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gaianoire · 2 months

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an independent roleplay blog for QUEEN BERYL from BISHOUJO SENSHI SAILOR MOON. low activity / mun is 21+ .

🌏 i prefer the manga so that is the one i will be pulling from the most ! 🌏

side blog to @lunarnoire .

guidelines

i. this is a independent roleplay blog for queen beryl from bishoujo senshi sailor moon.

ii. this blog is low activity because of my personal life (work/life). this blog is also mutuals only and is a sideblog currently to @lunarnoire. all follow backs will come from there!

iii. no god-modding and/or meta-gaming! i’m aware that queen beryl is, obviously, a villain and as such does things villains do like… well basically gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss ™. this is my second time roleplaying a villain (i write black lady too) so i don’t want to step on anyone’s toes especially given beryl’s nature.

iv. i tend to match my partners in terms of length but sometimes my replies may be on the longer side. (i tag long posts with #long post if you need to filter it). i do accept criticism on my writing and how i can get better as i am to here to also improve my craft aside from having fun! i’m gonna be upfront with you guys right now and let you know that i have… issues with commas. i don’t use them as often as before but those little swiggles… daunting.

v. nsfw content like smut will not be present here!

vi. in regards to ships, the same thing from vii. applies here. if you’d like to plot something out between characters that isn’t pre-determined in bssm (at least the dark kingdom arc where queen beryl appears) such as family bonds or platonic, please message me so we can plot things out beforehand and then work our way through threads and development!

vii. regarding mains/exclusives… i do not practise exclusivity anymore due to bad past experiences! i’m still iffy on practising mains for the same reasons, so for right now mains are reserved for friends only. i apologize in advance, but it’s really more for my safety and comfort than anything. also if i’m being honest here… i tend to get to my threads depending on the order i draft them in so oldest first then newest which is another reason why i’m unsure on the status of mains here.

viii. regarding ocs and multimuses, you are welcome here! i typically do not follow if i cannot easily find your about page, rules, and muses page via mobile as i tend to be on mobile more than desktop.

ix. in closing, you are always welcome to message me if you have plot ideas or if you wish to thread, etc! if i miss any threads, replies, asks…, please let me know! if you have questions, please let me know! you can call me kairi. i’m over 21 and sailor moon has been with me all my life. 🥺❤ i’ve read the manga, watched both crystal and the 90s animes as well as all the recorded musicals, and i’m even a member of the official fan club! my other fave characters aside from black lady specifically are aino minako/sailor venus/sailor v, sailor galaxia, sailor ceres, michiru kaioh/sailor neptune, and fish eye! i just really love sailor moon… 🥺❤❤

x. this blog is not affiliated with toei animation, naoko takeuchi / p.n.p.. my headcanons and writing are my own. sources are from various official sources provided by toei and/or p.n.p. or they are from missdream or mintymoondrops or spriters-resource. my graphics (so icon border, page break image and stuff like that) / psd are made my me. my icon border was made put together by both myself & @.maidenkissed. my blog background was made by @.maidenkissed cuz i was really going through it when i was making one.

about

NAME: queen beryl

AGE: 20 something

DOB: november 1st

NATIONALITY: japanese.

SPECIES: human**.

GENDER: female.

OCCUPATION: queen of darkness, queen of the earth, queen of dark kingdom.

HEIGHT: 160cm, 164cm, 167cm, 168cm.*

HAIR: rose red, seafoam green as super beryl, jet black pre-corruption.

EYES: pale orange, fiery red as super beryl.

FACECLAIM: yuri nishina, akiko miyazawa, midori hatsukaze, nami tamaki, makoto aikawa, juri hirayu, rinko matsubara, aya sugimoto.

VOICECLAIM: keiko han, misa watanabe.

according to an dic adventure doll released by bandai during the 90s, beryl's likes are anarchy, bedlam and chaos. she dislikes sailor moon and the other senshi. her hobbies are snooping, spying, and sabotage and her special strengths are the ability to control her henchmen. her favorite food is liver ; her favorite color is black ; her favorite animal is a scorpion; and her favorite topic of conversation is world domination. it also lists her birthday as november 1st and her age as "twenty-something". i view beryl around the same age as whatever queen serenity is supposed to be - at least physically - so i will be using this old doll info from the dic dub at my disposal. lol

** - i view queen beryl as a human as she is from the earth kingdom during the time of silver millennium and was reborn as a normal human in the present age before , both times , being ultimately corrupted by queen metalia. beryl was a sage before metalia, an invader from the sun, noticed the conflictions and darkness in her heart and ultimately used that to her own ends. beryl is corrupted by the evil that is metalia and to symbolize this, her hair is no longer black but is instead brilliant red, her teeth sharpen into fangs, her nails into claws, her ears become pointed (naoko says her ears are like black holes in the materials collection), and horns grow out of her shoulders.

it's been a while since i watched the musicals but i remember beryl going through some real character growth and going through redemption in the musicals based on the stars arc. she is allies with galaxia and has a change of heart after witnessing / realizing her beloved, endymion, is dead. she helps sailor moon and the other senshi in the fight against galaxia and chaos and i believe that, in the end, beryl would've chosen redemption over the darkness if it meant endymion was safe. also cuz i don't think it's fair that the four heavenly kings are offered redemption or freed from their brainwashing depending on which canon you watch, but beryl is rarely, if ever, offered the same courtesy. i haven't decided if this will just be relegated to my musical verse(s) or not. i'll come to a decision once i finish rewatching the musicals. lol

the series never really goes into much depth about who beryl was before metalia, but i like to think that given what scraps we are given, beryl was a benevolent sage of endymion's court who adhered to the laws that both peoples of the moon and earth followed - which were ultimately broken by princess serenity and prince endymion with their forbidden love. beryl knew of their secret meetings and was jealous, however she never acted on this jealousy but instead suffered in agony wondering why her dear endymion did not have eyes for someone like her. this caused her to eventually come to dislike the princess of the moon which, in turn, caused metalia to offer beryl the means of which to take her love for her own. beryl, distraught and full of warped hatred, gives into metalia and becomes beryl , queen of darkness. with her newfound powers, she brainwashes the four heavenly kings to fall completely and utterly under her control. in a sense, i view her as the opposite of usagi - like a foil to her. i think pre-metalia , beryl was probably similar to usagi in a lot of aspects, but ultimately her love would become her downfall whereas usagi's would be her strength.

in the manga and crystal, beryl is wary of metalia and the power that she offers. beryl would rather betray metalia and be queen of the earth with endymion at her side then serve metalia.

my sister and i joked about this once when we were watching either crystal or pgsm together, but like??? what if beryl could also use her tiara as a boomerang like usagi too??? and so this attack would be called dark metalia boomerang!

i know crystal has usagi/sailor moon defeat beryl but i hated that so much cuz they took away a beautiful moment for minako to shine as a leader so in my crystal verse, i'm headcanon...-ing that minako/sailor venus was the one to defeat beryl.

im currently re-reading and re-watching the series (manga, both animes, live action, and musicals) so i might add more stuff here during my re-watch if i find it relevant. i also plan to sit down and play another story some time, too, but i'm not sure how long beryl is in that game. i tend to do this every year or so because sailor moon is my favourite series too! so there is that. lol

my interpretation of beryl is largely INFLUENCED by the MANGA and the musicals. i grew up watching the 90s anime. the first season as well as the promise of the rose movie are my favorites. i love, love, love, love the manga though, but i am not adverse to engaging with the 90s anime as like i said i grew up with it. i also love the musicals, too, and crystal. the dream arc is my favorite arc of sailor moon and i really love the sailor v manga too and my delulu dream is that someday toei will do another attempt at a sailor v anime and possibly even there will be a sailor v musical!! and game!!

*these are the heights of her myu actresses in order that they played her so yuri -> akiko and then the third one is for makoto and the last is for aya as i could not find heights for her other actresses.

my favorite musicals for beryl are eien densetsu and its revision (this is one of my favorite musicals in general outside of nogimyu and the dracul series as well as the nelke myus with satomi and hotaru as usagi.) and nogimyu. i don't remember much of beryl in the others outside of gaiden dark kingdom , the very first sera myu. i think the other bandai myus she appears in after eien densetsu are basically just eien densetsu with changes. outside of the manga/crystal, the primary source i will be pulling from for beryl is the eien densetsu musicals , nogimyu, and la reconquista.

Silver Millennium was a time of peace in the solar system. Each planet enjoyed the peace that the silver crystal brought up and all was well. There was that ancient rule that the kingdoms of the moon and the earth were forbidden from interacting and so the kingdom of the moon watched over the inhabitants of the earth ever diligently. Beryl was a kindly, beautiful sage. She was employed in the court of Prince Endymion and his parents - the king and queen. As Beryl was of different social statuses than the prince, she could only watch him from afar - only interacting with him during her royal duties as sage but those interactions with the prince were far and few between. She could say she knew the king and queen much better but alas. She only truly wanted to know Endymion.

She fell for the handsome and regal young prince. Her every thought was consumed by his presence to the point where she had befriended his loyal retainers in an effort to become closer to the prince and to learn his deepest secrets. She only had eyes for him, but alas. He never had eyes for her - only viewing her as a friend or perhaps a sister. His eyes were for the princess of the moon, Princess Serenity, and her alone.

Beryl discovered his feelings for the radiant princess one day. She was always watching him from afar when not doing her duties and had learned his secret - a secret only her retainers and her mother, and his retainers knew. No one else.

Beryl was consumed with feelings she had never before. It was a raging, bottomless jealousy that roared like a blizzard inside of her. She felt nothing but disdain and contempt for the princess of the white moon. She thought that without her, perhaps she and Endymion could be together.

These dark feelings caught the attention of Queen Metalia - a figureless evil entity from the sun. She wormed her way into Beryl's heart , plotting even further seeds of malicious feelings inside of her. she told beryl that endymion could be her's and her's alone with the tremendous power that she could give her.

power. yes, that's what she needed. she needed power to obtain what she wanted most. her love.

she took metalia's offer and she is offered wonderous dark powers to obtain her love and to help obtain metalia's goal.

beryl uses her newfound powers to turn endymion's trusted retainers, the four heavenly kings, under her command. with metalia's powers she also brings the entire earth under her control and endymion's parents lose their very lives in the process.

traveling to the moon with an army behind her, the denizens of the earth fight against the denizens of the moon. beryl eventually loses her life to sailor venus and her holy sword, lamenting that she was not able to have endymion to herself.

when queen serenity uses the power of the silver crystal at the cost of her life to seal away metalia and wish for her daughter to have a normal life, beryl and the other denizens of earth are sent there as well until they are eventually reincarnated in the future.

beryl is reincarnated like so many others from the time of the silver millennium and pursues a career in archeology. she travels the world for her profession and uncovering ancient relics and ruins makes her nostalgic for a time long passed that she no longer remembers. during these travels, she encounters the reincarnated four heavenly kings and through a cruel twist of fate becomes friends with them. they all find kinship over the mutual feelings that they have over a life they've long forgotten - wondering if it is just their imagination or if there is something more.

unaware of her awakening, aino minako awakens as sailor v with the help of her companion, artemis, and soon beryl feels something stir deep within her. a kind of hatred she has never known. before she would look on at the moon with a sense of passivity - never understanding why so many people worshipped the moon. now she would look on it with disdain and disgust - cursing the very thing so many loved. and deep within her breast would burn a love so damaging, it choked her. where was this man she believed to be her soulmate? where was he?

beryl returns to japan after work had brought her to the ancient ruins of greece. she had to get away from those structures... those structures that made images dance behind her eyes of another life. she was sure this time that that time was real, but how could she prove it?

as she asks this question, a disembodied voice calls her. it tells her to travel to the north pole, to d point where all of her questions would be answered. and so beryl drops everything to make her way to a place rarely traveled to - if ever.

the voice continues to call for her and soon she finds what she is looking for - a giant cave leading to the deepest, most darkest place anyone could imagine and as she travels further and further into the cave, she discovers the remains of her beloved's kingdom and soon finds an ancient door. the voice is louder this time, desperate, and beryl opens the door and is greeted by the entity known as metalia. she restores beryl's memories and powers - this time beryl is transformed completely. her once jet black hair turns rose red; her ears become more pointed and the insides look like black holes; her teeth sharpen into fangs; her fingernails point out into claws; stones grow forth from her shoulders and she feels herself grow taller, grow stronger, and when her eyes open, she is

BERYL, QUEEN OF DARKNESS.

metalia instructs her to find the four heavenly kings and bring them under her command once more - and she does. she finds them in their respective regions that they once had governed in ages past and so the dark kingdom is revived.

from then on, beryl and the four heavenly kings seek to gather energy to give to queen metalia as they search for the legendary silver crystal to gain control over the world.

beryl would eventually lose her life to sailor venus once more and her memories before she was corrupted come back and her love once more chokes her and beryl dies thinking only of endymion again.

verses

SILVERMILLENNIUM. this is my verse set during the silver millennium in sailor moon.

DARKKINGDOM. this is my verse set during the manga.

DPOINT. this is my verse set during the 90s anime of sailor moon.

CRYSTAL. this is the same as DARKKINGDOM as sailor moon crystal follows the manga - albeit with a few differences to my chagrin in the beginning.

REVIVAL. beryl appears in numerous musicals but this will be the general 'verse' that i will use for the bandai musicals. beryl appears in the :

summer 1993 dark kingdom revival musical and its winter (1993) revision.

summer 1997 eternal legend musical and its winter (1998) revision.

summer 1998 beginning of the new legend musical.

summer 2003 starlights musical and its winter (2004) revision, the advent of princess kakyuu.

in the eternal legend musicals, the four heavenly kings are once again under command of beryl as well as a mud puppet of endymion. in the new legend musical, the amazon trio is under her command. the starlights musical has the four heavenly kings under her command once again and the same goes for the the advent of princess kakyuu. i am 100% game for writing in one of the stars musicals as a type of stars au for either the manga or 90s anime. please just let me know first!

RETURN. beryl appears in numerous musicals but this will be the general 'verse' that i will use for the nelke musicals. beryl appears in the :

summer 2013 la reconquista musical.

summer/fall 2018 nogimyu musicals. fall/winter 2019 nogimyu musical.

the super live (2018-2019 & 2023).

spring 2024 nogimyu musical.

ANOTHERSTORY. this is my verse sset during the video game, sailor moon: another story, however i haven't actually played the game outside of the like first... 10?? minutes so i don't really know much about beryl's role in this game.

FALSEQUEEN. this is my verse set during the live action tokusatsu drama series, pretty guardian sailor moon or PGSM.

credits

cafekitsune / Toei / Naoko Takeuchi / P.N.P. / Marco Albiero / missdream / mintymoondrops / spriters-resource / maidenkissed.

#ǫᴜᴇᴇɴ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇᴀʀᴛʜ (ᴏᴏᴄ);#*creations

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goldensunset · 2 years

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So the more I’m thinking about it, I realized I love each member of the destiny trio individually, (and Sokai of course), but I feel like they're not really the best, most cohesive trio at the moment. I think maybe Wayfinder trio actually is the best, most cohesive, functional trio right now? Anyway.

I’m wondering if maybe the weirdness between the destiny trio in kh3 was intentional, and not the result of rushed development or something, as I keep assuming. Because they took the time to give every other trio special moments, but we didn’t get anything like that for SKR. Even the very last scene in the game mirrors the paopu scene: it’s sora and Kairi alone, and Riku separate from them. He's smiling, he's happy for them, but still, it's a clear separation of Sora and Kairi from everyone else, and Riku especially. I feel like remind could have been an opportunity for them to give even one memory or flashback or moment between the three if they wanted. It just feels like the devs only ever put sora and Riku together (like the ending of kh2, or ddd), or sora and Kairi (end of kh1, end of kh3/remind), but not all three anymore (secret ending of kh1 with the letter in the bottle). Sora vanishes sitting alone with kairi. At the end of the credits, the final image is the one of her and sora on the tree. Look at remind, it’s Kairi on the title screen. And like, if it were a fluke of 3’s development, why did it persist in Melody of memory? They could have had Yen Sid tell Kairi to stay home. The fact that it was riku just hurts so much more.

I don’t really have an answer but I just wanted your thoughts. Is this so they’ll reconcile later? Or as Nomura said in that interview:

"Nomura hopes its depiction of their bonds can offer a realistic sense of how friendships evolve and change over time. "{Kingdom Hearts is] not too realistic, but I do want my players to grasp a sense of reality from it as well," Nomura said. "For example, I'm sure you had friends when you were young, a good group of friends, but as you grow older things change and it doesn't always stay the same. I think all I can say is please play to the very end and see what happens. But I think [Kingdom Hearts 3] does depict how each character feels about each other in this new storyline."

It's intentionally vague, but like, does that mean the trio is coming apart? is it just sora and kairi getting closer from here on out? I just don’t know what the series looks like if they’re estranged from here on out. But to be honest, I sort of felt like sora and Riku weren’t even getting along that well in 3. It was weird almost bullying at times against sora. But they did have that “you don’t believe that” moment too, so idk man. Am I just reading way too much into this (probably)? Also, do you REALLY think they might be setting up a Kairi protag arc, or are we being set up to he let down again? I want her to be equal to/save her boys so bad, but it’s hard to hope for it after MoM…

sorry for this stupid long ask, but I would love to hear your thoughts :) also when you said "I risk my life every time I say it but riku's arc is done" I really felt that

*cracks knuckles* aight it’s time

*sniffles* so i didn’t know about that interview where nomura said that… *lies down definitely not crying* might explain a lot…

man i…i’m torn. like a part of me thinks kh should ultimately come back to the destiny trio as a group of friends because from the beginning they were established as the main characters. and to lose sight of that is to lose sight of kh’s heart. play up the nostalgia factor for the first game back when it was so simple and magical. something something disney magic power of friendship everything should work out in the end. it’s a feel-good fantasy where the power of love can always save everyone.

the other part of me…thinks exploring this concept of growing apart from old friends is very good. very painful, for sure. but who says disney should be all sunshine and smiles all the time? change and pain are part of life. and kids aren’t idiots. they’re no strangers to sadness. narratives that can handle this without making it awful and grim are very touching and valuable. but i would love for this specific type of pain to be addressed because it’s an issue very near and dear to my own heart.

my first ever friends that i knew and loved when we were toddlers are all gone from my life now. and from what i hear they’re completely different people now, people i would never want to be friends with. plenty more people have come and gone since, and i get debilitating anxiety about the relationships i still have, just in case i’m a hair’s breadth away from another fallout or distancing. the truth of it is that you can’t take anything for granted in life.

when you’re that close with someone, you think it’s gonna last forever. because you love them now, right? why would you ever stop? you want to live in the disney movie forever. you want the credits to roll and have everything freeze. when you get older, you want to live in the past because the past is comforting. but the truth of the matter is, it isn’t a reality anymore. and it hurts to open your eyes and acknowledge the evidence that things have changed.

as you’ve said, the destiny trio are certainly the least cohesive trio at the moment. i don’t think anyone can argue otherwise. which is ironic, given how in the past, they were the only ones who got to come back to each other, while the others were tragically separated. in and after kh3, the opposite happens. the wayfinder and sea salt trio reunite, while the destiny trio have drifted apart.

but the issue isn’t merely their physical separation. something has changed internally. too much has happened for them to go back to being the simple island kids they used to be. you could pluck sora out of quadratum tomorrow and give him right back to his friends but their reunion would mean next to nothing if the three of them didn’t do some soul searching individually.

which is why i’m hoping that they actually don’t rescue him right away. if he had to spend some time alone, and probably meet up with the new and strange folks in quadratum far away from anything or anyone familiar, he could reflect on his life and grow as a person. it’d be like in kh1 right after losing kairi riku and his home. sora was kinda mistreated in kh3 and made to feel like he was nothing on his own. the ‘my friends are my power’ thing really isn’t cute anymore if he’s saying it because he hates himself. our boy is strong and he deserves more respect!!!

like on the one hand if his friends came to rescue him it would be a nice demonstration of how much they care about him, esp after all he’s done for them. healers need healing too. on the other hand if he had to save himself he’d prove his worth once and for all and they couldn’t bully him by calling him useless on his own anymore (they never should’ve been doing that in the first place!!)

and it would be especially boring if it was literally just riku the hero saving him yet again. (*gets killed by majority of followers*) DDD already gave us ‘mister obsession and abandonment issues coolguy riku saves useless naïve clownboy sora’. i’ll put up with it once bc good for riku but i won’t put up with it again. it should be kairi, or riku and kairi, or the entire main cast. like maybe riku jumps in alone and kairi and/or the others have to jump in after him and have their moment to shine. at some point kairi’s like ‘ok now i REALLY have had enough of this’ and abandons her training to go after the boys (this is how kairi stans post-mom can still win-)

and if they all reunited after all this, having done some soul-searching? could they ever be the same? of course they could still be friends. but i really feel that we’ve crossed a point of no return for them. the other trios have changed as individual people, sure, but their group dynamic is the same as always. at this point, though, the destiny trio as we knew it in kh1 has all but dissolved. i wonder if any of them have started to think about this or not, to question what they still mean to each other in the context of their new lives and new friends. because when a relationship starts to dissolve, it might take a while to notice it, and a very long while to acknowledge it. and sometimes you can reform it into something new, but sometimes you have to let it go.

and i do think we’re moving towards sokai and i want that for them bc they deserve to be together at last but also like. having riku awkwardly third wheel is kinda?? i want to see him loving and being loved by sora and kairi too. he’s their best friend too. or at least he’s supposed to be. (truth is there was always tension in the group i think. oh the problems with a love triangle. they’ve kinda never really been a cohesive trio but that’s an essay for another day.) even if things aren’t the way things were when they were little anymore, there is absolutely no way riku can fade into irrelevance.

if i had to guess i’d say they’re probably gonna resolve this by writing naminé into a love interest for riku. which i wouldn’t mind if they like. did it really really well? they’d have to give her lots of great screentime first. but -understatement of the century incoming- it’s gonna make a lot of people really angry and i fear being on the internet that day lol. (plus there’s just the question of what group should naminé be a part of? should we really turn any trio into a quartet and alter the dynamic of the bonds that have been around for years? but she needs her own place to go and aaaahhhhh. girl has had so many different one-off 5-minute boyfriends lol)

this is a very long post uhhmm in conclusion:

they should all remain a part of each other’s lives forever in some way but it’s ok that things aren’t the way they used to be. the past is full of lovely memories but you can’t live in it forever. it hurts to think about but separation and/or change are part of life and i’d love to see them address the reality of this painful topic.

