#i started playing kingdom hearts again and got to the bit with maleficent and was just like HOLY SHIT??? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

joelmmd · 3 months

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kingdom hearts post again. finished kh2!

couldn't bring myself to keep going for 100% and do all of data organization 13. it took me like a day just to beat 2 of the bosses and i wasn't feeling like grinding the rest out after that and Especially wasn't looking forward to doing the same with lw. i'll probably come back to wrap all that up later, though.

i had a lot of fun with the game! one of my complaints with kh1 was that the combat was ~1 layer of depth away from being engaging for the whole 30 or so hours you'd be playing for, and kh2 has remedied it pretty well. forms are cool and add extra strategy when it comes to which one to use and when, keyblades coming with their own abilities makes it worth switching them around for reasons that aren't just "this has the highest strength/magic", and i feel like some of the abilities here are a lot more impactful than the first game's. the new mp system is weird but ultimately good, rewards players for not getting hit for a while and doesn't enable "fuck you" attacks by letting you stock up like 20 cures to make them not matter. not a fan of using cure Once meaning you can't use magic at all until it recharges but it is how it is.

enemy/boss design (gameplay-wise) is still not great. i'm starting to think this is always the case, and that you just don't see the cracks until the game starts demanding really good play from you. it's harder to get mad about some bullshit way you got hit if it only did like 1/5 of your health, but when it starts putting you at 1 hp you have to actually confront the move and realize "wow that's not ok".

the worlds were really good this time around. definitely appreciated how the game stopped caring so much about justifying why you're helping out the disney guy or riding a skateboard or doing a musical, they just let you do it. i didn't hear a thing about "Sora you aren't allowed to meddle in these worlds!!! Let's just get the keyhole and leave" and it was great.

standout mentions are the pirate world for the realistic ass ghouls & CJS's party member icon looking edited in, halloween town for having christmas town in it, lion king world for being the most egregiously "oc" yet (my lion oc is just a kid but he's super strong... he has spiky brown hair and dark fur and attacks with a Weapon instead of claws and stuff), and timeless river for just being great, it's probably my favorite. they all felt a bit short, though. probably a good thing for some of them, but i would've loved to have more to do after finishing them than just fighting mushrooms.

the story sucks dick. feels as bad as the first game's with way more steps to get there. organization 13 are fine antagonists but they're fighting for the spotlight with fucking Pete. and maleficent. pete really doesn't feel like the right character for "harbinger of darkness with plot to take over world". they end up doing jack dick anyways so i have to ask if they're only here to make sure the tone stays light and to keep the focus at least a little on disney.

i also don't like the whole "nobodies don't have feelings and don't exist and dont have hearts so they're basically nonpeople and it's ok that they're never happy" thing, it feels really weird compared to the rest of the game being generally optimistic and hopeful. especially with the game saying "darkness isn't bad and we need both it and light", feels like a step forward and then a step back in philosophy. waste of potential too! it's a lot harder to get invested in any future nobodies (assuming there are any) if you plain up say they don't have emotion or feelings.

i don't know if i'd say the writing's so bad, there were a few charming moments here and there that stuck with me and it was a lot less "No! The darkness... The light of the heart, Kingdom Hearts, the heartless the darkness... Kairi... Your light..." than the first game. part of it's definitely helped by the better voice acting across the board. there were for sure less moments where it got noticeably bad, and they actually bothered to bring in the whole winnie the pooh cast this time. sora's the big winner here, though, his performance here really elevated the character for me. or maybe he's just more interesting with the extra few years under his belt.

lightning round-prologue is neat in how it kind of prepares you for the real game but it's like 3 hours long, sora's new outfit & the form variations are pretty cool, reaction commands aren't as intrusive as i expected, limits are fun but i usually just healed instead, cure becoming an aoe is a change i like a lot, switching the target you're locked onto is bound to right trigger + flick right stick and it fucking sucks, being able to move the camera around while locked on is pretty great, and donald & goofy were a bit more capable this time around. still died a lot but they very rarely got on my nerves.

long, but i think i've said what i wanted to say. fun times. moving on to Dream Drop Distance now, which i've already got my hopes a bit lowered for from trying it out before. can't imagine it's gonna suck or anything though, as long as i can swing my funny keyblade as riku the game can only be so bad.

#classic ''post about my thoughts on something i just finished''#realistically just a review but i like to be difficult about these things

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bananaapplewaffle · 2 years

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A Twisted Halloween: Books 2 and 3: A Monster Blight and School-Wide Fright

Time for Books 2 and 3!

Book 2’s bit will be separated by dorm btw.

Heartslabyul

I’ve decided to be insane and “multitask”.

So, I’m playing this and Genshin’s Weinlesefest Event

LET MY MANS RIDDLE GO

LET HIM COLLAR THEM

Well I guess that’s that on this crisis

Savanaclaw

Yeah I already know the situation with Savanaclaw and I’m pissed.

Wait Ruggie hear me out

What if y’all did bite them

It’s not okay to lay your hands on guests, but what if they lay hands first, then what?

Octavinelle

Crewel, thinking everything will be fine with the Octavinelle trio:

Floyd: I’m gonna start squeezing

AND JADE IS JUST LIKE

“Tbh, let’em go for it”

ADLAS;DKASLASL;

AZUL

I REALLY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER

CREWEL ALSO ENABLING

Scarabia

Trein: Everything should be fine

Jamil: AND SO I DECIDED TO GO APE SHIT

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

IM LOSING MY FUCKING MIND

WHOOPPEEEEEE

Kalim, about to explain:

Jamil, even more pissed: No fuck you, let me speak

I FUCKEN KNEW IT

NOT THE WIGGITY WACK

WHAT

THEY BOUGHT THE WAFFLES

AND DIDN’T EVEN EAT THEM

THOSE MONSTERS

I FORGOT JAMIL HATES BUGS

THAT’S WHY HE’S SO FUCKING MAD

Jamil, seeing a big in his room: I gotta burn this bitch to the ground

Now hear me out, Trein…what if they did light their asses on fire

KLEEEEEEE

BENNETT

Anyway!

Pomefiore

HE REALLY THREW A FUCKING GLOVE

THROW WHOLE DORM AWAY

THEY’RE FURIOUS????

WHO COULD TELL???

PERIODT EPEL

LET THAT COUNTRY FREE

I LOVE YOU COUNTRY BOYYYYYY

Ignihyde

I def have heard about the shit happening here

Real pissed about this one

ORTHO GOING FOR THE KILL SHOT

MONA AND FISCHL

Anyway…had to take a detour to unlock the next part

Really love how Ortho was gonna just blast’em and they didn’t take him seriously

Wildin’

Ortho: They caught me lacking, but next time…

Diasomina

ALBEDO?????

I’m coming for you (again) on your next rerun

You better come home

Where the hell am I dawg

NOOOOOOOOOO

Damn it was terrible knowing you for that five seconds, Man A.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

THE SHO MINAMIMOTO LINE

Sho would never behave like this tho.

Malleus is gonna fucking kill them

THEY WAS TRYNA ENTER MY HOUSE

NAH NAH NAH

LET MALLEUS STRIKE THEM DOWN

THEY BROKE INTO MY HOUSE

WHY AM I ON THE FLOOR????

Onto Book 3!

OH HEY

BACK IN THE FUCKING STORY

Y’ALL HAVE RUINED GRIM’S HALLOWEEN

I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS SHIT

Fuck you, Vil.

Really just steamrolled pass Grim and I’s issue.

Welp know where this is going

GIRL WHAT

I WAS EXPECTING VANDALISM BUT NOT THIS

THEY TOOK THE FUCKING STATUES

Oh okay

They just pushed them over

Why weren’t they like solidified on their pedestals tho????

I love how The Evil Queen is the big bad of this story

When I’m from Kingdom Hearts and Maleficent is the big bad lol

BOZOS ONCE AGAIN

How the hell do the ghosts suddenly know when they said they didn’t see anything

Plus Cater already identified them.

Okay nevermind

IT'S NOT Y’ALL FAULT

ITS CROWLEY FOR NOT SHUTTING THIS SHIT DOWN

STUDENTS HAVE BEEN ASSAULTED

ITS TIME TO STOP

IF AINT NO BODY GOT ME

THE RAMSHACKLE GHOSTS GOT ME

Finally a voice of reason

NOT A TIME TO BE POINTING FINGERS?????

Vil I swear to god—

What do y’all mean what?

No no no

Don’t cancel it all together

The students deserve it at least

Crewel…

THE ALREADY ASSAULTED SOME OF THEM

THE REST OF THE FACULTY WHO???

Ion like y’all faces

I don’t how to take that, Azul.

Mfkers finna get exposed in 4K

Deuce and Grim: So basically…

Deuce and Grim: Y’ALL AIN’T SAYING SHIT

Crewel knows something is up

AND HE IS ONCE AGAIN ENABLING

Love to see it.

Twisted Ramblings

#waffle plays twst #a twisted halloween

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captainshadowshifter · 2 years

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Why do they look so alike 🥲

#i started playing kingdom hearts again and got to the bit with maleficent and was just like HOLY SHIT???#i hate that im not wrong.#but also. i do not.#slbu vex

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godess-ofthe-underworld · 3 years

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Love Finds A Way (sequel to "See You Again) {A Harry Hook x Reader story}

Summary: You would think that six months in Auradon would do any villain kid good. Well, not Hadley. After the events of the Coronation, Hadley's mood took a downward spiral; and for one reason, guilt. She'd broken a promise and left her best friend on the Isle of the Lost. How will she handle seeing him again when certain circumstances bring her back to the Isle? Will she finally tell him what she really feels?

Five teens lurked in a dark classroom, lit only by the burning light of blue flames flying out from underneath a bubbleing caldron. Inside the caldron, bright red apples bobbed along it's surface. A girl with deep blue hair and ruby red lips stired the contents of the caldron with a wooden spoon. Another girl with hair as bright as the fire that came from underneath them, stired the flames that wrapped from her hands down to the floor. Two boys, one with long dark brown hair and the other with longish white hair and black roots, pourd more apples into the caldron as the last girl recied lines from an old spell book she held in her hands.

(Mal)

Wicked ways beneath the skin,

Let all who taste it now join in

(All) We got all the ways to be W-I-C-K-E-D We got all the ways to be W-I-C-K-E-D C'mon Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! (Haha) Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

(Haldey) Crashing the party guess they lost my invitation Friendly reminder got my own kind of persuasion

(Carlos)

Looks like this place could use a bit of misbehavior Happily ever after with a little flavor

(Jay)

Bad to the bone with even worse intentions We're gonna steal the show and leave 'em all defenseless

(Evie)

A fairy tale life can be oh so overrated So raise your voices and let's get it activated

(all) Long live, havin' some fun We take what we want There's so many ways to be wicked With us, evil lives on the right side of wrong There's so many ways to be wicked

(Hadley, Mal, Jay, Carlos, Evie) Apple, apple Dip, dip Wanna try it? Tick, tick Take a bite C'mon be bold Change the way the story's told

(Mal) This time the dark is finally getting your attention

(Evie)

We're wicked by the book and class is back in session

(Jay)

You like it, steal it, gotta beat 'em to the treasure

(Carlos)

A rite of passage Bad just doesn't get much better! Long live, havin' some fun We take what we want There's so many ways to be wicked With us, evil lives on the right side of wrong There's so many ways to be wicked

(Mal) Mother always knows best (Evie)

Show her, pass every test (Carlos)

Hear her voice in my head (Jay and Hadley)

Evil is the only Real way to win! We got all the ways to be Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! W-I-C-K-E-D Let's go! We got all the ways to be Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! W-I-C-K-E-D (Yeah) Long live, havin' some fun We take what we want There's so many ways to be wicked With us, evil lives on, the right side of wrong There's so many ways to be wicked

6 months

6 amazing months have passed since the core five were brought from the Isle of the Lost to Auradon. The five were praised by many for saving the kingdom after the return of Maleficent, who now resides in a tank in Mal and Evie's room, though some were still skeptical of them. They eventually found their own clubs and activities. After Ben became King, his kingly duties took up most of his time, he had to drop tourney and his position as Captain of the fencing team. He offered the position to Jay, who gladly accepted, but not with out Carlos by his side. Mal was thrust into the world of princess-hood as she and Ben announced their relationship. She didn't have much time to herself any more with all the interviews and press. Evie and Hadley made their own business creating custom dresses together. Hadley also found the art club which she quickly rose to the top in with her excelled drawings.

They'd made even more friends after coronation was over making their group go from five to nine. Lonnie and Jane became close with the girls and Ruby, daughter of Rapunzel and president of the art club, joined them after witnessing Mal's graffiti and Evie's dress making skills. Hadley found herself either in her dorm with Ruby, working on art projects, or in Evie's room, making dresses. Hadley rarely had time to herself, but she was grateful for the distractions. Whenever Hadley was alone and left to herself, her thoughts always drifted to a certain pirate she left behind on the Isle. She cried herself to sleep most nights propped up against her window that gave her a near perfect view of the Isle. She felt guilty for not going back and breaking her promise to return to him. She'd tried multiple times to talk to Ben about possibly bringing Harry over to Auradon, but every time she tried he was whisked away by someone or something more important. Hadley used any free time she had to think of ways to get back to harry, or even bring him here but nothing seemed to work. The others grew concerned for Hadley and tried everything they could to cheer her up, but nothing seemed to stop the guilt that was eating away at her heart.

The first few months were hard for all of them. They had to lay off being evil and learn to be kinder to others and worst of all be good.

For Hadley, Evie and Carlos, this was not a problem as they were naturally nice, though Hadley still played tricks here and there with her shapeshifting, mainly on Carlos, she didn't do it to cause harm anymore. Mal and Jay however, had a lot of trouble adjusting to the change. Jay still tried to pick fights with anyone who made fun of them, but was always held back causing more teasing.

Hadley could see Mal slowly losing her cool day by day after being surrounded nearly non-stop by press and fans.

Hadley took it upon herself to help out her now blonde haired friend. See Hadley may not be the strongest person in Auradon, that title was held for her cousin Hercules, but people are still afraid of fire. More importantly, people are afraid of people on fire.

This is where we find Hadley now, coming to Mal's rescue once more.

A/n: Wow! I can not believe that I am posting the first part to the sequel!!! It feels so long since I started writing this series. If you would like to be tagged for the next part please message me! you can aslo read the illustrated version of this series over on Wattpad (@phelpsphan)!! Please comment and like for Part 2!!! <3 <3

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters in Descendants. Hadley and the plot between her and Harry are mine.

#harry hook x reader #daughter of hades #mal jay carlos evie #harry hook #disney descendants

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eternalstrigoii · 4 years

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Protector of the Moors

Borra (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) x Tundra Healer Dark Fey Reader aka @vespertineoracle gets more Nyvi because these are Soft Hours(TM).

It was a new day, the dawn of a new chapter for you all. The air was crisp and briny, and work on a magical bridge between the kingdoms was already underway.

Which meant it was all the more crucial for you to map the territory and identify places in need of preservation for their medicinal qualities, and to do so quickly.

