Donut Hole is a Pokémon fanfiction by DoobleBugs. Specifically, it takes elements from Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.
After his best friend Dawn disappears, Barry is distraught and now can think of only one thing: getting her back. To this end, he seeks out Jirachi, the wish-granting Pokémon, who tries but fails to grant his wish... at first. It ultimately decides that it needs something in return, and what it needs is to temporarily "borrow" Barry's memories.
So now Barry is in Hisui, without his memories of who it is he's looking for... but he does know he's looking for someone.
Can be read here
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Donut Hole contains examples of:
- Adaptation Name Change: Iron Valiant is referred to as "Galiant", since Barry doesn't know what to call it otherwise.
- Ambiguous Gender:
- Fern's gender is a mystery for much of the story, due to being a gendered evolution. After her final evolution, it's revealed that she's a girl.
- Barry also catches a burmy, which is another gendered evolution. After his final evolution, it's revealed that he is a boy.
- Mystery's gender is never revealed, which is the reason for its name in the first place.
- Subverted: While Barry is clueless about Snacks the Snover's gender, the author's visual aid for his team at the end of chapters reveals she is a girl.
- Baby Talk: Jirachi speaks like a young child, much to Barry's irritation.
- Break the Cutie: Hisui is not kind to Barry, though admittedly, he's not very kind to it in turn.
- Broken Pedestal: A complicated example; since Barry thinks he's in an alternate timeline where Cyrus won, he's fully convinced Ingo (who was apparently friends with his dad) has joined Team Galactic and is very upset to learn this. Thing is, that's not what happened at all, but even so hearing the words "And to think I used to look up to you..." from who for all he knows is just a random kid shakes the amnesiac Ingo to his core.
- Disabled in the Adaptation: Barry explicitly has ADHD in this fic (something that's often headcanoned but never confirmed in the games), and goes off his medication when Dawn disappears.
- Entertainingly Wrong: After meeting members of the Diamond and Pearl Clans, Barry ends up believing he's in a timeline where Cyrus won.
- Groin Attack: Poor Gaeric ends up on the receiving end of this thanks to Barry. Made even funnier when Sabi tells him that she knew he would do that and didn't stop him because she thought it would be funny, which infuriates Gaeric to no end.
- Identical Ancestor: A plot point: Barry meeting Arezu ends with him thinking she's Commander Mars of Team Galactic and immediately leads to him becoming hostile towards her... especially since, with him searching for his missing friend, he instantly puts two and two together and assumes that Team Galactic must've kidnapped her.
- Inelegant Blubbering: In chapter 15, Dawn ends up doing this when telling Adaman and Irida about Barry.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Inflicted on Barry by Jirachi, as it doesn't have the strength to get Dawn back from Arceus on its own. Jirachi takes all of Barry's memories regarding Dawn, leaving a void in his memory. Despite Barry's panic in response to this, Jirachi assures him that it's only temporary.
- Mythical Motifs: Barry at one point has a dream sequence that adapts the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, with Barry as Orpheus, Dawn as Eurydice and a Cofagrigus with Ingo's voice as Hades. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
- Near-Death Experience: Barry has exceedingly bad luck in Hisui, and the author themselves has joked about how frequently this happens.
- No Medication for Me: Barry gets so depressed after Dawn disappears that he stops taking his adderall. It only gets worse when he ends up in Hisui, because there is no adderall for him to take.
- Not Helping Your Case: Barry's misunderstandings regarding the Diamond and Pearl Clans are legitimately not helped by some of the ways they interact with him over the course of the story. Granted, they can be given some leeway as he's been acting increasingly hostile to them throughout the story, but as noted in chapter 16, they're not exactly looking friendly in his eyes no matter how much they claim to want to help him — Irida approaches him on Ursaluna's back whilst claiming to want to help him and Ingo's usual hammy delivery of his dramatic speech ends up sounding like a supervillain monologue.
- Signature Mon: Fern, the Ralts Barry ends up befriending and eventually training. It then evolves into a Kirlia... which then evolves into Iron Valiant.
- Titled After the Song: All the chapter titles, plus the story's title itself, are based on songs and song lyrics.
- Wham Line: The description (and illustration) of Fern's final evolution. She's not a Gardevoir... and she's not a Gallade...
- Wild Child: What the people of Hisui soon find themselves assuming Barry to be, with a particular rumor being that he was raised by Gardevoirs.