#aaaaaand post #if anyone else is seeing this please don’t derail with negativity or other ships btw!#enjoy your stay on my blog but know that it’s mine and for my takes #<- hate that i even have to say that #i’ve dealt with some frustrating situations in the tags of my reblogs before #kingdom hearts #mine: kh #sokai #destiny trio #asks #kingdomholly #is this even longer than my sora reapers’ game ask response?#you know you sent a good ask if i wrote a genuine essays’s worth of words in response lol #also how come if kairi does something we don’t like it’s ‘kairi is a bad character’#but if riku does something we don’t like it’s ‘this is poor writing i know the real riku is a great guy’#the dual standards in criticizing their characters…one is watsonian and one is doylist smh #can’t we have faith in them both #or is it just bc riku has had a proper positive character arc #well regression is a thing too just saying it could happen #not saying i want it #and he’s not a bad guy but he’s definitely never been uh. wholesome lol

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embraceyourdestiny · 3 years

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Theory about Riku’s Darkness and His Ties to Terra

We all know Terra passed his keyblade onto Riku. But what if he didn’t pass on just his keyblade?

Riku is known for embracing the darkness, both falling to it and using it to fight for the light. The way his possession of darkness is talked about within the series is as if it’s inherent, like he has no choice in the matter and is darkness regardless of what he wants or wishes to be. They speak as if he was born with darkness, but what if he wasn’t?

Kingdom Hearts’ attitude towards darkness is confusing, vague, and complicated and is especially so in the case of Riku. Riku is hailed as a being with such powerful darkness, an undesirable “evil” within the world, that even at such a young age he was able to use it at will and control the heartless. Riku is seen as bad and wrong during this time because he uses darkness and ends up hurting people with it. But at the same time and later in the series, Riku is view as good because of how he can also control the darkness in a different way; by keeping it under wraps and using it to protect the light.

Riku, as is his identity as “the one who walks the road to dawn” is smack in the middle of light and darkness, but he is still a being of darkness. He is the only person we see who uses darkness for good and doesn’t let it control him. But, where does his darkness even come from?

Even more confusing than the the conflicting messages around the nature of darkness in Kingdom Hearts (is it good? is it bad? is it neutral? or maybe is it even something else entirely?) is the nature of light and darkness itself. We don’t know where light and darkness come from, how they work, why some people are light and some people are darkness, we know hardly anything about them at all. The nature of light and darkness is vague and shapeless in the Kingdom Hearts universe despite having so much importance. So, as a fun theory, what if similarly to how you can pass on a keyblade through a bequeathing ceremony, you can also pass on your nature, your light or darkness, to someone else, maybe even at the same time?

Children in Kingdom Hearts are told to be, for lack of a better word, True Lights. Their hearts are pure and bright and they are what helped rebuild the worlds after they fell to darkness and destruction. All children are pure and light, but if that’s the case, how does darkness even exist? How do adults possess darkness if they were light as children?

There are two possibilities: either the True Lights that rebuilt the worlds were not only made of light, or children can somehow be influenced by the darkness in possibly a variety of ways. It might honestly even be both.

Instead of children being “pure light,” I think it makes much more sense for them to be “neutral.” Children are innocent and free of evil, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are inherently light. The “middle ground” between darkness and light, night and morning, otherwise called “twilight” in the Kingdom Hearts universe, is a reoccurring and important theme in Kingdom Hearts and I think that the children who originally rebuilt the worlds were not in fact light, but neutral. Twilight. Or, there was a mix of children that were light, darkness, and somewhere in between.

It’s echoed both in Kingdom Hearts and in the real world that nothing can exist without balance. You cannot have too much light and you cannot have too much darkness. If this is the case, a law by nature, why are we led to believe the ones who “saved the worlds” didn’t have a single speckle of darkness in them? That directly conflicts with the logic of creation and would be otherwise impossible, there has to be darkness and light or whatever you try to create would belong to “unreality.” (Which is something going to be talked about in the future of KH but not here because it’s not necessary to this theory but it is still important background and something to be thought about when navigating the world of Kingdom Hearts and the real world.)

(Tangent: I also believe the reason we’re told it was “children who’s hearts were pure light” that saved the world is because it’s Kingdom Hearts own case of an ahistorical and incorrect telling of events. Kingdom Hearts resides in the Realm of Light and those of light have been in control for a long time, and they therefore have a biased perspective of things. You can see this clearly with Eraqus, a man who was supposedly wise and yet shunned the darkness, called it evil and wrong, and even inflicted this harmful message towards his own students, one of whom actively belonged to the darkness. I think the demonization of the darkness has caused so many problems within the worlds of Kingdom Hearts and this legend of the Worlds is just one example of a ripple effect that having this perspective of darkness has lead to. But this is way too deep and again unnecessary to this theory, just something to think about. Tangent/rant over lmao.)

Now, we go back to Riku. Riku as a child is shown as kind, considerate, brave, a good friend, and even morally upright. These are all told to us to be traits of someone who belongs to the light and are directly conflicting of the traits of what we see those who belong to darkness have; they’re evil, manipulative, dangerous, and they harm people and have little regard for others. Though I don’t agree that either of these lists of traits can only belong to light and darkness, that is how they are portrayed in Kingdom Hearts. So, if Riku’s darkness is inherent, why is he kind to Sora as a kid? Why does he say he’ll protect him, and why, if Riku is evil because he is inherently darknesses, does Riku want strength to protect others? If he is darkness he has no need for friends and shouldn’t want to protect anyone because why would he care about anyone else, right?

This is the attitude he is shown to have when he falls to darkness in KH1 and this is how most people who possess darkness are portrayed. Again, I don’t agree, but that’s how it is. Riku is, once again, the only character who is of darkness that is shown to be darkness and yet not be evil. (I say only because we haven’t see Terra post-Terranort using his darkness freely yet, but even if that does happen and he does embrace it, that is still an exception to the unfortunate rule Kingdom Hearts has created for the darkness.)

So, if Riku wasn’t born with darkness because he wasn’t evil as a kid, where did he get his darkness? Most people would probably say Ansem SOD, and some might even say he had “grown” his own darkness, similar to how Nobodies grew their own hearts, because of his increasingly undesirable life on Destiny Islands, and I have to say both are wrong. The latter option is definitely more correct, since Riku was only preyed on by ASOD because he already had darkness in him and was an easy target, but it’s missing some pieces to make it make sense because again, if children are pure light, how did Riku already have darkness in him/develop darkness as a child?

The most reasonable explanation is this; children are blank slates and they develop into whatever they are shown by those around them. Just like how real kids are a product of their environment, the children of Kingdom Hearts will possess the ability of whatever is shown or given to them by the world. For simplicity and since Kingdom Hearts is all about passing stuff on and less about observing and learning, we will only focus on the “given” aspect of this and disregard the “shown” part.

Riku, like all children, was neutral. He didn’t have overwhelming darkness or light in him, he was simply a kid and that’s it. He had to, at some point, stumble upon darkness or light in order to inherent one or the other, and in his case it was darkness that found him first.

Introduce Terra. Terra, a being of darkness, bequeathes his keyblade to Riku. He passes down his ability to wield the keyblade to Riku, and along with it, his darkness. Riku was still only a child and this event is shown to have significant impact on the rest of his life, so this has to be the first time he even comes into contact with anything so powerful and strong, whether it be darkness or light. Destiny Islands is an extremely relaxed and peaceful place, so though darkness and light both have to exist there, there are no threats or immense stresses that would require such large outputs of either light or darkness, unlike how meeting someone from a different world who has had those stressed would effect a child. (This is also why Sora, who was also neutral because he was a kid, ends up becoming a being of light. Like it’s said many times, Destiny Islands was boring, nothing exciting happened there, so similar to how Terra would’ve been the first time Riku ever encountered such strong darkness, Ventus was the first time Sora encountered such strong light, but back to Riku.)

Now, this doesn’t immediately make Riku “I’m gonna destroy Destiny Islands” Riku. No, that comes much latter, and with influence of someone else. Riku, after his run-in with Terra, and until he is 15 years old, is still just a regular kid, he just now has darkness in him when before he was neutral, which again, isn’t inherently bad. From Sora and Kairi’s accounts, Riku was just a regular kid until he just “changed” one day. He was still kind, he played with the other kids like he always did, after being given darkness Riku didn’t change at all because there was nothing to be changed, darkness isn’t bad so there’s no reason why suddenly Riku would be too.

Enter the other influence; Ansem, the Seeker of Darkness.

Ansem saw that Riku had darkness already in him and used it to his advantage. With proper love and care, even with having darkness in him, Riku would’ve blossomed into a wonderful person who just happened to be of darkness, but Ansem messed that up for him. Ansem, also having a strewed perception of darkness since the one he came from, Xehanort, was the same way, decided to weaken Riku. We don’t know exactly how Ansem influenced Riku but based on the insecurities Riku talks about throughout the series, being jealous of Sora, thinking “the world was too small,” (a quote directly from Xehanort himself, which Ansem he had to have said to Riku since they both say it and Riku ended up believing him and internalizing it), etc, we can tell it wasn’t any good. Ansem planted seeds of doubt in Riku’s mind and then played off the results he knew he would get; Riku pulling away from his friends and becoming bitter to a place he once called home.

So, you see, both Ansem and Terra played a hand in Riku’s darkness. Everyone acknowledges Ansem’s role and you can’t deny that Terra’s appearance affected Riku’s life down the line, but it did much more than make Riku desire strength to protect those that mattered, Terra was the one directly responsible for giving Riku darkness, and it’s very sad because neither of them had to be “evil” just because they had darkness in them. Terra and Riku were both kind, wonderful people before Xehanort interfered with their lives and that negative experience continued to perpetuate the wrong message about darkness, that it’s evil and something to expel or hide away, and that made Terra fear and hate the darkness and Riku half-way ignore a part of him that he cannot change, because even if he uses the darkness still now, he doesn’t embrace it. It is still something to be controlled and feared in both of their eyes because, “what if I hurt someone because of my darkness again?”

This was originally a theory/analysis on Riku but I can’t end this without bringing up the fact that the way darkness is portrayed in Kingdom Hearts, and almost all media honestly, is wrong. The darkness is not bad, it is a requirement to life. Yes, you can do bad things with the darkness, but the same can be said about light. Eraqus harmed three of his students and who knows who else in “the name of light,” and Sora is constantly put at odds because of his “duty” to the light, to the point of being thrown into a war as a child and not only losing all of his friends but even his own life because it’s what he was “supposed to do” as a Guardian of Light.

Neither darkness or light are good or bad, they simply are. What one does with them is what is good or bad, but darkness and light themselves are not evil or right. I hope Kingdom Hearts pushes this message more because there are inklings of it there, Riku if his character developed more, Roxas and Xion’s identity crisis in Days, and honestly the concept of Nobodies as a whole. It’s a message that deserves to see fruition and I hope it does because it would add so much to Kingdom Hearts as a whole if it did.

But to wrap this up, my theory is Riku was originally neutral, Terra bequeathed him both his keyblade and darkness, and, though not a theory, darkness and light are not good or evil, they are meant to coexist together, and hopefully one day we will see that happen in Kingdom Hearts, with Riku possibly and even preferably leading the movement himself.

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dangerouscommiesubversive · 3 years

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Prompt 7 with Marvelous, Keichiiro and Kairi please

7. "What are you doing here?"

Marvelous hates stealth stuff.

A smash and grab, sure, that's fine, that's fun. A heist, one where he maybe gets to do some talking and show off a little, that's exactly his speed. But he's never been good at sneaking around, and he doesn't enjoy it, so when he spots someone else darting through the shadows and around the guards at this middle-of-nowhere museum, he's torn between being irritated at the idea of competition and delighted by the thought that there might be a fight in it.

After a moment's thought he decides to go for the fight, since they're not exactly on a tight time frame, and starts to stalk the smaller figure as they weave deftly through the museum's security systems. This is more fun, almost a game, and he catches up to his opponent in pretty short order and reaches for his pistol, ready for a friendly chat about what they're doing here so late at night.

Before he can do anything, though, there's a rush of air as his opponent vanishes upwards, and then another rush as they drop back down again, knocking him onto his back on the museum floor. "Hi," they say cheerfully, brandishing a ridiculous red gun at him, "don't you know it's rude to sneak around behind people like that?"

For a long moment Marvelous doesn't respond. His opponent is dressed in dark gray, face concealed, but--their gun is familiar. As is their voice. And, he realizes after a moment, their legs. This opponent is straddling his waist pinning him down, and their legs are both very nice and familiar.

It clicks. "Kairi?" he hisses.

A moment of visible consternation even with the hidden face, and then the ridiculous red gun vanishes and Kairi reaches up with one hand to pull the covering off his face, revealing...his red domino mask. "Hey! Marvelous! Wasn't expecting to see you here. Granted I'm a little lost, but is that your Gokai Gun in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?"

"It's a gun, I'm not actually that thrilled to see you right now and this really isn't a good time for flirting. What the hell are you doing here?"

Kairi snorts. "I'm a phantom thief, flirting on the job is actually part of the brief. You haven't seen a sapphire around here, have you? About so big," with a vague hand gesture indicating very large, "carved into a rose?"

Marvelous ignores the question in favor of, "You know you're in space, right?"

"No, the laser pistols on the guards and the extra moon didn't tip me off at all."

"I'm being serious here."

"Yeah, uh, why?"

A long stare up at him. "It's been too long since the last time we saw each other, somehow I'd forgotten what you're like." Marvelous shifts a bit, tests his range of movement, and then abruptly rolls over, knocking Kairi onto the floor and pinning him. Kairi wiggles his eyebrows, but Marvelous ignores it, because his Mobirate is also buzzing and he pulls it out with a scowl and flips it open. "I have kind of a problem here, what's going on?"

"Oh, you're having a problem," Joe says. He actually sounds delighted, which might be a bad sign. "I'm fighting a guy with a laser sword, you wanna get over here and back me up? He's really good, I think he might be psychic or something."

"Sure thing, I'll bring this rogue LupinRanger I found too."

"You're bringing a what? How did Kairi get here?"

"Why am I not surprised that you know it's Kairi?" Marvelous closes his Mobirate and stands up, hauling Kairi with him. "Sorry," to Kairi, "no big sapphires carved into roses around here, we've cased the place pretty thoroughly. We have something we're trying to get, but unless you've seen plans for a planet-sized battleship around here--"

"You mean this?"

Marvelous stares at the little black card in Kairi's hand, already familiar from how many times he and the others had looked over the documents they'd stolen from the New Zangyack remnants. "How did you get that?"

Kairi grins, the card disappearing back into his jacket. "It looked fun, so I picked it up. I'm thinking of starting my own Collection, I feel like that could be a good time."

"Well. That changes everything." He shakes himself, grinning as a weight lifts from his shoulders. "I am happy to see you, by the way. Come on, let's go help Joe with his psychic laser sword guy."

One desperately-fought battle against a psychic laser sword guy later...

Marvelous is so busy making sure Joe didn't actually lose any bits in the fight that he doesn't realize at first that they've got company on the Galleon, and when he does notice, it's because of Kairi saying, aghast, "Kei-chan? What are you doing here? And how?"

"Noël's, uh, ex? That Daiki guy. Said he lost track of you when you were passing through some...other world?" Keiichiro's sitting at the table with Ahim, holding a hand of cards and a lemonade. "So I called Gai, because generally if you wander off somewhere you end up with Marvelous, and he came and picked me up. Ms. Ahim and I have been playing koi koi."

"Am I that predictable?"

"You can't help it, I'm irresistible." Marvelous wraps an arm around Kairi, rests his chin on a convenient shoulder, and cheerfully reaches into Kairi's jacket to retrieve the little black card. "You look good as usual," to Keiichiro, as Kairi swats at his hand.

Keiichiro turns slightly pink. "Thank you. You're looking very, ah, dashing yourself."

Joe, turning around, says, "Marvelous, could you get a grip on your urges for five--wait, what have you got?"

"The stuff you were looking for," Kairi says smugly. "I picked it up for you. Because I'm nice."

"That can't be it, I've got it in my jacket." Joe produces a black card identical to the one Marvelous has.

Keiichiro frowns. "Were you actually stealing something here?"

"Obviously we were stealing something, otherwise those New Zangyack assholes would have gotten it," Luka says as Doc helps her up into the common area, looking slightly scuffed. "Don't know why I keep trying to bring Joe and Marv on stealth missions, you are the loudest--wait, what have you two got there? Dammit, were there three of them?"

"Oh, so it was good stealing."

"All stealing is good stealing when I do it, uh...Kairi's cop boyfriend."

"Keiichiro," Keiichiro says, looking amused.

"Right, Keiichiro. PatRan Ichigou! That was it." Luka squints angrily at the cards that Joe and Marvelous are holding. "I can't believe they split up the plans like that, it's going to make this so much more complicated. Or...maybe easier, I need to think about it."

"I'm sure you'll think of something, dear," Ahim says quietly, setting down her hand of cards.

At her cue, Keiichiro sets down his cards as well. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Kairi and Marvelous gape at him, saying simultaneously, "You want to help with the crime?"

"Well, since I'm already here. I can't just keep Ms. Ahim tied up playing cards all night." Ahim pats him on the hand, and he smiles at her. "And it is for justice."

Marvelous looks thrilled. Kairi looks like he might cry from joy. "Kei-chan's going to help me with crime..."

And Luka's face has lit up. "Ok, no, I can work with this, this is perfect, we'll have this dealt with in no time."

#captain marvelous #yano kairi #asaka keiichiro #joe gibken #luka millfy #fanfiction #anonamouse #ahim and doc are here too but they don't really talk

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themelodicenigma · 3 years

Text

We really need to spend more time talking about how fandom uses localization as a scapegoat for THEIR problems, and how this even goes beyond localization and even affects, or is done to, the original sources. We need to change the way WE perceive things within fandom culture, as opposed to demanding that all other sources change to our liking. A problematic thing content-wise should be evaluated on that level without being a projection of our own issues and subjective feelings. It should just be, if it is, but often times, it isn’t.

If I’m REALLY looking for the heart of a problem, then we need to address where it really is coming from more than anything else.

I recognized this first in the KH fandom. I didn't turn to the Devs and think they should've considered Soriku vs Sokai fans when having Olette say "What a romantic story" vs "What a wonderful story" after hearing Kairi talk about her journey of finding Sora, in a game where Sora daydreams about Kairi and having a character who never met her says "You're that girl he likes", or when Kairi says "Well, we still like you" vs "Riku is [still] Riku" in 0.2 when talking about how Riku has changed, or when Sora says "I feel strong with you" vs "You are strong" in the Light tunnel in KH3 after the kid JUST talking about how amazing her feats were, and I watch as Soriku fans AND Sokai fans perceive it as a problem of the content, instead of themselves and their fandom petri-dish of how they think of said content. How subjective impressions are pushed as fact and then placed on the writing itself. This goes beyond even proclaimed shippers. It happens everywhere because having an efficient and objective perspective in fandom isn’t something that is pushed within. The Devs shouldn’t have to and reasonably can’t take that into account without it blowing up in their face.

Fang and Vanille is probably THE most pivotal example I can think of when it comes to the devs tailoring something based on them trying to intercept the perception of the audience, but it being a classic thing of them being completely unaware of the extremity of romanticism in the thoughts of shippers and non-shippers in general. You can’t stop people from thinking these things. And how misinformation can spread and tailor their OWN perspectives on viewing material and such, which isn’t inherent to what’s actually written. Or even just people treating their personal feelings as a “fact” that other people, including the creators, should perceive as so. Should these fans become a basis for change in the content itself? Absolutely not. Why?

Because the content ITSELF is completely fine, and if people don’t get it when it’s this way, that IS on them. Compromises should be made from a fan perspective, too, and that comes from actually putting in effort to understand all versions of a product and see both differences AND similarities objectively. To honor those things even if personally you don’t like it for YOUR own reasons, you can still understand it and make informed conclusions about it. To have conversation ABOUT the content, but most people that I’ve seen project issues about localization don’t actually do this—which happens to be the same type of people who will have strikingly bad perspective on the material itself even in its source material.

Is it a problem of the content, or the people perceiving it a certain way?

There might be times it’s both, but I find more often people are just the problem—I think about this for the OG, too. As inefficient as the ENG localization was, acknowledged by both fandom and developers (not even just ENG, but even FR acknowledged their own), I definitely don’t agree that it’s the cause of the LTD. Absolutely not in the truest sense of the heart of the issue from the LTD nonsense over the years and how people have acted from it—there’s no stock in even saying it “started it”. Trying to pin it on the localization is bypassing what should be talked about instead and that’s fandom behavior and perception. It REALLY starts there.

The ENG localization didn’t create the car, even if it provided more fuel for those drooling at the opportunity to use it as such. When we’re talking about LTD, we can’t just talk about the localization—this isn’t like with Digimon all those years ago. The ENG didn’t create the game mechanics of the typical affection points for the Gold Saucer, it didn’t make Tifa’s Highwind scene variable and put into question Cloud’s relationship with Tifa if you favored Aerith through the game, it didn’t create Aerith falling in love with Cloud and seeing her first love through him, it didn’t create Cloud NOT saying his piece on his feelings towards Aerith, it didn’t create Aerith showing up to Cloud after Sephiroth’s defeat and talking about meeting her in the Promised Land, and even beyond the OG, it didn’t choose to NOT have Cloud and Tifa straightforwardly say “we’re in a relationship and love each other”—ALL things that are really the foundation of the main topics of the LTD for 20+ years that people find their own issues with that don’t exist as real issues—people just use localization differences as a tool to siphon their convictions through, which are still sourced at the things previously mentioned, BUT, even if the differences weren’t there, we already KNOW people in fandom will create their own fuel regardless—a “I’ll do it myself” attitude—because they want to drive that car anyway.

