be easier for him to do with people for whom he has a mutual friend to get to know them through. Plus, if they’re your friends, then he already has a guarantee that they’ll be good and nice people. Way more manageable for him than trying to approach complete randos.

And really, it’s such a huge remarkable thing for Kieran that he is trying to make friends now. Friends, plural! This is the kid who used to be so lonely and shunned by others that his big dream was to one day be like the ogre who, according to him, doesn’t care that it’s all alone. And maybe then, if he managed that, he’d be able to befriend the ogre – just that one other person who is also alone and outcast. It never even crossed his mind to try and imagine that one day he could be confident and worthy enough to just… have some human friends. That wasn’t even an option in his head – it was “learn to not care that he’s alone” or nothing.

And yet look at Kieran now, actively reaching out to try and make new friends! I am so proud of him.

Learning to ask for help

Soon after you meet up with Kieran, it becomes apparent that something is Very Wrong with his sister. According to Kieran’s account, it was shortly after he sent you the letter that Carmine became possessed, so it’s not that the letter was secretly a call for help in which he couldn’t bring himself to admit the actual problem.

And even now that you’re here… Kieran wasn’t going to tell you about this problem at all until Carmine happened to wander up and start mochi-dancing in front of you. He tries to play the whole thing off like it’s totally normal and she’s definitely just… excited to see you???, even though he has to know that doesn’t make any sense at all. On some level this is just because it’s really scary to admit to himself that something is very wrong and he doesn’t have a clue how to fix it. But it’s also because… he still doesn’t feel like he has the right to ask you and your friends for help.

This is one of the ways in which Kieran’s issues and low sense of self-worth from before are still lingering and have not just been magically, instantly fixed. While he may be making a conscious effort to fight through his insecurities to try and make more friends, he hasn’t started consciously tackling everything that was holding him back just yet. It seems like he imagines that asking your friends for help, these people he’s only just met, would just make him a burden on them and maybe spoil any chance he had of actually becoming their friend himself. (Although, even if you’d come to visit him alone, I suspect he’d still struggle to ask even just you for help, simply due to his old ingrained mindset that he’s not worthy enough to deserve it.)

Happily for Kieran, your friends are all good people who instantly unthinkingly offer to help without him even needing to ask them! Kieran’s sheer surprise and gratitude when this happens is so telling about his insecurities for why he didn’t feel he could ask, but it’s also lovely to see him starting to realise that his instinctive way of thinking about this is mistaken. Welcome to having friends, Kieran, this is how it works actually! Most people are good and will be happy to help out a friend in need! It’s okay to need help sometimes!

There’s another very innocuous line that I find interestingly telling about Kieran’s mindset regarding this. When you’re all at the community centre wanting to use the TV, Kieran laments that it’s stuck playing the tourism ad because the caretaker hid the remote, so Arven immediately suggests you all look for it. And Kieran reacts, in surprise, “Why didn’t I think of that?” It reads as largely rhetorical, but… it’s a good question.

Why didn’t Kieran think of just trying to find the remote? Because he’s spent so long stuck in a mindset where, if things are bad for him, it’s just what he deserves for being weak and there’s nothing he can do about it. His response to his problems during the main storyline was to completely separately fixate on making himself Stronger so that, in theory, problems would just stop happening to him entirely. It never occurred to him to try and just face and deal with his problems directly – at least not until the climactic battle with Terapagos, which was the first time he ever found the courage to take such an approach – so the notion to do so still isn’t quite habitual in his mind just yet.

Hopefully Kieran asking why he didn’t think of that wasn’t quite so rhetorical, and he was reflecting on it himself a little when he said it. He ought to realise that actually, taking action to directly solve his problems is a good thing and something he should strive to do more! He has already begun to do so in some ways by reaching out in an attempt to make more friends, at least.

Solving the problem

Kieran sure does get a lot more practice at Directly Solving Problems thanks to the events that go on to occur that night, doesn’t he. I love that the epilogue’s plot, while ostensibly just there to give players an opportunity to catch Pecharunt, is also a narrative that exists to let Kieran get to be a hero alongside you.

It’s somewhat low key, but Kieran definitely gets pretty freaked out about everything that’s happening. Which is really perfectly reasonable – though the effects of the possession are incredibly silly, it’s still got to be genuinely frightening to see people he knows getting controlled against their will by some unknown force, especially when this includes his own family. (One detail I love is that the game uses that lack of a highlight in his eyes during certain lines to communicate the fear he's feeling and trying not-so-successfully to hide; it’s a small thing, but it works so well.)