The plan, or the rudimentary outline of one you’d sussed out the night before while gathered around a bonfire with your tired (and often wounded) kinsmen, involved taking your entire stock of pressed paper and making as detailed a map as possible while on foot. It would’ve been much easier from the skies, and much better for you to identify relative locations – and it wasn’t as though you were the only one with the same desire.

But you didn’t ask anyone to join you.

You were all tired. You were glad the battle passed quickly, because night had barely fallen when a great many of you took up residence in the trees. Now that you were liberated from your nest of origin, the collective of you hesitated to return, lest your freedom be fleeting.

A handful of you stayed awake well into the night. Ini fell asleep at the bonfire, watching the embers mingle with the stars. Borra listened to the night-sounds until one of the fledglings Udo returned for nodded off against his leg, and you ignored the fierce flutter in your heart when he gathered them to return to their nest-mother.

It was him you thought of while you gathered water from the white oaks – water that could be used for healing, as it broke fevers and staunched wounds. You thought of the cloth bandage around his arm and how lucky he’d been that it hadn’t gone a bit further in either direction. How difficult you’d always thought him, deliberately toying with iron to build his pain tolerance.

But he hadn’t fallen, and you refused to dwell on those of you that had, because you had a task at hand. You were fond of him, and he was alive, and you were glad.

And you desperately wanted to find some mullein. It would soothe the irritation so many of your people found themselves with, now, from the tainted iron in the air.

You made a small note in the corner of your page of the plants you hoped to find, your foot supporting your woven water-basket. The sun on your neck and the breeze in your wings carried the pungent perfume of sweet mandrake, and you paused your note taking to breathe it in.

And nearly kicked over your water-basket when you heard the earth shift behind you.

“Fallen stars!” You whirled around, nearly slapping Borra with one of your flared, snowy wings.

He had the nerve not play chastised, leaving the ghost of a heart-rending smile on his lips when you faced him. “Are you doing that all by yourself?”

You floundered. “Were you spying on me?” you managed when you regained the ability to speak.

He quirked his head, and you had half a mind to pull back a branch and trap his big horns in it. “I’m not unfamiliar with the territory.”

“So I’ve noticed!”

Horrible, you thought pointedly when his mouth started to quirk, poorly-repressed laughter threatening to slip out. “Did I scare you?”

“No more than you have in the past, you piebald nuisance!”

He did laugh, then, and though your irritation was largely for show, you thought the sound might’ve quieted even the deepest fury. He laughed so rarely. It was like stumbling upon a secluded oasis; a gift for you and you alone.

“I’ve got scouting to do,” he said as though he knew about your map and your plans without being told. Maybe he did; he did see you writing. “I prefer you don’t go alone.”

You couldn’t even pretend it was because of your long-injured wing; he was just like that. Not even Suren, Ini or Shrike were spared.

You sighed theatrically and stowed your water-basket safely in the low branches. You rolled up your materials and stuffed them in your satchel before accepting his offered arms – taking your sweet time about it just to be a thorn in his side.

Not that he minded. As wary as he was of what lied beyond the river and beyond the moors, you’d both waited too long not to grasp your freedom by the antlers.

“Do not drop me,” you cautioned playfully as you wound your arms around his neck, and got tugged flush against his body for your trouble. He was all powerful muscle, and his radiant heat made you shiver.

“Then hold on.” His bright eyes glinted with mischief, and his huge wings beat so hard yours folded instinctively. He launched you both into the sky on a self-created windstorm, the force of which made the leaves tremble on the branches.

You clung to him, your satchel trapped between your hip and his, until you cleared the canopy.

Skies, it really was beautiful.

Were it not for your half-limp wing, you would’ve made this journey yourself hours ago.

Your wings flared instinctively to aid the both of you in coasting. He was unfazed by your weight against his chest, drawing you up until you nearly kissed the clouds. You saw what he’d described in moons-old plans – fields of grain packed dense like walls, a slow-moving windmill just above a mortal village, and the moors. They were so large, so deep, that it was no wonder Ulstead alone had the nerve to prey on them. How many people could wander in and just vanish, lost to the sheer treachery of the landscape alone?

You tightened your grasp when you flattened only for Borra to turn slowly, affording you the proper aerial view.

Below, you saw the moor-folk returning to their lives. You saw flower-people fluttering between the meadows and the streams, people like iridescent dragonflies glinting and shimmering in the sun. You saw Suren tossing berries at the raven Diaval from her respective perch in the trees – as a bird, rather than a man – and him trying to catch them from his branch before they fell, and were stolen by the amphibious peoples who lived in the brook between them.

It was a magical place. Something well worth fighting for, like the man supporting you whose eyes had never left your face. You were so happy to be soaring over the moors that you forgot, for a time, to harbor fear that it might still all be taken away.

“How well do you know this place?” you asked at last. You’d veered toward the peaks and, as interested in fully mapping the territory as you were, you hoped to identify your necessities first.

“Well enough,” Borra replied. Well enough to feel secure in battle, then, which meant well enough to propose your list.

You told him what you were looking for in hopes that he memorized what those plants were; he was no stranger to your work, and he was keen enough that you imagined he’d have at least a rough idea what you were talking about.

He thought it over for a moment, and slowly curled his wings around yours.

You took the cue and let him steer.

He let you glide on top of him until you were ready to dive, and the slow turn of your bodies made you intimately aware of how close you’d gotten, your leg hooked comfortably around one of his. Your eyes flickered up to his, and you must’ve been a little frosty, because his mouth quirked into that ever so lovely not-smirk that meant he was absolutely laughing at you inside.

It wasn’t your fault he looked like that. Wasn’t yours that he acted like that, either, the peacocking fool.

Just for you, you reminded yourself, and the flush of pleasure almost echoed the burn of frost in your cheeks.

You touched down in a meadow, and you flushed terribly at the way he held you up rather than let you slow your own descent once your feet touched the ground.

“Over there,” he said, much too casually letting go of your waist.

You unhooked yourself as though from a pup-cling and tidied your robes. “Thank you.”

He inclined his head, content to wait.

It was so bright, there. You couldn’t imagine the world outside could be much brighter than the jungle fey’s territory, but the hues of green in the leaves, the way shadow and cloud-shifted light danced over the bark of the trees, astounded you. You savored every step through the tall grasses, careful to keep the little sprites that rose to meet you from being caught in your clothes.

A dense cluster of mullein was nestled on a sunny ridge. Exactly what you’d been hoping for. And there was enough to take back to the nest to cultivate, should your people need the resource.

Leave it to Borra to take you right to the most important thing you could think of.

You began note-taking immediately, sketching out the rough outline of a map – marrying the sights of your flight with the rough-hewn one you recalled vividly from being etched into the stone floor of the meeting hall. You’d only covered a small portion of the moors, but you did your best to describe them accurately – here was the starting point, set back from the river; here were the peaks you’d neared. Here was the valley you currently stood in, and right, specifically, there, was the little grove of mullein.

You’d have to come back to uproot whole plants, you realized with a small measure of dejection. You’d only brought enough containers to secure parts for use.

A great peep-and-flutter arose behind you, and a part of you hoped that Borra was behaving himself. You took a bit from a portion of the plants, careful not to impact any of their growth significantly. You noted on another page their health, their size, their gathering time and what portions you’d harvest.

He laughed. Again.

It gave you pause the way the sun on your skin encouraged you to linger. You turned, your slender writing-charcoal still in-hand, and you nearly had to sit down.

The moor-folk were all over him, swarming like bees to sweet. He had several in each of his open palms, and you imagined that one settled and one became a dozen, but, no – he lightly skimmed his thumb-talon down the backs of one of the flower-people, and they shivered with delight.

“I remember you,” he said to one of the willow sprites that dared practically perch on his face. “You were unharmed?”

They chattered fiercely and though there was no way he understood them (you presumed, though he had spent more time on the moors than any of the rest of you), he paid attention to them while they hovered before him on thin, leafy wings.

There were six more of them in his hair, you realized, playing with it. And he let them.

“Good,” he said, though you hadn’t followed a word of it beyond the essence.

They were faeries he’d saved on his private crusade, his incidental attempts to uproot their new companion from her role as protector of the moors. The ones he’d saved from being stolen, who he’d freed himself. Before or after killing their captors, you’d never asked, and it didn’t seem to matter. They knew him, and they loved him, and you saw him that gentle so rarely that, for a moment, you swore your heart might fully frost over.

One of the little dragonfly-people touched his cheek, their high-pitched murmurs of concern drawing tears to your eyes.

“No, no,” he soothed, “they’re natural. It’s decorative.”

Ancestors be with you, you had never loved another as fiercely as you did him.

They touched, marveled. They’d seen horns and wings on Maleficent, but maybe never that way. Maybe they knew her too well (you hadn’t yet learned of their once-tenuous relationship with your people). His wings shifted at the brush of petals on his cheek, and a great chorus of oh! rose up from them.

He smiled so widely that it caused a physical ache in your chest. You brushed away the dampness on your lashes that threatened to make itself apparent. How long had it been since you saw him so at peace? Since you knew without uncertainty that he was happy?

“Alright.” His shoulders rolled, and a few of them giggled as they dislodged. “No more of that.”

The willow sprites in his hair giggled the loudest.

“How proud you are of your dirt,” you muttered, halfhearted, into your notes.

“What was that?” he had no trouble faux-raising his voice to remind you he could hear you all the way across the field.

You’re a dirty little magpie and I love you with all my heart, you thought, though you said, “It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve rubbed dust into my clothes!”

He grinned, but it was different. The glimmer was back in his sandstorm eyes, and the little fey knew better than to linger close. They scurried off into the fields, giggling as they watched him launch himself at you – like you were fledglings again, roughhousing in the belly of your people’s nest. He caught you around your white-robed waist and pulled you up off the ground.

You dropped your things and grabbed the straps of his leather armor in warning. “Borra, don’t you dare--!”

“I dare,” he grinned, and your breathlessness at the sight of him fell second to your absolute distrust of the mischief in his eyes.

“I’ll kick you!”

He hauled you up against him like you weighed nothing, like you were as light as his gaggle of faeries despite the furry lining of your clothes. You gripped him for dear life, folding your wings in close.

He flopped backward in the grass hard enough to make you huff. Dropped like a weight, you thought, and followed it up with, sunk like a stone. A big, much too pretty stone.

“You’re the one who wanted to go picking leaves, but you complain about getting dirty.”

You had half a quick retort in mind, but you stopped yourself. It was over now. The war, the preparation. Things could change. You could sink into the springs with him, work a fish-bone comb through his hair with the utmost patience. You might even be able to tend the more obvious cracks at the base of his horns, though whether or not their severity worsened naturally with age or if it was just from benign neglect, you weren’t entirely sure.

“I’m not complaining,” you muttered, and it said far more than you expected it would. You loved him. You were as grateful as they were. For the mullein, for the map, for his obsessive attention to detail, for his love, for his joining you this morning, and for his being with you now. Oh, skies, how you loved him, like a flutist who only knew one song.

He laid still under you, and it took you a moment to realize that he was toying lightly with a lock of your hair. It was so nice to rest, even among obligations. Even if you knew he would never go unprepared, you could see it in his face – in the slow blink of his eyes and the soft set of his jaw beneath your fingers – there was hope he would know peace.

You lowered your forehead and pressed horns gently with him. He was sunshine-radiant against you, and you heard him make his low, purr-like sound at the frost that bloomed where your skin met.

“Thank you,” you murmured. For the help, and for not dying; for his love and a thousand other little things whose names escaped memory.

“Mm.” He bunted gently against your horns in return. “Tell me when you’re ready to move on.”

You lingered there, against him, for a little while longer. The flower people had come to play with your hair and touch your skin and marvel at your cold and the softness of your wings, and you were happy to let them.

“Protector of the moors,” you muttered.

He smiled a bit wider, and you couldn’t resist kissing him.

The flower people had a field day with that.

If you liked this and want to see more, click here.

#Borra x Reader #Borra #Maleficent Borra #Borra Maleficent #No Beta We Die Like Men #Fluff!There Is No Plot Only Zuul #I have no excuse for this I just have Big Feelings about MurderBird + GentleSoft With Tiny Fey #If you're wondering: Borra's sexuality is Top. That's it. Send tweet.#No preferred gender only Top.

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minijenn · 3 years

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Happy Birthday, Keys to the Kingdom!

Yeah as of today my own special little slice of hell known as Keys to the Kingdom has existed for the world to see for two years now. And its still going strong even into its second half (which I’m VERY much looking forward to!) I didn’t really plan a big huge celebration for Keys’ 2nd birthday (though ya’ll are more than welcome to do something special for it if you’d like, I’d love you forever if you did) But I figured it would go fun to go back through every chapter of Keys written so far and list my top ten personal favorites. So this is that list. Enjoy!

10. Chapter 30: Recuérdame: This was a really fun chapter if I remember correctly; its a nice mix between plot progression and the Coco stuff (featuring some of my favorite scenes from that movie, so playing around with those was great) but I also loved writing the first in story reveal for Xion and the fight between Sora and Xigbar while set to Imelda singing La Lorrona? Fuckin Iconic if you ask me, this one is great

9. Chapter 31: Destined Reunion: This is mostly a very dialogue heavy chapter where not a lot happens but honestly I just really like a lot of the interactions in it; there’s a lot of Sora being salty towards Riku in here which tbh is kinda fun to write? But there’s also some soft Sokai stuff and towards the end we get some fun/foreshadowy interactions with our resident Goth Club so overall its a pretty neat one :3

8. Chapter 24: Where the Dream Takes You: So I really love the second Atlantis chapter? It veers away from the movie and also follows it just enough to feel unique in its own right and it has a lot of plot progression for the main story, especially in regards to our good friend the Lingering Will; I like the action in this one a lot and I really love the Trinity Trio’s little emotional talk with each other at the end, it tugs at my heartstrings every time I read it :3

7. Chapter 38: So This Is Love: otherwise known as Prom! Honestly this one is just a sweet, cute fluff-fest and it was so much fun to write the kiddos just relaxing and having a good time for a change. The Destiny Trio in particular just filled my heart with so many warm fuzzies here, especially towards the end when they really start romancing it up! Plus everyone in their fancy outfits was a delight to draw and to write about, overall its a grand time for all ^_^

6. Chapter 21: Depths of Despair; golly this one is just a bit ol drama fest but I think its a pretty great one. Sora spends the whole thing captured and tortured and poisoned and it really is just the biggest shift in the tone of the story so far because of that; Maleficent gets to be the center stage baddie for a chapter, Pete gets a bit of development, and we also get some strong moments from Kairi and Axel and the Restoration Committee, and the scene where Kairi brings Sora back from rage form near the end is still one of my favorites; overall there are a lot of little moments in this one that I love in here, its a really good one.