And top it off with the fact people do this without knowing ANYTHING about how SE does their localization?

People want to debate and be angry and feel vindicated in their beliefs, you don’t do this for 20+ years if it was sourced by the localization alone, as if it’s MAKING you, and if it’s MAKING you ignore what should/could also be understood from the JPN as well. People in JRPG circles should have seen this countless of times, and this is definitely not limited to that type of content. It’s one of many precedents in fandom—if we so commonly have people acting absolutely horribly to each other in ways that isn’t at all predicated in the source, we know the localization being used as fuel doesn’t matter. Like life, they find a way—THIS is the persistent problem in our fandom culture and I would rather pay attention to this fact than that of turning away from it for the sake of criticizing the localization, cause what we’re really talking about goes beyond the development team’s actions.

For the content, it’s ultimately inconsequential in itself and makes all this very silly to pin it on the localization when the active parties here doing things for 20+ years is that of the people in fandom, not the devs: and to be clear, this is only for those in fandom who encompass the predictably petty, unreliable, and very personal perspectives and toxic behaviors—they just do what they do despite what a story says or what’s intended. Maybe the majority don’t, which I think is really true, but those who participate in a certain way in fandom circles most certainly do and reading their perspectives is the equivalent of running fingernails on a blackboard.

We are the ones that need to change for the most part.

#fandom #final fantasy vii #kingdom hearts #ff7 remake #square enix

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kitsoa · 3 years

Note

So. Khux final. Your thoughts?

I knew I would see you in my Inbox! Greetings, been a while, apologies, summer vacation is tomorrow and I'm finally going to re-energize my fandom spaces. Overall thoughts: It was decent. Definitely a lot of wham moments and twists I didn't see coming. The execution of the characters were satisfying to a point that my complaints are truly weak by comparison. That said... I have gripes. Gripes that may have the bias of simply liking my own theories better but I plan to get the hell over myself. Long Post under the cut

The Darkness Ugh: I haven't commented on months of updated info due to the sinking distaste I had for the entire Sentient Darknesses conflict. I don't think it properly utilizes the Nightmare Chirithy concept and Darkling ideas that were heavily pushed in the early game (all the way to the last world). Regardless of the connection between the impetus of such threats, it felt a little shoehorned to create a new emergent threat in the Darkness Creatures. Ventus gets no blame, MoM and Luxu can feign some kind of noble intention, everyone is basically guiltless when trying to apprehend and eliminate a nebulous and hard-to-kill force such as them. I'll admit that it fits really well in the convolution of the Data-Worlds. The Union Leaders are a honeytrap essentially and it seems to have at least issued a major blow to the force of Darkness. I'm just not a fan of the implications of the future conflict I guess? I'm okay with Light and Dark themes but I really want them to explore it with more nuance. "Light is not Good" kind of tropes. I can't wait to see the Foretellers as bad guys but I don't want to blame some other possessing force. I want to see legitimate error and corruption. Maybe I'm being short-sighted with the development. I'm not giving it enough credit. It still makes my head spin with ideas.

Stuff I really LIKE because it reaffirms my thoughts on fictional realities which have already been confirmed but I am excited to see how literal it can get: Real Daybreak Town glitches as it falls to darkness. It's not as 'real' as any of them would like to believe. "A land where light and darkness cannot be controlled" maybe be fictional to MoM but that sounds like the real world to me. ※ is a literal icon for 'reference' which means the world is a reference to something else. Quadratrum is a reference to ffv13 AND/OR a reference to literal Shibuya the 'heart' of Tokyo. It can literally be both at the same time. I am convinced we are approaching terminal real world through this style of world-hopping. Playernort: I am actually pretty okay with the Player Xehanort thing. I firstly think it's funny because of the 'everyone is Xehanort' joke and now WE are Xehanort. If you believe in the infinite worldline idea than every Dandelion is Xehanort in some fashion because that avatar encompasses the entire Daybreak population and assumes the role of Xehanort's past life in some variation of the world's existence. I think it explains Xehanort's obsession with the keyblade war and finding the Union Leaders while I simply assumed there was something of value within them stirring that need. Heart reincarnation is a new(er) concept that is extremely interesting. It, first of all, says the quiet part out loud and confirms that 'sleeping hearts' are fricken Dead guys. I mean we know this but I don't think we have to call it 'essentially death!' it is death. You can literally choose to move on if you don't just sleep. There is no waking the player character anymore. They are literally a different person. It also invites some musing on Ventus and Sora's connection as semi-reincarnations. It's not exact because Ven did choose to sleep but the same process that happens in reincarnation was potentially invoked during their bond. My lore brain is very happy. Where they left off:

They say that you need someone to remember you at your destination, but Marly, Larx, and Ven had no one to bring them into existence like Maleficent did. A facet to the lore that really stumps me. Is that just a factor to ensure that they have memories? I have to assume so but I have no evidence. And we don't know if they are truly alone really (ven kinda wasn't) but it makes you wonder how the recollection of them was orchestrated. Of course Skuld is omitted, though she shares the unique context of leaving out of the same round of pods as Ephemer... who I don't think left at all. Ephemer is the only one who was still in his pod when it landed meaning he didn't time travel at all. I like to think that the Scala he creates has this... final world feel which leads me to believe he somehow ended up in the final world but he clearly didn't. Daybreak falls to darkness and he's swept up somewhere to create Scala. It's just interesting that he doesn't travel. It's a little similar to Kairi's use of the pod in that it just worked between worlds instead of time. And I think that's intentional on Ephie's part (to create the memories needed to bring his friends to the correct point in time?) The entire Brain situation leaves me very confused. There's Luxu possessing him? and Then he transports ahead in time? How does he have his memories if it was decided that he would arrive in Scala. Ugh. Whatever. It's interesting but dissecting Luxu isn't my forte so I'll leave it for when I'm feeling particularly inspired. Things left unsaid: Ava. That's the point I guess. They could have explained the Keyblade War much better. Worlds ending can be extremely vague.... Also, X-blade my ASS Xehanort was drunk and needs to go home and now I'm pissed at that stupid-looking keyblade and I wish it didn't exist because it CLEARLY DOESN'T APPARENTLY. Also, attempts at convincing me MoM is good have failed and I was not digging the insistent martyr thing he had going. I just don't trust him. Like one bit. I think he's playing everyone, but the Darkness shit bothers me because its not like I think he's siding with Darkness I just don't think that makes him noble or even misunderstood. Conclusion: This isn't necessarily a bad place to leave things off. It's very intriguing and I would love to see this reinterpreted. Thanks for forcing me to put my thoughts together, I had been avoiding this.

#long post #kingdom hearts #khux spoilers #kh theory #kh speculation #kh analysis

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karla-the-elemental-dreamer · 3 years

Text

KH-OC Week - Catch Up: Day 5 - (5 AUG 2021)

@khoc-week

The prompt I am doing for this one is 'Memory'. I thought this was just going to be a little diary entry simulation, but I ended up getting carried away and made a little fictional piece out of it. This does not necessarily follow my IRL existence and my dream avenues, this piece is more a completely imaginative fiction (incorporates only some aspects of stories from dreams); and what it would be like if I had a more concrete position, like living there for significant periods of time.

----------------------------------------------------------

Diary Entry Written: 8 AUG 2021 (8:08 PM)

Words: 1,652

As I sit here in isolation, thinking about how lonely it is here in the house, I remember all the times I spent with Riku and his friends, who are in turn my friends, and this makes me happy. All of a sudden I don’t feel so alone anymore, and as the memories replay, it’s like the people in them are actually with me; we are experiencing these moments all over again.

At the start, it was hard as I tried to introduce myself to a new world of people and vice-versa. I would tell Riku about myself, and it seemed like he was listening, but a few hours went by, and it’s like he forgot what I had told him… Sort of like he didn’t care, but then I knew Riku wasn’t naturally like this. At the time, I was new, and with Riku having redeemed himself from the darkness, I guess his insecurities were… Protecting him in a way; he did not want to be deceived again. It’s always hard at the start when I know exactly the person I want to show to others, but that they may not perceive me the way I perceive me. I knew exactly how Riku felt, which why I thought to myself, “Just be kind”, because in truth, it’s sometimes actions that speak louder than words.

So I took it upon myself to look out for Riku’s friends when he himself couldn’t be there, or if he was there but he was caught up in another matter. I recall the first thing I did for one of those ‘guardians of light’, so they are called. Xehanort had gotten the best of Sora, shattering him into a million pieces (emotionally), as he was made to watch Xemnas almost incapacitate Kairi. I yelled to Kairi, “Why aren’t you using your keyblade? You have one!”. Of course at the time, Kairi didn’t know who I was, and so she was hesitant to follow my advice. But just as Xemnas was about to make her take her last breath, it seems like Kairi knew what I was on about, and fear was turned into common sense. I continued to yell from the bottom of the plateau; “you get into these situations because people think you can’t fight for yourself!”.

As Riku was busy trying to keep himself from being dominated by Ansem, he looked over at Kairi’s direction with a sort of slant in his face. He himself didn’t know that I was standing below, he could only be confused by the voice he was hearing, but then I think that in Riku’s heart, he agreed that Kairi needed to become stronger and stand up for herself more… Because others won’t always be around. As Kairi swiped the keyblade, Xemnas was launched back, with a shocked look on his face like he didn’t even think the girl could do it. Both Sora and Riku looked at each other, and then to Kairi, with a look of amazement as they saw that she pried herself from Xemnas.

I skip to after that battle, where I heard Kairi say to them, “I probably wouldn’t have made it if it wasn’t for that girl”. Sora had answered, “No Kairi, it was all you. See, you do have in you, and for that, I’m proud of you”. Kairi stopped him, “But that voice, it helped me a lot”. Riku was curious and so he peered through a wall of the graveyard ruins, and he could see me walking away as I felt I had done my job. A few of these moments, and down the track, Riku began to trust me and see that I meant no harm. Rather than pushing me away and only what I thought was him pretending to care, he took more of an interested and asked me what I wanted when he noticed that I wanted or needed something.

Six months later, and Riku is the father figure I never would have dreamed of back then. And back then I thought I could never show that I was weak, or he would become uncomfortable with such thoughts and push me away. But then he later would accept me for who I am, and he said that is was okay for me to be weak. As my dream guide, he told me that it’s impossible for a person to be strong all the time, and when the cracks show, that it’s no problem to rely on others to build us up. Though Riku did admit that he himself wasn’t perfect, and that some of the messages he shared with me were inspired by Sora’s way of thinking. Riku would tell me stories of the time he and Sora spent together, and he said that he loved Sora very much… But then Riku also admitted that he had a place for me as well, as he did for all his friends.

Down the track, Riku encouraged me to meet his other friends. In Twilight Town, he introduced me to Roxas, Lea and Xion. At first, Roxas didn’t seem too convinced that I was trustworthy, but after a few rods from Riku, Roxas was able to see. I remember telling Roxas that I was aware of all his trauma from the events of KH-Days and KH2, and I said to Roxas that if there was a way for me to bring him back in time so that he never had to go through such a thing, I would. In-fact that’s when I said to any guardian of light who had been through some sort of deep darkness. That if I had the power to change things, I would.

And this is in-fact how I became closer to Terra. Because of all that Terra had been through with Xehanort, he initially thought I was trying to lead him on. However, I understood exactly why Terra wasn’t convinced, and from Riku encouraging me and standing in the same room as I spoke, I told Terra that I understood exactly why. I stated that I witnessed everything that Xehanort did thanks to the accounts of KH-BBS, and I said that I would never wish that on anybody. I said to Terra that I wanted to see him enjoy his life, and that I would be a good friend who would do anything to help him get back the joy that he missed out on for 11 years.

So when I could go on a mission with Riku, I would. But the mission would be so dangerous that Riku wouldn’t let me go no matter how strong I claimed to be, Terra was always the first person he took me to, and in turn Terra would always be the first one to offer to look after me on Riku’s behalf. And then even in a streak of no missions, I lived with Riku on the islands, but I would occasionally go for sleepovers at the Land of Departure.

Aqua and Ventus would sometimes spend time with us, but everybody understood that Terra was my special connection to that place. So as Aqua would have bonding time Ventus, Terra would have it with me. I remember once, I brought a couple of canvas over as I wanted to see if Terra could paint. He didn’t have that steady-a-hand, and unfortunately he ended up making a bit of a mess, but we could make out that the painting was of him, Aqua and Ventus.

I ended up painting a picture of me, with the Land of Departure in the background, holding my Spirit of Brigid keyblade. Why did I decide to draw this keyblade? Firstly, I thought it fit the royal aesthetic of the place. But secondly, I had this memory while painting. The first time I picked up that keyblade, I didn’t realised it was serving as a music box as I heard the school song playing from within the metal! I remember I had to actually slap the keyblade, and that’s when the music stopped and I could use it as a keyblade and not a darn radio. In-fact these days, when the Spirit of Brigid plays the school song, Riku laughs, and he sometimes even slaps the keyblade for me.

So after I spent the night and/or day with Terra, Riku would come to collect me, and Terra would tell him what a great time we had, and if Terra actually had fun. And then Riku would take me home, back to the islands. That same evening, we would walk along the beach, and Riku would ask me for my perspective on the stay. And sometimes, depending on what I told Riku, he would turn my experience into lessons and give me further advice or insights into life.

I would ask how Riku’s missions went, but sometimes he wouldn’t say much. I knew he still kept some things to himself, but at the same time, I understood. It’s not because he couldn’t trust me. Instead, it was more because he likely wouldn’t wish his experiences on me, or something really bad happened to him that he just had to keep it inside. However, for as long as I was under Riku’s roof, even on our bad days, we would always end the night and start the new day together. We slept in his bed, and he’d have his arm over me, ready to comfort me if I had any nightmares.

So yes I may be trapped in my own house, outside the KH world at the moment. But when I think about the day that Riku took me in; Lea and Roxas taking me out for ice-cream whenever I visited Twilight town; Terra babysitting me, and having the delicious dinners that Aqua made, it’s like there with me at this very moment, and I know I’ll be back to see them soon.

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Hope you enjoyed reading that piece! Now to race to get Day 6 and 7 out in a reasonable time-frame so it isn't too late outside the week. Day will contain a special drawing that I trying to finish. Day 7 may be another written piece.

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olivemeister · 3 years

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OKAY NEO THOUGHTS NOW THAT I’VE BEATEN IT AND HAD TIME TO MARINATE. no spoilers for another day bc i haven’t finished it yet, but i did go “no, why shan’t i? i have the internet” and watched the secret endings on youtube so those and the secret reports will be discussed. yeah. so here’s some thoughts. i’m going to talk a lot about the more contentious things, i think. and again i haven’t finished another day so nothing to do with that, but of course major ending spoilers for the main scenario.

these are my opinions both as a writer and a media consumer, so there’s kinda two levels here. it is very freeform “as i think of it” structurally so my sincerest apologies if it’s all over the place. i am trying to keep specific topics confined rather than splattering the same plot point/whatever all through the post, but it’s not like i’m posting a peer-revied academic essay here. it’s also fucking enormous and i would say sorry but that would be a lie.

the majority of the game, i actually really enjoyed. the localization was excellent and i can’t praise it enough. i know people threw fits over the “horrible overstep” of... teenagers using slang. but did you know, in real life, teenagers use slang? even in japan, there’s slang? wild but true! the dialogue was great, and while i can’t say much re: the jp cast since i played in english, the newcomers for the english cast were spectacular. i actually think the newcomers were, in some cases, stronger than the returning cast. even in characters where i didn’t like the voice (nagi had to grow on me, i admit it), they were a fantastic match for the character’s personality.

the emotional beats re: character deaths, typically, landed the way i think the writers wanted; kanon’s death in week 3 had me devastated even though i could see it coming a mile away. i think that’s a testament to the best parts of the writing; as soon as i understood how the current game was being run, i knew it was fairly inevitable that every other team would eventually lose. odds would be that, barring something like someone changing teams or a team merger, the majority of the other teams would be completely wiped out. i knew far in advance that kanon would likely not make it to the end of the story, but it still fucked me up when it finally happened not just because i cared about kanon, but also because of how much the other characters cared about her. some character deaths affected me far less, of course. i think kanon was the epitome of “this hit exactly as hard as the writers wanted it to”, but i do feel they fell short with others. ayano’s lack of development really hurt my ability to be saddened by her death, especially when it was so clear that she set up her own possession as a trap for shoka. it undermined things for shoka in general, because while she was devastated to lose ayano, the game did a poor job at making their relationship tangible and meaningful. i felt worse (not necessarily sadder, just worse) about motoi’s death, and i didn’t like motoi. speaking of him...

the biggest issue i have with the game is a chronic square enix issue. kubo is the Man Pulling The Strings, whatever, this is fine. the problem is that he, minamimoto, motoi, and arguably susukichi are the only characters in the game with dark skin. they are all morally grey at best. i don’t think i need to elaborate on why this is an issue. we’re not going to pretend that racism and colorism don’t exist in japan. i’m just going to say that all of the dark-skinned characters are either totally evil, excessively violent, and/or morally dubious. this is my biggest qualm, but i don’t feel it needs more elaboration. yes, i know motoi turns it around in the end. yes, i know susukichi ultimately changes sides as well, and he’s ultimately portrayed as sympathetic. minamimoto is........ his own beast. but the fact remains that we don’t get a single major character who’s darker and unambiguously heroic.

second big issue is that while i understand the decision to keep shiki off camera until the very end for emotional impact, i feel like this was to the detriment of the story and to the detriment of said impact. she was mentioned, sure, and she was briefly seen from the shoulders down in a cutscene long before her introduction, but i feel that this was ultimately for the worse. her absence in the plot made her a borderline non-entity that can easily leave the audience going “why should i care about this?” on what’s supposed to be a huge emotional cathartic moment. yes, people should know this is a sequel and neku and shiki’s friendship was a crucial part of the original game, and much of the endgame of neo makes no sense if you’re unfamiliar with the original, but their interactions in the ending felt incredibly shallow. and i think this is because of how little shiki appears and how isolated she is from her other friends. eri is unseen and unmentioned. she doesn’t interact with rhyme. she hardly interacts with beat, using him as a translator at best. her other relationships are just... stagnant at best, ignored at worst, and despite having had just as vital of a role in the first game as beat did, she does nothing of import onscreen. her only narrative actions are “fix mr mew (mentioned but not seen)” and “be sad about neku”. so, functionally...

for some reason (we know why) the story decided that the only thing that was important to shiki was seeing neku. but by holding off on this reveal of her, we lost the impact that their meeting could have had. because the game refused to show her it didn’t show how much his absence was affecting her, which leaves their reunion feeling incredibly hollow. shiki was gone for upwards of 90% of the game. if not for the first game, this reunion would mean nothing; the narrative does a terrible job of reminding the audience that neku and shiki have a strong relationship and i don’t know if it’s that they expected the first game to have done the heavy lifting, or they thought that what neo gave us was good rather than “good enough”. imo this was an enormous failure and i wish we had gotten more for her both as part of the plot and as a character.

this was an issue present with rhyme as well imo, though to a lesser degree. i think they should have given up the ghost much sooner on confirming that the shadowed figure was rhyme; it was obvious by the time they showed us her silhouette, so i don’t know why the narrative held off on showing her. they didn’t have to introduce her to rindo (or give her the name splash screen) yet, but people who played the first game and are paying attention know it’s rhyme, so why bother hiding her? most of what rhyme accomplishes in this game is off-camera as well, but she has double the screen time that shiki gets.

the shiki thing is another symptom of a common squeenix problem these days, which is poorly-handled implied romantic interests. and i think that was also present with how the end of the game treated shoka. rindo and shoka as an implied romance in general did not bother me; more than a lot of squeenix protags, and perhaps primarily because of the excellent job the english cast did, i actually was unbothered by the suggestion of budding romantic feelings because it felt genuine. they actually felt like a pair of teenagers who were starting to be interested in each other, trying to play it cool and prioritize. this, and shoka’s characterization in general, is really helped by the reveal of swallow’s identity; it retroactively heightens her closeness to rindo specifically and offers enormous insight into her decision to help the team covertly. however, i think this budding implied romance was severely undermined by having other characters comment on it, especially because it felt so out of place timing-wise whenever someone commented. it was never warranted; there are times where they seem to be... not flirting, but not doing a good job of pretending there isn’t an interest. this is not when comments come. the comments come when they are having a totally normal interaction that does not suggest any non-platonic feelings whatsoever.

up until the final day, i had fairly ambivalent feelings about the idea of them as the designated hetero pairing. i felt it was a vast improvement from recent shoehorned romances in squeenix properties. the ending made things much more contentious to me, specifically how shoka is vanished by joshua. the audience should at least have the suspicion that he’s reviving her, but the circumstances surrounding it are the problem more than joshua being a deus ex machina. it’s not the first time joshua was a troll re: reviving someone, but the context of why shoka’s revival is necessary is, well... unnecessary.

they barely foreshadow the shinjuku rules re: reapers, and i will freely admit it’s not remotely ooc for shoka to hide something like that until she can’t any more. but they seem to be just a contrived excuse for shoka to be taken away... and from the framing of it, not from the player, but from rindo. which, i don’t know that i need elaborate on why i wasn’t fond of that. and i won’t lie - i know everybody beefed it in those cutscenes, including beat and neku. but when the dissonance noise grabbed shoka it gave me the exact same vibe as the demon tide grabbing kairi in kh3, and i don’t think i need to elaborate more on why that would put a bad taste in my mouth and make me fearful for shoka’s future treatment in the game. i was worried that the narrative was going to yank her away from rindo like a prize being snatched from him, and it did! while i do also think it’s ic for joshua to fuck around the way he did when reviving her, it also seems contrived and brings up a major question.