Once you’ve fought off his possessed grandparents, Kieran starts to panic, convinced it’s only a matter of time before it gets him (even though the evidence of how exactly the possession occurs is right there if he’d just stop to think about it for a moment). On some level, he must still have this sense that, if it can get all these people he looks up to, surely it’ll get him too who’s so much weaker than them. His inferiority complex is still there and affecting him, especially in this stressful situation.

Good thing Kieran has you by his side, the strongest coolest friend ever whom he knows he can rely on! If you hadn’t been there to reassure him and snap him out of it, he really might have lost himself to his panic. Or he might have just not even tried to battle the possessed people and do something about all of this in the first place – see the earlier point about how him facing problems directly is still not instinctive to him. He’s able to do so here, but a lot of that is probably thanks to being able to follow your lead. Still, this is bound to help him get better at doing so on his own in future!

Kieran’s also still a bit too liable to feel like things are his fault even when they really aren’t. He blames himself for not warning Arven and Penny about the mochi in time, even though he was literally about to do so when Pecharunt showed up and sniped mochi directly into their mouths. That can’t be called Kieran’s fault at all! He tried! (And, hey, it’s not like you made any attempt to warn them either.) But he still feels responsible for it anyway.

And he’s also still rather defeatist when it comes to facing Strong Opponents in battle. Kieran couldn’t defeat Nemona earlier in the day, so when it comes down to facing off against her in order to get to Pecharunt, he just feels like he can’t do it, end of. Really, that’s not necessarily the case – since this is an emergency and not a friendly battle for sport, there’s no reason you have to beat Nemona in a fair 6-on-6. Anything to get past her will do; the two of you could have taken her on in a 12-on-6 double battle, perhaps! Kieran did not need to momentarily feel useless in this situation, but he did, because not being able to win against someone still equates in his mind to being No Good At All. Kieran, nooo.

Happily, the narrative provides Kieran with something else to do with himself while you fight Nemona so that he is very decidedly not useless in the slightest – fighting off the entire town’s worth of people behind you??? That is equally as necessary as taking down Nemona, something without which you’d never have managed to get to Pecharunt, and it must take some incredible battling skill to be able to hold off that many opponents at once. Like, dang, Kieran. I really hope he’s able to reflect on this in the aftermath and realise how incredibly strong and cool that was of him, because it was.

(He was holding his own one-against-many, just like he always admired Ogerpon for doing!)

Kieran’s fear and pessimism also show through just a tiny bit as you’re fighting Pecharunt at the end, when he reacts to the fact that you were able to damage it. Apparently he was afraid that this thing would be completely invulnerable and it just wouldn’t be possible for even someone as amazing as you to beat it and stop the curse. Yikes, that must have been a scary thought. But still, it all worked out in the end! Kieran’s learning that even when things are scary and feel overwhelming, by facing up to them and doing his best, it’ll usually turn out okay! Especially because he’s not alone and has friends by his side to support him now.

And, hey, one way or another, it seems like the events of the epilogue did help give Kieran that last little push he needed to decide to go back to Blueberry Academy! I imagine he was already thinking about doing so – he is actually a very stubborn and determined person at his core, so I don’t think he could ever have been considering just giving up on it – but all of this probably helped give him the confidence to make that leap. The thought of apologising to everyone for how he acted must still be incredibly daunting – but, he’s begun to realise that he can face scary things!

His old Kitakami team

During the epilogue’s battles, I was absolutely delighted to see Kieran send out Poliwrath, one of the Pokémon he used in Teal Mask but not in Indigo Disk – because this is proof that he’s been reconnecting with the Pokémon friends he left behind back then! As it turns out, the rest of his team for these multi battles is the same as his Champion team, with only the Polis switched, but even so, Poliwrath’s presence is enough to be a promising sign for all of his old Pokémon friends.

And this gets further confirmed by his dialogue with Arven in the clubroom! Arven asks Kieran which of his Pokémon he’s closest to, and he mentions his Hydrapple (which has been with him since it was an Applin), his Poliwrath and Politoed, his Yanmega, and his Furret! This accounts for all of the Pokémon Kieran had in his Teal Mask battles up to the third one, after which he started to fixate hard on getting stronger to prove himself to you, so these are likely all of the Pokémon that were friends of his from the start. And he still considers them friends now, which means he reconnected with them all and apologised as necessary for any leaving them behind/thinking they were weak/etc that he might have done! Yes good, Justice For Furret was had, I could not be happier.