5. Chapter 33: Song as Old as Rhyme: A great example of a Disney chapter where the overarching plot kind of takes more of the center stage. This one is a wild ride for sure with a lot of action and intensity, and its Not a very good time for our boy between him having a panic attack over Maleficent confronting him again to getting shot in the damn shoulder to being grounded by his boyfriend for lying it really does tear Sora down quite a bit but I looooooved wriiting all that so its high on my list for sure because of it

4. Chapter 36: Return to Depart; this chapter features two really great scenes right at the start of it, Sora bonding with Aqua and soft Soriku fluff/angst hour. But then I doubled down by giving the boy an identity crisis between all of the different hearts inside of his and wooooooow I love how I wrote it, its trippy and wild and intense and dramatic; even to the end this one is great because we get our first hints of the bond between Sora and Ven and its soft yet solemn all at once and wow despite carrying some scenes from the game I still think this one is pretty standout

3. Chapter 35: Distorted Reflection: Whoooooo boy this chapter is hella dark and kind of a mind fuck but golly if it wasn’t such a delight to write. Having Sora essentially hear himself list every fear he has and everything he hates about himself is some quality Character Study stuff; there are so many lines in this chapter I keep coming back to in more recent chapters and I really will continue to do reference it as we move along; it’s also pretty standout that Sora doesn’t even win against his phantom in this chapter, my original plan was for him to win but then I was like “no that’s not thematically right, the entire story is basically about him fighting a battle against himself that he can’t win so why should he win the literal battle against himself?” so I made it sad and had him lost until the Mystery Light came around to help him (I also love that entire part, its such a nice bit of comfort after all the angst this chapter brings). Overall, I love the deep intensity and feels of this one its a classic.

2. Chapter 22: Rise and Fall and Rise Again. Basically a biiiiiig ol bundle of hurt/comfort with some soft angst and romance mingled it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this chapter really is just another big long character study for Sora and golly if it doesn’t have some of my favorite moments in the entire fic so far, despite those moments being quiet and understated and mostly emotional more than anything else; I also really love Kairi in this chapter and I love how it develops her relationship with Sora even more towards their eventual Relationship Upgrade. Its also the first chapter of Keys I got teary eyed while writing soooo ya know there’s that.

1. And finally, my favorite chapter so far: Chapter 27: What Once Was Mine. Gooooosh this chapter has EVERYTHING. It starts out soft and fun and fluffy with some cute romancy moments, then it gradually starts getting more tense and it builds until basically everything’s gone horribly wrong and ends in a really sad kind of solemn place and we get such nice pairing between the Tangled stuff and the Keys overarching plot stuff. This chapter has so many exceptional moments but I really love the entire section where Sora finally comes clean to Donald and Goofy bc I’m destroyed by Trinity Trio feels every time I read it. Overall, I adore this one but I really do think that it’s very soon about to be outclassed by some stuff I have planned for Keys in the very near future :3

And some Honorable Mentions: Chapter 20: Immortals (mostly for its second half, its first half is pretty weak which is why its not on this list); Chapter 10: Sinister Whispers (aka the chapter where Keys finally starts fucking picking up the pace XD), and chapter 16: Unspoken, Unheard (a nice little Kairi character study)

And those are all the chapters of Keys I really love, feel free to drop me a line about what your favorites are (or even just your favorite moments, general discussion about Keys, things you’re looking forward to seeing, stuff like that). A HUGE thanks to everyone who’s stuck with Keys thus far, I can assure you that the best is certainly yet to come.... :3

#keys to the kingdom #jen writes #kingdom hearts #kh fanfiction #this list will look completely different in a year's time i can guaruntee it :|#there's some stuff that's coming up very soon thats gonna just blow several of these chapters completely off this list #moments ive been looking forward to since starting keys #hhhhh blessssssss #i cant waaaaaaait

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hydrangeasimagination · 5 years

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Mochi and admires as disney princesses movies Tama(Snow white) Tsu(Little mermaid)Neito(Princess and the frog) Toshi (Tangled) Mei(Atlantis) Ocha(Cinderella ) Miri(Sleeping beauty ) Momo (Aladin)

Alright, why not?? I love this idea! Honestly, I’d switch Tsu and Neito around but I can definitely see all of these.

This is gonna be a long one!

Oh, and spoilers for all mentioned Disney Movies.

~ Dari

Tamaki as Prince Florian

when he met you at your parents’ castle, he was taken by you immediately as you were so accepting to his timid behavior

which he was unused to as people thought it was unsuitable for him as such a strong prince

he had heard of a royal being placed to rest in the deep part of the forest from a fairy friend of his

he longed for the change to see you again but… not like this

there he found you in a glass box, guarded by the four men that had taken you in

upon hearing what had happened, he was saddened but had requested to give you one last kiss goodbye

your adopted brothers and father, were the slightest bit weary of him at first

but when they see that he has nothing but good intentions, only wanting to say goodbye to the person he loved one last time

when you woke though, the entire forest seemed to thrum with life again and you were so happy to see him

he took you and your family to live with him in his castle, taking the throne with you by his side

Tsuyu as Ariel

she had always longed to see what humans were truly like and she had the chance to one night upon a large ship is where she spotted you, playing the flute whilst you danced with your crew

the devastatingly beautiful smile that graced your lips had her heart bubbling with adoration and when a storm broke your ship to pieces, she was quick to save you and struggled to drag you onto land

when you were awoken, all you could remember was being saved by a gorgeous woman with a lovely voice

she took off for the sea when she noticed a certain loud-mouth ash blond almost desperately searching for you

after seeing the sea witch to be able to walk on land, unfortunately at the expense of being unable to speak and having to get true love’s kiss from you to keep her legs

over the days she spends with you, she’s so happy that she’s able to slowly draw your heart into her hands

a woman suddenly appears that claimed to be the person that’s going to save you, someone that you stated you were going to marry

but it seemed the three that you introduced as your brothers were skeptical of her, as you seemed so deeply enamoured with Tsu

the two of you combined and a ship were able to defeat the sea witch

after seeing that you were willing to do anything to save his daughter, her father gives you both what you had wanted; your happily ever after

Neito as Prince Naveen

you wanted nothing more than to reach your dream of finally opening a restaurant, bringing smiles to everyone and making your family proud; being the type of person to never ask for help, you wanted to be able to make the money yourself

even so, you had the support of your loving father, brothers, and your dearest friend: Mina

the chance to be able to achieve your dream came on the night of at the Ashido’s where you were catering to a large masquerade ball, but it was quickly snatched from you as soon as it came

you thought it came again when you found a little frog that claiming to be Prince Neito that if you kissed him, you would undo his spell(cast onto him by a witch doctor) and he’d fund your restaurant

it only turned you into a frog as well since you weren’t royalty as he had thought

afterwards, you were pulled into an adventure that had you not only realize that hard work should be in moderation but also falling in love with the previously egoistical Prince who grew to fall for you too

along the way, you meet a trumpet playing gator named Kirishima, a singing firefly named Ray, and the sorceress by the name of Mama Chiyo

even after escaping the shadow man and being unable to break the spell in the way you thought and finally revealing to your family and closest friend of your transformation, the two of you were just happy to be in love no matter what you happen to be

the minute you became his spouse, you were considered royalty and therefore, had ended up breaking the spell that had made you both meet and fall in love in the first place

you got your restaurant… but you now also had a husband and new friends

Hitoshi as Eugene Fitzherbert

the two of you didn’t meet on the best of circumstances but upon meeting you, the sheltered ditz with a crap ton of hair, he couldn’t help but be a little charmed

he doesn’t really show you to the lantern festival willingly, at least, at first as you had the crown he stole and he had got through so much trouble procuring it after all

as you help him evade the guards and saved him from the ire of a very intelligent horse

throughout the entire thing, he finds himself more and more endeared to you, especially when you save and and heal him with that hair of yours

right under his nose, his heart was stolen by you and the crown is something he considered as nothing more than secondary

Gothel had used his previous reputation to get him arrested, only for him to escape again with the help of the charmed tavern of criminals

with the help of the horse that once was trying to put him behind bars, he found his way to you again, only to find that it was a trap set by Gothel

his heart sunk at the mention of you being locked away again, even if you were just to heal him from the mortal wound he sported; instead, he cut your hair to save you from that fate

he genuinely didn’t expect to survive to once again look into the eyes he loved so much, to be able to reunite you with the family that had been missing you for all of these years

being able to get married to you was a dream and he finally figured out something that he had wanted, somewhere he belonged

Mei as Milo Thatch

it’s been a long time since I’ve seen Atlantis: The Lost Empire so I'mma just write what I can

when she discovered the book, she poured everything into it and followed her fathers footsteps into the search for Atlantis

despite being rather skeptical of those she came with, she nonetheless trekked onwards

upon meeting you and your brothers, of whom saved and healed her and her party, she grows a deep fasination in the crystals that you all donned

despite your father’s worry and deep concern for the appearance of outsiders, she tries to prove that they were peaceful and bring no harm

as she finally has time with you, swimming and talking, she finds herself slowly growing more and more enraptured

the events of the expedition leader, Rourke taking you as hostage and fusing you with the Heart of Atlantis happens as it does

but she had the support of your brothers and father, who had almost succumbed to his injuries if not for her quick thinking; he told her how to save you

Rourke and his men were thankfully defeated, especially with your brothers’ destructive use of their crystals

despite the chance to tell the world that her father wasn’t a madman and that Atlantis was real, she decided to stay with you, the person she grew to love

Ochako as Cinderella

after the death of her birth parents, Ochako had no one else except for her stepmother and step sisters and she was tight under her thumb

when she had the chance to leave the house, to finally feel free, it was ripped from her… along with the dress her friends had made her

but with the appearance of her fairy god mother, she once again was able to help Ochako have just a night of freedom

meanwhile, your father had arranged a ball to allow you and your brothers to meet people, you were technically the only one other than Izuku, that were legally counted as the heir to his throne

when you saw Ochako, you couldn’t take your eyes off of her but neither could your brother but he gently urged you to go and ask her to dance

which you did, completely blowing past her stepsisters, much to the dismay of Katsuki; who now had to deal with them

the two of you danced and talked the whole night and soon, by the time the clock struck midnight, you chased after her after she said she had to leave but was only had the glass slipper she accidentally left behind as a reminder

that morning, your brothers and you went on a mission to find the girl that you started to fall for but the difference is… you could never forget her face

Izuku was also smart enough to check over the records of every house to make sure no one could be missed

she was freed at last, even though she was sad to leave behind the home her parents had left to her

Mirio as Prince Phillip

he had seen you once when you were barely even a year old, but nonetheless

you were whisked away by your fairy brothers under the request of your father as a way to keep Maleficent from making her curse on you come true

but the sight of you dancing through the forest though and can’t but be amused and amazed at the sight

your beauty caught his eye and your kindness ensnared his heart, after dancing with you, he told you he would see you again but when he went to the cottage that was your home; he was taken by Maleficent and imprisioned

at the same time, you were put to an eternal sleep by the spinning wheel, as she had said

to keep sadness from plaguing the entire kingdom, your brothers put the rest of them to sleep with you as they try to find a way to undo the spell that would help everyone awaken

upon hearing true love’s kiss would break the spell, they went to find Mirio trapped, barely alive but alive nonetheless

reversing the effects of what had happened to him, they aided him in defeating and slaying Maleficent

they knew they were right in choosing him to break the spell, as he and you were already deeply in love with each other and it was able to completely undo the spell

he was happy to take your hand once you were awake, and if you would have him

Momo as Princess Jasmine

when she met you, she couldn’t help but be charmed by you and your seemingly simple life although her heart aches when you softly state you wish you didn’t have to worry about food and things of the sort since you had stolen for your family

but unfortunately, you were imprisoned due to your stealing but it was better you than your brothers or father

it turned around when an old man busted you out and said you were the only one to be able to enter an enchanted cave to retrieve a lamp for him, he tried to just take the lamp and leave you trapped

the genie of the lamp was able to save you from the cave and turn you into a royal, as per your request

Momo thought she’d never see you again so when a noble like you appeared before her, she was incredibly prickly

you felt bad for misleading her but you thought that perhaps it was the only way that her father would ever consider letting you have her hand

also you had your family’s’ support in trying to court her; along with the help of the genie and your magical flying carpet, of which, you took her for a ride on to make her more comfortable being around you

by the time you were ready to tell her the truth, you were nearly killed by the Sultan’s adviser and his men

your identity was revealed after the same man that had attempted to kill you, after learning of his true nature as well coming up with the idea to completely defeat and trap him was forged

you had apologized to Momo over and over again, but she had already forgiven you… And her father had given you both his blessing

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hetalialoverwrites · 4 years

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Mirror Mirror on the Wall

Part 13

First - Previous - Next

You were sitting in Remedial Goodness 101, doing some of the work Fairy Godmother handed out earlier when she rushed down the aisle with an excited grin. "Children, excuse me. Um, as you may know, we have Family Day coming up this Sunday and since your families couldn't be here because of... Um... Distance... We've arranged for a special treat." Fairy Godmother was almost shaking with her excitement and she hurried to the computer at the front of the room. You looked at your friends, confused only to get shrugs and the same looks back. Walking to the front with them, you saw your mother on the screen. She was sitting in the middle of Jafar and Cruella with Queen Grimhilde behind her, looking over her head at the screen. "How does this dreadful thing work? Grimhilde, fix it." She ordered quietly. Queen Grimhilde reached forward and did something to the computer because recognition flashed in the parent's eyes.

"Evie! It's mommy!" Queen Grimhilde greeted earnestly, "Oh, look how beautiful. You know what they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." She hummed in delight. Cruella gave the woman an amused look while Jafar laughed. "Oh, who's the old bat?" Cruella practically sneered in distaste. "Oh, this is Fairy Godmother." Mal introduced the Headmistress. You couldn't see her face as she was in front of you all, but you figured she was smiling as usual. An interesting look flashed across your mother's face and Maleficent smiled in her regally cruel way, "Still doing tricks with eggplants?" She asked innocently. Fairy Godmother gasped, "I turned a pumpkin into a beautiful carriage!" The headmistress protested. "You really couldn't give Cinderella until 1 am?" Maleficent asked, obviously looking down on the woman. "Did the hamsters have to be back in their cages?" She asked, amused.

"They were mice! They were not--!" Fairy Godmother turned to you all, "They were mice! They were not-!" Mal cut her off with a shake of her head as she tried to convince you all, "Thank you so much, thank you." Fairy Godmother hissed at the computer once more that they were mice before standing next to the device and restraining herself. Stepping forward, you greeted your mother, "Hi mom!" You chirped, delighted to see her again. Mal stepped in next to you while Jay, Carlos, and Evie stood back a little. "Hey, mom." She greeted. "Mal, (Y/n), wonderful to see you two are doing well. How has Auradon been?" Maleficent asked pleasantly. "It's been great! We've been learning quite a few things and have been doing all of our tasks on time!" You nodded as you spoke, letting your mother know that the letter was mailed as it should be. Her eyes flashed a little and it seemed that she got the message.

"And when will I be able to see you both again? It has been so dull since you've left." Maleficent asked, her underlying question clear. She was asking when she should be ready to leave. You and Mal glanced at each other and smiled at her, "Sometime after Prince Ben's coronation." You told her. "We get to go. And since it will be broadcasted throughout the kingdom, you should tune in mother!" Mal added, giving Maleficent the opening to ask the time. "Oh? I see. Well, that certainly does sound interesting... What time shall it be on?" Mother asked, tilting her head slightly. "Friday, at 10 am." Evie piped up helpfully. Maleficent glanced at her and smiled, "Alright... We shall be waiting for it." She inclined her head. Carlos shifted more into view behind you and something caught Cruella's eye. "C-Carlos! Is that a dog!?" Cruella yelled, fear edging into her voice.