if shoka is still playing by shinjuku rules, why does shibuya’s composer have the ability to overturn her erasure? yes, i know, shinjuku is gone, but its composer is still active. surely joshua having the authority to do what he did indicates that on a cosmic bureaucracy level, shoka is a shibuya reaper. the secret reports offer a potential that joshua exploited a loophole by waiting until the second after the shinjuku rules resulted in shoka’s soul being dissolved in order to snatch it up, so perhaps the explanation is that her erasure meant she was technically no longer a shinjuku reaper and no longer beholden to its rules. but that doesn’t answer a different question that honestly bothers me more than the admittedly sorta insignificant question of whether or not joshua overstepped in reviving shoka.

shinjuku’s game has ended because shinjuku has ended; why are its rules still in play for former shinjuku reapers? i am aware that shiba is the conductor “legally” and he has made changes to shibuya’s game, but they’re careful to specify that the “ex-reapers are erased at the end of the game” rules are from shinjuku and do not apply to shibuya reapers. is she considered by the higher plane to be joshua’s underling and not hazuki’s? the secret reports confirm that the transfer of personnel from the destroyed shinjuku to shibuya was authorized by the acting conductor (uzuki) and this is standard procedure, everything was done properly. so “legally” the formerly-shinjuku reapers are shibuya reapers, right? hanekoma notes in particular that it’s a culture clash leading to the shinjuku reapers being designated as such and that they’re only nominally shinjuku reapers. why are a defunct game’s rules still active?

the biggest issue is that shoka’s threat of erasure was unnecessary from a narrative perspective, especially given how quickly it’s introduced and resolved. what was the point of putting this in the story if five minutes later the issue is just dealt with, no effort, minimal tension, by a (narratively speaking, don’t come after me joshua fans) minor character who doesn’t even appear until after the plot is resolved? i honestly wonder if it was just the writers deciding joshua needed to do something so that his appearance in the ending wasn’t just shallow fanservice for people who wanted to see the original gang. joshua’s lack of action is also presumably going to be contentious with fans; i’ve read the secret reports, and i don’t feel that they sufficiently justify why he doesn’t make any moves to protect his city despite being positioned both in his own dialogue and the secret reports as someone opposing shibuya’s purification. i will talk about this a little later re: kubo’s motivations though.

i also think it’s kind of stupid that joshua sets up “find her and you win” and then... rindo doesn’t do anything in that regard. he just bumps into her in the scramble. i know i already said i hate the idea of her being a prize to be won in a game but if they’re going to set it up, why make it pointless in that regard? it feels so unnecessary. joshua portrays shoka’s revival/return as something to be earned, and unlike the ending of twewy there’s no recognition that he was actually just fucking with them.

this is similar to my mixed feelings about kubo’s defeat. on one hand, i wanted to smash his face in personally, i have hated him the entire game. on the other hand, having him jesus beamed and rewritten out of existence without any warning or chance to resist was fucking hilarious and i actually laughed out loud. my speculation as to why he didn’t get a boss fight is that developers worried about people having trouble suspending disbelief over the party being able to defeat an angel. ultimately i think the only way this could have been done was to have it be a boss battle where your victory doesn’t matter, like the week 1 fight with susukichi, and have hazuki curbstomp kubo in the post-battle cutscenes. ultimately, i feel like this was a lesser of two evils; i don’t think the “you lose in the cutscene” approach would have necessarily been significantly better than what we got, i recognize that “the battle didn’t matter and you lose in the cutscene after” is a contentious game trope. and i would understand people struggling to accept the cast defeating a being from a higher plane without intervention from said higher plane. the only benefit would be the catharsis of getting to slap kubo around, which admittedly i kind of miss. having him as a secret boss was an option i guess but i think it would bring more questions than it was worth.

kubo’s motivation is also just bizarre; i understand that it’s given as him getting overzealous after carrying out his orders to purify shinjuku, but why? i feel like this could have easily been fixed/rationalized by “shinjuku’s surviving reapers fled to shibuya, leading kubo to consider shibuya to be an extension of shinjuku”, but that’s solely speculation. i do not know why kubo decided to also start an inversion in shibuya. they didn’t give me enough information. his conflict with joshua is inexplicable and almost entirely offscreen via the secret reports. i do not feel like i have a grasp on why the plot of the game even happened. hazuki’s involvement is iffy; i can’t say whether he initially approved of kubo’s overstep and changed his mind, or if he just took his time collecting his errant underling. the secret reports suggest the former, and hanekoma noting that the contentious nature of the previous game’s events gives a speculative explanation for why no action was taken if hazuki was actually making moves against shibuya rather than kubo being out of line. hazuki could damn well have been lying, there’s a precedent for composers being full of shit and telling bold-faced lies to protagonists, though in the previous game these lies were all eventually uncovered. this leaves me to believe that ultimately, hazuki’s statements regarding kubo acting outside of his given authority were mostly honest. but what i don’t understand is why joshua took such a hands-off approach.

yes, he says he figured the main cast had it under control and would have stepped in had things gotten worse, but this appearance and statement comes long after rindo fails and shibuya is destroyed in multiple timelines. why did he not step in in the first timeline? i can speculate, but the game and secret reports do not do a great job in explaining why the proxy vs. proxy game even happened in the first place. kubo is hazuki’s underling, which makes joshua higher in the pecking order than kubo. if hazuki was capable of exorcising kubo instantaneously, why didn’t joshua just flick him off the board like a flea before he even got started trying to cause an inversion in shibuya? in the epilogue of a new day joshua is seen in conversation with hanekoma, who’s taking shinjuku’s inversion seriously, which seems at odds with how easily his fellow composer ends the problem.

retroactively, i guess i could rationalize this as him realizing that either shinjuku’s composer must be responsible for said inversion or that potentially shinjuku’s composer has been compromised in some way. and i can rationalize him failing to immediately jesus beam kubo as well - it’s possible that, as kubo was initially acting under the orders of another composer (assuming hazuki is still technically “legally” one/at the bureaucratic level of one), joshua’s hands were somewhat tied re: what actions he could take without potential consequences. it could be that joshua would get in big trouble if he took disciplinary action against another composer’s underling, but 1. the legal transfer of personnel should mean kubo is joshua’s underling, not hazuki’s, see the shoka problem 2. hazuki’s status as a composer is questionable given that his territory is now purified and its game is defunct 3. given that kubo was acting outside of his original composer’s turf and outside of his initial orders (purify shinjuku) at this point i feel like that isn’t likely. it could be that he was trying to avoid a conflict with hazuki himself. it may be that he considered it hazuki’s responsibility to retrieve kubo, but that’s at odds with him choosing a proxy to combat kubo’s and his claims that he totally would have done something, really, he swears. they don’t give us much info at all as to why joshua entered a game with kubo in the first place. i have reason to believe that something’s fishy in the secret reports, and i would like to see the japanese text, which i’ll mention again in a few paragraphs.

i know the absence of shibuya’s composer is partially, and perhaps primarily, “there wouldn’t be a plot if joshua fixed it”. but it really feels like they just kinda tucked joshua in the corner and hoped fans wouldn’t be like “hey where is shibuya’s composer and why is no one mentioning them?” that part is probably for the same reason we don’t see shiki until the very ending, teasing the audience by holding off on revealing him until the last second, but it’s jarring to me that shiki is mentioned but neither neku, beat, nor any of the reapers (!) think “we should contact the composer”. even if just to say “we can’t contact the composer, he is unreachable”! i guess it’s to avoid people remembering how significant joshua is and thinking too hard about it, because joshua is simply too powerful of a character to be running around freely. the plot falls apart when you have a character who’s so strong and, in his own words, kind of omnipotent, who could trivialize the conflict in an instant if he took action.

i feel like they surely could have given a more explicit reason for him to not be involved in the story, even if it’s a reason like “he’s in trouble with the higher plane”. which could have easily been set up! hanekoma is clear in his reports that shibuya’s impurification is highly contentious in the higher plane; people are big mad about it, potentially people higher in the chain of command than a composer. this could have been easily utilized as an explanation for why joshua is hands-off; he’s on a shit list and needs to step carefully as a result. but it’s just not addressed. hanekoma is unreachable according to his reports, and he notes that people are trying to contact him for help. are we just to assume that people have looked for joshua to ask for help in the past but it was so long ago that it isn’t even worth mentioning now to the newcomers? according to other reports, the higher ups are pissed with joshua about his game with kitaniji and are turning a blind eye to what’s happening with kubo in shibuya as a result. but this doesn’t explain why the members of the shibuya UG never discuss the composer. hanekoma’s reports have him confused as to joshua’s lack of action as well; he knows the context of what’s going on in shibuya but doesn’t understand why joshua is staying silent.

that said! the fact that hazuki’s motive for the destruction of shinjuku is never stated does not bother me too much. he’s placed in a position very parallel to joshua in the first game, and he even says he felt like he was following in josh’s footsteps. when you add his seemingly-genuine inability to understand why people care about shibuya, i feel there’s enough evidence to... not dismiss, but nudge this aside as “He Too is a misanthropic bastard”; shinjuku’s destruction is a parallel to the intended destruction of shibuya in the first game. hazuki just carried on where joshua had a change of heart. the secret reports complicate this; it might be that someone fucked up in transcribing, but the reports i read online state that shibuya’s composer, i.e. joshua, was responsible for the destruction of shinjuku due to a game with kubo. this does not make sense given everything else, including hazuki’s own statements and later reports, so i’m setting that aside for the moment as either an uncaught mistake either in translation or transcription online (most likely) or hanekoma not knowing the actual truth until receiving the post-purification shinjuku reports. hanekoma also suggests that hazuki’s goal was also the purification of shibuya, but as he’s not shibuya’s composer this is certainly not his jurisdiction so i’m curious as to what exactly happened there.

EDIT: i’ve been informed by a helpful anon that this is not a mistranslation, the japanese secret reports do state that it was a game involving joshua that resulted in shinjuku’s inversion. with that in mind, i have figured out how to rationalize this and it solves a lot of problems: if it was a proxy game between joshua and kubo, then joshua must have been the opposition to shinjuku’s inversion. though you could argue that joshua is responsible for the end result, he didn’t destroy shinjuku; his proxy lost, probably because kubo’s had the support of shinjuku’s composer. kubo’s overconfidence in running rampant in shibuya is now explicable and he may have been trying to rub it in that joshua lost.

if hazuki was still backing kubo post-shinjuku, this could explain why hazuki felt he could make decisions about shibuya’s fate and wander around it; joshua had already overstepped onto his turf to meddle in purification, so he was returning the favor. at this point in time, i figure that joshua’s proxy was either tsugumi’s brother (shinjuku’s conductor) or coco (she’s noted to have inexplicable powers for a rank-and-file reaper, but joshua’s opposition to her killing of neku throws this into question), and if we truly had a scrapped “shinjuku’s final game” plot then joshua’s proxy could also have been neku. kubo’s proxy was presumably shiba. this actually answers a few questions that i couldn’t rationalize when i assumed joshua was uninvolved (why would shinjuku’s composer be running a game against kubo when they wanted the same thing?), so i’m gonna chalk it up as an absolute win.

i think hishima as a character was... sort of nothing. he was just there. yeah, it was kinda funny how he dressed shiba down, but i don’t know that the plot needed him. his role in the endgame could have easily been given to tsugumi without much fuss, and i feel tsugumi deserved a much bigger part in the narrative given how much she was hyped up by solo and final remix. she was so prominent and anticipated that the fans called her hype-chan for years before we had a name for her. this could also be folded into the problem with hiding shiki until the very end; it feels like we missed a whole sequence with both of these characters simply because the narrative refused to show us shiki. instead, we’re told that shiki showed up and fixed mr. mew, and somehow this freed tsugumi. i think the fact that they don’t even give a flashback of this crucial event after shiki’s proper introduction is just a questionable decision. the story tells us that tsugumi’s release from the plushie is of the utmost importance and shiba can’t be swayed without her, setting it up as a vital event, but it happens offscreen with no real interaction with the main cast. it also only happens after multiple failed loops, even though rindo’s interference is what prevents the meeting between coco and shiki to repair the plushie. i don’t understand this from a logistical standpoint; if coco isn’t pulled to escort rhyme, she must have met with shiki and released tsugumi in timely manner, but tsugumi does not appear until after you replay to get coco back to her original schedule. you could wave it off as “she didn’t get there fast enough”, but i can’t accept that as a reason given the circumstances; it’s not like she would have to look hard to find shiba. this one’s flawed writing; i know in a meta sense why she didn’t appear, it was to build tension etc etc, but in-universe it’s a plot hole.

coco being so absent from the plot is also somewhat conspicuous. i wonder what reception of her was like in japan and if that influenced her lack of presence in the story. i honestly don’t even know if she was received well by the english audience, all i know is that i did not like her at all in final remix. not from an “i don’t like the villain because they’re doing bad things” perspective, from an “i don’t find this character compelling and i think they’re annoying” perspective. also curious as to whether or not her speech patterns changed in the japanese dialogue since final remix; i found her far less jarring and obnoxious in neo and i think it’s enormously because she stopped talking verbally in internet shorthand. overall, coco’s retool was imo a change for the better, but she’s barely there for me to appreciate how much of an improvement she was. it feels like there’s an entire narrative we were set up for by a new day, yet it’s almost completely missing. the ending of a new day laid out this framework for neku and minamimoto to be forced allies in an unseen future game. i had mixed feelings about this conceptually, but the narrative setup was fairly transparent. not only does this not happen, coco’s motivation in a new day and what ultimately happened were so lacking to me.

i feel like something got lost and we were originally going to actually see and perhaps play the shinjuku game that ended in disaster instead of just getting a summation and brief flashbacks of the survivors fleeing. this kinda ties in with my complaints about how hyped tsugumi was by solo and final remix, and then she turned out to have a very small (albeit crucial, via her trailer ability) and mostly unseen role in neo’s story. retroactively we learn that rindo’s visions are from tsugumi, but this is something she does entirely off-screen. all of coco’s scheming was for nothing, because joshua was a deus ex machina and whisked neku away the second he died. this feels to me like cut content or rewrites; there’s a whole game’s worth of story that just happened off-camera and we got to hear a little bit about it. it wasn’t enough, imo. i think doing it as a midquel is still possible, but it’s a hard sell to create a video game with a downer ending and we know shinjuku’s fate is already set in stone... even though a new day ended on the tragic cliffhanger of neku’s death, it’s a little different since it’s coming as an optional postgame sequel hook after victory rather than the entire narrative you fought through ending in failure. i suppose it could be done with a Distant Epilogue now that we know shiba and most of his surviving reapers will return to rebuild shinjuku. ultimately i really think that if not for the concern about neku overshadowing the new cast, shinjuku’s purification could and should have been the prologue to neo. it would be a tough balancing act, but i do think it could have been done right and it would have done a lot for narrative tension with his absence if we had a prologue following him that ends in a cliffhanger re: shinjuku’s purification. neku’s role in the story was done decently i think re: how big said role was, but a lot of circumstances surrounding his absence, legendary status, and reappearance leave much to be desired.

frankly, i just don’t like how much they glossed over neku’s three year absence. we’re given a vague explanation of what he was doing, but it isn’t actually an explanation. definitely again feels like a plot rewrite situation; there’s this huge blank space of neku doing nothing because there used to be a story that we were going to play through and it got scrapped for whatever reason. overall i feel neku’s characterization was very odd and perhaps a little inconsistent in this game; he didn’t have much of a personality at all, which i struggle to reconcile with the original game. we don’t see how he reconciled with coco, it’s just dismissed entirely as “no we’re good now”. how are we good? why did you forgive her for playing murder games instead of just explaining shit? i know he forgave joshua for his gatekeep gaslight girlboss behavior in the first game, but we had context as to why he made that decision. also what the fuck was keeping him from coming back to shibuya, i don’t feel like that was sufficiently explained either? for someone who was so hyped up by the narrative, i was a little let down by how insignificant neku ended up being to the plot as a whole. and again, his personality seemed very watered down and neutral despite the seriousness of the situation. why was he so mellow? the circumstances of his return i did really like, because... well, we’ll talk about character relationships i guess.

i already summed up my feelings on rindo and shoka and i think i’ll leave them on the note of “unnecessary elements dampened my potential for overt enthusiasm, but overall i feel neutral-positive about the suggestion of romantic interest” which is a lot more than i can say about a lot of (semi-)official pairings. on a broader and more platonic scale? generally i have positive feelings about the new cast and their interactions; i feel like their development is more understated than neku’s in the first game, his character arc is very in your face and the neo cast is not nearly as overt, but you can see the difference in how the team interacts across the three weeks. rindo and fret’s established friendship, not to be dismissive of it, does exactly what it needs to. i mean this in a completely positive way. it’s an established friendship, they feel like friends, and they serve initially as anchors to one another in the beginning of the game as a “you’re the only person i know in this chaos” setup. this contrasts neku in the first game in an excellent way because of how it highlights their biggest character flaws, which i’ll talk about later; it’s important to rindo’s fatal flaw that he has someone to fall back and rely on in the beginning of the game in the same way that it’s crucial for neku’s development that he’s surrounded by strangers who he must learn to trust and rely on in order to survive. rindo and fret can lean on each other in the beginning of the game, and as people who have known each other for some time, are able to recognize and appreciate each others’ positive changes.

i do love the development of nagi’s friendship with fret, particularly how it’s sometimes but not always remarked on when she shelves her initial aloof attitude with him. i prefer when a narrative is more subtle on that kind of thing; pointing it out every once in a while is okay, but i don’t want it shoved down my throat via dialogue that characters are developing an emotional bond. we can see that nagi is slowly becoming more receptive to fret and less likely to dismiss or disparage him. it seems like their initial relationship is that of two people who have opposite struggles; nagi is notably closed off in the beginning, but fret immediately approaches her with an unearned and offputting level of familiarity. their slow and understated (more noticeable with nagi than fret) development towards accepting each other as friends is mutually beneficial to them even outside of the context of their personal relationship; nagi opens up a little with everyone, not just fret. placing two people with very different perspectives on how to interact with new people in close proximity helped both of them grow. i’m sure other people have different perspectives, but i do not feel like they were being teased as a pairing which i enormously appreciate, i am tired of “pair the spares” shit. (minor note: i also appreciate how while fret’s crush on kanon was very overt and strong, she was also fairly clear that she considered him a kid and his feelings were never going to be reciprocated because of that age gap. i know, the bar is low, but thank god.)

i love how, despite nagi now having been confirmed as older than beat, as soon as beat joins the narrative he takes this hard stance of “i’m the one who’s already been in this hellscape so it’s my responsibility to help the newbies”. he really embodies the big brother role so well in this game; he knows a little more about what’s going on, this isn’t his first rodeo even if it’s not exactly the same, so he considers himself to have an obligation to protect the others. he serves as sort of a physical and emotional rock for the team from the second he joins, becoming an excellent support for them both as a combatant and an older brother figure. he has experience in being both of these things, and i think beat’s writing is some of the best in the game.

despite his position as a former player who’s back in the UG, he meshes with the newbies perfectly. he doesn’t overshadow the rest of the team despite having more lived (ha) experience in the reaper’s game, he doesn’t feel like he’s on a different level from them or anything like that. he fits in while serving an important unique role that he can only fill because of his prior time in the UG. it’s completely understandable and reasonable why rindo remains the team leader despite beat’s presence. he’s had a three year gap since his last game and doesn’t even understand how he returned to the UG. he’s not a fish out of water, he knows the UG and the game. but he’s really truly gotta shake the dust off, and he’s trying to figure out what happened to him in the first place because he knows he shouldn’t be in the UG at all. he didn’t have a huge bump in intelligence since the first game, but it’s hard to dismiss him as a complete idiot. he has both large and small perceptive moments where another narrative might have chosen to keep him as the dumb muscle. in fact, his firm convictions serve an important role for the others - beat knows he didn’t die and can’t be convinced otherwise, and his confidence that he’s a living player is part of how rindo and gang realize they also aren’t dead. he’s clearly not simply a comic relief character. another story might have positioned him as more of a mentor figure, but he plays to his strengths and serves to ground the team instead. beat is honestly a highlight of this ensemble cast to me. i’m unsure as to how much of that is simply because he was one of my favorites from the first game, but i really truly love beat in this game.

shoka and neku’s late introductions to the team mean they have far less “we are now firmly allies and friends” interactions with the rest of the ensemble for unavoidable reasons. i will say that the excellent casting and localization for the english version, particularly shoka, has done a lot to mitigate that issue; yes, the plot doesn’t develop her relationships with the team as a whole as thoroughly as some of the others, but the combat interactions with her are so genuine that i found myself shocked when writing this because, well, those combat lines did so much legwork making her role in the party seem earned and cohesive. i had such a strong sense of her place in the team that just isn’t reflected in the cutscenes, and i find that very interesting but i’m unsure as to whether it’s good or bad; i think it’s incredible that the combat dialogue did such a good job fostering this air of “we are a unit” for these characters and it really is a testament to the skill of these actors, but i do wish it was more prevalent in the cutscenes itself. beat’s established relationship with neku and their relaxed nature with one another does a lot to ease neku’s entry into the group; he has an “in” with a firmly established member and a well-written dynamic with him that helps him out here.

as a nekubeat appreciator i feel very fed and i hope there’s an uptick in interest for the pairing following neo. i love how beat, who throughout the game is constantly forgetting who people from 3 years ago are (doesn’t recognize his former superior bc she’s wearing a suit now and can’t even remember her name), immediately recognizes coco despite her changing her entire aesthetic specifically because he’s so angry with her for killing neku. he’s ready to throw down the second he sees her, which gives this feeling of “he’s been waiting for this moment for 3 years”. because the narrative never addresses beat’s change in style, particularly that he wears his hair like neku now, i choose to believe it’s because the last time he saw neku was immediately after coco shot and killed him. it could be that this shit’s been haunting him ever since neku died. my city now, if you don’t talk about it in the game i make shit up. both their cutscene interactions and combat quotes do an excellent job of maintaining the sense that these two have been close friends for a long time and distance hasn’t changed that. they fall right back into old ways with one another immediately.