(Okay, we never saw the second Poli back then, but the way he talks about both Polis together suggests they’re a pair, so I imagine they were both his friends back then, too. He also never used Applin against you before evolving it into Dipplin – which is fair, Applin is very not good in battles – so the lack of us seeing another Poliwag/whirl is probably because he felt he needed to use a diverse team that didn’t have two of the same species. He doesn’t have to battle with all of his Pokémon for them to still be his friends, after all! He still doesn’t battle with most of them now in the clubroom battles either, which use his same Champion team, but that doesn’t stop them from being his precious pals!)

(On the other hand, since there is no sign nor mention of them in the postgame, I suspect that, like Cramorant before them, his Gliscor, Shiftry and Probopass from the final Kitakami battle got released. Kieran would have only had them for like a day or two during the events of Teal Mask, since he only caught them after he fixated on getting stronger, so I doubt he’d grown very attached to them during that time. Still, that’s okay, because hey, he did make them stronger, which is probably all they ever expected from him when they joined his team.)

Nemona is Good

One extremely delightful aspect of the epilogue and beyond is Kieran’s interactions with Nemona. It turns out that her outlook on battling is exactly the kind of thing Kieran needed to help regain a healthier view on it himself!

His feelings about his own battling skills are still very all-or-nothing at the beginning of the epilogue. When Nemona excitedly declares that she’s heard he’s really good at battling, Kieran’s pretty dismissive of that idea. He couldn’t beat you, therefore that means he’s Not Good At It, right? (Kieran, no.) He also says that Nemona “destroyed” him once they’ve battled – but based on the fact that she has nothing but praise for how good he is, I very strongly suspect that he actually gave her a really tough fight, and he only framed it that negatively because losing at all still makes his inferiority complex blow things way out of proportion.

Happily, delightfully, Nemona tells Kieran exactly what he has always needed to hear this whole time, which is that it shouldn’t matter whether you win or lose, because battles are fun either way! And with a moment to reflect on that, he agrees… yeah, they are, he had a lot of fun!

We’d heard from Drayton that Kieran was always a kid who’d deeply enjoyed battling, from the very beginning. But it seems that somewhere along the way he’d stopped loving it so much, at least when he’s the one battling - probably because he’d often lose, which would trigger his inferiority complex and make him feel bad. We only saw a small glimpse of his passion for battling ourselves at the beginning of Teal Mask, mostly when he watched you battle his sister, and a little bit in his own early battles with you, but he still felt bad over losing, poor kid.

But with Nemona’s help, Kieran’s been able to remember just how much he always loved battling and can just enjoy himself with it again! In your clubroom battles with him, he has a line just before he Terastallises where he says “these feelings never change” – and though he doesn’t specify what feelings he’s talking about, the one thing about Kieran that has never changed this entire time, even if he sort of lost sight of it for a while along the way, is the thrill he gets from battling! He also says in another line that he’s “having a blast” – which is phrasing that Nemona uses that Kieran never has before, so apparently he picked that up from her? Aww. I am so glad he could meet her; she is exactly the breath of battle-loving fresh air he always needed.

Kieran’s clubroom conversation with Nemona is also very good and helps him let go of his all-or-nothing mindset a little more. Nemona praises him for how quickly he climbed the ranks of the BB League, which he insists is meaningless because he pushed himself unhealthily hard and then still couldn’t beat you in the end. But Nemona helps him reframe it and think of it as: he was incredibly dedicated, and it must mean he really loves Pokémon and battling, which is true! This has to help Kieran view his training arc in a more positive light instead of focusing on the negative aspects like his toxic obsession and lack of self-care. Hopefully if/when he starts training hard again, he’ll be able to feel better about it and not associate it with all the bad things, thanks to Nemona! (But also, Kieran, please remember to not neglect self-care again, that was bad. I imagine he has indeed got the message about that, since the way he talks about that aspect in this conversation seems tinged with regret.)