Carlos looked down at Dude and realized, "Oh! Yes, but it's okay! I swear he's been nothing but sweet and loving." Carlos nodded his head furiously. Cruella still looked at him, scared for his safety as he stepped forward and Dude licked his cheek. "See mom? It's okay. Dude is really nice." He soothed her. Cruella was wringing her hands together, but gave him a bit of a forced smile, "Y-Yes, I understand C-Carlos..." She told him. Carlos softened, "When we get back, I'll try to help you with your fear of dogs... They might let Dude come with me to meet you." He added once he noticed Fairy Godmother glancing at him. She gave him a hesitant smile and nodded, "Of course." Cruella seemed apprehensive at the idea but gave in. "Alright, Carlos..." "So much fuss over a dog." Jafar scoffed. Cruella glared at him and before a fight could start out, Maleficent gave them both a warning look. They settled down.

"So, Evie, dear. Have you met any princes lately?" Queen Grimhilde questioned, interested. Evie smiled, "Yes I have. Prince Ben is very nice to us and some of the other princes seem pleasant as well. But none that I've taken interest in..." She admitted. Jay smirked, "Yeah, she has her eye on someone else." He grinned as Evie hit his arm. "Someone else?" Queen Grimhilde asked, a confused look on her face. You and Mal stepped back to allow Evie room to step forward. Evie did so hesitantly and continued, "Well... I met this sweet guy here... Um, his name is Doug and he is Dopey's son... He's been really helpful and encouraging while I've been here so..." Evie trailed off, risking a glance to her mother. Not so surprisingly, it looked like Queen Grimhilde had just been struck, "Snow White's friend, Dopey?" She hissed out. Evie cowered a little, "Yes..." After taking a few deep and calming breaths, Queen Grimhilde settled her temper.

"I see. Well, just don't let me see his father or that dreadful girl." She conceded. Evie beamed, knowing that was an acceptance on her mother's part, "Thank you, mother!" Queen Grimhilde didn't say anything else, but Evie didn't expect her to. Jay, deciding he didn't want to share any words with his father, went to turn the connection off when Jafar spoke up. "So, what have you been doing in Auradon, Jay?" Jay was surprised by his father's question. It was so uncharacteristically... Interested... "I uh... I joined the tourney team. Played last game with Carlos." Jay shifted on his feet. "He did great!" You cheered, noticing Jay's discomfort. The others noticed what you were doing and nodded, "Yeah, he helped us win!" Carlos added. "And was given a trophy saying he was the team's most valuable player." "Oh really?" Jafar looked impressed which made Jay perk up a little. "R-Really dad?" Jay asked.

Maleficent spoke up as Jafar nodded, "He's been working on fixing his attitude lately." She mentioned. "Sadly, he doesn't want my assistance." Maleficent gave Jafar a look and he held up his hands, shaking his head, "No thanks." Jafar cleared his throat and looked at Jay, "I can't wait to celebrate with you soon over your great accomplishment son." jay smiled a bit, "Thanks, dad. See you later." You and the others also said goodbye to your parents before turning off the call. "Thanks for the special treat." Mal thanked Fairy Godmother, who seemed to calm down from earlier. Fairy Godmother smiled warmly, "Of course." You all gathered your things and walked out of the classroom when Evie had a thought. "Hey, um... What do you think our parents will do if we don't make his work?" She asked nervously. You all paled at the thought as Mal responded, "Oh we are so dead..."

Going through the rest of the classes felt like nothing and before long, you all were in the boys' dorm and going over the plan. You five were gathered around the table with Mal's drawing of Fairy Godmother's wand on it and a map of the coronation hall. "Alright. We all know what this looks like. It will be on the dais underneath the Beast's spell jar, we will be coming in from here and (Y/n) will be in the very front. All of us will be up on the balcony. Hopefully because Ben knows about (Y/n)'s wings, he will sit with her next to the aisle, giving her time to make a quick getaway if we can't use magic." Mal explained. Evie nodded and Mal turned her attention to Carlos, "Carlos?" She prompted. Carlos looked down at the map, "I will find the limo so we can break the barrier so our parents can get out." He said. 'Why aren't we just using the wand to break the barrier?" Jay asked.

"Because we only want some people out. Besides, the wand gives us leverage since they would think we would want to harm them with it." You explained casually, making Jay nod, "Ohhhh..." "Evie, you will use this to take out the driver." Mal handed Evie a large perfume bottle filled with a sleeping potion. "Okay..." Evie said, taking it gently. "Jay, you'll be making sure nothing goes wrong and helping (Y/n) and me with protecting Evie and Carlos in case they do have magic repelling wards up." Mal gave Jay a look and he punched his fist into his hand, nodding, "Got it." As the boys and Mal went to sit down, you grabbed ahold of Evie's shirt, stopping her. "Hm? What is it (Y/n)?" She asked, noticing your apprehensive expression. "Well, it's just... Would you mind looking up a spell to break the love potion?" You whispered.

Evie gasped, "You want to break Ben's love spell?" You bit your lip and nodded, "Yeah..." You felt Mal come up behind you, her wing touching yours as she took your hand. "I just think it would be too cruel to leave him in love with me after we've left... I mean, it's not like after this whole fiasco we will be allowed back in Auradon..." You laughed bitterly. "Oh (y\Y/n)..." Evie breathed before hugging you. "I'll look for a spell and we'll have it ready before the coronation... I promise..." You could feel Mal's grip on your hand tighten and you looked at her over Evie's shoulder. She was giving you a supportive smile... You squeezed back and hugged Evie. Going down to the kitchens, Evie and Mal helped and supported you through making the small brownie. Silently, you hoped Ben wouldn't be too angry with you when the spell came off. It would break your heart...

#descendants au #reader insert #ben x reader #descendants #romance #mirror mirror #crossover #maleficent mistress of evil #maleficent

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hearts-lover · 5 years

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Never Forget about Canons (KH Discussion)

Disclaimer: The first thing that I wanna say, even though that I am a Sokai fan, I do not hates Soriku fans, I do not dislike anyone who supports the pairing, and if you like this ship, then go for it, don’t let anyone else tells you otherwise. That being said, in this discussion I’ll be speaking the truth and nothing but truth, and I know that the truth can be an issue on the shipping fanbase, so if you can’t handle the truth, then Tumblr is not for you. Also, this post will be a reply of a fan of KH and a fan of Soriku, now I won’t be posting a link to the original post or mention the one who made it because I don’t want anyone to attack them. And if the user who made the post read this post, lemme just say that I do not hates you for shipping soriku, I’m making this post because you posted some.... weird discussion that I would like to discuss. I also need to say that this post is my opinion, and my thoughts, so you have the right to ignore it if you want too. Or don’t, you know this is a free website. I also need to mention that I know that there is some Soriku fan that doesn’t think the same way as the user I will respond and that Awesome! This is just going to the people who think similar to the user. But no hates though! With that over with, lemme give you a long story short; I was surfing the Tag Kingdom hearts 3 and found a post regarding Soriku, and even though I don’t ship them, I do like reading people finding more ideas and headcanon about them. But the one that I’ll be talking about is a bit...Biased. one thing before I get started, I need to mention that the original post has like 3 short paragraph, and I will be talking about one paragraph at the time, so this is my time doing this, so bare with me. with that out of the way, let's do this;

oof, what a great start. Alright, first thing first, the paopu fruit; Now the user stated that Kairi didn’t eat the Paopu fruit when she and Sora shared the fruit, everyone has seen that happen, and say that Kairi wanted Sora to keep following her, but doesn’t want him to be together forever with her. Now, this is a weird thing, while that it is true that Kairi did not eat her paopu fruit, that I know for sure;

But, isn’t it a bit weird that before that, Kairi made sure to give Sora the paopu fruit?

that’s like saying that I asked someone to marry me, but have like 3-4 girls warp around my arm, it just seems kinda pointless. Plus, even if both Kairi and Sora didn’t eat their fruit, we already know their answer before Kh3, Before Kh2, and maybe even before Chain of memories. In Kh1, after Riku explains the Lore of the fruit, he asks Sora for a race, at first it was a race of who ship names they gonna use, but Riku change the bet into “whoever wins get to share the fruit with Kairi” where the day before the race, he explains that whoever shares the fruit will be intertwined forever. And even if Sora wins or lose, if Sora goes to find the last mushroom (which is it in Secret cave), what was the first thing that Sora did?

He literally sat down and draw him giving Kairi a Star And at the end of KH1 when Kairi went to the secret cave to see all of the past drawings, she found what Sora had added, and what did she did in return?

Not only the fact that Kairi sat down and gave her answer to Sora, but she gave him a bigger star too. Plus, are we gonna ignore the fact that despite Kairi didn’t eat her fruit, Sora actually DID take a bite? meaning that he wants her and him to be together? Moving that aside, The user also stated that the reason why Kairi didn’t bite her fruit because she doesn’t want to be intertwined with Sora, where if that the case, why did she give Sora the fruit regardless? To find out if Sora still willingly want to be together with her? and even if Kairi and Sora never did that scene, you have to realize that both of them realize that they want to share the fruit when they added them feeding stars to each other. And even if that isn’t the case;

Maybe she, I don’t know, STOP acting like she like sora if that the case? The user then says that Kairi wants to be Sora guidance and have a theory that Kairi is a Chirithy (aw shit, here we go again) Okay, first thing first, we need to what is a Chirithy What we know so far, we know that Chirithy is a death eater, and thus its should have a dream eater symbol on its back;

we also know if we listen to the Masters of Master;

meaning if the player died, their Chirithy died, and if the player became nothing but darkness, same goes with their Chirithy. And thanks to Kingdom hearts DDD, we also know that when Riku became the first Dream eater, the Dream eater symbol will appear behind his back, regardless if he has clothes or not;

So, let’s take a look of Kairi; Does she have any Dream eater symbol behind her back?

Nope When Sora disappear, did Kairi also disappear?

Nope. Did Kairi turn into a nightmare when Sora turns into a heartless?

Of course not, and even if Sora didn’t turn into a Heartless when Kairi didn’t have her heart, the darkness couldn’t take her body because she is the princess of heart. Meaning that it literally impossible for Kairi to be a Chirithy. Also, Chirithy is a Spirits too, while we know that Kairi is human because I don’t think Spirits even have a heart. One paragraph down, 2 more to go;

oh great this one. okay, so many fans realize that the whole “Protect those whose matter” was the Promise that Riku made when he first met Terra in the event of Birth by sleep;

Now despite the fact that Riku is like 5 years old in this scene, noticed how he said: “Friends” and the fact that the end had the “s” meaning that Riku wants to protect other people than just Sora. Plus the way Riku expressed himself about Kairi in KH1;

Even though that Riku was most likely being controlled by the darkness, When Asnem took over Riku body, a few of Riku light was able to hold Ansem long enough for Kairi, Donald and Goofy to run away, its prove that Riku still have his light, despite being consumed by the darkness, he should be aware what he been saying to Sora before he begins to control darkness on his own. And I’m sorry if I act rude when I say this, but who cares about that quote? I can literally use that quote and use that to anyone else beside Riku? As if this is the only thing that can help support Soriku For example; Remember in KH1, Maleficent told sora that because he got new friends, he doesn’t care about Riku or Kairi, and in Neverland when Maleficent give Riku the power to control the darkness, Riku didn’t use it to create new friend, instead, he creates his own Sora;

After that scene, we get to see Dark-Sora in action, but before we get to fight him as a boss, whenever you face other heartless and leave him alone, Dark-Sora seem... silly, Dancing in the middle of battle, Laugh when you get hurt, I don’t think that he even hurt you until you face him as a boss. I think because of that, Riku wants Sora to be silly, basically, act like a joker while a Real hero (aka him) to save Kairi, but when thing get serious, he then summons dark-Sora to finally hurt Sora, but the fact that he creates his own sora and made it act like how he thinks about Sora is supposed to act, A fool. Even before the final battle, when Riku reach near to Kingdom hearts and ended up talking to Mickey, when he asks mickey where is sora and Kairi, mickey just told him to listen to his heart, and who was the first one he finds?

Yup, Sora, and even KH1 isn’t the only one that has Soriku moments Remember in the event of Days, when Riku fought Roxas, he didn’t have enough power to knock out Roxas, so he chooses to use Ansem SOD power, not only to stun Roxas, but also to bring back Sora despite he may always look like Ansem for the rest of his life, but he risk it for the sake of Sora. and, my favorite one is in KH2 when you have 2nd visits to the Land of Dragons After you finished facing a horde of heartless and a black hooded person, that person ran away, and what did Sora say after that?

and since Sora and Riku have been sparring since they were a kid, meaning that Sora knows what Riku fight styles. Meaning that there is more than one scene of Soriku than just one quote that only been used 1-2 times in 3 different KH titles. Plus, why Riku's “protect those who matter” is only about Sora only? Terra, not only the one who gives Riku that Strength to protect his friend, but also the reason why he kept the promise. and even if that isn’t a case, remember, Mickey was able to save Riku in the event of Re:Chain of memories, but also in Days and in KH2 since Mickey has been lying to the Organization and to Sora just to keep Riku safe, and if it wasn’t for Kairi when Sora finally found her again, she would never help Sora realize that Ansem is actually Riku, thus trying to keep sora and Riku together (whatever its mean together as a friend or as a lover) So no, one quote that doesn’t just involve to Sora shouldn’t help your evidence that Soriku is canon. Alright, just one more;

You do realize that this is Nomura we talking about? The same Nomura who made Sora and Kairi draw themselves feeding each other a star where the star represents the paopu fruit The same Nomura who despite Kairi may or may not bitten her fruit, he made sure that Sora bit his. The same Nomura who made Riku say this about Sora and Kairi in the event of 358/2 days;

The same Nomura who set up The Kingdom hearts Orchestra as its play “don’t think twice” (click here if you wanna see) and about 1 min and 30 sec into it, its shows solely based on Sora and Kairi, from KH1, where Sora went to find Kairi and release her heart to wake her up, and then Kairi bring Sora back, KH2 where Sora and Kairi find each other after not seeing each other for a year, The end when Sora and Riku return to destiny island, all to way to kh3 when they share the fruit. You can’t rely on Nomura on making sure he’ll make Soriku canon if he put this so much effort on making sora and Kairi together. Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t ship soriku, you can ship them and just ignore the canon, and I get it, but what I don’t get is why people are making theories about Kairi being a Chirithy, and just try to make her irrelevant just so their ship can be canon, and even if that not the case, and excuse my matter, but who the hell care what is Kairi at this point. Remember, Kairi is a princess, and as similar as the princess, like Alice, Snow White, Jasmine, Belle, Cinderella, and Aurora. And I hate to admit this, but Nomura is just following the rule of a Princess being a damsel in Distress, similar as Disney did, he tries to make his own “Knight saving the princess” trope between Sora and Kairi, and he been doing this for YEARS. And you trying to tell me that you believe that Nomura willingly drop all of the Sokai moments and then ADMITTING that they don’t want to separate again, and I apologize for my rudeness, but Nomura, also made Sora say this;

I’m sorry to say this, but I think you put too much faith a Nomura, and I also think you’re overthinking these scene too. Its doesn’t matter if Kairi didn’t bite the paopu, Kairi already gives her answer at the end of KH1, that released back in 2002, That 17 YEARS AGO! 17 years of doing this and now he’ll change it into Soriku? After all of that? After the fact that Sora wanted tot to save Kairi alone? That he basically sacrifices himself for the sake of Kairi again? I mean I am seriously sorry if I’m acting like a piece of shit, but the fact that KH1 was released back on 2002 and have been remastered on the KH 1.5 that was released 2013, and its was remastered AGAIN for the ps4 and a mixture between 1.5 and 2.5 and that was released on 2017, this user has PLENTY of replay of Kingdom hearts 1, to get the picture. I mean, ship Soriku with all with your heart, fuck the Canon. But don’t try to twist the canon, just so your ship can be canon, cause that just Disrespectful for Nomura, and his story. I think that we should just be grateful for Nomura for letting goes through the adventure of Kingdom hearts and helps us how important Friends without KH can be very powerful, almost a bit meta in some way. But If I’m being personally honest about this whole thing, is that it's wrong, so wrong. But just because it's wrong, it doesn’t mean that the user, nor any Soriku should stop shipping what they like. We just have to respect Nomura chooses, just like how we accept people that have a different ship favorite. So please, people who share the same idea as this user, think reasonable, and just have fun, but don’t try to twist Nomura story, because I’m sure you don’t like it if someone does the same to you. and I know I say sorry like 3-4 times, but I apologize if I acted very rude, I was planning to be honest, being rude was not my intention. But I hope I get my point across. But of course, these are my thoughts/opinions.