even outside of the context of me being a nekubeat shipper, their relationship and continued partnership (UG game context partnership) feels very genuine. neku and joshua call each other partner, but it rings hollow. i’m sure it’s partially the lack of screentime that makes it so they don’t feel like partners any more than neku and shiki do, but the game doesn’t even try to push closeness the way it does for shiki - more on that in a minute. beat is the only one of neku’s partners that seems to have retained the same strength in their bond with him despite the three years; shiki and joshua are super absent in the plot, which really undermines their relationships with neku. i’ve already talked about my problems with shiki’s lack of focus and how i feel it harms her relationship with neku, but as for neku’s relationship with joshua, i think neo has taken an interesting approach that i feel will have a mixed reception.

it actually feels like neku and joshua ended this game on worse terms than the first one even though joshua was a far more benevolent figure this time around. neku is very clear about wanting to return to the RG despite this meaning he will have no access to the UG (outside of potentially text-based communication since rhyme paved the way for RG residents to bust into the RNS and... however it was that shoka’s fanGO account worked, since she and rindo were fanGO friends long before his entry to the UG) and doesn’t show any hesitation or reluctance in stating this desire. he seems quite content with not having joshua be a part of his life, as opposed to the first game’s ending where he extends an open offer to joshua to join his friend group. i understand how this would (and will) let a lot of people down, but i actually think it’s for the best. i have no real opinion on neku’s capacity for forgiving joshua after the first game, good or bad, but i think putting distance between them in this game is the correct move.

i take this viewpoint especially given that after the first game, joshua did in fact choose this distance - neku invited him in, and he did not take the offer. it was his decision to not join neku’s group in the first game’s ending and he continued to remain separate from it in the three year gap; he may have masqueraded as a fellow player and peer in age, but joshua is not and has never been an actual peer to neku, shiki, and beat. his life experiences are so different from theirs that i would struggle to suspend disbelief that they have enough in common to maintain a close friendship. he intervened when neku was killed by coco and placed him in a safe area and gave moral support in the ending, and i think this is the most we should expect of a reforming (not reformed but in-progress) misanthrope like joshua. he’s an enigmatic figure sure and largely benevolent if inactive in this game, but he isn’t a good person and he clearly considers himself to be on a different level from neku and his peers. hanekoma notes that joshua’s somewhat reluctant to continue to remain separate from neku’s group, but i think the narrative places him both objectively and in his own mind as someone who is just... from a different world. joshua chose distance, he chose to cut contact, and this is the consequence of that decision. i think that’s a good lesson to teach; it may not be a given, but it’s natural that sometimes a friendship you ignore will fade. it doesn’t necessarily mean the time you spent didn’t matter, but you shouldn’t be shocked if a plant you don’t water wilts away.

i feel like that wasn’t the intended takeaway, that it was just questionable writing that i’m reading too deep into, but that’s how i feel about the situation.

i’m also incredibly grateful that hazuki was introduced as an age-appropriate option for joshua and i hope they’ll draw attention as a bastard boyfriends ship, both because i think it’s very funny and because i have opinions about shipping joshua with the teens. i know it’s contentious and i’m not going too deep into it, so what i’m going to say is this. the secret reports state in plain objective text that joshua downtuning his vibes aged him down and his true appearance is older. neither the narrative nor supplementary info state anything about how old josh was when he died or how long he’s been a reaper/the composer (reapers ageing is ??? as well, we don’t know if it’s not a thing or if it’s optional or what). however, it is firmly canon that he is older than 15. if that canon upsets you then that’s your problem to either work through or ignore indefinitely. suffice to say, joshua and hazuki do not have the schrodinger’s pedophile issue and i wholly support and strongly encourage that over the alternative for this reason and again because i find it funny and think they deserve each other. i hate to say hazuki is a healthy choice for joshua because i think both of them are just walking messes, but they are actual peers on the same tier of the higher plane pecking order and more importantly the disaster they could be as a couple has infinite potential.

on the girls side of things, i am still mad about eri’s absence not just because it’s a relationship shiki had that just got ignored. i know the story wants us to believe that neku and shiki have something but shiki and eri had more. i’m sorry writers you made a more compelling f/f ship by accident in the first game and i am not invested in the one you weakly suggested between neku and shiki here. if you made shiki have more of a role in neo maybe i’d feel differently, or maybe you would have screwed it up worse. we’ll never know. i think it’s a shame that they couldn’t make me care about neku and shiki as a pairing, but it is what it is.

i was briefly worried that the game would try to suggest something between kaie and rhyme because sometimes people lose their minds when a boy and girl stand next to each other, but i was quickly set at ease with that one. they felt like two people who are starting to straddle that line of acquaintance/friend in a believable way despite how little interaction between them we see, and i appreciate that. i was also briefly worried that fret would develop a crush on rhyme based on his initial reaction at being introduced to her, but again quickly dismissed. can you tell i’m a little gun shy about strangled “him boy her girl” romances in fiction these days? yeah. i’ve been let down too much recently by bad writing.

i think all of the party members could have benefited from more development with one another outside of combat lines - i would like to see more interaction between nagi and shoka, or neku and fret, etc - but that would come at the expense of the narrative’s pacing. i think it could have been done by tweaking certain details, but ultimately i can accept this as a sacrifice made in the interest of keeping the narrative from getting bloated.

i wanna talk briefly about the new main cast a little.

rindo’s ups and downs re: development are much more subtle than neku’s were, but with the secret reports in mind i feel his arc is actually pretty excellent. i think we could have done with a little less of fret pointing out rindo’s increased confidence and how he becomes more assertive, i think the audience is smart enough to notice that on their own. but i’m a huge fan of how the narrative quietly places rindo in this position of a leader who fears that responsibility, but nonetheless has to grow and accept it. hanekoma’s reports may spell it out in plain text postgame, but the narrative already told us in our own way that rindo’s development stalled when someone else entered the cast who could take over for him and this is demonstrative of a(n understandable) lack of maturity and failure to grow. neku’s fatal flaw was his rejection of others, and so he was forced by the narrative into a position where he had to learn to trust them; rindo’s is that he relies too much on them and the narrative forces him to stand on his own.

while i think this is a little muddled (he was right in some instances to not make hard solo decisions; thinking specifically of ayano, it was absolutely the right call to ease shoka into this inevitable loss rather than forcing her into the situation unilaterally) and i wish we saw more consequences of his initial waffling behavior, rindo’s indecisiveness is an actual flaw that i think a lot of people can relate to and i think it contrasts him wonderfully with neku without being heavy-handed. rindo working through it from “relying on others to make choices for him -> still valuing the input of others but not wholly dependent on them -> capable of making difficult calls without anyone else to support him” was subdued and while it had realistic hitches in the form of other characters who he could consider authority figures, it was steady and imo very good. he’s a teenager coming into his own, stepping out of this world where others in his life - motoi as an0ther, shoka as swallow, presumably his parents, teachers, etc - have made the big, scary decisions for him or guided him through them, and into a place where there aren’t these people to guide him. he’s surrounded by people who either don’t know anything more than he does, or don’t care about his best interests; he’s clashing and changing and it forces him to grasp and accept his own autonomy rather than falling back and relying on someone else to fix things when it’s too frightening or difficult.

we can talk cultural differences re: the level of autonomy and responsibility that’s right for teenagers but i’m not really interested in drawing hard lines there. this is a coming of age story; as he approaches maturity, rindo is learning how to be an adult. i think that’s a classic and important narrative concept and it’s done well here.

fret, interestingly, is imo a case where the subtlety didn’t work out. to me, there wasn’t a huge distinction between flippant “telling you what i think you want to hear” fret and “genuine” fret. his initial interactions with kanon don’t seem different from their last conversation; maybe he comes off as less initally honest in the jp version, or maybe this one was a writing fumble. maybe it’s just me, and other people don’t feel the same way! he seems to be a far more static character in a strange way; the narrative tells us that he’s developing via other characters’ dialogue, but it doesn’t seem to support that. to me it’s a failure of “show, don’t tell” - i don’t take a hard stance on “show, don’t tell” as some kind of holy rule of writing, there are plenty of situations in a narrative where telling is perfectly acceptable and i think rigid adherence to showing and not telling can result in a bloated narrative, but in this case i feel like that’s where the narrative failed. it failed to support fret’s development outside of other people telling him he’s changed. i like fret, but i feel like in this ensemble cast fret and nagi kinda serve more as nominal protagonists and are more strong supporting characters than true leads.

as for nagi, i love how, despite it being low-hanging fruit, not only are there no real digs at nagi for being a vocal fangirl of a visual novel dating sim, it actually ties perfectly into her character as someone who understands people. dating sims are about people and relationships. how people interact, the importance of conveying your feelings, the consequences of bad communication; that’s what nagi is obsessed with. and rather than this being a detriment and making her avoid others, it ends up priming her to have healthy friendships because her gaming taught her to value knowing other people. it takes her time to actually open up, but rather than the video games closing her off to others they actually set her up to be an excellent friend. elestra in general could have been a subject of enormous mockery, but instead it’s viewed in a very neutral way and is given the implication of universal appeal by fret picking it up in the epilogue. nagi’s not in the spotlight for most of the game, but the payoff of her monologue to fret about being human was immense and was one of the best bits of dialogue in the entire game to me. it’s not going to be as iconic as hanekoma’s “open up your world” and “enjoy the moment”, but i truly think it’s one of the only parts of neo’s dialogue that approaches its level.

shoka is a character that i think is better on the replay, and i say this as someone who was very fond of shoka the first time around. i thought she had a lot of personality in her mannerisms alone, and i firmly appreciate how she wasn’t a one-note tsundere character. she had some of those minor elements, but subdued and with a reasonable context - she’s hot and cold with rindo and his team because she’s supposed to be working this rigged game to erase them, but she’s already rindo’s friend in a different context and is struggling to reconcile these two parts of her life. knowing her motivation as swallow gives so much retroactive depth to her actions; she was circumventing the game itself not just because she was exhausted by it or unease with shiba like some of the other turncoat reapers, but because rindo was her friend from before the story even began.

i will say that i didn’t actually fully call swallow being shoka simply because at first i had the impression that it would be rhyme (before rhyme’s role in the story became clearer), and admittedly by the time the climax hit the mystery of who swallow was had kind of dropped out of my mind completely, but i think it does a lot to develop shoka. whether this development being retroactive is strictly good or bad as an issue is subjective; neo is a game that has a built-in chapter select, so replaying the game and rewatching the cutscenes with the full narrative context is incredibly easy. however, for a lot of players, if you’re replaying the game it’s with a specific goal of getting something you missed earlier in-game, so you’re rushing through those cutscenes trying to get to that completionist bit. i think a line could have been walked re: giving more of a hint that shoka was swallow before the very end without fully giving it away, but i definitely think the rewatch value is more subjective and based on how you specifically play the game. if you’re here looking to watch all the cutscenes again now that you know everything, shoka being swallow is a huge treat regarding changing the context of her behavior - if you’re fast-forwarding trying to find a pig, it’s totally wasted.

i would have liked to see more of shoka’s backstory and interaction with the other shinjuku reapers for sure, and i wonder if this is another thing along the lines of “we were supposed to see more of shinjuku’s final game than we did”; if we’d gotten more of shinjuku, we certainly would have seen more of its reapers. i talked briefly about how i feel like ayano’s death didn’t hit the way i think it was intended to, but if the game had let us see more of her as a shinjuku reaper i feel like the entire plot would have benefited. it would have benefited shiba as well honestly; they tried to have him as a repentant “now i shall fix what i destroyed” character at the very end, but i don’t feel like they did a good enough job portraying that he had changed and he was brainwashed so it fell flat. if we’d seen more of shiba as the compassionate leader who deserved the loyalty of his reapers that they say he was, the contrast would have done a lot to help define the tragedy of his backstory. overall i think this is another “we lost a chunk of the plot in rewrites or something” issue, which i admit is not based in anything like interviews. it’s just my speculation because it feels like something that was supposed to be here got left behind - i can’t say if i’m right, or why it happened if so. it just feels to me like the shinjuku reapers besides shoka went fairly undeveloped not because of writing/lack of screentime alone but because we lost big pieces of shinjuku content entirely. it’s insane that we only learn in the secret reports how tsugumi became trapped in the mr. mew plush to begin with; to me, this screams “we had to cut something”, and the more i think about it the more convinced i am that we were originally meant to see more of shinjuku’s inversion. hell, the secret reports just flippantly inform us that tsugumi’s brother was shinjuku’s conductor and he’s why she survived - but he goes unnamed and unseen, mentioned only in a piece of postgame content that many players may never unlock.

shinjuku’s final game is just left as this incredible story that was never told, with a cast who we barely see. again, it doesn’t bother me that they never explained to us why hazuki purified shinjuku. but i do wish we could have connected with its reapers to see how they reacted to its impending fate; who was on kubo’s side, who was trying to protect shinjuku? who knew what was happening, and who was just swept up in the chaos? how did the purification affect them emotionally after their escape to shibuya? just from the secret reports we see that tsugumi’s brother is this tragic hero of another story, the conductor opposing the executor and fighting to save his city before ultimately sacrificing himself to keep his sister alive. this is enough content that it could have easily been a standalone, but it wasn’t. i think that’s a damn shame. i’m sure there are people who are already chomping at the bit to write about shinjuku’s tragic final game and it’ll make a stunning fanfic in the right hands, but this is a big gap for fanfiction authors to be filling in.

this was mostly a narrative thoughts dump, but i wanna say just a couple of things about the combat: overall i liked it! i was significantly overleveled for the vast majority of the game partially because i was having fun with the combat, i feel gameplay was very intrinsically motivating. because of how the food system worked, being overleveled didn’t mean too much since it only affects HP, but i also was eating constantly so i was in fact just OP for much of the game. so i suppose, take my gameplay commentary with a grain of salt because i was busted quickly. if i hadn’t been such a powerhouse from early on, i expect my gameplay experience would have been much different.

my biggest complaint: there were some significant issues in enemy design related to battles being timed and the timer having consequences. some enemies were a reasonable/intuitive pain, say, elephants being bullet sponges and chameleons having an invisibility mechanic. these things made them challenging, but in a sensible way. like, of course a big honkin’ elephant has a ton of HP. i think that chameleons in particular could have been tweaked; you have to be very close to them when they’re invisible in order to lock on, and i think this could distance could have been extended a bit to minimize frustration. likewise, it felt like party members that get grabbed by a t.rex were trapped for ages; i feel this could have been tweaked as well. i know a lot of people had issues with wolves for this same reason, but their comparative frailty and my pin choices meant that i quickly overcame wolves and they became a minor nuisance at best until endgame introduced a beefier wolf. even then, i found t.rex noise to be much more of an issue because of their sturdier nature and higher damage output. these are minor gripes; i didn’t like seeing these enemies, but i didn’t hate seeing them. no, here’s what i hate: rhinos and pufferfish.

to me, these are the most annoying enemies in the entire game outside of maybe a handful of bosses. i feel they were poorly thought out in general. the tendency for rhinos to put themselves against the arena walls and the delay on pufferfish exploding after their HP hits zero do not mesh well with that battle timer. i find myself very frustrated by these enemies because it feels like i’m being punished not for a lack of skill or bad decisions choosing weak pins, but simply bad luck. very few pins can circumvent the rhino’s front guard and the hitbox for their guard feels enormous, so i can’t imagine i’m the only player having difficulty herding them out of corners to actually damage them or get beat drops. there’s a postgame dive with a big noise rhino, and it was my worst experience with the entire game because it just kept backing into a corner. i quit that dive multiple times because of how much time i wasted with the rhino; i changed my pins like crazy trying to take advantage of elemental weaknesses or use pins that could circumvent the guard. but it wasn’t about what pins i was using, it was just bad luck with hitboxes. when i finally got the gold rank on that dive it wasn’t that i did anything significantly different, the rhino just didn’t park its ass in the corner that time.

as far as i know, and i hope i’m missing something that someone can enlighten me on, there is no way to prevent pufferfish from inflating and exploding outside of a killer remix. i have not discovered any way to make them explode faster. the amount of time it takes for them to blow up seems to vary not by species but by individual, i’m not sure if it’s being triggered by proximity to a party member or what but i know sometimes one of those little shits will inflate and chase me across the entire arena before finally exploding. in a chain battle, that wasted time adds up. the pufferfish issue could have been severely mitigated, if not entirely fixed, if the gap between HP hitting zero and explosion was just the time it took for them to inflate. that would have basically eliminated my needless frustration with them. but instead i just... don’t know how to make them pop faster.

in normal combat, your post-battle score is primarily just bragging rights/making yourself feel good to have gotten a good grade. but when it comes to dives, where the timer directly decides how many of the finite friendship points you get, the appearance of a rhino or pufferfish specifically is something i approached with dread and disappointment. i already mentioned the postgame dive giant rhino specifically being a nightmare, but this was a reoccurring element for me through the entire game with just normal rhinos. i know rhinos are a returning enemy and kept their front-guard schtick, but the shift to a 3D environment has made them a much more (imo needlessly) difficult opponent.

regarding the pin system itself, i was enormously disappointed to learn how the multi-pin input worked. it turns out that you can only have multiple pins using a single input no matter how many multi-pin wields you unlock; gone were my dreams of having 2 Y-input pins and two ZL input pins (i played on switch). the inability to multi-pin wield uber pins regardless of how many uber slots you have filled is also a huge bummer. i feel like in the postgame i should be able to be an absolute god of destruction, but this didn’t pan out.

this seems to be a switch issue, but autosave was the MVP of the game because i had a few cutscenes crash or freeze (the one with kubo’s reveal seems to be a common source of a crash on the switch version as it fails to load the 3D cutscene); this was annoying and needs fixing, but it was slightly mitigated by autosave kicking in immediately after boss battles. i was crushed thinking i was gonna have to go through the shiba fight again after kubo crashed my game, so the relief i felt upon loading up again and going right into the cutscene was immense. don’t get me wrong: cutscene freezes and particularly crashes are a big problem that a game like this shouldn’t have launched with, but at the very least i didn’t lose my progress on that crash. related, i appreciate the ability to speed through cutscenes you’ve already seen, but i do wish we had the option to skip them entirely because that would have saved me from the freezes that i had to manually close the game and lose progress for.

a more minor complaint that i admittedly am unsure as to how to fix (maybe utilizing the d-pad instead of having it be camera/target select alongside the right stick?) is that i do not seem to have much control over which character my camera centers on in combat. typically selecting the pin that’s equipped to them will focus the camera to them, but every once in a while i’ll be locked to someone whose pin is rebooting while my other party members are actively attacking on the complete opposite end of the arena. i have no idea why this happens. if i’m missing something please let me know. the static nature of the overworld camera took some adjusting to, at first i was offput but i got used to it quickly. if camera was fixed position in combat it would have been a nightmare, but it being fixed in the overworld isn’t the same beast.

this has gotten obscenely long, so props and condolences to everyone who has made it this far. i wanna end on a high note because i want to reiterate something: i have so many criticisms here and that’s actually praise. i enjoyed so much of this game that i’m critical of where it fell short specifically because it’s such a strong contrast to how much i felt it did right. the main story was pretty strong in general, though some character interactions were lacking. the plot itself i didn’t talk a lot about because i thought it was good. there wasn’t much to say, they did a good job! the dissonance noise being created from deleted timelines was great, i loved that. i don’t feel like predictability makes a narrative bad, so it’s not like i was upset when it turned out replay was (gasp) part of a dastardly scheme. for me, foreshadowing is an excellent thing even if sometimes i wish it was handled a little differently.

i vastly prefer this game’s vague sequel hook with minamimoto over how final remix ended a new day; that sequel hook i hated and it had me so worried about neo. thankfully a lot of my fears didn’t come true, and i am very happy overall with the game we got. if another game is greenlit, i would hope it progresses with a mostly new cast; as long as we stay in shibuya some supporting characters can and should be staples imo, like kariya and uzuki, and i hope to see more of what’s being set up with minamimoto even if not necessarily with him as a protagonist. but overall i think twewy’s worldbuilding lends itself much more to a rotating cast if it develops into a full franchise; that’s just the nature of the UG, and i would like to see further installments taking advantage of that and allowing characters to have a complete arc and then retire from the narrative naturally.

i’ve got some pigs to erase and some bosses to slap the pins out of, which i’m sure will take me some time. another day certainly has a secret boss and/or time trial boss rush, so i’ll take a look at that sucker soon as well. i’m looking forward to continuing my playthrough, and i expect to sink quite a few more hours into this game. i really truly enjoyed neo despite my qualms, and i’m leaving the main storyline behind for postgame stuff with almost entirely positive feelings and a hopeful stance on the potential future of the series. i know this was a long-ass post, which is why it’s beneath a readmore, but to anyone who cared enough about my thoughts to keep reading the whole thing... thanks for the time you spent, hope you got something positive out of it!

#neo twewy #neo twewy spoilers #this turned into a behemoth. im so sorry #I CHECKED AND IT'S OVER 11K WORDS #I'M SO FUCKING SORRY

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maddrmatt · 3 years

Text

A Beautiful Future: A Premonition or a Punishment?

New to this fanfic? Click here to properly begin!

Greetings, readers and fellow SoKai fans!

Time to bring this story to an end and finally learn the truth behind the dream!

I’m so glad I was able to complete it in time. Next year, I’ll try to have my story done before the week even gets here because the pressure was immense!

This one also contains a few more headcanons and speculations.

Enjoy!

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Epilogue: Rehearsal

Destiny Islands

As he watched the sunset from his usual spot on the paopu tree, a smile of contentment came to Sora’s face. ‘It’s been two weeks since I came home and yet it feels like nothing’s changed.’

But after glancing to his right at his now official girlfriend, he knew that thought couldn’t be further from the truth. And as Kairi gave him a smile, he knew he wouldn’t have it any other way.