Carmine is Trying

Another thing we see in the epilogue – admittedly only a small glimpse near the end, but it’s something – is that Kieran’s relationship with his sister seems to have gotten a little bit healthier? They each make equal-opportunity Sibling Banter jabs at each other, and Kieran doesn’t slump and shrink and look so defeated when she bites back against one of his. There’s probably still some ways to go here on their dynamic becoming completely truly healthy, but it’s definitely progress from before, which is good to see.

I think Carmine really must have reflected on her role in Kieran’s breakdown and is trying in her own fumbling awkward way to do better by him now. A delightful sign of this is one of her scenes in the clubroom, in which she resolves to be less protective of Kieran, even if it’ll make her lonelier without him around as much. That’s exactly what she needs to do! After all, this whole thing started because Carmine couldn’t bear to let her brother endure even the tiniest amount of badfeels that would have come from learning he happened to miss out on meeting the ogre. Carmine has realised on some level that she needs to have more faith in Kieran and his ability to endure and get through stuff on his own, rather than trying too hard to protect him from everything ever, which just results in coddling him and stifling his possibility for growth. She still does want to look out for him from a distance and be able to help if he really does need it, but she’s trying not to overdo it any more. Yes good, I am proud of her too.

Reconciling with his schoolmates

I said already in the Indigo Disk post that it’s incredibly brave of Kieran to resolve to apologise to everyone he hurt and make amends, and this is still true. That has to have been so scary, but he went and did it anyway! It seems he even apologised to the people who cared about him, such as his sister and Amarys, for worrying them with his behaviour – which also means he has managed to comprehend the fact that people cared about him, even back then when he was at his most unlikeable.

And by the sounds of what he says in his clubroom scenes, most people took his apologies well and are talking to him like normal now, which has to have been such a relief. It means a lot that Kieran wasn’t expecting anything of the sort and apologised anyway despite expecting backlash, simply because it was the right thing to do – but hey, most people are nice and can probably tell he was decidedly Not Himself during that time and are willing to put the past behind them! Social interaction isn’t quite as scary as he’d used to think, it turns out!

Even then, some things are still a bit weird, and with how far-reaching his impact as Champion was, Kieran’s bound to keep having to deal with this for a while. There must keep being more people he was a jerk to that he still hasn’t apologised to yet, people being intimidated by him because they don’t realise he’s changed, constant reminders of some of the hurtful things he said and did back then. Making amends is going to be a pretty long-term thing, but Kieran is putting in the effort to do so all the same, because it’s the right thing to do, and he is so brave.

Someone who is making this harder than it needs to be is Drayton, because of freaking course he is. He still insists on rubbing in the “ex-Champ” thing, even though Kieran has made it clear he does not appreciate being called that (of course, he no longer minds that he’s not Champion any more, but the fact that Drayton insists on constantly reminding him of his past self has to sting). On the one hand, Drayton is still concerned about Kieran in his own way, because he does effectively ask if Kieran’s eating better meals now, but on the other hand their entire clubroom interaction features him deliberately dodging Kieran’s genuine attempts to just engage with him in an effort to make amends, and, geez. This is exactly what he wanted from Kieran all along, and yet he is somehow still not satisfied. Seriously, Drayton.

At least Drayton is the only one of the Elite Four to be like this, and the others seem to be on good terms with Kieran now! Look at Lacey insisting that the past is in the past when Kieran acts confused that she’d want to help him after he was such a jerk to her. (Someone needs to take notes there, Drayton.) And it seems like Kieran’s got another good friend in Crispin, who’s in the same class as him! Our boy is making so many new friends and it is wonderful.

Of course, his insecurities are still around, and he’s still a little too liable to assume he’s doing something Wrong in social situations, as we see in a couple of his clubroom interactions. That one with Arven about his Pokémon is an example, as Arven phrased things as if he expected Kieran to have just one single closest Pokémon buddy, and Kieran seemed to feel bad that he actually had multiple candidates and couldn’t pick – but happily, Arven reassured him that it’s cool to not be able to choose, too! And in Kieran’s interaction with Crispin, he reflexively apologises for not having watched the latest episode of a show, but Crispin calls him out on the apology, and Kieran is able to question himself as to why he apologised and conclude that he didn’t need to, because it’s not like Crispin’s going to mind.

He is learning! He does not need to feel like he has to perfectly match his conversation partner’s expectations in order to be their friend! Kieran’s approach to his own issues has become so healthy and filled with self-reflection and growth, and I am so proud of him.