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts rant #kingdom hearts 3 rant #shipping rant #c'mon people respect Nomura story #he really work hard for us #him and the teams #Kingdom hearts 3

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mellz117 · 4 years

Text

Hello and welcome to the start of Mellz Plays Kingdom Hearts Re:CoM on the Playstation 2; Riku’s campaign

If you haven’t seen my thoughts on Sora’s story, why not start with Part 1? For the 5 of you who’ve been following along since then, welcome back! Check out the rest under the read more! I’m playing on standard difficulty so if I’m having a hard time, I just suck.

So we, as Riku wake up in the basement of Castle Oblivion. How did he get there? Sora just waltzed in like it was no big deal. Riku has to materialize in a cold basement and be woken up by the disembodied voice of an all too familiar bastard… Who has a new voice.

Thanks for the card, voice of Ansem, “Seeker of Darkness”. That ain’t him. It’s been almost 10 years and I don’t remember much of this game but I know that new Richard Epcar voice ain’t Ansem.

Riku’s got no time to waste, he’s a man on a mission.

So we get a melancholy scene with Riku happening upon the room Maleficent gave him during his association with her in the first game. Memories he’d rather forget.

After progressing a bit, the disembodied voice returns once again to taunt Riku. “You cast aside your home, your friends, the darkness. What else do you have? Nothing. Your heart is as empty as your old room.”

It’s so weird playing as Riku but I hope we get more of that beyond KH3 (ReMind hasn’t released at the time of writing this)

Alot of this game so far has been me saying “I don’t remember this”… …So I don’t remember Riku’s level up system being this different to Sora’s.

…well that’s bullshit. I vaguely remember that. The fact that I can’t even edit the order my cards appear to me in battle is even more bullshit. I like to organize my cards by type and value until I’m forced to use a different method.

So I dont have to wait for the reload gauge to count down, it’s immediate and I dont lose a card on every reload like I thought I remembered… What’s the catch? I don’t trust like that.

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We meet up with Maleficent at the end of the map. She’s 100% aware she’s a figment of Riku’s memory. Riku is none too pleased to see her.

I love his sass

Riku’s ready to kick the asses of everyone corrupted by darkness, including his own, he says. Time for a dragon fight because otherwise Maleficent isn’t a threat apparently lmao. I don’t think the mcguffen card even showed up.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

Oh look it’s that asshole. Or is it? Dun dun dunnnnn. God his lips look soft. Why was this necessary???

So who has dominion over this castle? Marluxia, or Ansem?

This fucker is like “Sonny, you couldn’t even win against Sora. You don’t stand a chance against me”.

You have a teenager lying on the ground... Please reword your demands.

Oh my god it’s Mickey Mouse! well… sort of. He’s a bright light. Gives Riku some nice words to keep him going.

Knowing what I know now about the Guardian heartless bro, everything is so much worse…

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Ooh first scene with the boys in the dark room. “Don’t I even warrant a hello, Lexaeus?” I don’t remember seeing this as funny before but now, like 10 years later I appreciate how funny it truly is. Zexion sounds so insulted.. Lexaeus is a man of few words. Then Vexen shows up and he’s getting right down to business. Zexion’s like “Nice to see you too. We all used to be so close, what happened?”

Vexen’s all offended about that and gets pissy about “rank this, rank that, ooh I’m number 4, you shrimpy child.” as if your number indicated rank. Xigbar is the 2nd member but Xemnas’s 2nd in command is Saix (from my understanding) so sit your ass down, Vex.

So Zexion’s special talent? He smells people.

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Riku smells people too?. Oh ok he can smell the darkness in his skin. Take a shower! …When was the last time he even got the opportunity?

Mickey appears before him and tells him some words of encouragement. He’s transparent because he can’t fully manifest in the castle right now. So where’s the other 50% opacity hanging out at?

“We shook hands in our hearts” omg…

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Let’s go to Neverland first yay. I did a team attack with Mickey. I remember that!

Imagine being in Riku’s stupid, dumb, giant, anime boy shoes… addressing a giant, bipedal mouse as “Your Majesty”……….. Actually my sister and I used to do that back in the day when we both were obsessed with the series. Regardless of context we’d call him “King Mickey”. It makes me cringe thinking back on it.

Oh I was gonna try to challenge myself to avoid using the dark power but I guess I dont have a choice but to use it. Might as well put points into it if that’s the case.

uses Key to Beginnings, is immediately thrown into a battle with Captain Hook oh I guess we’re not focusing on any events in these worlds they’re literally just to pad out Riku’s story. Riku is officially less Disney than Sora.

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How does Zexy know who Riku is? “Riku is here because Sora is here”. Vex that makes zero sense. What else is new?

Agrabah. Uneventful. Riku is not good at hitting small targets. Had a hell of a time fighting Jafar, or rather beating Iago to a pulp, in comparison to playing as Sora.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

Next scene, and immediately like NO breath between the fade in and the scene itself, Vexen appears. And in even less time after he appears, “I take it you’re Riku?” This mofo has no time to waste. He’s a busy man.

Riku’s already tired of his bullshit and is ready to FIGHT. Same, Riku. Same.

I had him stun locked during most of this battle.

I JUST LOVE RIKU’S COMPLETE LACK OF FUCKS GIVEN HE’LL BEAT VEXEN’S SHIELD WITH HIS FISTS AND POMMEL

Vexen is a fucking twerp. And seems alot more crazy, mad scientist-y when interacting with Riku than Sora. Emphasis on “mad”. He cray

Why do they hang out in the dark? I mean, why no lamps? All I can imagine is them hanging out and barely able to actually see each other. The only way anyone knows who’s there is because Zexion can smell people, everyone else just assumes Lexaeus is there, Vexen won’t shut up about something something science, and Axel likes to hear himself talk.

Fat boi

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Zexion and Lexaeus are talking about what’s going on, I’m still not sure what they’re doing here. Like, do they want Sora for the Organization? But Marluxia wants Sora as his personal puppet? What about Roxas? Isn’t he like, in a coma or something? Just kill Sora, Roxas will wake up, and SOMEONE’S got a Keyblade wielder again. Lex says Vexen hates Marluxia and things with the replica could turn out disastrously because of it. What IS Vexen’s beef with Marly?

Ok I know it’s to pad out a second campaign but why does Riku go to SORA’S memory worlds? Unless Riku stalked him throughout the entirety of KH1, or had so visit them for darkness missions, and those are his memories as well? Idk, it doesn’t have to be explicitly stated

Oh no Riku, it’s you.

So at this point he’s aware hes a copy? Does he forget later? With Namine’s meddling? How does Vexen create a living, breathing entity out of battle data? Like, where did the body come from? Did he have it on standby for a while until the right moment?

“You’re afraid of the dark” Repliku states.. Lmao yeah, Riku- he still sleeps with a night light. Don’t tell Sora.

Repliku is like, a worse Riku as far as personality goes. The punk-ass bitch Riku from KH1 but worse. Repliku is quick to ditch the double pants with suspenders and ankle belts for a muscle suit and grass skirt. I’m not sure which one’s worse.

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! I got two level ups out of that!

I high key love Repliku’s laugh here when Riku tries to attacks him again RIGHT AFTER THEIR FIGHT. It’s adorable, hilarious, and creepy. GG David Gallagher! Check out that video if you want. [video]

Dutch angles make everything more dramatic. Unofficial rule no. 1 of cinema. Repliku peaces out and we give chase up another flight of stairs and another cutscene plays. Repliku joins Zexion, Lexaeus, and Vexen in the dark room and they talk about introducing him to Sora.

Riku finds himself alone on the next floor, yelling at empty air. Ansem shows up to taunt Riku again. This dude just doesn’t quit. God forbid he learns no means go the fuck away.

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Oh hey we’re in Atlantica! Maybe Riku can wash that darkness smell off his skin. Oh wait the water doesn’t really exist. And hes just a human, not swimming like a mermaid. Give me mer-Riku, you cowards. Twiggy mer-Sora is funny, twiggy mer-Riku with buff arms would be HYSTERICAL. I had a difficult time with Ursula because poor card management and I’m avoiding battles to get this game over with, which kinda shoots me in the foot as I’m not leveling up.

Yeah I was right, he ends up thinking HE’S Riku. I honestly feel bad for the guy… he’s so scared and betrayed. I know I was shit talking him just a bit ago but I need to protect Repliku. [video]

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Give Riku a Halloween Town outfit, you cowards.

This scene between Repliku and Namine is so bittersweet. [video] Just listen to how gentle he talks to Namine. Oh, my heart cannot handle it.

This game makes me so sad. Poor Repliku, poor Namine… Larxene continues to be The Worst. Like, the ABSOLUTE worst. Was Elrena like this?

(I keep getting progressively more and more angry because I can’t upload a video file to this on desktop but I can on mobile, but if I post a video on mobile I can’t edit a read more on desktop. AND I HAVE THREE VIDEOS I WANT TO PUT IN. SO I MADE A BLOG SPECIFICALLY SO I CAN POST THEM THERE AND LINK THEM HERE)

See you in part 2, where I will continue to drag Larxene.

#mellz plays kh recom #Kingdom Hearts series #kh recom #kingdom hearts re:chain of memories #square enix #Playstation 2 #mellz post

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randomestfandoms-ocs · 5 years

Note

so about those descendants ocs?

Oh man okay so!!! there are a whole lot and I get more ideas literally every single day I blame @seaweedhufflepuffocs

OCs that I’ve talked about/are already on the masterlist:

Avalon Le Fay (faceclaim: Emma Dumont and sometimes Emily Rudd): Avalon was not my first descendants OC, but she’s the first one that I really thought about making into a fic! This started because SeaweedHufflepuff and I were rabbiting descendants 2 and were both thinking of Camelot based OCs and then realized that they were most definitely (platonic) soulmates and turned it into the wonderful crossover that is King And Lionheart! Avalon is the daughter of Morgana and Merlin (using the Merlin cast) and while Morgana was originally allowed to stay in Camelot - which did not join Auradon - they later (when Avalon and Nimue are infants) force her to the Isle and Morgana agrees, so long as Avalon can stay in Camelot, which they have to agree to or Camelot will declare war. Avalon struggles a lot with her identity and not knowing who her mother is, and although Nimue is her person™ and they’ve been raised their entire lives with the knowledge that Nimue will be King and Avalon will be her right hand/advisor/essentially co-ruler, Avalon has also always struggled with feeling like she’s second best. She’s my baby and I adore she and Nimue and I’m very excited to hopefully start writing this story soon

Maria Frollo (fc. Hazelle/Bellamie), Queenie (fc. Darya Lebedeva), and Helena (fc. Kimmy Schram): These girls were my first Descendants OCs, the daughters of Claude Frollo, The Queen Of Hearts, and Hades respectively. I had this idea a while ago, as I wanted to write a fic where the VKs and some of the Auradon kids have to go to the Isle post D2 and they meet the new leaders. Queenie was very much taken under Mal’s wing as a kid and Mal is very proud of them. Queenie is the leader and Helena is her right hand (and girlfriend) and Maria is basically they’re daughter tbh they adore her. I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with them but I do love them very much.

Elise Charming (fc. Lili Reinhart): Elise is Chad’s twin sister and polar opposite (well other than being preppy and a cheerleader). She truly believes in second chances and is super excited for the VKs to come to Auradon? And definitely falls in love with Evie but thinks that Evie is straight

Finley Rider (Fc. Virginia Gardner): Her name is Princess Finley Ryder - Corona is officially part of Auradon but they still have their own royal line. When she was ten she was at some fancy gala party at the museum and got really bored, and got caught stealing Jafar’s staff (no one noticed that she also got both lamps) and she gets sent to the Isle on one of the shipping barges, and the first person she meets is Jay. Once they’re a bit closer and she’s been officially accepted into the VK circle, she tells him that she still has both of the lamps, Jay makes her promise not to tell anyone else and they’ll keep them as a last resort bargaining stool. And then they get summoned to auradon (she’s not supposed to go but Jay convinces Jafar who convinces Maleficent who “convinces” the driver) and she has to face the people who exiled her

Princess Isabelle (fc. Danielle Campbell): Ben’s twin sister, who is actually the firstborn. She believes that she should be the queen (and so does Belle) but her father insists on Ben because Isabelle is significantly harder to control. Her endgame love interest was going to be Mal but now I’m torn between Mal and Audrey for her.

Violet Kingston (fc. Meg Donnelly): Alice and the Hatter’s daughter who gets sent to Auradon to investigate an attempted assassination of the White Queen. Very unimpressed with Auradon and likes Wonderland a lot better, thinks that the VKs are pretty cool, gets shoved into a dorm with Mal and Evie because there wasn’t really enough space

OCs that I haven’t talked about:

there are actually a lot more than just these but I keep losing track so hopefully @seaweedhufflepuffocs can help me remember them lmao

Harley Hook (fc. maybe Madison McLaughlin, open to ideas): Harry’s younger (by a year) sister. She was part of Uma’s crew and loved it but then she gets chosen to go to Auradon? She kind of hates the VKs and really wants nothing to do with any of this, she just wants to go back to her brother and her crew and her boyfriend Gil. Except that they sort of broke up when she got chosen because they didn’t think they’d ever see each other again. And she starts to fall for Jay and is torn between the Crew, the VKs, and Auradon

Lani (fc. Madelaine Petsch): Melody’s daughter, the first second generation child to be born, and to go to Auradon Prep. She’s half part of Auradon (because of Eric’s kingdom) but also Atlantian which is still separated, and she’s trying to unite the two but is being torn apart by it

A daughter of Hercules who the fates predicted would be evil and is therefore sent to the isle as an infant and is raised by Hades but then Ben includes her in the group being brought to Auradon

A daughter of the Fates (their scissors are seen in the Villain Room of the museum) who was raised on the Isle

A daughter of Hans, plot TBD

A daughter of Lady Tremaine - much younger than the other two, only a couple of years older than Dizzy. She and Dizzy are extremely close but are separated when she’s brought to Auradon. I’ve been thinking maybe Lana Condor as the FC just because Lana and Anna have already played sisters once and because she has some awesome dark leather isle looks and cute preppy auradon looks. Probably also treated badly by Lady Tremaine, ends up becoming quite close with Cinderella during that first family day where everything went wrong.