‘I still can’t believe how beautiful she is in the setting sun’s light. Why am I not taking her into my arms and holding her close right now?’

“Just can’t keep your eyes off each other, can you?” asked a male voice from Sora’s right snapping him out of his thoughts.

‘Oh. That’s why,’ Sora realized as Kairi started to giggle.

As tempting as it was, the two of them tended to keep their closer moments for times when they weren’t in the company of others. Although they weren’t too shy about showing their love for each other and no one ever really had any problems with it, it just meant more to them that way.

But it was sometimes easier said than done. As hard as they tried, there were moments when, even in the midst of their friends, their boundless affections just kept slipping out because it had just become such a natural state for them.

“Riku, was that really necessary?” asked a female voice from Kairi’s right.

“Someone’s got to keep these two on their toes, Naminè, and that job usually falls to me,” said Riku.

“He does have a point, Naminè. If it weren’t for Riku, Sora would never get any work done at all,” said Kairi causing Sora to fold his arms and pout.

“Oh, you’re one to talk, Kairi. There were times when you were just as lazy as he was,” said Riku.

“He’s got you there, Kai,” said Sora with a laugh.

Kairi pouted. But it wasn’t long before her smile returned.

Now that the mirthful moment had passed, the four friends now resumed watching the sunset. In an effort to avoid further ribbing from Riku, Sora tried to focus on other aspects no matter how hard it was to avoid his heart’s favorite view.

He looked past Kairi to Naminè, who was sitting next to her. Though it wasn’t the first time she had joined them for the sunset, he knew that she enjoyed it every time because she was finally a true part of their circle of friends.

‘The memories may have been fake at first. But I’m glad we were able to make them a reality. Naminè deserves it. She deserves to have friends.’

Sora then looked to his right where his oldest friend was in his usual position of leaning against the tree instead of sitting on it. He remembered how, in the past, Riku would have an air of boredom and resentment when watching the sunset. Now there was no trace of that at all.

‘He wanted to escape the Islands so much and see the worlds. Glad to see he’s grown to appreciate our home.’

Kairi let out a contented sigh. “Another good day come and gone.”

“You’ve said that everyday, Kairi,” observed Naminè.

“Can’t help it. Every day that we’re finally all together is definitely a good one. Right, boys?” asked Kairi to which Sora and Riku nodded in agreement.

“Well, we’re certainly lucky to have these good days now. Especially after everything that went down in Quadratum. That world is something else entirely,” said Riku.

Sora nodded. “Tell me about it. And I still have a hard time believing that the first time I saw that world and Yozora was in a video game in the toys’ world. And it’s got me wondering.”

“About what, Sora?” asked Kairi.

“Well, think about it. If Yozora and Quadratum are fictional in our reality, then maybe we could be fictional in some other reality. Like we could be video game characters ourselves,” said Sora.

Naminè tapped her chin in thought. “It might be possible, Sora. All those worlds out there with their various stories and characters could exist in books or even films somewhere else.”

Kairi chuckled. “Mickey, Donald and Goofy would make great cartoon characters.”

“You know, if we were having this conversation long ago before our adventures started, I would’ve thought that idea was absolutely crazy. But stranger things have happened,” said Riku.

“As odd as it was knowing it was real in another reality, that video game was pretty useful for learning all we could about Quadratum,” said Naminè.

“Yes. When Fairy Godmother and I went back to the Final World to talk to that girl, she told us about Yozora. And when we told everyone else, Donald and Goofy remembered the game. That’s when they headed to the Toy Box and acquired it along with everything related to it that they could find. So, when we weren’t training with our Keyblades, we were playing through the game for research,” said Kairi.

“I never would have thought that preparation for a rescue mission would involve playing video games,” said Riku.

“Like you said, Riku, stranger things have happened,” said Sora.

Naminè sighed. “But that game certainly wasn’t easy to play. Even with the game guides we had, there were enemies and bosses that we struggled to get past. Donald and Axel nearly smashed or burned the controllers in frustration.”

“And the thought that the two of you might have been facing them for real was very worrying to me. It really made me wish that you thought twice about running off alone to a realm that you knew nothing about,” Kairi said to Riku.

Riku gave a little chuckle. “What can I say? Sora’s been a bit of a bad influence on me when it comes to leaping before looking.”

“Hey!” exclaimed Sora.

Riku sighed. “But you are right, Kairi. It really wasn’t my best call and I’m grateful to you and the others for coming after us. It’s just that after the three of us not being together for so long and seeing everyone else reunited, I was just so desperate to put our group back together.”

“I know, Riku and I can’t blame you for feeling that way,” said Kairi. ‘That year I was asleep, and Sora was gone must’ve been so tough for him.’

Riku then looked at both Sora and Kairi with a smile. “Besides, you two had something special that was long overdue for a proper beginning,” he said causing both Sora and Kairi to turn red.

“Riku!” Naminè admonished the Keyblade Master as he laughed.

But despite Riku’s teasing, Sora and Kairi couldn’t help but smile. Ever since their relationship truly started, Riku had been nothing but the most supportive friend either of them could ask for.

‘As amusing as it was watching them compete over my attention back then, I was dreading what the three of us would lose if I ever did choose one of them. Especially since, contrary to what everyone believed, Sora already won my heart even if I didn’t know it at the time. It feels so good to see that I was worried for nothing and the fact that Sora and I are a couple hasn’t affected our friendship with Riku one bit.’

“Still, Sora, I’d say you were pretty lucky to have survived in Quadratum long enough for us to find you. The enemies we saw in the video game made the Heartless, Nobodies, and Unversed look like pushovers by comparison,” said Kairi.

“I hear you. It was quite a fight nearly every moment. But I managed to hold on. All I had to do was keep focusing on my home and everyone who I was trying to get back to,” said Sora as he gazed at Kairi lovingly. ‘Though I will admit, there was someone I was trying to get back to more than anyone else.’

“Having that dream helped a lot too,” said Sora more to himself than the others.

“A dream? What about?” asked Naminè.

Sora’s eyes widened. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

Riku chuckled. “Yes, you did. And now you have to tell us. So, out with it.”

Sora’s cheeks flushed red. “Well, I er, I really don’t know if I should. It’s kind of personal.’

“Oh, come on, Sora. You can’t just leave us hanging like that. Tell us what it was about. Please,” said Kairi pleadingly.

Sora sighed. ‘Kairi, I love you. But I can never tell just how much you know about the power you have over me because I just can’t say no to you.’

“Okay. I will. But, please guys. Don’t tease me after you hear it,” said Sora to which his friends nodded although he didn’t fully believe that they weren’t going to.

“All right. The dream was about…a wedding,” said Sora a little reluctantly causing his friends’ eyes to open wide in surprise.

“Sora, was it…?” Kairi asked.

“Yes. It was our wedding. And it was absolutely incredible,” said Sora with a look of elation on his face.

Riku chuckled. “Your future wedding. Man, Sora, you’ve really got it bad for her if that’s what you’re dreaming about.”

“You said you weren’t going to tease me about it, Riku,” said Sora.

Riku held up his hands in defense. “Easy, Sora. I wasn’t teasing. In fact, I think it’s really great. If there was anything to help keep you going until we found you, I can’t think of anything better.”

As the boys continued to converse among themselves, Kairi and Naminè were exchanging surprised looks. Clearly, the same notion was running through their minds.

“Kairi, do you think it was…?” Naminè asked quietly so the boys wouldn’t hear.

“Maybe it was. But I won’t know for sure unless I can get more details from Sora,” Kairi whispered back.

“Then allow me to get you both some privacy so you can do that,” said Naminè as she hopped off the tree and stretched her arms. “Well, guys, I think it’s time for me to go. Riku, would you care to accompany me home?”

“Huh? Oh. Uh, sure, Naminè,” said Riku who was a little surprised by Naminè’s strange request.

“You two don’t have to leave yet,” said Sora.

“Actually, we do, Sora. Let’s go, Riku,” said Naminè as she walked around the tree and headed for the bridge.

Riku was still confused. He immediately ran around the tree and caught up to Kairi’s former Nobody just when she was at the midpoint of the bridge.

“Naminè, why is it so important we leave right now?” he asked her in a hushed tone.

“Because there’s something that Sora and Kairi need to talk about and it’s best that they do it alone,” she responded before giving a smile. “Especially considering what’s likely going to happen after they talk.”

Riku blinked in confusion. But then a look of realization came to his face, and he smiled.

“Oh, I get it. Good call, Naminè. But just one thing before we go,” said Riku as he turned back toward the paopu tree. “Sora?”

Sora turned around. “Yes, Riku?”

“I have one question about that wedding dream.”

“Oh. And that is?”

“I was the best man, right?” asked Riku.

Sora gave a look of surprise before giving a smile to his oldest friend. “Yes. Yes, you were.”

“Good. Because if it had been anybody else, I would have considered siding with the darkness again,” Riku said with a dash of teasing in his tone.

Sora’s eyes widened. “Now don’t you think that’s a little petty, Riku? Besides, it was just a dream. I have no control over the details.”

Riku shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t know if I could ever forgive you if you snubbed me out of my rightful place in your wedding party,” he said causing Kairi and Naminè to giggle.

“Oh, come on, Riku. You know that if I was getting married for real, I wouldn’t have chosen anyone else for that position.”

“Yes. I do know that. Don’t get so bent out of shape about it, Sora. I never really had any doubt about it,” said Riku with a chuckle as he turned around and began to leave.

Naminè shook her head in amusement as she walked away while calling back to the couple, “See you both later.”

“Bye,” said Kairi before turning her attention to her boyfriend who had his arms crossed and was huffing in annoyance.

“He always does this. He always knows how to get to me like that,” Sora grumbled.

Kairi giggled. “Well, can you blame him? You do make it so easy. And you two are practically brothers and good-natured teasing is what brothers do,” she pointed out.

Sora’s smile returned. “That’s true. He’s my brother in all but blood. And that’s why he would be the best man at our wedding.”

He then turned to his girlfriend. “So, why do you think Naminè felt like she and Riku had to leave so suddenly?”

Kairi smiled. “Because there’s something I want you to tell me, Sora.

“Of course, Kai. What is it?”

Kairi took Sora’s hands into her own. “I’d like you tell me more about that dream. Please. I want to hear all you can remember about it.”

“Well, like I said, it was incredible. It was in this gigantic chapel that I think was in Radiant Garden. And seeing how many guests there were, it’s no surprise we needed such a big space. Everyone was there: our families, our friends and pretty much everyone I ever met from around the worlds. There was even a bunch I hadn’t even met yet,” said Sora excitedly.

Kairi chuckled. “Now that’s certainly goes against the World Order.”

Sora laughed himself. “Yeah. Donald would probably go quackers about it if he saw such a blatant violation!”

“Now, besides Riku as best man, who else was in our wedding party?” Kairi asked.

“Well, Donald, Goofy, Roxas and Ven were my groomsmen and Naminè, Aqua, Xion and Olette were your bridesmaids. Selphie was the maid of honor,” answered Sora.

“She’ll be glad to hear that. We did promise each other long ago that we would be the other’s maid of honor at our respective weddings,” said Kairi.

“Other than that, Mickey presided over the ceremony. Pluto and Jiminy brought the rings, the paopu fruits, and a pair of flower crowns that apparently were a wedding tradition from Radiant Garden,” said Sora.

“Well, even though it’s been a long time since I considered Radiant Garden my home, I certainly would have liked to honor my heritage like that,” stated Kairi.

“I’m sure your birth parents and grandmother would love to hear that. Finally, Chirithy was our Flower Spirit,” said Sora.

Kairi giggled. “I wonder if that’s the kind of role all the Chirithy played when Keyblade wielders got married in the Age of Fairy Tales.

“It’s a possibility. We’ll have to ask about it,” said Sora before gazing into Kairi’s eyes lovingly.

“And, Kai, you looked absolutely beautiful in your wedding dress. It was white with all these golden designs stitched into it like a heart shape on the chest. And you were also wearing this tiara with seven heart shaped jewels which probably represented the Seven Pure Lights. I wonder if Fairy Godmother or the Three Good Fairies had a hand in making the dress and tiara because you definitely looked like a real princess about to get married,” he said causing his girlfriend to blush and giggle.

“And you certainly never looked more princely and handsome in that white and gold suit,” said Kairi.

“Yes. I guess I did,” said Sora absently before he realized what Kairi had just told him. “Wait! Kairi, how did you…?”

“Know that? Sora, it just so happens that I had the very same dream!”

Sora’s jaw dropped. “You did?!”

Kairi nodded. “Yes. Everything you just told me happened in my dream too!”

Sora was completely shocked. “I-I can’t believe it! I mean, having the very same dream. It shouldn’t even be possible.”

Kairi shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve pulled off something impossible, Sora. Like me keeping you alive when the Demon Tide wiped us out or you protecting me from that memory of Xehanort even though we were a reality apart.”

“Guess sharing that paopu fruit unlocked all sorts of amazing things for us, didn’t it, Kairi?” asked Sora.

Kairi tapped her finger against her chin. “You know, Sora, I have been thinking about this for a while and well, maybe it wasn’t the paopu fruit at all. After all, I was able to change you back when you turned into a Heartless and we hadn’t shared it then. What if all these miraculous things that you and I were able to do were just…us?”

“But that can’t be true, Kairi. You’re one of the Seven Pure Lights. My heart’s nothing special,” said Sora.

Kairi frowned. “Watch it, Sora. I don’t tolerate anybody speaking ill of the boy I love especially if it is said boy. Don’t tell me your heart’s not special. After all, you had just been born and you ended up saving Ven. So, don’t ever think that about yourself. My heart may carry one of seven of the purest lights. But you have the biggest heart in all the worlds.”

Sora looked thoughtful. “Yeah. Maybe I do.”

Sora then put his arm around his girlfriend. Kairi leaned into him to rest her head underneath his chin. They interlaced their hands and sighed contently.

“It was such a beautiful dream,” said Kairi.

“Yes, it was. Do you think it may have been a vision of our future?” Sora asked.

“Who knows? There were a lot of elements in it that made it seem like one. But it was a little strange to dream about our wedding when we hadn’t even kissed yet,” said Kairi.

Sora chuckled. “You got that right. There was that and a few more other things that need to happen in our relationship before a wedding.”

“And in all honesty, as beautiful as the dream was, I actually kind of hope our real wedding doesn’t happen exactly like it,” said Kairi.

“Why is that?” asked Sora.

“Well, it does sort of spoil things knowing how exactly one of the most important days of your life plays out before it even happens. When we get married for real one day, I wish for it to be a mix of what we saw in the dream and some good surprises.”

“I’d like that too,” said Sora before he frowned.

“Kairi, I have a bit of a confession to make. I actually ended up thinking the dream may have been sent to me as a punishment. You know, for breaking all those nature taboos I had no idea existed,” Sora said with a hint of shame.

Kairi sighed. “Well, you’re not alone in thinking that way, Sora. I thought it was punishing me for all the times I wasn’t strong enough in the fight against Xehanort.”

Then the Princess of Heart turned Sora’s head, so they were face-to-face. “But we can’t keep beating ourselves up about what we did or didn’t do in the past, Sora.”

“I know. And as I mentioned earlier, the dream inspired me to keep on going and fighting on while I was stuck in Quadratum. That’s how I chose to use it,” said Sora.

“Guess great minds think alike, Sora, because I chose to use it to drive myself to get stronger and become the best Keyblade wielder I could be. And I think my training with Aqua really improved after that,” said Kairi.

“I guess, in the end, it really doesn’t matter what the dream’s actual purpose was. What matters is how we used it to push ourselves toward our inevitable reunion,” said Sora.

“And now that we are together again, we can use for a different purpose now. We can use that dream as a reminder of the kind of future we both wish to have. Because, unfortunately, our adventures and fights are still not finished,” said Kairi grimly.

Sora nodded. “Yes. He’s still out there. The Master of Masters. I still can’t get the last thing he said to us out of my mind before he left Quadratum. About how all he wanted us to do was to keep doing what we do best because the next phase was about to begin. It gives me the chills.”

“And it’s maddening not knowing exactly what his game is. At least with Xehanort, we knew it was trouble. But with the Master? I can’t really tell,” said Kairi.

“At least we have a new ally in Yozora. We may have gotten off on the wrong foot. But once he learned how the Master had tricked him into trying to ‘save’ me, he was all too willing to help us fight him,” said Sora.

“And we also promised to help that girl for him. She’s probably as important to him as I am to you. Not to mention that we never would’ve have gotten you back without her help,” said Kairi.

“We’ll help them. And then maybe we can invite them to our real wedding someday,” said Sora.

Kairi laughed. “Of course, we will.”

“We will get there one day, Kairi. We’ll deal with the Master and other enemy that comes our way, help anyone else who needs it and someday, we’ll live happily ever after just like in the dream,” said Sora.

“I couldn’t agree more, my future groom,” said Kairi.

Sora smiled. ‘Future groom. I definitely like the sound of that.’

The two of them watched the sunset in silence for a few minutes. Then Sora piped up again.

“There is one more thing I do need to say about the dream though,” he said.

“What’s that, Sora?”

“There was actually one thing I didn’t like about it.”

Kairi looked confused. “Really? What was it?”

“The fact that I woke up at what would’ve been the best part of the wedding.”

Kairi gave her boyfriend a smile. “Would that happen to be our first kiss as a married couple?”

Sora’s eyes widened in surprise. “Yes. How did you…wait a minute. Did you miss that part as well?” he asked Kairi who gave a nod.

Sora became even more flabbergasted. “Wow! Sharing a dream is amazing enough. But waking up at the exact same moment? I…I can’t even find a word for it.”

“Me neither. Although, I guess we can count ourselves lucky because there are so many worse ways for a dream to end,” said Kairi.

“Like maybe the wedding getting crashed by one of our old enemies. That would have been a really bad note to end it on,” said Sora.

“Yes, it would. But given how many heroes who were there, any villains who would dare to crash that wedding would have to be really dumb,” said Kairi.

“So, Pete maybe?” asked Sora with a laugh.

“Yeah. He probably would,” said Kairi as she joined her boyfriend in his laughter.

Once their laughter died down, the two young lovers sighed in contentment as they held each other closer. The evening certainly had been plentiful of pleasant revelations.

Sora sighed. “Still, I really wish we both could’ve seen that kiss.”

“Look at it this way, Sora. It’ll be something to look forward to when it happens for real someday,” said Kairi.

“Yeah. I know,” said Sora who still had a little disappointment in his voice.

Fortunately, Kairi knew how to cure that as she turned to him with her signature cheeky smile. “But, you know, even if it is a long way away, we could do a little rehearsal right now if don’t mind.”

A brief look of surprise came to Sora’s face before he caught on with a smile. “Not at all.”

“Well, in that case, you may kiss your future bride,” said Kairi as the two of them leaned in.

Against the backdrop of the setting sun on their favorite tree, the happy couple’s lips found their destined target. As the Hero of the Keyblade and the Princess of Heart savored every second of this precious moment, the two of them reflected on their wedding dream.

They still had no idea if it had truly a premonition of definite future events. But if it’s real purpose was meant to torment them for breaking the taboos of nature or for shortcomings as a Keyblade wielder, then it had epically failed.

Instead, the dream had only increased their desire to come back to each other. And now that they had been reunited, it would now serve a new purpose.

No matter what kind of darkness they would face in the future, the dream would serve as a guiding light that they would always fight to reach together.

________________________________________________________________

Traverse Town, The Realm of Sleep

Elsewhere, in the sleeping version of Traverse Town, Meow Wow scampered along the streets. Nearby, Komory Bat fluttered alongside it. The two Spirit Dream Eaters were currently patrolling the town for any Nightmares.

As if on cue, as they crossed into the First District, a pack of Nightmares materialized. It was a tough bunch composed of four Kooma Pandas, two Thunderaffes and one Zolephant.

But in spite of being outnumbered and outsized, Meow Wow and Komory Bat were not afraid. They leapt right into the fray with the Nightmares.

It may have seemed foolish. But with the way they and their fellow Spirits had succeeded in so many ways recently, they felt like they could take on the toughest Nightmares. Not even really powerful ones like the Hockomonkey or the Spellican could bring them down with the morale they had right now.

________________________________________________________________

When Sora had vanished, Meow Wow and the other Spirits had sensed his disappearance and were very saddened. Having grown very attached to the young Keyblade wielder during his journey through the Realm of Sleep, they had launched their own attempt to find some clue to his whereabouts.

During the year he was missing, the various Spirits had combed the near infinite reaches of the Realm of Sleep searching for any sign of Sora’s dreams. If they could find them and any of them happened to contain a hint to his location, they could send it to the honorary member of their pack, Riku, who hopefully would know what to do next.

Much to their joy, they did indeed locate a multitude of undreamt dreams that belonged to their friend. Due to how many there were to search through, it was clear that the place he currently was allowed little time for sleeping much less dreaming.

Fortunately, they managed to find a dream they thought would help the most. Once they had sent it to Riku, it set off a chain of events that would hopefully lead to Sora being found.

But after Riku had left for that mysterious city known as Quadratum, the Spirits were faced with another problem: Kairi.

All the Spirits from the proud Necho Cat to the mischievous Jestabocky to the noble Pegaslick to the fierce Tyranto Rex knew how much the Princess of Heart meant to Sora given how she was a recurring element in his happiest dreams. They also knew how disappointed she felt for having to stay behind from the mission to rescue him and how much she blamed herself for his disappearance.

Their next mission was clear: keep Kairi’s hopes alive and her spirits raised. Sora would have definitely wanted them to help one so precious to him. So, in order to do that, they would need to find a very special dream to bestow upon her.

Dreams had many origins all tied to the heart. Some were created from the heart’s precious memories while others formed from its greatest wishes. And on occasion, due to the heart’s ability to traverse time, dreams could often show someone’s potential future.

After an exhaustive search through Kairi’s dreams, they ended up finding one that depicted a wonderful future for both her and Sora. Though it was only a possible future for them, the dream would serve the Spirits’ purpose well.