Friendship with you

Kieran is also able to be a whole lot healthier about his friendship with you, now that you’re properly friends again after everything! Possibly my favourite completely innocuous line in the epilogue is when he casually mentions that you and he became friends during the school trip to Kitakami. This is actually huge, because Kieran had spent so long utterly convinced that you couldn’t possibly have meant it when you called him a friend back then, not after the lie and all of his issues about being too weak to deserve it. But now, he’s been able to reflect on that and realise… of course you meant it. Of course you always wanted to be his friend, right from the very beginning! It wasn’t on purpose of you that he got left out of meeting Ogerpon at all, because you’re a good person and you wouldn’t do something like that, and he never actually deserved that after all.

(Perhaps sometime during his break, he had a proper talk with his sister about what happened and why she lied, and Carmine finally got to fully express that you and she never meant to hurt him and shun him with that.)

Kieran is still not over his idolisation of you, mind you. He reacts to you being the one to find the TV remote of all completely mundane things with “Wowzers! ‘Course you found it first!” – which, really isn’t a wowzers or an of course? Your magical protagonist powers do not and should not extend to this, and yet they still do in Kieran’s head. But even though he still views you this way, Kieran is so much healthier about it now. He’s no longer bitter and jealous and beating himself up for not being as perfect as he thinks you are, since nobody is (not even you, not really) – instead, he’s just so incredibly thrilled that he actually gets to be friends with someone so cool!

I really love that the devs went and gave Kieran a new losing animation for his clubroom battles, too. His previous ones always had him being varying levels of upset about losing, but not any more! He just stares in wide-eyed awe at your amazingness, and then breaks into a big smile and thanks you for the battle, because he still had great fun even though he lost! And he’s able to freely admit that he looks up to you because you’re so strong, or, in an optional line in the epilogue, he admits that he’s jealous that your friends are all really good people. He still has those feelings, but he’s able to healthily express them now without letting them twist him into something harmful.

It seems like he’s still a little insecure about if he deserves to be friends with you, though, based on a few small things. When he asks you for a trade in the clubroom, he appears hesitant to ask, as if he’s not sure he has the right to, and if you say no – even though there’s every chance this is just because you want some time to decide on an appropriately special Pokémon to give him – he slumps, probably having had his sensitivity to rejection triggered. And even once you’ve traded, he can later ask if you’re absolutely sure he can really keep the Pokémon you traded him, because he can’t quite believe he could get to have such a cool gift from you of all people. Aww, Kieran. Hopefully his hypothetical future interactions with you will help squash this insecurity of his further, because he deserves to feel comfortable in his friendship with his best friend!!!

Ogerpon

Another seemingly-innocuous but extremely good line in the clubroom is that Kieran can ask you if Ogerpon’s doing well and say that he thinks she’ll be pretty happy with you. He says this in a completely casual way, with no hint of bitterness – which tells us that he’s no longer jealous that you caught Ogerpon! It makes sense that he wouldn’t be, because he doesn’t need her acknowledgement any more like he used to think he did in order to feel worth something. He’s already got acknowledgement and self-worth and happiness now for so many other reasons, after all! So he can just be selflessly happy for Ogerpon that she’s found a trainer she can feel safe and happy with too, without being irrationally preoccupied over what she thinks of him.

It is interesting to see in this dialogue that Kieran initially calls her “the ogre” before correcting himself to “Ogerpon” – apparently, he’s only quite recently made an effort to shift what he calls her in his head. It’s true that in his reaction to her in the Champion battle, he did indeed just call her “the ogre”. It’d make sense that he didn’t actually work to shift his mental idea of what to call her during his Indigo Disk arc, despite knowing her species name, because the name “Ogerpon” likely brought back too many painful reminders of everything that happened in Kitakami. It was probably easier for him to just stick with “the ogre” and try to forget anything had changed. But he’s okay with what happened now!

And maybe Kieran trying to make a habit of using her name now is a sign that he’s started to realise that Ogerpon is her own individual who’s not quite the same as the mental image he always had of what “the ogre” was like? Maybe. It’s hard to be sure. Unfortunately the epilogue/postgame can’t do much with Ogerpon because it’s always optional for her to be on your team or even in your game at all (since you could in theory have released her or traded her away). But we can at least hypothetically imagine that in Kieran’s continued interactions with you, he’ll get the chance to hang out with Ogerpon a little and come to understand her better. It certainly seems now that he’d be able to hang out with both you and her without feeling uncomfortably jealous, which is a good start! (And Terapagos is on the list of ‘people’ he owes an apology to, so let’s imagine he gets a chance to do that, too.)