A daughter of Gaston, either Gil’s twin or little sister, and I don’t really have much of a plot for her except that she becomes quite close with Belle (I think that she would have been majorly mistreated by Gaston and Belle can tell as soon as they meet) and Adam really hates that

A daughter of Fairy Godmother (fc. probably India Eisley or Emily Rudd): in a slight AU where the Beast is honestly really dark, FG has twin daughters and he forces her to send one to the Isle (I’m not sure if it’s specifically because they’d be magic or if there’s a one child rule because he doesn’t want anyone being able to overthrow him) but FG hides her away somewhere instead? Or she does go to the Isle but then escapes in D3 when the VKs and Pirates leave after visiting Hades. I have very little plot beyond that but in D3 when Jane and co find the statue of FG, Jane thinks of getting the wand, but when she goes in she sees this girl taking it (and not being stopped by the shield because she has the same blood) and discovers that she has a twin, and then they overthrow the beast or something

Thank you for this ask, I love talking about my Descendants OCs, I just need to remember the other ideas that I have lmao

Forever Tag List: @themildestofwriters @gottaenjoythelittlethingzz @dancerdramatic14 @seaweedhufflepuffocs @iceandwaterfairytail - want to be added to the forever/fandom/character tag lists for fics or all content? shoot me an ask!

Descendants Tag List: @katiesocs

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davidmann95 · 5 years

Text

A different theory on the Master of Masters’ Identity

The consensus at this point has definitely settled on that the Master of Masters is someone we know - when Back Cover dropped I would’ve guessed he was a whole new figure, but in the wake of what III pulls at the end I’d say it’s reached a point where he’s probably gotta be a familiar face for it to feel like he’s been appropriately set up (though I’d also kind of dig if he was simply a resident of the ‘realistic’ world of Verum Rex who was screwing with the Disney fairytaleland). At this point, the two big theories are that it’s a time-travelling eeeeeeevil future Sora or that Demyx has been pulling a very, very long con, and while I’m not sure if either or both of them started as a joke (I swear I recall ‘evil future Sora’ being an idea tossed around for multiple mysterious figures in the past), they’ve got serious traction now.

I’m sort of ignoring the possibility of Demyx here; consider that a parallel track to what I’m thinking, as opposed to Sora which I’ll discuss a bit directly as a compare-and-contrast with my theory. I actually think it’s not totally unreasonable, but after Luxu, it’d be real, REAL hard to pull that particular trick and not have it feel like it was coming up with diminishing returns. Not impossible, but hard. And for that matter I think it being Sora could also work; if nothing else it’d be interesting to see how that guy of all people gets from THAT point A to THAT point B, which I suppose is the core of the appeal.

But assuming a couple of givens - that it’s someone we know, that the Master of Masters is indeed a very, very bad guy even if he’s doing what he’s doing for what he might consider good reasons, and that he’s either the endgame opponent of the entire franchise or that he’ll play a critical role in said finale - while I’d agree he’s a time-traveler who’s broken bad (in a series so much about growing up, what’s a better final opponent than the threat that you ‘grow up’ in all the worst, most cynical ways?), I don’t think he’s Sora.

I think the Master of Masters is more likely to be Riku.

I’ll list off what I’ve got below in two categories, the first being evidence. I don’t think I’ve got any real indisputable smoking guns here, but to be fair, unless you consider MoM and Demyx both pointing at people to be a clincher neither does anyone else, and I’d at least say there’s enough that if I’m right people won’t really be able to say that it wasn’t appropriately seeded, with one or two points I think really do solidly support Riku in a way that doesn’t quite fit with anyone else that we know of. After that, I’ll go into why I think it’s the more interesting option character-wise/thematically.

Evidence

* Right at the top, regarding the one bit of physical evidence we have: if we’re treating Sora and Riku as the only two serious candidates given only they’d pack the necessary punch, the Master definitely sounds more like an adult version of the latter than the former, at least going by the English voices. For that matter Ray Chase also voices Noctis, clearly the main aesthetic model for Yozora who’s himself repeatedly and explicitly compared in-universe physically to Riku. A stretch, but between Xehanort and Eraqus being Star Wars vs. Star Trek in BBS and then Spider-Man vs. Venom in III, it’s perfectly fair game to declare that Nomura enjoys playing those kinds of meta games with the castings.

* Obviously the Master’s personality doesn’t quite line up with anyone we know, but while his degree of over-the-topness is unique, as is that he speaks like a ‘real’ person instead of a Disney or Final Fantasy character (and given Xigbar, Genie, and Hades all act a lot wittier and more casual than the other characters and the Master’s probably in that 1000+ year old club too, we might be able to assume that’s just a trait it takes awhile to pick up in the universe of Kingdom Hearts), most of his other traits can be traced back to Sora or Riku. He’s playful and encouraging like the former, sarcastic and biting and full of himself like the latter used to be. It’s been acknowledged more than once that the two have been picking up each others’ personality traits, with Riku picking up some of Sora’s exuberance and free-spiritedness (though he noticeably tended towards the expressive, dramatic side all on his own when lost in his own darkness) while it’s hard not to imagine Sora’s gotten some of his snark in his attempts at being more like Riku. But the big Master of Masters personality thing when he’s actually apparently being sincere and serious? That “you ultimately need to do what your heart feels is right”? Sora may be the one to say May Your Heart Be Your Guiding Key after he learned about the phrase, but Riku’s the one who in both II and III argues for the right of allies to seemingly lay down their lives in service of where their hearts guide them.

* Biggie: the Master of Masters has a connection to Dream Eaters, being able to create the Chirithy. Riku’s been one.

* Another biggie: the Master of Masters presumably carries a great deal of light in him, since he’s able to pass among the other inhabitants of Daybreak Town and seems to value it when waxing mournfully about events to come, but given what he goes on to do he surely harbors a great deal of darkness as well. So much so that it would be difficult to not notice, especially in a world where it was an anomaly, unless he was able to hide it where it couldn’t be felt by others. Contained within himself alongside his light, in a way that very pointedly only one character we’ve seen has been able to do.

* Not as big, but still notable: if there are physical differences between the Master and Riku, or if the Master as some have speculated has lived through the generations by possessing others like Luxu, it’s worth noting Riku’s worn another body before himself.

* A stretch post-III where it turns out acquiring new Keyblades isn’t the biggest deal, but it’s worth pointing out that Riku giving Kairi Destiny’s Embrace is still the only time we’ve seen someone directly give someone a Keyblade the way the Master apparently gave them to the Foretellers, rather than potentially bequeathing one in an Inheritance.

* While the Master is manipulative in general, it’s his treatment of Aced that most clearly stands out as him setting the stage for these friends to tear each other apart, and it’s him playing on his students’ desire for power and significance just as Maleficent once played Riku. If it’s Riku under that hood pulling the strings of impressionable youth, he hardly could have had a better example to follow.

* Speaking of the Foretellers, each of their names corresponds with the Latin title of one of the seven deadly sins. The one that doesn’t belong with one of the six and therefore presumably lies with the Master himself would be Superbia - as eagle-eyed players have noticed partially scrawled on the mysterious Black Box - meaning Pride. And if there’s one sin that most clearly defined Riku at his absolute lowest moment, it’s pride.

* The Master of Masters acts in a way that suggests he has some manner of not entirely malevolent intentions, even if he’s perfectly willing to use the worst of means to get there. And again, when at his worst, Riku’s the one who tends towards Going Too Far for Good Reasons.

* It can be reasonably assumed the Master has some sort of massive, cosmic role of significance given all these other mighty Keyblade wielders hold him in unquestioning reverence, and while we don’t know what his power might be, it’s presumably tied in some way to Kingdom Hearts. Riku meanwhile was originally going to be the one to receive the Kingdom Key, a blade that, while it hasn’t been directly acknowledged yet, clearly has a connection to the X-Blade, marking him from jump as a figure of tremendous import above perhaps every other major character until he botched it and Sora wound up with that gig.

* Assuming the Master of Masters wants to get at Kingdom Hearts - and of course he does, what else do the villains ever want in these - and’ll get closer than anyone else because he’s the final villain, it means Riku wasn’t wrong in the first game when he said “It’s up to me. Only the Keyblade master can open the secret door and change the world.”

* The Dark Riku alongside Xigbar in the Keyblade Graveyard is the only apparent instance of pair-the-spares when it comes to the villains in the final battle rather than having any thematic connection...unless it’s actually the (offshoot of a past version of the) Master of Masters and Luxu. In fact, including Ansem since he starts off as part of that fight, that brawl would then be a reprise of you battling the first forms encountered by Sora of the three biggest villains in the entire series.

* Speaking of the Dark Riku, his crack about the Mark of Mastery is notable in this context, especially since it comes out of nowhere and Riku doesn’t seem to know entirely what he means. Was that something deliberate?

* And speaking of Xigbar, I’ve already seen fanfics and whatnot centering around Sora-is-the-Master retconning in that Luxu was actually ‘babysitting’ his master’s past self. Worth noting in that light that he spends almost as much time around Riku as Sora: he meets Sora personally face-to-face at the beginning of II and III, but every other time they run into each other it’s when Riku’s right nearby, whether in an upper level of the Castle chamber in their fight in II or fighting both in III or Riku being in Sora’s dream during their DDD confrontation (mostly stuff that’s clearly just meant in the sense of ‘Riku and Xigbar often show up during important plot stuff, of course they’d end up nearby a few times’, but it’d be easy for the creators to retcon as Luxu keeping an eye on him while misdirecting to make it seem like Sora was his real target). But as opposed to his loud, scenery-chewing confrontations with Sora, he was trailing Riku in the Land of Dragons once upon a time - the first time we ever see him face-to-face - quietly in a way that isn’t usually his style even given his noted skill at recon. And if Riku’s the Master, Riku being the last one to say something to him prior to his ‘death’, declaring him unworthy of the Keyblade when a version of him will go on to entrust him with the Keyblade most important to his plans, gets a major charge.

* As someone’s pointed out since, this, which Nomura joked is the sort of thing only the Master of Masters would do (though A Fragmentary Passage really has so far been the odd man out in the secret movies in how little has played out of it; I guess Sora vanishing must have been knowing foreshadowing in retrospect, but a lot of the rest hasn’t come to fruition. Abandoned plans for the series, or ones yet to materialize?).

* Not actually evidence, but if he was the Master then the end of DDD where he mutters to himself “I’m...a Keyblade master?” is another bit that would take on a delightfully ominous air with the benefit of hindsight.

Thematic reasoning

In terms of character, I feel like this opens up considerably more in a much more organic fashion than the possibility of Sora being the big bad. Not that that wouldn’t obviously offer a great deal, but to do so would involve reshaping or inverting a great deal of the character and thematic arcs we’ve seen thus far, while having it all come down to the final fight for Riku’s soul and by extension the world of light as a whole would by contrast do a lot to bring things full circle.

For starters, in the ‘full circle’ sense, along with Riku being the first major adversary of the series (while Maleficent was pulling the strings, Riku was the one dogging your heels, the rival with a personal stake in the conflict at hand) the most prominent imagery now associated with Xehanort, Luxu, and the Master of Masters began for the players with Riku. The Gazing Eye, the outfit and fighting posture later taken up by Vanitas (a connection that remains tantalizingly unexplored to this day), the dark but unmarked Heart symbol of the X-blade, the very concept that there could be multiple Keyblades; he’s even one of the two we see wearing black cloaks in their first appearance. In the world of the game those are all forces that battered Riku about amidst his fall that had been set in motion before he was even born, but as a story experienced by the players those symbols all trace their origins back to him as the first, most personal antagonist. While he’s redeemed himself about as much as one person possibly could - and I’ll say right here that I think when it comes down to it he’ll grit his teeth and stick to his guns on that rather than becoming whatever the Master is - he is and always will be inextricably linked with the series’ imagery for the forces of darkness in a way no other character can be. Dig down past all the layers of continuity and Norts to the most basic idea of what a Bad Guy is in the world of Kingdom Hearts is, and a possessed Riku in front of Hollow Bastion’s keyhole is what’s waiting at the bottom. Any feasible last boss is already on some level an offshoot of that.

But that’s just why it would be a nice clean fit in terms of visual symbolism. More substantially, the Master of Masters being a potential future version of him immediately answers the question of what to do with the dude character-wise. Yozora makes it very clear he’s still going to be important going forward, but as III also made clear, his existing character arc has been closed. He’s fought his way back into the light, been willing to sacrifice that light in himself and any hope of returning home to help the friend he once betrayed, still found salvation, came to terms with the person he was and wanted to be, and was recognized as having mastered his power and his heart. His story could in every way that matters be done, but obviously it isn’t, which means there must still be something for him to deal with; something more than saving Sora, which while as serious as it gets is still for him old hat.

(Going into Sora for a bit: him being the Master of Masters could no doubt be fascinating, in the self-reflection it would induce in Sora, in the conceptual scale of the threat, in the horror it would induce in those close to him, and in Riku in being put on the other side of the equation of having to save his friend from himself. But even aside from how radical a departure that would be personality-wise, it’s a prospect that doesn’t really address Sora’s existing fears or flaws. He’s filled with doubt, yes, but regarding his perceived lack of strength rather than a simmering moral rot; his darkness when glimpsed in a few of his forms seems to be something feral rather than actively malevolent, and he already has a plot-significant counterpart to explore the darkness in himself in Vanitas. Perhaps a desire for greater strength to protect his friends could be written as leading to him losing his way to the extent necessary to pull such a 180, but that’s already Riku and Terra’s misstep to pull themselves up from. It’s shocking in a way that’s enticing, absolutely, but I think part of why it would be shocking is that without either majorly reframing some basic stuff or retreading well-worn ground, it simply doesn’t fit as well as you want it to.)

But if Riku sees a familiar face under the hood, and looks at the blue eyes that once sat in his sword and in the mirror and realizes that there’s no outside force making him do terrible things to people he loves this time? He’s faced with a threat new to the series: that in the end, redemption might fail. Whether there’s timeline shenanigans that mean this guy lived a different life, if he backslid, if he’s clear-headedly making decisions he believes are for the best, or if he just had a really bad day that knocked him off the wagon; the counterpoint to the idea that there’s a light in the dark - the way III demonstrated in such an effective way in the Keyblade Graveyard with the endings of so many enemies - is that there’s a darkness buried down no matter what that still has a chance of breaking through no matter how mightily you’ve steeled yourself against it. It’s a completely different, far more visceral and meaningful fear than the idea of Sora being the one to break bad: in that case, the idea is captivating because it’s so alien and foreign and bizarre. Here, it’s frightening because Riku knows exactly how it could happen, and he’s grown enough to feel the shame and horror of that possibility when he’s already had to live with the consequences of it once. The Organization spent III trying to poke holes in the basic tenants our heroes live by, and this is the ultimate manifestation of that spiritual challenge - that the growth our heroes have seen might come undone by their own hands. And Riku fighting desperately to prove he can remain the person he’s fought so hard to become, and Sora and Kairi fighting to save him along with themselves and each other, is the final conflict.