Their plan was a success. Although they were surprised and confused that Kairi thought their gift had been sent to torment her at first, they were pleased when it ended up inspiring her to get better with her Keyblade.

But, to their surprise, after Sora had been rescued, the Spirits learned that something had happened that they had not anticipated.

It seemed that when they gave the dream to Kairi, Sora had been able to experience it as well. Through the connection between their hearts, the Spirits’ gift ended up being shared between them. And Sora was given the drive he needed to keep going until he had been found by his friends.

Even if the Spirits’ gift of the dream was only of a potential future for Sora and Kairi, it was one that reflected a great wish that they both shared. Often, that was exactly what a dream was: a wish made by the heart.

________________________________________________________________

Notes from the Mad Doctor:

So, it wasn’t a punishment at all. But it also wasn’t a true premonition either. What it was, was a push! And as push for Sora and Kairi, it succeeded beautifully.

Hope you all enjoyed this story.

I hope that little Secret Ending about the Spirit Dream Eaters didn’t turn you off. I just loved the idea of them playing a part in bringing Sora home and also being SoKai shippers.

I did take a few creative liberties when describing the nature of dreams. I love the games but trying to explain anything from Dream Drop Distance is next to impossible and can give one big headache.

Hope many of you got that little Disney nod in the final lines!

Now for some words of thanks.

I give my thanks to whoever reads this chapter.

I also give my special thanks to @fandomchanger and @renatogpadilla for their likes on the previous chapters, @sokaiweek, @sokaieternal, and @phoenix-downer, for reblogging the previous chapters as well as @flynn-science for their like, replies and reblogs of the previous chapters.

I also give a big thank you to the artists and writers whose work I had the pleasure of witnessing this year. You all did a great job and I really enjoyed your work.

And an especially big thank you to the moderators of the SoKai Week Tumblr for enabling us to be part of a great collection.

Happy SoKai Week and stay tuned for more from the Mad Doctor in the future!

#kingdom hearts #kh fanfiction #sokai #sokaiweek #sokaiweek2021 #sora #kairi #riku #namine #meow wow #komory bat #nightmare dream eaters #maddrmatt

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neoyi · 3 years

Text

I don’t think I’ll ever get to humorously commentate on KH2 piece-by-piece as I tried to do for the first two games (and god knows if I’ll wrap up Re:chain of Memories with the writing method I was doing, but I digress.) I like talking about this endearingly dumb series and replaying this game is a nice opportunity to revisit how I feel now versus how I felt back when I was a fresh-out-of-high-school Neo playing this game for the first time back in 2005.

So I’m going to surmise my current play session (this collects my thoughts up to the Hercules world) with easily containable bullet points.

*I kind of want to make a separate post about the infamous prologue and discuss how people felt Back in the Days (an understatement, let me tell ya), and ultimately what I feel it does for the game and whether I personally liked it, so I'm going to leave that in the back burner for the time.

I will say Twilight Town sounds like a nice, quiet place to live. I love the concept of a city that's always perpetually sunset. It's a beautiful place and like Traverse Town, sports an amazingly cozy soundtrack.

*I'm sure there's some bullshit reason why, but I don't get why Sora's one year absence meant some of the people he's met just....forgot him. Like why? What purpose does this serve? This especially affected Kairi, but it’s ultimately negligible because she regains her memories of him during the beginning portions of the game.

Was this Namine's doing? Was it to protect Sora from the bad guys or something? Why hasn't Riku forgotten him? Was Namine just selective on who she erased Sora's existence from? Did Kairi forget just because she’s connected to Namine? Or Sora? What purpose does this narrative serve? What was the point?

*Speaking of, I forgot, did they ever explain why Riku disguised himself as Ansem? I don’t remember if they ever explained it when I played through this game, but also I haven’t touched KHII in six thousand years, so I don’t remember a lot of the more convoluted parts of the plot.

*It is comical to see Setzer of Final Fantasy VI fame turn from a risky, gambling sky pirate who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the empire, only cares for the freedom of the skies, and enduring survival’s guilt over a tragic loss of someone dear to him into a...

Whiffle Bat Champion.

*My sheer excitement and obsession when they first announced Vivi as one of the FF cameo was astronomical. I remember keeping a DeviantArt journal detailing any news and screencaps of the little guy pre-release. Still my favorite character from the whole franchise.

Even if he suffers the same fate as Donald and has a zipper on his mage hat for absolutely no reason other than this game existing during Nomura’s Belt-and-Zippers phase.

*Someone’s going to get sued one day because these damn kids keeps sitting atop the clock tower that has yet to be grafted with bars to prevent their inevitable deaths when one of them slips and falls.

*I swear I could play a six degrees of Kingdom Hearts with all the voice actors in this game. Or at least a "Whozit" and "Whatzit" they've done in other media (like Yuffie who is voiced by Mae "Katara" Whitman here. Pre-Avatar, even.)

Also I’m sorry, Will Friedle, you’re a fine voice actor, but you’re...Terry McGinnis. Batman told me he “totally owned all you lamers.”

*I love the Nobody enemy designs. The sheer creepiness and uncanny valley of them all lends credit to their existence as, well, non-existences. The Dusk enemy design alone is inspired with its unsettling belts wrapped around its fingers, or terrifyingly sharp teeth subtly hidden inside of its mouth. I can imagine the creature unzipping its mouth to reveal a set of flesh-eating teeth and the fear is real.

I love the way it flies and circles around its victim, almost like it’s trying to wrap itself around you, but I’m especially fond of that one attack where it essentially kicks you as while it sashays over to you upside down.

The Samurai Dusk also has my favorite reaction command. It’s just unspeakably badass.

*I never liked Squall in FF8 back then (don't know how I'd feel now if I ever replay FF8) and he was just okay in the first Kingdom Hearts, but I remember I really endeared myself to his reappearance in KHII. Squall in this game is what happens when he grew up, found good friends and family, and got some therapy for his issues. He’s stoic, but always a team player, and supportive of Sora and the people around him. KHII Squall is what FF8 Squall has the potential to be once he reaches adulthood and it’s nice to see that here.

*I really love the little changes the developers inputted for Sora, Kairi, and Riku's models to accommodate for their physical growth. Riku's is the most obvious (boy clearly ate his vegetables), but I like that you can tell Sora grew not just through story observations (Yen Sid points out how he outgrew his old garbs) but by comparing his height in relation to Goofy. Sora was shorter than him in the first game, but has since outgrown him in KH2.

Along with his better skill set during combat, this is a really nice way to visually shown how far Sora has come and how much time has passed.

This also goes in the opposite direction with Namine whom I think had to redo her mod when they remastered Chain of Memories for 3D. I notice she looks younger in that game than in KHII which would make sense at the time since it takes place a full year ago.

...Well, maybe. Can Nobodies age???

*Damn it, game, don’t give me a pouch containing 5,000 munny and treat it as an in-game key item that I can’t use even though munny is literally the currency I use to buy things.

*The retooling and emphasis on battle mechanics means the platforming element of the first really suffers and that’s a damn shame. I wasn’t particularly in love with exploring the Disney Worlds in the first KH, but I appreciate the effort put into so Sora could not easily get from Point A to Point B.

Even finding treasure chests is comical and if not for sake of posterity for anyone going for 100%, I wonder why Jiminy bothers to keep track of how many you find. There were literally like three out in plain view the minute I entered the Mulan world.

*Speaking of level designs, yeesh, the layout is not optimal for the skateboarding minigame.

*Trying to design a gummi ship in this game requires a masters degree in gummiology and metaphysical engineering, as well as the ability to tap into the 4th dimensional. The 45,000 page instructional manual they give you, the odd grid map used to piece together your ship (fair, the latter was also in the first game), and finicky button controller layout means it took me a while to fully grasp what I was suppose to do and I’m still not sure I got a full handle of it just yet.

*I don’t understand why Sora had to use a physical object as a conduit in each world to open up a metaphysical gate to the next world. He never had to use an in-between to close it. What’s the exception outside of unnecessary symbolic tie-in to the individual worlds he’s in?

*Props to the developers for recreating the ballroom. It’s actually kind of majestic to look at the beautiful ceiling and chandelier design from Sora’s perspective.

*There are a couple of random gameplay elements I forgot completely existed and seemingly there for arbitrary purposes. I just find it unusual that Mulan’s world forces you to collect literal manifestation of morale. It’s like the developers decided they wanted to reuse the Struggle minigames’ balls into a repurposed Morale Ball because well shit, someone programmed these things they’re damn well going to put it to good use.

I guess if Sora and pals don’t literally collect morale, all the soldiers will be, I don’t know, sad and die in battle or something.

*I’m aware Disney villains using the Heartless as their personal army is the norm, but it’s tonally weird when it’s Shan-Yu of all characters doing it. The infamous Charge-In-The-Snowy-Mountain scene doesn’t quite have the leg up in terms of threat when his army consist of adorable Heartless bumblebees.

*You know what pointless shit I am obsessed with? The stupid puzzle pieces scattered throughout the game. This is the first time I’m playing the Final Mix game and I’m just seething at the lack of abilities I currently do not have that prevents me from reaching certain pieces.

*Auron was instantaneously my favorite character when I first played FFX twenty years ago, and his return in KH2 sent me in fangirlish squeals. How could I not? Look at this handsome bastard. He’s calm, collected, badass with a cool sword, has rugged good looks (he doesn’t have it here, but he rocks some killer shades), and a good dad. That’s prime DILF quality right there. Of course I can’t get enough of him.

Square Enix knows we can’t get enough of him; dude be all “fuck off hades” and gives the god the middle fingers and fucks off elsewhere. Auron is King Shit.

*Oh man, do I still have my old Sora figurine? I think I got him in Katsucon way back in 2009.

*So who’s done a drinking game every time the game introduces Sora, Donald, and Goofy individually to every character they meet?

*Hey, so I noticed Square Enix is finally moving their asses and bringing the Ultimania books to the US. I doubt they’re going to bring the older KH Ultimanias overseas (my kingdom for an officially translated FFIX one), but ya know. I kinda think that yeah, I might want the KHIII Ultimania.

...Just saying.

*GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK! GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK! GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK! GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK!

GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK!

#kingdom hearts #neoyi talks #kingdom hearts II

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mimiplaysgames · 3 years

Text

Terra Week Day 2 (Youth/Fashion)

Summary: All Terra wants to do is be calm before the storm. Then Lea plays a joke on him. And Isa talks to him about the past. Life is full of lemons and lemonade. | Word Count: 3,306

Read on AO3

A/N: For Terra Week 2021! You can find that account on Twitter!

~*~*~*~*~

The Tenets of a Master, Ch. 2

Our hearts live free in our Youth Children shine Light with their truth

“Let me tell you something—don’t get offended, okay?”

Terra’s answer is a nervous chuckle.

“Cross your heart,” Lea insists.

“I don’t know what that means.”

It’s a sunny afternoon at the eastern shore of Destiny Islands. Lea props his elbow on their shared beach table, ignoring his empty plate (he’s planning on being last for the barbecue, all for the extra saturation of flavor on the scraps). Terra is enjoying a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, pulp included. Lea narrows his eyes as if scanning Terra’s face, who is slurping another gulp.

“Are you bothered by the way I’m drinking?”

“I’m trying to decide if you’re the type to kick me under the table or punch me in the face.”

��That sounds more like Aqua.”

“She’d really—?”

“If you’re rude. Yeah.”

Lea smirks. “How rude, exactly?”

Terra was going to say that he’s seen her curse twice in the lifetime he’s known her, but something about that embarrasses him. Something about the way Lea studies him, about the way the other Keybearers address him so formally when they’re much more relaxed with each other. It makes him feel targeted. He’s never considered that he was weird until he’s surrounded by other people.

“Why don’t you spit out what you want to say.”

“What’s with the uniform?” Lea asks, pointing vaguely at his chest and arm. “The crossed suspenders, the armor… You could break bones with those fancy shoes.”

“They’re… proper attire for a wielder? This is the crest of Mastery.” Terra points to his belt buckle. “To remind you of your goals. The armor to protect you from Darkness.” He holds his forearm, rubbing the metal like a friend in need of comfort. “The cross is a label, the Mark of Duty, so that anyone in need can find you.”

Lea snorts and immediately pulls out his Gummiphone, typing a quick message with a grin that knows an inside joke. Holding his chin, he opens his mouth as if to say something, then shakes his head and all the words out of it. “Exactly my point.”

“Your point?”

“You three kind of carry yourselves like you have sticks up your asses.”

Terra chokes on his drink. “What?”

Lea puffs out his chest and broadens his shoulders—he’s trying to imitate someone stiff and intimidating, but it doesn’t work. Not with a lanky body like that. “Have you seen the way you walk?” He wiggles his shoulders robotically. “Like there’s a five-foot pole shoved right up the asshole, all the way to the forehead.”

Yeah, that would earn him a kick under the table if Aqua’s the one to hear it. At least, if anything, Lea makes it easy to smile.

“Admit it. You think the armor is cool.” Terra sure did when he forged it for the first time, telling Aqua that his first beta mold was not big enough.

Lea is quick to shut up, choosing his words too carefully. “A jacket would be nice. The peacoat types with the elbow padding.”

“Or a cloak.” Terra chugs the last of his juice.

“Not a bad idea. Would look good with the hair.” Lea points up to Terra’s spiky crown. “You should talk to Isa. He likes to dress nice.” Standing up and crossing to the other side, he shoves Terra in the shoulder. “But seriously. You scare the other kids. We should address that.”

Terra swallows, his juice thick and gooey.

It’s not really their fault, is it?

Maybe Terra is paranoid, but it seems like Roxas is avoiding him. Not that he deserves any blame—Roxas must have lots of stories to tell about Terra’s face. After all, it’s strange for Terra to look at someone with Ven’s face but with all the misplaced expressions. Right now, Roxas is the furthest away from Terra in the group, choosing to stand near the water with hands in his pockets. Riku is next to him, carrying two plates. They’re listening to Ven talk.

Xion keeps to herself, but she also has a hard time looking Terra in the eyes. Terra’s been tempted to ask about her story, how she’s gotten here and whether Terra’s face has hurt her, but he’s afraid to ask. She’s with Kairi and Aqua, sharing fruity drinks with pineapple wedges on the rims.

“I scare them?”

“You are like a robot about to punch anyone who looks at you wrong. You need some sway. You know, like you’re a buddy. A teddy bear. Give me a hug, you know, that kind of vibe?”

Terra’s never thought about it before. Master Eraqus emphasized the pride, the strength, the confidence. Walk it and you shall embody it. To be professional is to be trusted. But times have changed, and Terra needs to catch up. “Will you show me?”

The way Lea walks is the type you see among scheming minions guarding a castle atop grassless mountains (at least from the picture books Terra used to read as a kid). The sort of bravado that promises some and lies even more. Everyone thinks Lea is fun to hang around with, though (and truthfully, he is). He’d know better, and if this helps to melt the ice and make everyone comfortable with Terra, so be it.

“More weight to your step,” Lea says, ending his sentence with a pop and snapping his fingers. He straightens up to imitate Terra’s posture, almost on his toes. “You’re up here, like you’re trying not to shit yourself.”

That sounds easy enough. Terra swings his arms more, bending his knees every time he plants his foot so that he bobs up and down. It earns finger-points, whoops and snickers from the others. Lea brags about what a good job he’s done, signaling to Roxas specifically who shakes his head in disapproval (Ven looks toward the horizon out of embarrassment).

Aqua has a tight smile and pretends to sip when Terra approaches. She leans close and whispers, “What have you been drinking?”

“A crappy sense of humor.”

As much as Aqua wants to fight it, she snorts, and hands him her drink, speaking even lower so no one hears. “I bet ten munny this is better.”

It’s too sweet.

“Lea is so mean. He thinks you’re such an easy target,” Xion says, staring at the sand. That smile though is bingo, an improvement above the rest, so Lea’s done his job. She pulls out her Gummiphone and starts to type. Glancing at Terra, she corrects herself, “Sir.”

There’s no need for Sir but should Terra tell her that to make it more casual or would that be disrespectful to her wishes?

A mock-laugh echoes through the beach when Lea checks his phone and lets everyone know that he still is very proud of himself. Xion sticks her tongue out at him.

“I think it’s good for him, having this much fun,” Kairi says, swirling her straw. “Sometimes Lea can get too serious.”

That doesn’t sound like Lea but Terra notices how engrossed he is in typing on his phone without a smile, totally not engaged in the conversation Roxas is having with Riku. Maybe Terra doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does. Maybe first impressions are fallacies.

Smiles can be painted.

Like Kairi’s, her small grin a mask that doesn’t suit her. Terra would act the same, too, if one of his best friends, his family really, went missing.

“Naminé and the others are on their way,” Kairi says after she checks her phone. “We should go to her.”

“They’re not meeting us here?” Aqua asks.

“The sunset is much nicer on the other side of the island.” There goes Kairi’s painted smile. “But the water is bluer here. Good photo ops no matter where you are.”

“It’s a simple walk over, right?”

“Yes, ma’am. You’ll recognize the spot.”

The island is small, connected by caves and overcrowded with palm trees that hide how far the beach stretches. For some reason there’s a lingering ache somewhere in Terra’s stomach. He’s been at this beach before, but he is skeptical of that, as if the last and only time he was here was some sort of déja vu but he can’t picture what he’s supposed to remember.

Maybe this is coming from Xehanort. That thought alone is both worrisome and exciting.

“You ok?”

Riku lags behind with him as the rest of the group hikes through the sand. Aqua turns her back over and motions to do the same. It makes sense why she’s concerned—Terra is making it look like he’s isolating himself.

“I’m fine, just…” This world is so small. How crazy it is that it was that long ago when Terra sensed how Riku felt the same way. So much truth spoken in this small cluster of sand and water.

Riku knowingly places his hands on his waist. Terra’s living protegé, successor, superior, all humility wrapped in pride with something that looks similar to guilty written on his face.

“I think I need some alone time. Tell Aqua five minutes,” Terra says.

Riku smiles like he’s been there, done that millions of times before. “Will do.” He steps off, giving Aqua a wave of his hand that stops her in her tracks.

When the voices fade and the water laps and crashes, Terra listens for something foreign but familiar. He follows the trail of shoe marks in the sand slowly, stepping stones to a moment he hopes might set off a little spark. Setting aside the vague fear of connecting hearts with someone dead and dangerous, he’s hoping for a lightning bolt, a sudden flash and then boom, he knows Rainfell is safe and sound.

But what he feels is as vacant as the ocean sprawled before him, like he’s stared at it for years. It’s making him anxious, how he wants to walk the surface and see what’s on the other side of the horizon. If the water drops off the edge of a cliff, if he falls all the way down to hell.

And then, nothing. His heart sinks.

But why, though? Being spared from connecting to Xehanort means he gets to keep some sanity—

—but it also means that he’ll never reconnect with Master Eraqus ever again. Death is death, a door that goes one way.

Maybe Terra is a terrible person for being so disappointed.

A buzz in his pocket snaps him back to a reality where the sun is on its way to setting, and just like that, Terra feels lighter.

He’s expecting a text from Aqua or Ven, but what he gets is:

kairi

at waterfall icymi

icymi?

Terra looks around for a sign. Shouts and laughter whisper from somewhere far away, followed by a splash of water.

“Lost?”

Behind him is none other than Isa, put together in a tracksuit so impeccable it’d be a shame to sweat in.

“I’m looking for Iseemee Waterfall.”

“Excuse me?”

“I think that’s where everyone else is.” Terra shows him the screen.

Isa purses his lips as though he has found something amusing. “This island only marches in two directions. We’ll pass by it eventually.” He gestures to invite Terra to accompany him—come to think of it, Isa tends to keep to himself, his visits sparse and quick, usually speaking only when spoken to. “Ventus has offered a game of frisbee with me,” he says like it’s a blessing. “I found it to be very respectable.”

“He’s a good kid.” Terra can’t think of anything else to say except to repay the compliment. “Roxas is pretty cool.”

Isa flashes him a set of wide eyes before giving him a smile that’s equal parts unsettling and clairvoyant. “Roxas has his ways. You understand.”

“Of course.” Terra crosses his arms. The sand here sinks deep. “I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“Nothing.” Deadpan and matter-of-fact are words Terra would use to describe the way Isa speaks, with a touch of softness that is too vulnerable to let itself be transparent. “Roxas will need some time to adjust to your face.”

Terra sighs.

“You can bribe him with a game.” Isa’s smiles are controlled but sincere, a ghost given life again but not sure how to use it. “He likes to win.”

That seems so simple yet why has Terra never thought of it? “Thanks for the pointers.”

Silence settles with them alongside the seabirds gawking over them, not awkward but not comfortable either, bringing with it a loss for words and a question hanging in the air that doesn’t get asked. They finally arrive at the spot: the same place Terra’s been before, at the same pier with lazy trees that bend near-parallel to the ground and grow star-shaped fruit. Everyone else is already here, Naminé a beaming pillar of light in her white dress, shy and nervous to dip her toes in the water.

Isa takes a seat on a rockface next to the lowest-hanging tree.

“May I admit,” Isa says, his hands splayed on his lap as he watches the ocean turn purple, “it is also strange for me to look upon your face.” There’s no waver to his voice, no hesitation. Isa is brave.

“I don’t blame you.” Seems like a common theme: leave a trail of suffering, and everyone’s going to remember you for it. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something.”

“You may go ahead.”

“I want to help Aqua find her Keyblade.”

Even Isa’s chuckles have restraint and poise. “I wouldn’t know of such a thing.”

“I was the last one to have it.”

“You mean Xehanort.”

“Well…”

“A matter of a different person. I must insist so.”

“You knew him.”

“I did not. You overestimate the time he lived in your body. The majority of those years were under Xemnas’s control.”

“Xemnas.”

“His Nobody. Or rather, yours.”

Terra can’t help it. He has to chuckle. “I appreciate your straightforwardness.”