Moving forward

The “climax”, such as there is one, of Kieran’s mini-arc of scenes in the clubroom is him excitedly telling you that he’s had the BB League drop him from their rankings. Although your character seems a little bewildered by it (they are still a bit of a social dumbass), this is in fact an extremely good thing for Kieran! He’s taking a step back from the competitive side of things for the sake of his mental health, so that he can untangle himself from the toxically-obsessive mindset that he was in back when he was only focused on winning! Look at Kieran doing all this good self-reflection and self-care, it is so lovely to see. He doesn’t even seem to view this as any sign of him failing, either – he’s just comfortably acknowledging that he needs to do this for now for his own sake and there’s no shame in that.

Kieran seems pretty sure that he is going to want to get back into competing once he’s cleared his head a bit, but he’s already so much more casual and healthy about it! He says he’s going to shoot for the Champion title again, and even if you respond with a friendly taunt of “You still won’t beat me!”, he takes it so well. He’s genuinely okay now with the thought that he might never quite be good enough to beat you – he just wants to have fun trying. Look at how far he’s come!

In the meantime, while he sorts his head out, he just wants to spend time with his Pokémon (who mean a lot to him as far more than just sources of battling strength!) and his human friends (whom he has so many of now???) and figure out what he really wants to do with himself from here. Good for him!

Kieran’s still just a kid, and seeing him already learn how to grow from his mistakes and face up to his lingering issues and be just so emotionally healthy about things now is such a promising sign for wherever he’s going to end up in future. I love that the epilogue and these postgame clubroom scenes put so much effort into showing us this about Kieran now, reassuring us that he really is going to be okay. I truly could not be more proud of or happy for my boy.

My DreamXD design. Ive seen a lot of amazing desins but i thought id put My own twist to it.

Feel free to critique anything !!

Pokemon dudes i enjoy, have a great day

how to create a jevil voice effect in audacity

OKAY so in my last post i figured out how to make jevil’s voice in audacity, and now you can too! you can use this for voice acting, shitposting, whatever. you can really do anything with this. jevil asmr? that’s something you can do

anyway, here’s how to do it!

download dblue crusher - this is a vst plugin, you can use it in any program that supports it, but this will be how to do it in audacity bc most people have it. you can download this plugin here: http://illformed.org/downloads/illformed_old_vst_plugins.zip this plugin creates the bitcrushed sound that you can hear in jevil’s sound clips and is the most important part

install the plugin - okay i’m too lazy to explain how to do this just read it here: https://www.audacityteam.org/download/plug-ins/ thanks

once the plugin in is set up, now you can start using it! record some stuff or get whatever audio you want to jevil-fy

1. duplicate the track you can do this by highlighting the audio and pressing ctrl + d

2. pitch shift the second track this makes a funky dissonance between the two tracks, which is very jevil sounding. depending on the audio you’re using, pitch shift it in range of 5% to 15%

3. use dblue crusher select both audio tracks and apply dblue crusher! i used a sample of 5, but you can mess with the range so it sounds how you like it

4. apply reverb just slap on some reverb and you’re done!

i hope that helps anyone who wants to do this! if you have any questions, you’re welcome to message me and i’ll see if i can help!

volo isn't usually easily flustered until adaman comes around

character development

Kieran brain syndrome isn’t going away so I have to keep drawing him

смерть і любов

Headcanons about a timeline when Leon doesn't become the champion

Due to a traumatic, scary incident, Leon is scared of big, powerful Pokemon, or even of Pokemon in general. Sonia's Yamper is okay. He looks after a Pokemon egg and gets a Charmander, and Charmander is okay. He does actually go on the journey, and he can force himself to battle, but he's a nervous wreck by the end of any battle, which of course means all his Pokemon are worried for him and don't focus on battling anywhere near as much as they should.

In this timeline, because Leon isn't the victorious never-lost-a-battle champion, instead it's Sonia. And since Sonia not only could beat Leon, and then beat the previous champion, she doesn't get the same confusion about what to do with her life as she does in the original timeline. She isn't mega passionate about battling, but she's good enough at it to be the champion, and it's kind of fun being famous and popular, so she sticks with it.