It’s not just a prospect that would bring urgency back into Riku’s character, it’s a possibility that would reverberate through the whole cast with a severity that it simply couldn’t with Sora. Obviously Kairi and Mickey would stand with Riku and believe he would manage to turn out alright no matter what (though that loyalty is still complicated given an evil/morally-dubious Riku would likely go after Sora - he may have already if he had something to do with bringing him to the world of Verum Rex), but what about the rest of them? They all believe in Sora and his inherent goodness and owe him their lives, but for most Riku’s simply some guy they know, a friend of a friend. Roxas was a victim of his darkness even when he was trying to do the right thing. Terra’s already likely consumed with guilt and could likely see the prospect of his hand-picked successor once again falling to darkness like he did to simply be another on the list of his own sins. Ven might look at him when in his dark outfit and be reminded of his brother. And while Axel knows friends can come back to you, he’s a pragmatic dude who’s seen just how much they can change in the first place. When the battle lines are being drawn in a war even greater than Xehanort’s, would every last one of them really stand with him when they’ve been told he’ll betray them, as he’s betrayed those closest to him before? A prophecy of Sora going wrong would just be a catalyst to bind our heroes closer together to prevent that. That Riku might turn on them could strike at the fissure that would threaten to blow them apart, or if it doesn’t that’s an even greater display of good faith on their part than it would be with Sora. Hell, even on the antagonistic end, Maleficent as an opponent seeking to usurp the Masters’ ambitions is an immeasurably different conflict if she’s up against a Riku who’s gone down the path she first steered him towards.

At the end of the day, the question is why this would be worth making the story of Kingdom Hearts about when Sora is still supposed to be the main character. I laid out earlier some of why I don’t think Sora as the Master would work, but the real deal is this: not only is the Master of Masters a counterpoint to Sora, the Least Disney character in this universe whereas even when next to Mickey Mouse the spiky kid is distinctly the Most Disney, but more importantly to be the Master of Masters would undo the last of Sora’s original premise. For all that he’s become, he was still born, as Xehanort put it, a dull, ordinary boy, surrounded by Chosen Ones and unique entities of every stripe who joined their ranks and ultimately led them purely on the strength of his decency and determination. Riku was literally a Chosen One courtesy of Terra, blessed with one of the ultimate Keyblades and tearing the sky down by sheer force of his will to be more than what one world could contain, the vessel meant to open the Door To Darkness and the one who conquered his own darkness in a way no one else could, who in the end was selected as Master. He is Maximum Protagonist, in every way a Figure Of Destiny, whereas Sora is so much not that, so profoundly the spammer in the seemingly inevitable works of fate, that the first time he meets the first trilogies’ main villain the guy comments on how unremarkable he seems to be, and the last time they meet Sora’s ultimate rebuttal is against the idea of destiny as a straightforward thing any one person can control. For Sora to actually be the guy writing destiny, to have always really been the most important of them all, is to undo that. For him to fight the ultimate figure of destiny, for that to be the guy who was his counterpoint from the very first scene before your Xehanort’s and Roxas’s and Ven’s and Vanitas’s and Luxu’s - the cool guy and fighter and dreamer and Serious Leader-Type Important One to Sora’s cheery, insecure dork in shoes the wrong size who seemed born to be the sidekick - is to bring that story full circle. And it’s to give him the chance to do the one thing he fought for in I and II that he was never able to do himself: save Riku. Because saving his friends is what Sora’s story, and all of Kingdom Hearts, always has to come down to in the end.

#Kingdom Hearts #Master of Masters #Riku #Sora #Analysis #Opinion

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zdbztumble · 5 years

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“Kingdom Hearts II” revisited, Part V

Having only ever played XIII out of the Final Fantasy series, I only know characters like Cloud, Leon, Yuffie, and Aerith through their roles in Kingdom Hearts. In that capacity, I like them quite a bit, and I was upset along with all the FF fans that they were left out of KH III, for spurious reasons. “We didn’t need them because we have original characters to fill those roles” basically amounted to handing off the job of exposition dumps to Ienzo, as if it were simply a matter of trading out corporate spokesmen. From KH I to II, Leon, Yuffie, Sid, Merlin, and Aerith establish themselves as a group, each with a distinct personality, notable interplay among themselves, and each with a unique relationship to Sora and friends. Cloud, on his own, did the same. To toss them aside in favor of a character with no personality, and no connection to Sora, makes the exposition dumps in KH III far more tedious to get through, not helped by the fact that the exposition itself is so much more ridiculous by then. The character dynamics lost are hardly worth the promotion of one unremarkable figure just on account of his being “original.”

But KH II has the opposite problem with its FF guest stars: at a pivotal moment in the story, an excessive number of cameos make unavoidable appearances, creating a painful drag on the pace of the game and distracting from the main story just when major events get underway.

This is unfortunately evident as soon as Sora arrives back in Hollow Bastion after his first pass at the Disney worlds and runs into Cloud. I have absolutely no objection to Cloud being included in this game, and I love that he’s in Hollow Bastion with the others. But Cloud’s history with Sephiroth - and with Aerith, and with Tifa - have nothing to do with the main KH II story, and when the game is building toward King Mickey’s reintroduction, the twist with Ansem, and a shift in power among the villains, being forced to take time out for cutscenes teasing conflicts and relationships from a different series is most unwelcome. The scenes of Tifa rifling through the castle are, if anything, even more of a distraction - one could at least argue that Cloud’s conversation with Aerith has some thematic connection to Sora and Kairi, and that his relationship to Sephiroth has some thematic relevance to Riku and “Ansem.”

A far better reintroduction for Cloud, and a first introduction for Tifa, would have been to have them with the others when Sora first comes to Hollow Bastion. Cloud could be aloof, if that was desired, and Sora could have been surprised to see him there. Tifa could have been introduced as another member of the Restoration Committee, with a line from Aerith or Yuffie or somebody about how “it’s not just us, y’know.” Their first appearances would thus have come at an appropriate moment in the game, and they would have already been established as part of the Hollow Bastion world before Sora returns after completing the first pass at the Disney worlds. If Sephiroth, Tifa’s desire for Cloud, and Aerith’s relationship with him were all things the staff dearly wanted in the game, that all could have come in the form of completely optional material unlocked after the big Heartless battle, just the way that Sephiroth was an optional fight in KH I. There was no reason to make this material mandatory.

Worst of all are the appearances by the Gullwings. My understanding is that Final Fantasy X-2 is a controversial title in the series, and all I know of it comes from this game and a comedic “review,” but I can still wholly understand if any fan of that game had a problem with their cameo here. Besides the pixie makeover, they are, more than any other FF characters, completely irrelevant to what’s going on. A gift of a Keyblade after the fact does not a justification make, and I really can’t believe that they were included, just for the sake of Nomura’s notion of doing “not human yet human” versions of the characters.

(I hate to say this, but Stitch’s introduction is pretty appalling too. He’s just there, no rhyme or reason, and there’s no relationship established between him and any other character before he jumps down. At the very least, Merlin could’ve introduced him a “a stray I picked up along my travels” or something.)

But, I’ve gotten ahead of myself - and while this issue is a substantial one, it’s my only major gripe with this middle portion of the game. There’s a medium-sized one as well...but we’ll get to that.

Since I tend to play “in character” as Sora, I can sometimes find myself reacting to certain things in unusual ways. In the case of the first return to Twilight Town, I started to get excited at the thought of seeing Kairi again even as I knew how the story plays out, which makes me very grateful that I was alone at home while playing the game. Kairi’s brief interaction with the Twilight Town trio is nice, though having been introduced to the KH II manga, it’s hard to watch her being taken by Axel and not wish she showed the sort of fight she puts up in that adaptation.

Twilight Town is also the first time in quite a while that signs of Roxas appear, as he asserts himself from within Sora with the blue stone. At first, I found this moment a little jarring - Sora has just been learned that Kairi was kidnapped, after all - but given that it’s a moment for Roxas to briefly take control, I made peace with it.

Out of all the Disney titles used for Kingdom Hearts worlds, Tron is the one I have the least amount of experience with; I’ve only seen it once, I didn’t care for it very much, and I never bothered with the sequel. Here in KH II, the level is fun and colorful, it isn’t too stiff a recap of the movie from what I remember, and it represents a clever way to tie Disney material in with the original elements of the KH universe. Though I do wonder if Tron was only selected as a world because it offered Nomura and company a platform to indulge in nonsensical techno-speak dialogue.

Tron is also the catalyst for that medium-sized complaint I mentioned before: I see no good reason why Sora’s talk with King Mickey about Ansem had to wait until after Sora goes back into Space Paranoids. There’s no clear ticking clock demanding that he go back right away, and all this does is undercut the reunion with King Mickey and the sense of revelation in the air over the true identity of “Ansem.” When we do finally arrive at that moment, however...it’s not bad. It has to be admitted that there is no real set-up for this twist. You can’t even go back to KH I and find lines equivalent to “there’s too much of his father in him” in Star Wars to retroactively make into foreshadowing. Nothing from KH I, or CoM, is negated by the revelation that “Ansem,” Seeker of Darkness was really Xehanort the apprentice, however. For a twist that exists just for the sake of having one, it’s innocuous, and well-placed within the narrative to give an appropriate jolt to the proceedings. Certainly it’s better-handled, and more benign conceptually, than later “twists” in the series.

This leads us into the long battle with the Heartless, and there’s a lot to recommend this whole sequence. As clumsy as Cloud’s reintroduction was in this game, the moment of him and Leon fighting back-to-back was fantastic; I imagine that scene is an even bigger thrill fro FF fans. What’s more, it’s appropriately placed to be both cool and relevant. The run down the hill that sees Sora fighting alongside one FF character after another is just as delightful. I’d completely forgotten about this part of the game, so it was a pleasant surprise...and a painful reminder at the lack of effort put into giving the other Keyblade wielders some time with Sora in KH III. I will note, however, that Aerith’s absence from the line-up in this run is a problem, and that by rights Merlin should be there too.

The villain material in this section isn’t bad, though it would have been more powerful if their respective plots hadn’t been in such a long lull in the back half of the Disney worlds. Maleficent battling the Nobodies, and ultimately confronting Saix to buy Sora time, is a wonderful idea, and helps to illustrate her story as one of a long and ultimately fruitless climb back towards the top of the villain totem pole, but a larger presence for her in some of those Disney worlds would’ve helped build to that more. Some appearances by the Organization would’ve done the same for the battle with Demyx. It’s not a bad fight, for the first serious boss battle with a member. The shorter time trials got pretty aggravating, though.

There are also some character beats in this section that are on the whole nice additions, if imperfect in execution. Sora being conflicted over whether to help Leon like he promised or to go search for Kairi and Riku is fine - it’s a conflict Sora’s faced, in various guises and degrees, since the beginning of the series, and he’s well-established at this point in the story as someone who goes where the greatest need is over his own desires. But the scene is just a little overdone. I’d say the same about Goofy’s fake-out death, which is cleared up just a little too soon. On the other hand, it’s in the midst of all that that the 1000 Heartless fight takes place, and that’s just as much fun as I remember.

(While I’m on this section of the game, I want to air a nitpick with the gameplay that pops up before, during, and after this section. What is the point of these “runs” where you take about two seconds’ worth of steps after one cutscene just to trigger another? Just go straight to the next scene!)

This section also reveals that Kairi managed to get away from Axel. As an idea, that’s fine. But why isn’t it a scene? Give me one reason why that wasn’t a serious enough story beat to warrant a cutscene. Of course I’m advocating for more material for Kairi, but - and I can’t believe I’m saying this - such a cutscene might have even given Axel some development. I’ll be talking more about the additions to Final Mix in a later post, but the fact that a long-ass walk down hallways was a priority over expanding on this plot point tells you something about the warped priorities the creative team developed in the years after KH II’s release.

We leave this section of the story with Sora, Donald, and Goofy on the retreat, guided out of darkness by Riku and guided by the Keyblade to some unknown destination. But when that lane opens, Sora declares “not yet! I have to look for Kairi!” thus setting up the second pass at the Disney worlds. How often in this series does Sora voice an urge to follow his own desires over the call of duty? I thought it was an impressive moment for his character.

EDIT: corrections made (thank you @khtrinityftw.)

#z's crits #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts 2 #critique #commentary

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oveliagirlhaditright · 5 years

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So... I’m a few days late for this, and I apologize. I was busy making birthday presents for the best friend and lost track of time.

And if people can’t use this because it’s late, they of course don’t have to. But...

This is what KH means to me... My thank you to the KH team...

I would have loved to write something for them, but I don’t know if they’d be big on getting fanfiction for their own work. I also could have done a digital manipulation or gmv for them... But IDK. Maybe them getting their own work back to them in a fan-edited way wouldn’t seem good at all? Because you didn’t do most of the work there. They did. You just edited it. And maybe you even edited in a way they wouldn’t approve of, and they see your work as copyright infringement?

So that leaves drawing, but I’m not the best drawer yet...

So screw it. I’m just going to write an essay about what this series has meant to me, the last seventeen years.

(Warning. This will be long. And probably emotional.)

Where do I even begin... I discovered this series when I was nine-years-old, right after the first game had come out. And seeing the advertisements for it on Disney channel made me want to have it so very badly.

I actually didn’t have a PS2 at the time... And while my sister and I did want other games alongside KH, yes, it was mainly for KH that we wanted a Playstation 2... So we begged our parents for one for Christmas, and they were gracious enough to get us one and quite a few games... and, of course, Kingdom Hearts with them.

We actually didn’t start with that one, though (even though I wanted to). My sister wanted to somewhat save the best for last, I guess... And when we did finally end up playing it, I had actually caught a bit of a cold (and it was only the promise that we’d finally play Kingdom Hearts, that day that got me to game. Even though I had been every day before, and had enjoyed all the other games--don’t get me wrong--but I was feeling that crappy, and it took the incentive of Kingdom Hearts to get me to agree).

And to say that I fell in love with it from the get-go would be an understatement. The opening cinematic pulled me in, it’s true (and already, I could tell this was different from the other games based on movies that I’d played), but it was mainly the Dive to the Heart section that really captured me (and made me forget my illness). That atmosphere still gives me chills and wonder, and calls me back to give it a go again years and years later. And I’m glad something like it has been included in games since, like in KHII, KHIII, Re:Coded, and what have you.

I was nine... So I stumbled my way through a lot of this game--and I mean stumbled--I had no idea what I was doing most of the time. In the fights, a lot of the ways I’d let Donald and Goofy do all of the work... and it took me a whole month to find Maleficent in Hollow Bastion. But I did end up beating the game, and understanding all of it.

I also ended up getting deep thoughts about it--as it is a mystery series that leaves you thinking--and I know I used to annoy people by talking about it. Haha. But this series got me thinking in a way that nothing else had... And that I honestly don’t know if most other kids my age could have... at least without something like this in their lives.