Isa turns to face him. “Lea tells me you consider the X crossed over your chest as a mark to bear with pride.”

It slaps Terra in the face. Isa has scars jutting across his nose, too deep to be self-inflicted. “Um… yeah.” He clears his throat. “We call it a Mark of Duty.”

Isa does not seem offended, but whether that is out of authenticity or politeness, Terra can’t read him.

“We’ve called it the Recusant’s Sigil,” Isa says slowly, eyes far away. “It bore us new names. Defined us so we refused to submit to our old identities, leaving us free to forge a united purpose.” He mimics the shape of the X with a finger across his chest. Cross my heart. “To the very end. That cross spelled an ending. We were all heretics to the person we once lived.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Terra whispers. The Master wore it proudly to the day of his own demise.

Isa touches his face. “Xemnas marked me deeper than the others.”

“I’m so sorry.” Terra gasps. “I don’t… I don’t have memory of that.”

“Ah.” A painted smile. If Isa hoped for some sort of validation or acknowledgment, Terra has failed spectacularly. “All the same, A Nobody’s path is a means to an end. We were all watched, weeded out for traitors.” Suddenly he does not look like Isa, but someone else with Isa’s face. “How Xemnas lacked the scope to understand us.”

“What do you mean?”

“We were perhaps experiments doomed to fail. The piece of Xehanort’s heart installed into us was supposed to swallow us whole. But the foundation of this concept was flawed. We kept memories of our human selves. That was supposed to make us superior to lesser Nobodies, but it was also our weak link. The goal was to keep us numb to them, so when we inevitably remembered, we’d have little care and wouldn’t dare stray from our duties.

“For me, the more I remembered the images, the more I remembered what I had sought out to do in my life.” Isa nods to himself. “Being a Nobody was supposed to give me strength to follow through, but it felt like shrinking. Until there came a point where I grew back. By then, I couldn’t fit myself anymore.”

“What were you trying to do before you became a Nobody?”

Isa passes him that knowing smile, a secret. “Finding a proper ending to my own story.” He exhales, content. “Do you have any memory from being Xemnas at all?”

“None.”

“What about from Xehanort?”

“No.”

Isa frowns. “Nothing in these past twelve years? Where were you?”

Thickness clogs Terra’s throat like a cork, painful to take down. He shrunk for twelve years, too, shoved into a corner of a room with no walls, black on black on black, as if light never existed. He’d move as if he had arms when he had none, flail and try to wake himself up when he had none. He wasn’t anyone or anything but a name.

He shouldn’t have lived for twelve years. But he did. He lived when he knew Eraqus was near, never seen except once (a bushy smile hidden under the mustache), never heard, never touched. When Terra tried to speak, tried to listen, tried to move and ask for help, he couldn’t. He just knew Eraqus was there to give him hope that the nightmare would stop. Thus he lived.

The part with Eraqus, Terra keeps to himself.

“I was Nowhere.”

“I can’t begin to comprehend what that is supposed to be like.”

“A loop,” Terra briskly answers, leaning onto the palm tree and breathing in the parched aroma of bark. The air is crisp with salt and it’s fanning out the heat of the sun from earlier that day. There is laughter and the relaxing crunch of waves and a humid layer on his skin—everything he couldn’t get in Nowhere. “I played the same memory of my nineteenth birthday for one hundred times. I don’t know why I chose that memory so much, I guess I thought that was as good as it was going to get. The same conversations, the same jokes, over and over again. I made sure to get everyone’s voices right so I wouldn’t forget.

“But after the fiftieth time, I’d beg Aqua to say something different, but she never did. I’d try to ask Ven a new question but it never escaped my mouth. I could only act the part I was supposed to. Over and over again. When I was tired of it, I went back to Nowhere and waited.

“I only kept going because… I think I wanted to live. On a loop. I wanted to, then I didn’t. Then I did.

“You never know what kind of thoughts will hit you when you think you’ve decided to let go. At random times, it—” He sounds like a stranger to himself. “I convinced myself that this will never end. That I’ll be punished forever. I needed to burn out once and for all.

“And when I’d get to that point, I’d realize some things. I’d realize that I never made things right with my friends, so I told myself that I had to get through this, and get myself out.

“Then I remember I’ll never be free. I’m so tired. But I’ve never had my first kiss, so I have to get out of this if I’m ever going to experience it.

“Then you decide to play your most humiliating memory to find out exactly what you did wrong, when you’ve made your best friend cry. It makes you want to forget everything and rest. But—and this is going to sound weird—I’ve never ordered food at a restaurant before. So, if I ever will, I must get out of this.”

#kh terra #terra #kingdom hearts fanfiction #kh fanfic #lea #isa #okay so I don't think my first chapter is a strong intro but i get better #my fic

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minijenn · 3 years

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8 Favorite Works of the Year

So I wasn’t tagged to do this but I kinda wanted to anyway. Because I did a lot of creating this year and dangit I wanna look back on it fondly, so...

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 8 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome work!

To be fair I’m gonna pick four pieces of art and four chapters from my fics, two of each from either Keys or UF to be fair about things. With that said here we go, in kind of no particular order! Starting with fics:

Keys to the Kingdom, Chapter 22: Rise and Fall and Rise Again: So I wrote this chapter kind of at the start of all the Covid/lockdown madness, when I had just started working from home and felt kinda trapped inside my own apartment, with a lingering sense of doom hanging over my head just about every day (something that hasn’t really gone away). As a result, I poured my emotions into this one, a chapter I’d been planning for such a long time, only for it to come out even better than I could have expected! I think this is where Keys really starts to get good (well, this one and the chapter right before it that leads into it). Its the longest chapter of Keys (so far) and it really is just a ton of angst and hurt and comfort and kind of a pretty good character study for both Sora and Kairi if you ask me, and it does pave the way for Keys 2nd arc (which we’re knee deep in the middle of now!). Overall it has a lot of very poignant lines in it, a lot of emotional scenes, and some pretty cute moments of fluff mixed in to leave you feeling good, its a real treat every time I go back to revisit it.

Universe Falls, Ch. 80, Part 1: Rifts: So this year was kinda sparse on really BIG UF chapters, but Rifts is for sure probably the biggest chapter in UF yet. And I’m so, so proud of it, I think it has some incredible high points of action in it, its very intense and emotional and the situation just keeps building from bad to worse and you really just feel for Steven, and Dipper, and Stepper alike and Bill is such an asshole in it and gah! Its so good I love it so much and I had such a fun time writing it, especially after waiting YEARS to finally get the chance to. I think its fantastic.

Keys to the Kingdom, Ch. 27: What Once Was Mine: This is absolutely my favorite Disney world chapter in the entire fic so far (tho that second Beauty and the Beast chapter comes REALLY close to it!); it has such a broad range of emotions, starting out really fun and lighthearted and sweet and then it starts spiraling into fear and pain and intensity and finally it bottoms out at sheer despair, culminating in probably one of my favorite Trinity Trio scenes in this entire fic. Its not always easy mixing Keys’ original plot elements with the Disney stuff, but in this chapter it felt so natural to do so, like the Tangled stuff just fit so well. I love how it turned out and it really is another big turning point in the fic’s trajectory if you ask me.

Universe Falls, Ch. 80, Part 3: Dimensions: So I ALMOST picked Memories for this list (and don’t get me wrong, I LOVE it!) but I think Dimensions has it beat by just a hair. Its just so intense and dramatic from start to end, with a huge epic battle against Bill, a real show of just how much Steven and Dipper care for each other, emotional reactions from just about the entire squad, and lasting impacts for the rest of the fic. I think it was a perfect way to conclude a trilogy of chapters I’d been so excited about writing since UF’s earliest days, and I’ll never stop being proud of how it all came together in the end.

And now we move onto some art!

The RMD Promo art was a fun little pet project I wanted to take on, more for me than for the chapters itself. They’re all pretty symbolic to the tone/events of each chapter, from coloring, to posing, to the flower symbolism (which was so fun to research and implement), plus I can never pass up the opportunity to draw my best boy Stepper!

My Castle of Dreams Sokai piece really just blew up in popularity here on Tumblr. Again it was just something fun and cute I wanted to do, because I have the moment envisioned so vividly in my mind I figured might as well draw it out and I still think it looks so nice, the way these two are looking at each other with such love in their eyes is.... 100% if ya ask me

The Dimensions cover fucking popped off. The coloring, the dynamic posing, the expressions, I really did kinda flex on this one. Yet for as many moving parts as there are in it, its a very simple piece as well, though I do kinda love the idea of Bill just... looming over everyone coming to kick his ass; it really is accurate to how the chapter itself goes down if ya ask me.

Ok so I know I literally just fucking posted this thing yesterday but I’m proud of it (also I made a self-imposed rule that commissions aren’t allowed to be in this, only art I drew of my own volition) and I drew this yesterday mostly for funsies and it... kinda got intense. Anyway, I’m trying to learn how to pose KH characters more dynamically and this was part of that. And I loooooove how creepy it is, its hella cool on that front if ya ask me.

So yeah, I’m supposed to tag people who wanna do this but ehhhghghghghghg just go ahead and do the damn thing if you feel like it, I mean i wasn’t tagged and here I am so go nuts :3

#jen rambles #jen draws #jen writes #8 favorite works of the year #kingdom hearts #universe falls #keys to the kingdom #gravity falls #steven universe

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kenzichi · 3 years

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Summary: Riku gets an unexpected visit from Roxas. Post KH3.

Note: Totally self indulgent. Don’t mind it too much lol.

Riku pinched the bridge of his nose. His eyes were burning from lack of sleep. His appearance probably didn’t look like much either. He needed to get off the database. He took one more look at the Sora in the computer screen before he stood up and hastily removed his jacket. He threw it onto the stool and walked outside Merlin’s house.

But once he did he had no idea what he wanted to do. His eyes stung at the morning- morning? -Midday sun. There was no one walking along the streets which was usual for this time of day. Maybe Leon and the others were visiting Kairi? He needed to do that soon.

"Hey." Came an unexpected greeting followed by footsteps. He turned to see Roxas walking towards him. Wait-

"R-Roxas!" It had been months since Riku had last seen him. Since the final battle over half a year ago in fact. "What are you doing here?" Roxas had never been to Radiant Garden as far as he knew. And he had no connection with anyone here so for him to be here...

"I came to check up on you." Roxas smiled, hands in his pockets.

"Me?" Riku was taken aback. Roxas certainly didn't seem like he was the type to pay friendly visits and they weren’t friends even if they didn't hold a grudge against each other.

"Yup." Roxas replied with a smile that worried Riku for some reason. "Let's fight!"

"What?"

"You heard me." Roxas stepped closer until he was a few feet away from him.

"Why would I-?"

"You owe me a fair, finished fight. Last time you turned into that man. A cheap trick to win." Roxas glared up at him.

Riku subconsciously gripped his wrist that Roxas had injured in that very fight. Riku had thought this was all in the past. But looking at Roxas it seemed he still wasn't quite over it.

"I want to fight you for real this time." Roxas summoned his Kingdom Key without breaking eye contact. "Real ‘till the end!" He announced. Riku had no time to protest before he had to summon his own keyblade to block Roxas swinging down from straight above. The impact sent Riku sliding backwards on the stone pavement.

"Roxas!" Riku yelled angrily. What the hell? That hit would have been really bad! Is he being serious?

The impact of the hit sent a stinging aftershock through Riku’s legs straight to his ankles. He winced and fell onto one knee.

I... I know I haven't been training much, but...

Roxas scoffed, "Are you serious? Have you just been fooling around since Sora disappeared?"

"Of course not!"

"Prove it then." Roxas replied sourly. He broke into a run. "Come at me!"

Just as Roxas had reached him, Riku sprinted under Roxas’ swing as if to run, but as soon as he was right behind him he halted suddenly, spun around and swung his keyblade towards his opponent. But Roxas turned around just as fast and blocked his attack.

Roxas smiled, "Ahh, there's the Riku I remember! Give me a good fight, alright!" They pushed each other back with their blades and put some distance between themselves.

"I don't have time for this." Riku practically hissed. Not while Sora is still out there. We’re wasting time!

"You have time." Roxas retorted. "By the looks of you, this will be over real quick."

Riku narrowed his eyes, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Roxas leaped towards Riku to close the gap between them. With both hands he swung towards Riku’s left side, but Riku blocked. Roxas swung again in the same spot, harder this time. "Exactly how it sounds!" Roxas lunged forward and slammed his shoulder into Riku’s chest, knocking him backwards. Riku stumbled wide eyed.

"What happened to the strongest kid on the islands? Keyblade Master Riku?" Before Riku could regain his balance, Roxas started an excessive chain of swings that Riku couldn’t help, but block helplessly against.

Riku felt cornered. Roxas wasn't giving him any chance to counter. All he could do was make sure Roxas didn’t run him into a dead end.

Roxas’ blows started to slow down just slightly, but enough for a seasoned fighter like Riku to notice. He’s getting tired... "Brings you back to the islands, huh? Just like old times, right?" Roxas said in between breaths.

Huh? Why would he bring up the islands?

Just as Riku thought that, Roxas took a big gasp before going in for another swing. Now! Riku quickly cast a single thunder bolt to strike between them.

Roxas jumped backwards before the attack could hit. Riku let out a heavy breath, relieved they were no longer so close.

Roxas chuckled at the exchange they just had. What’s with him? Was he making fun of him?

Riku clinched his teeth. That magic attack seemed like nothing, but it was more to get him off his back than to cause injury. And he felt like Roxas knew that too. That’s why he had that irritating smirk on his face.

Roxas lifted his keyblade into the air and cast firaga. A plethora of fireballs came flying towards them.

Riku gasped. He couldn't dodge. They were surrounded by buildings. Not to mention Merlin’s house with their only clue to finding Sora in a long time. Quickly, Riku ran in front of Merlin’s house and managed to produce a larger dark barrier than usual and deflected as many fireballs as he could back at Roxas. Without missing a beat, Riku released dark barrier and cast waterza on the fires that were quickly building up around them.

Riku let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Through the smoke he saw Roxas standing on the other side of the walk area, waiting patiently for him.

Riku steadied his breath before clinching his fists. "Are you an idiot?! People live here! Don't throw reckless magic around!"

"This is a real fight remember?" Roxas replied. "If you don't like it, stop me."

Riku had had it. He charged at Roxas so fast he was only a flash of dark energy. Roxas had no idea he had this ability. He certainly didn’t have it in The World That Never Was. Before he could react, Riku appeared before him, grabbed him by the collar, and shoved him to the ground. He knelt down on Roxas’ weapon-wielding hand, causing his grip to loosen and his keyblade to disappear. Riku slammed the end of his Braveheart into the ground next to Roxas’ head. "That's enough. Playtime is over."

“But we were just getting warmed up!" Roxas chuckled.

"Stop screwing around!" Riku yelled, clinching the boy's shirt tighter. He was straddling him and with his arm pinned down Roxas couldn’t move.

"Would you treat Sora like this too?" Riku paused. "On the islands," Roxas continued. "is this how you were when you fought with Sora?" There was no underlying playfulness to his words this time.

Why is he bringing up Sora? And the islands? No. This was nothing like that. Even when Riku was mad he still enjoyed his sword fights with Sora. Even when he was clouded by jealousy; he just wanted to be close to him. But right now Roxas was just pissing him off. "Why do you keep bringing weird things up?" Riku demanded.

With his free hand, Roxas gripped the fists that were holding him by the collar. "Kiss me."

Riku froze.

"You miss Sora don't you? It’s obvious to everyone. And sad, really. Even I’m starting to pity you."

"What are you saying?" What does he mean ‘everyone’? "You don't know anything." I'm fine. I'm the same as usual. Did someone put him up to this?

"So much so that you shut yourself away from everyone for 2 months."

But... I haven’t. Right? I’ve done plenty these past few months... Riku quickly thought back to his current day to day life. He would wake up, check the database, eat (maybe), run scans on the database, check on Kairi at the castle, train for an hour... maybe less, go back to check the database...

"We know about the computer in there. You unlocked everything you could on that thing and there are still no answers. So why are you still always on it?"

Riku looked away. "There could still be a clue." He answered quietly. He did truly believe that, but he also couldn’t deny just seeing Sora’s image on the screen comforted him. "Anyway, it doesn’t concern you. You do things your way on your end and I’ll do the same-"

Roxas sat up on his elbow, "It does concern me! Sora wouldn't want you to spend your days staring at a computer!"

"I'm fine. I don't need your twisted help." Riku let go of Roxas' collar and started to stand, but Roxas kept his grip on Riku’s wrists, keeping him close.

"But I look like him don't I? Remind you of him?" He pulled Riku so close their bodies were touching. Riku could feel Roxas’ body heat through their sweaty clothes. He felt a knot form in his throat. "I don't think Sora would mind. Not if it was to help you."

"Stop." Riku lowered his head. Despite them being so different, Roxas was still Sora’s nobody and they almost looked exactly the same. Their builds were strikingly similar. Not to mention their eyes. Riku squeezed his eyes shut, ashamed they were even having this conversation. Ashamed he was actually feeling something. Did everyone feel this much pity towards him? Was he really that miserable looking?

Roxas grabbed Riku’s shirt, and pulled him closer. "Look at me." He said as softly as he could. Eventually, Riku did. He saw Riku’s eyes for the first time that day. Tired and sad. Eyes that hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks. "I know you want to. So kiss me."

Of course he wanted to! Or rather, of course he wanted to, with Sora! To touch him and kiss him. Somehow, now that he knew his true feelings for Sora, it only made it harder for Riku to be away from him.

"Kiss me like you would Sora." Roxas ran a hand through Riku’s hair, "Touch me like you would Sora." He wrapped his arms around Riku’s neck, "He wouldn’t want you to suffer like this anymore."

He wouldn’t, huh?

Every night he’d dream of a city with towering buildings. Shining signs and bustling roads. And every day he’d imagine Sora next to him, talking to him, like a curse.

Every day, since having those dreams of the city, Sora would lean into him when they talked. Lay a gentle hand on his shoulder whenever he laughed. He’d smile up at him and say his name. He’d pout when he lost at a game of Rock Paper Scissors to decide who got to take a bath first. But then Riku would be forgiven when he let Sora have the last piece of meat for dinner.

When Riku was settling in for the night it was only a matter of minutes before Sora came to his room. Sora would lay down onto his bed before he even had the chance to. Riku would caress Sora’s spiky brown hair he loved so much.

And Sora would laugh.

He’d wrap his arms around Riku’s waist and nuzzle close to him. They would talk about their day of training even though they had just spent the whole day training, together. Sora would fall asleep telling his stories and only then would Riku kiss him good night because that was the only time he was brave enough to do it. But Sora wouldn’t be asleep. And he’d demand Riku kiss him again. And again and again. And each kiss would be less nerve wrecking than the last. Riku would fall asleep feeling Sora’s warm skin and soft lips. And his slim frame that fit so perfectly against his muscular one. And he would wake up the next day and realize it was all a dream, or an illusion, or whatever the hell it was.

And it would start all over again.

So when Riku actually felt a warm (real), gentle hand run through his hair... Soft, slender fingers against his neck, he was so tempted. Oh so tempted. And for a flicker of a second he did see Sora’s face in Roxas. Riku gently let his fingertips brush away the strands of blond bangs on Roxas’ forehead. He wanted to imagine they were Sora’s messy brown ones. Imagine his flushed cheeks were Sora’s, bright and pink. His eyes were the exact same blue as Sora’s it almost scared him. Riku clinched his fist on the pavement.

But Roxas was not Sora no matter how much they looked alike.

"No." Riku finally replied. "You’re not a replacement for Sora. And you know that better than anyone. Sora... He told you that." Riku said, eyebrows furrowed.

Roxas stared at him for a bit before closing his eyes, sighing. "He did... didn’t he..." His grip around Riku’s neck loosened, but he didn’t completely let him go.

"You and Sora. Even if I tried... I could never mistake you. You, who’s so quick to anger." He smiled genuinely, the hand playing in Roxas’ hair now on his cheek. "You, Roxas, with the sharp tongue and the presence so strong an enemy would shutter as soon as you entered the area." Roxas’ eyes widened. "Whereas-"

"Whereas, Sora," Roxas continued, "is the one who would brighten up any room as soon as he entered it." He smiled small. "And Sora, who could never say a bad thing about anyone no matter how much they deserved it."

Riku nodded, “Yeah.”

Roxas felt so stupid, but relieved. Roxas stiffened under Riku, suddenly feeling self conscious at their positions. He let his hands fall from Riku’s shoulders to his chest. "Yeah..." He whispered.

......................

"If we had gone through with it, would you have hated it?" Roxas looked up from the half empty glass of water in his hands. He hadn't realized he had zoned out. The little lamp on Merlin's table stung his eyes. Had he dozed off? The tall, red chair at Merlin’s table was cozier than it looked.

Roxas looked across the room. Riku was on that damn computer again, staring intently at the screen. "Sorry... What did you say?" Roxas asked.

Riku let out a long sigh, "Nothing. Forget I said anything."

Roxas groggily looked back down at his hands. The hands he used to touch Riku. The hand he used to caress Riku’s hair.

Back when he had dreams about Sora, Roxas recalled Sora always looking at Riku. He always admired his height, his strength, and his long, silver hair. The silver hair Sora secretly longed to touch...

Roxas closed his eyes.

I’m sorry, Sora.

If they had gone further, would he have liked it? His feelings for Riku, Sora’s feelings for Riku, weld up in his stomach. Even though I’m not Sora... Sora’s memories, Sora’s feelings for Riku were still imbedded in his heart. So had Riku desired it, he would have kept going.

Roxas’ chest tightened.

He was a terrible person.

"I know you want to. So kiss me... Like you would Sora." Roxas ran a hand through Riku’s hair, "Touch me like you would Sora."

Riku clinched his teeth before leaning in and kissing the blond on the lips. And Roxas parted his lips instantly, welcoming Riku’s touch.

#kingdom hearts #fanfic #fanfiction #roxas #riku #kingdom hearts 3

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