Leon, on the other hand, happily goes back to Postwick where all he has to worry about are cute fuzzy Wooloo. One of the neighbours has a jerk of a Boltund that can be seen chasing Leon down the dirt roads sometimes while Leon runs, terrified and damn near tears as a kid. Leon becomes a bit of the town joke, not just for his fear of Pokemon but also getting lost all the time.

Leon rolls with it, but on the inside he hates how he's so scared of Pokemon, and how everyone makes fun of him. And to make matters worse, since Sonia became the champion and Nessa became a gym leader, he never gets to spend time with them, and when they do it's often Pokemon-related activities because Sonia can't afford to not spend every spare moment battling or training. Leon slowly pulls away from his friends, and anyone else who's lives revolve around Pokemon.

As Hop grows up, Leon is constantly there to look after him. Despite his own fear, he doesn't discourage Hop from being obsessed with Pokemon, and even helps teach him how to battle, catch Pokemon, or care for them, while being nervous and jittery the whole time. Hop knows Leon is scared of most Pokemon, but doesn't really grasp the depths of that fear and thinks it's just a minor thing.

Eventually, Sonia loses the champion title to Raihan. She was famous enough that she can still base her whole career around being a former champion, which she does for a while, and goes to tournaments and events around the world thanks to her battling prowess. Though, she's not particularly happy with it. Battling is fun, but it doesn't fulfill her like it once did. She starts turning down more and more events and tournaments and sticks around in her Gran's lab, where she discovers that this is what she wants to do.

When Hop is a young teen or preteen, he's ready for his journey. The professor goes to his house, where he, Gloria, and Victor are to pick out their starters. Leon catches sight of Hop interacting with Scorbunny, and the energetic bunny Pokemon is on the verge of being an outright violent little maniac, which of course freaks Leon out and he goes around the back of the house to hide.

There, he finds Sobble. The water Pokemon was so terrified of Scorbunny and Grooky's actions that it ran and hid, just like Leon. Leon, despite his fear of most Pokemon, still can't resist when he sees one sad and in need of some comfort, so he manages to get Sobble in his arms where he sits there hugging it.

Out front, Professor Magnolia seemed to know that this was somehow going to happen, and she brought a backup water starter- a Squirtle. So Hop has Scorbunny, Victor gets Grooky, and Gloria gets Squirtle. The kids are ecstatic and immediately rush off to go battle and catch Pokemon, while Magnolia goes around back and finds Leon and Sobble holding each other for comfort and tells him she thinks that he'll be good for Sobble, so he can keep it, because she knows that Leon will avoid the scary situations that Sobble also fears.

For a while, Leon raises Sobble, who can be seen clinging to his shoulder, arm, leg, back, or head as he tends to the Wooloo in the field or fixes fences or does any of his other farm-related chores. Hop comes back partway into his journey to excitedly show off his Pokemon, and Leon gets scared by Hop's Corviknight snapping it's beak near him. This causes Hop to be a bit exasperated and also offended, and he snaps at Leon about how Hop's Pokemon are NEVER going to be a danger to anyone. Leon apologizes, but feels pretty crappy, and later on that night he goes to see Magnolia to try and give the Sobble back, saying that with a scaredy-Skitty like him, Sobble is never going to get any stronger. Leon's in a bad place in his head, thinking of himself as a failure of an older brother and in other regards. Before Magnolia can refute his claims, Leon runs off.

On his way home, alone, that jerkass Boltund comes for him, happily ready to chase him and scare the crap out of him. But before it can do that, Sobble suddenly hits it with a Water Gun so powerful it sends the Boltund running yelping. Sobble storms up to Leon, soaks him too, and then grumpily climbs up onto him and won't let go.

Leon has a bit of an awakening and realizes he wants to overcome his fear of Pokemon. So he takes Sobble and Charizard and he goes on like a second journey as an adult to try and overcome his fears.

Along the way, he runs into Raihan while he's training, where Raihan's Pokemon scare the life out of Leon. Raihan ends up journeying with Leon, though never EVER helps him when he's lost or has to battle, basically like he's pretending he doesn't even have Pokemon and follows Leon around during the day. Whenever Leon makes camp, Raihan then releases his Pokemon and forces Leon to get used to them being around, and Raihan will talk about all the various ways dragon Pokemon protect their young, their mates, their trainers, or themselves, and how they court each other or look after sick or injured ones.