At this point, the series owned my soul. It touched me more than any other piece of media ever had, and ever will--and I’d had plenty pieces of media I really liked back then, such as Sailor Moon and yet they didn’t even come close. And while I’d shipped other couples before, such as Usagi and Mamoru from Sailor Moon, Sora and Kairi was the first one where I really felt like “These two have to be together”--and my life became about waiting for the next game (it still very much is, as sad as that might be to say).

I remember I would go to the store, and often times ask people who worked in the game section if they knew anything about a Kingdom Hearts II (this was before I had the Internet), and I recall being really sad one time when one of the workers told me maybe there never would be. LOL And to be clear, this was the time even before Chain of Memories.

Eventually, I saw Chain of Memories advertised on Cartoon Network and then begged my parents for a Game Boy Advance, so I could play this sequel. And for the Christmas that year, they complied as well (gosh, I have the best parents in the world). But I was saddened when I realized I couldn’t really play it with my sister (and her best friend) who I’d played the first game with. So my sister just told me to play it, and then tell her everything that happened. Which I did... With notes, and everything. Oh, yeah. I kept notes on KHI, CoM, and KHII, I think. I was that level of crazy (in a good way!).

Around this time, I was also subscribed to Disney magazines... And when I eventually got one that had Kingdom Hearts II in it: the one that revealed Sora’s new outfit as Beast’s Castle as a world--the first I’d ever heard of it, and the first I realized that Chain of Memories wasn’t the “true sequel” (as much as I did like Chain of Memories, I was glad to hear this. And even moreso that it was coming back to consoles, so I could experience it with my sister and her best friend again), I legitimately screamed so loud, you don’t even know. It’s a good thing I was home alone that day... And screaming about anything Kingdom Hearts related has pretty much become a trend of mine. Oops.

...So then I ended up pre-ordering Kingdom Hearts II from GameStop, with all of the cool things that came with that (like the special edition strategy guide that had four different covers, based on Sora’s Drive Forms. I have the Valor/Brave Form one), and I asked my mom to pick it up for me while I was at school so I could come home the day it came out and immediately start playing it. It came out near the beginning of that year’s spring break, and I beat the whole game in that time... You couldn’t have pulled me away from my Playstation 2 that break if you had tried.

I also know that I tried out for my school’s show choir the time that Kingdom Hearts II had just come out... Something I really should have cared about, but I didn’t as much as I could’ve... And while my mom had gotten busy talking to someone, waiting for me to come back from my audition, when I got back and she was still talking to them... I sort of wanted her to hurry along, so I could get back to my game... Something I think my mom even admitted to that person (but in as nice a way as possible)... Oh my gosh.

I also know that one day, I was thinking about KHII in class--I’d left off on the half-way mark of the game, with the 1000 Heartless battle and all that--so it was heavy on my mind... Our teacher was asking us about our weekends, and someone else in class started talking about how they started playing Kingdom Hearts II, and I gasped loudly--to which everyone stared--and I said that I had the game, too, and loved it... My teacher then said that was the most emotion they’d ever gotten out of me.

Ahahahahaha. I have many other embarrassing stories that I could admit with this series--particularly with KHII, and I have on past accounts--but you know what? I’m going to save myself some humiliation and keep them to myself.

But KH... It means the world to me. How can it not? It’s been a constant joy in my life for so many years: That’s been with me through just a little before my double-digit years, all of my teens, and into my adulthood.

I’ve made many friends through this series, too, either by convincing my friends to give it a try or making friends with people I know love the saga.

It’s a constant light for me, and always has been, that reminds me of my childhood (for so many reasons. The Disney for sure being one of them) and simpler times: And that there always is a light at the end of the tunnel...

In fact, the KH characters even feel like friends I’ve had for a long time--that I can always count on--and who I’m always happy to see.

And even now, that feeling hasn’t faded away (it probably never will). Since the way I reacted to KHIII, is pretty much the way I did KHII: Even fourteen years later, and as an adult now.

Kingdom Hearts even introduced me to all the things I love. I found YouTube--after I finally got Internet--when a friend told me I could watch the Kingdom Hearts II secret ending there, as I hadn’t unlocked it myself (and since I had doubts in myself as a gamer back then, I wasn’t sure that I could. Even though I had unlocked the one for the first game. And did eventually do so for the second game... and all of them, except for KHIIFM so far). And YouTube, amvs (a lot of them for KH) is how I found my love for video editing.

And moreover, I’m a writer. And it was in Googling stuff about Sora and Kairi that I eventually discovered fanfiction (that I actually, stupidly, thought was official stuff by the actual writers at first, because I found fanfiction on sites that weren’t called that), and through that started it myself and honed my writing skills. My writing style is probably even inspired by KH, in a lot of ways--like how I handle mystery and when I deliver information to the reader, and all.

KH also did simpler things, like getting me into other Square Enix games (Final Fantasy, The World Ends With You, Bravely Default), and gaming in general.

I wouldn’t be the person I am today without Kingdom Hearts, and that’s just the facts.

I’ve even bonded over it with my dad. My dad doesn’t know the series at all, God bless him, but he’s always willing to talk to me about it and ask me questions since he knows I love it so much. He always asks me when the next game’s coming out. Or if he knows one’s coming out, he’s aware of how happy that must have made me... Or if I’m playing it around him, and he hears a long song begin to play, he knows I must have beaten it. He also went to the Kingdom Hearts Orchestra with me:D

My mom also knows the series through me. A bit more than my dad, since she used to come up and watch us play it some (my dad also did a few times). But I felt it’s more fitting to mention my dad here, since he actually knows it less... And still admirably does this stuff, and is still this in the know about how much it means to me.

...I’ve admitted this before (like in an official survey to Square Enix)--even though I don’t like to, for obvious and personal reasons (and this is for sure something my parents don’t know and never should)--that in really rare, dark times of mine... Kingdom Hearts has saved me from suicide: Those times that I struggle with depression, and felt like I really had nothing else to live for... And yet wanting to be alive to finally see the end of Sora's story, drove me to give life another chance.

And I don’t really think I can say much more than that, or go deeper, to express just what this franchise is to me.

So Kingdom Hearts team... from the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything.

#thank you kh team

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levyowl · 5 years

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How Epic Mickey could fit into the Kingdom Hearts Universe so Oswald can get the Love and Attention he Deserves: The Text Post

Ok, so it’s been confirmed that Nomura really wants to add our favorite lucky rabbit into the KH universe, but for some reason, Disney told him getting the rights to Oswald would be ‘difficult’ for whatever reason. I know Oswald used to be owned by another party, but when Epic Mickey was being pitched, Disney bought back the rights, so they now own him fully. I’m not sure why Disney wouldn’t just let Nomura use him, seeing as they’re sure as hell aren’t.

As you can imagine, this is pretty sad. A surprising amount of people love Oswald, including myself. But it honestly got me thinking about how Epic Mickey could fit into Kingdom Hearts. They have some vague similarities, seeing as a lot of the older characters, such as Horace the Horse, make an appearance in both games, EM has some talk of hearts, but obviously, the rules of what a heart is is different in both games, etc.

So, as you can imagine, this was a bit of a challenge for me to think of, and this is going to be a long post. But I’ve been seriously reflecting on this topic for a while, so much so that I wrote this post on a Google Doc so I could properly get my thoughts together before I posted this.

Also, you never know if Disney could change their minds or Nomura goes through all the possible legal stuff and get Oswald into the game, so all of this could just me pointlessly screaming into the void, but I don’t care; I’m making this post. And keep in mind that this is what I personally would do with it. I am in no way a professional game director like Nomura, and if Oswald does make it into a KH game, it will probably be done better than my idea. Though keep in mind, my idea is kinda convoluted just like the rest of KH’s plot OOOOO lol jk. With all of that said:

All of this takes place between the events of BBS and KH1.

Disney Town and the world of EM are the same. Sorta (this will have to do with why Disney Castle is more pronounced in the overworld art in the timeline after BBS).

All the residents in EM live in DT.

Oswald is the Mayor of DT (Or at least the small town area we see in BBS).

We presumably don’t see him in BBS because he was too busy running the town in the background. Queen Minnie and Duchess Daisy were there to oversee the Dream Festival for him.

Oswald is personal best friends with King Mickey. Like, everyone jokes about them being brothers all the time.

After the events of BBS, we see Pete be freed from his prison by Maleficent. Right after this, Pete asks for help for immediate revenge on the residents.

Maleficent decides to completely destroy the world as you do.

More specifically, she wants to make the world fall to darkness and wipe the world and its residents from the minds of others (think of it like Xion’s disappearance)

Firstly, to get Pete further indebted to her so he’ll go along with her plans without question.

Second, if everyone forgets about Donald, Goofy, Minnie, and Mickey after they were to fall to darkness, then that’s several enemies she wouldn’t have to worry about anymore.

Thirdly, she could use the hearts of the residents to create a powerful army of Heartless.

The fourth reason was she was feeling particularly bitchy that day.

All the while, Yen Sid senses the sudden spike in darkness in DT.

He warns Mickey about Pete and Maleficent, but orders Mickey to stand back and observe for now, as he only just became a Keyblade Master and Yen Sid isn’t sure if he can take her on by himself.

But ofc Mickey goes back to DT with Yen Sid’s Star Shard to confront Maleficent anyway.

However, he’s too late; Maleficent’s already started the spell.

Mickey fights past Pete but can’t quite make it to Maleficent before she creates a portal in the sky straight to the World of Darkness.

The residents, including Oswald, start to get sucked into the portal. As this happens, Mickey starts to forget some of them. (Like how Roxas’ memories of Xion faded slightly before and after she ‘died’)

Just like Roxas, Mickey gets a bit of a power boost in a desperate attempt to stop Maleficent and remember Oswald.

Before they get completely sucked in, Yen Sid uses his magic to change the destination of the portal and quickly creates a small ‘pocket world’ in his tower within an enchanted scroll on his desk with magic paint and thinner ala the Fantasia world in DDD (I’m sure you can see where this is going).

However, due to the darkness of Maleficent’s spell and the fact he rushed to make it, the world he created was a dark and twisted version of DT.

And since the spell was to make the residents fall to darkness, they all lost their hearts. However, in the world Yen Sid made, time doesn’t exist (just like the WoD), so they don’t become Heartless/Nobodies; they’re stuck in-between the process.

They still have their emotions and memories, but without their hearts, they can’t leave the world.

Besides, even if they could, they would only become Heartless and/or Nobodies.

Mickey manages to use his Star Shard to transport himself, Pete, and Maleficent to the Keyblade Graveyard before she sucks in all the residents, but Oswald and the others who appear in EM are sucked in and forgotten.

Yen Sid, due to the trans-dimensional/spatial and magical properties of his tower, is the only one who remembers.

Considering that not even Maleficent remembers what happened now, she takes Pete and teleports away to do whatever she did between BBS and KH1 plan her revenge.

Mickey, confused as to why he’s suddenly in the Graveyard again, teleports back to the Mysterious Tower.

Yen Sid tells Mickey about what happened, but Mickey can’t help but feel a little detached since he can’t remember any of it.

However, when Yen Sid mentions Oswald, Mickey feels a sadness in his heart that he can’t quite explain. A single heart rolls down his cheek.

Yen Sid tells Mickey how he needs to go into the scroll and fix the world. He tells Mickey that he can’t fix the darkness from the outside, and how he can sense Heartless in the scroll.

Mickey grabs the paintbrush and dips it into the paint.

“What do you mean? Couldn’t we just use the paint and thinner to fix the problem here?”

“Mickey, don’t!”

Mickey, surprised by Yen Sid’s outburst, jumps back.

In the process, he accidentally knocks over the paint and thinner onto the scroll.

OhDearGodWhatHaveIDone.jpg

Mickey tries to wipe up the liquid puddle on the scroll, but it’s too late; Yen Sid tells Mickey that the damage is irreversible here on the outside.

With Mickey’s only option made clear, he jumps into the scroll.

From here, the events of EM play out pretty much the same, with some differences.

The real world references in EM are either completely missing or made a lot more subtle (things like the Walt Disney statue with Oswald are removed while small things in the levels are still there).

The Blotlings are a new type of Heartless instead of just monsters.

The magic paintbrush Mickey brings with him turns into the Epic Masterpiece Keyblade.

The “multiple Petes” in EM are animatronics this time, based off of other personas of the KH Pete (like Captain Justice and Captain Dark)

Characters like Smee who were in KH before while also in EM would just be animatronics.

The Donald, Daisy, and Goofy animatronics were made by Oswald to try and replicate their powers to protect them from the Heartless. This obviously failed.

The Mad Doctor was obsessed with experiments with the heart, like Xehanort before and during EM (tho obviously not as bad or as successful as he was).

Oswald and the Mad Doctor were working on these animatronics before Maleficent tried to wipe them out (The Donald, Daisy, and Goofy animatronics were incomplete before they were sucked in, hence why they’re so damaged in EM).

Oswald was named King of Wasteland in place of Mickey.

If everyone were to remember the residents, they could possibly get their hearts back.

The hurt and betrayal that Oswald felt in EM are not because Mickey got the spotlight and replaced him; he’s upset because Mickey, who was a brother for him, doesn’t remember him anymore. And even worse, he caused the Thinner Disaster.

At the end of EM, Mickey regains his memories of the residents and especially Oswald.

He wants to bring them out, but they can’t leave without their hearts.

Mickey is torn because he knows the Wastelands, while fixed for now, are still dangerous as the Heartless could possibly come back and the Mad Doctor is still on the loose.

But even if they could leave, bringing them back would possibly bring back everyone’s memories of them, including Maleficent’s, so it’s dangerous either way.

So Mickey does the next best thing he can think of: he bequeaths Oswald.

Since Oswald doesn’t have a heart, he couldn’t summon a Keyblade the natural way, so Mickey hands him the Epic Masterpiece Keyblade.

However, Mickey’s bond with Oswald was so strong that when he handed it to Oswald, his hearts reacts to it even though it’s so far away from Oswald’s body.

Basically, the bond and memories that Mickey shared with Oswald were strong enough to call to Oswald’s heart for the Keyblade to spring from.

It’s called the Lucky Remote Keyblade, (Obviously based off of his remote from EM2).

Mickey leaves Wasteland after promising to tell only those trustworthy about them.

Basically, only Mickey, Yen Sid, Donald, Goofy, Minnie, Daisy, Chip, and Dale remember the residents of Wasteland to any extent. They all keep the secret. (Mickey probably told Ventus, Aqua, Terra and the others about it after KH3.)

Donald treats it just like he treats the Order; if anyone even remotely hints at it, he scolds them like he does Sora.

EM2 is canon; all the previous notes apply. Those events take place before KH1 but obviously waaay after EM1 in the timeline (Ten years is more than enough time for both of these games to happen before KH1).

Well, there you have it! This post is way too long and I’m tired :’)

Maybe I’ll draw the Keyblades and my redesign for a KH! Oswald at some point, but this is more than enough for now.

#kingdom hearts #epic mickey #kh #this post is three pages long in a Google Doc I hope you appreciate my sacrifice lol #my idea #my concept #my post #levyowl

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