When Leon and Raihan encounter angry wild Pokemon, Raihan helps Leon stay calm, and points out that the Pokemon is in a rage only because it's scared or it's protecting something, and it's not doing this to specifically try and hurt Leon (which is the thing that Leon's always afraid of). Leon slowly overcomes his fears of Pokemon.

Sobble doesn't want to evolve, so Leon gives it an Everstone to hold in it's curled-up tail. Despite not evolving, Leon is really good at bringing out the strength of his Pokemon, and Sobble is a force to be reckoned with. Raihan feels like he's taught Leon all he can, and all that's left is Leon needs to take more time to overcome his fears, so he leaves Leon to it.

Leon meets other people and makes a lot of progress, and learns new things. But he also has some bad times, such as where someone being an absolute piece of shit realizes that Leon is working on overcoming his fears, and uses their Pokemon in a scheme to scare and terrorize Leon over the course of a couple of days. It backfires, though, when the person's Pokemon realize Leon is truly scared and it's cruel what their trainer wants them to do to Leon, so they turn on their trainer to get them to stop, and then help Leon out of the sticky situation they put him in. And one of those Pokemon is a Doublade that the trainer ends up abandoning for not following their orders, and the Doublade becomes Leon's Pokemon and soon evolves into Aegislash.

He happens across a very nervous and anxious Drakloak that's lost it's Dreepy friend and ends up absconding with Sobble to put on his head, which results in Leon and his other Pokemon chasing Drakloak around. The Drakloak joins his team, and eventually evolves into Dragapult (who is still a little shit).

Leon's team fills out with other Pokemon as he journeys, and suddenly he has a full team and he's pretty well overcome his fear of Pokemon. It still happens- he still gets scared, either of new Pokemon he's never seen or when Pokemon directly attack him. But he's much better at managing his fear, and he's not such a nervous wreck at the end of battles. In fact, he has so much fun with battles that he's filled with a passion for battling he's never felt before. He's still kind of jittery and anxious before battles, though, and afterwards he's relieved that it's done and it's a bit draining on him, but he kind of enjoys those feelings now.

Since anyone who's previously done the gym challenge and made it to the finals can re-enter and skip the badge-collecting process, Leon enters on the very last day that he can. He's worried he'd have to battle Hop- he and Hop didn't exactly part on the greatest of terms, and it occurs to him that Hop might not even realize that Leon's gone and done a second journey.

But Leon doesn't fight Hop, who gets taken out by Victor or Gloria or Marnie earlier on. Leon does go all the way to the top, though, and battles Raihan.

And Leon, who has avoided most anything to do with Pokemon, including social media and League-related news, is legit SHOCKED that the weirdo dragon trainer who journeyed with him for a while and literally held his hand when he got lost sometimes is the champion. Leon and Raihan battle, and since right before the battle Sobble ditched the everstone in favour of a different item, Sobble evolves twice in the same battle, going all the way to Inteleon right at the end to take out one of Raihan's Pokemon.

The battle still goes down to Charizard and Duraludon. And then Leon wins.

It's a huge deal, because no one has any idea who the fuck Leon is, and Raihan was the reigning champ for a few years solid and miles ahead of all his other challengers ever.

Rose is a dick and he's not happy to have Leon, who's kind of nervous all the time, as the champion. But Raihan basically appoints himself as Leon's personal assistant, to go with him whenever the Galar champion is invited to tournaments (where he knows Leon will encounter new Pokemon that'll initially freak him out, and also get lost a lot). Truthfully, Raihan is kind of happy to be dethroned, because as much as he loves the spotlight, it was getting to be a bit much. He had a lot more fun following Leon around than doing his own champion things.

Since Leon wasn't the unbeatable champion for ten years before Hop entered the challenge, it's far less stressful on him when he loses, and he's happy to go and join Sonia at the lab, both of them working as assistants under Magnolia for a while. Leon and Hop apologize to each other and go back to being insufferably supportive and adorkable brothers. Leon and Raihan then go on journeys together to other regions or just around Galar, and since Leon only became champion when he was a full-grown adult, it's nowhere near as damaging to his self-esteem and such as it was in the original timeline.

And, as Leon and Raihan go places together, they fall in love, to literally no one's surprise, and eventually live happily ever after.