inktober day 1: dream

(roxas from kingdom hearts)

this year i'll be doing fanart for inktober, and i've assigned a piece of media i enjoy to each prompt! lets hope i last longer than 2 days this time

no.XIII

Day 7: Nobody

Samurai Nobodies and the reaction command is so sick

Happy holidays (:

Roxas Smoking a Cigarette Outside of Dollar General (2023)

jpg version also

Feeling nostalgic for Kingdom Hearts ❤️

Ice cream

always eating that damn icecream

The fading memory ✨

"Xion...Who else will I eat ice cream with?"

"it was my choice"

goodbye, roxanne

Support my art: Patreon | Commissions

uncolored stuffs

Two Become One

Something I thought of from the keyblade of the same name

Roxas’s Prologue at the Beginning of KH2 is the perfect introduction for KH2 Because it firmly establishes the 3 core themes of the Game through Roxas’s character. The First theme Roxas’s Story talks about is the idea of duality. Roxas is Sora’s Nobody, his Other, an integral part of Sora’s being that he needs back in order to become a complete person again and wake up. To put it in another way Roxas is the Prince Charming to Sora’s Snow White. But Roxas of course rejects his role in the fairy tale, he has become his own person after all why would he ever want to go back to Sora. Roxas fights his fate all the way until the very end when he finally meets Sora and understands everything. Roxas knows that things could be the other way around, that he could if he wanted to leave Sora to his eternal sleep and take his place in the universe but he won't because in this moment he truly gazes upon the sanctuary that is Sora’s heart and realizes that it is beautiful. Roxas knows that it has to be Sora, that only his heart has the power and kindness to understand the hearts of others and connect to all. So Roxas does what he was meant to do and returns to the sky he was born from. He restores Sora and brings about duality, right? The tragic ending of Roxas’s story hints that perhaps true duality has not actually been achieved, after all can it even be called duality when one has to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the other? Maybe just maybe true duality could be achieved if Sora and Roxas existed together side by side rather than as one being, but answering that question is no longer Roxas’s responsibility, it’s Sora’s now.

The Second theme relates back to KH1. In Kingdom Hearts 1 the game asks what is the true nature of the heart and answers with light so in KH2 the biggest question is “What does it mean to have a heart?” This Question is raised right from the beginning with the reveal that Roxas is a nobody. As stated in the 13th Ansem Report from KH1 the Nobody is the shell that is left behind after a heart becomes heartless, A body that still goes on despite its lack of a heart. And by the logic of KH Roxas should be an emotionless husk devoid of any real purpose but he isn’t any of that. Roxas by all accounts behaves like a normal teenager with emotions as real and passionate as Sora’s. Heck one could even argue he’s more like a real teenager tha his somebody. Sora is at his core a cartoon fairy tale character, his behavior and action exaggerated for dramatic and comedic effect, he yearns to see what lies beyond him in the great wide somewhere, and most importantly of all his beliefs are rooted in a sense of pure whimsical idealism. And Roxas isn’t really like that at all, he is far more grounded than Sora with his emotions being much more reserved often times giving in to melancholy rather than fairy tale wonder and only entering emotion as extreme as Sora’s when he’s forced into situations of intense stress by forces beyond his control, his desires are nothing more than a simple wish to spend his summer days on the beach playing with his friends, And he’s not at all concerned with grand ideals or beliefs just focusing on his small personal life. Perhaps the biggest piece of symbolism for Roxas being a normal teenager at his core would be his home, Twilight Town. Twilight Town is unique in the series for being the only normal world. It’s not a Gothic fairy tale castle like Hollow bastion nor a Child’s paradise like destiny Islands, rather it is just a simply quiet suburban town where the most exciting things to do are go to the beach or play Struggle. It’s the type of video game level that makes you feel at home with its music theme being the pure embodiment of summer melancholy. There is the Old Mansion of course which radiates haunted house energy but it’s important to note that the mansion is very much cut off from the rest of the town with the only people living there being outsiders rather than the actual citizens of Twilight Town. Now one could claim that Roxas only acts like a real person because of the false memories forced on him once he was trapped in the digital Twilight Town but it’s important to note that Roxas doesn’t lose any of his emotions or personality after he regains his real memories, in fact his emotions become even more passionate, like a star going supernova. So when Roxas definitely declares he has a Heart of his own to DiZ we can’t help but believe him despite everything else in the series telling us otherwise. With the entire nature of the series put into question it must be asked, What does it mean to have a heart if a being who is defined by his lack of a heart and emotions not only claims to have heart but shows the most humanity out of everyone else in the cast? Is a Nobody like Roxas truly capable of having a heart separate from Sora’s? All these Questions and more now Sora’s responsibility to answer as Roxas’s Other.

And Now we have the final theme of KH2 which is without a doubt the most important theme in the entire series, “Separation is inevitable.” In Kh1 the game explored the idea of People’s hearts staying connected even when they’re world’s apart through The Destiny Islands Trio and Sora’s faith that he will find them again even after the ending. KH2 further expands on this idea by confronting the truth that separation is inevitable, everything must someday end whether we want it to or not at that includes the time we spend with our loved ones. This is ultimately why Roxas' time in the digital world takes place during the end of Summer Vacation, to teach Roxas and the audience this fact. Every kid knows that summer vacation is going to end, that their time in the sun isn’t eternal so the days they dread the most are those final days of summer. By placing the story in this time frame it allows the kids playing the game to understand how Roxas feels, to let them experience and empathize with his growing sense of dread as every day counts down so that when Roxas’s finally says “Looks Like My Summer Vacation is Over” they all feel it. The digital Twilight Town existes to teach Roxas that separation is inevitable and that is because Roxas was rejecting this truth. When Roxas left Organization XIII he refused to say Goodbye to Axel, rejecting their friendship outright simply because it was easier to pretend they were never friends than to accept the pain of losing him. So the narrative punishes Roxas by giving him a normal happy life full of friends and then ripping it all away from him. And we see Roxas beginning to understand this Truth as he attempts to give Axel a real goodbye even if it was more for his own sake rather than Axel’s. However the take away from this theme and Roxas’s Story is much more than “we just have to accept the pain of separation”, rather it is something far far more beautiful.

“We can’t be together forever so we better make the time we do have together something to remember.”

That is everything Kingdom Hearts is about summed up in one sentence. Everything ends including the time we spend with our loved one but instead of wallowing in that heartbreaking truth we must embrace it and enjoy every second we have with our friends so that we will always be connected to them even when they’re gone. Or to simplify it, “Don’t be sad that Summer is almost over instead savor those last few days with your friends so you never forget them”

It's the icing on the cake.

A little Roxas art because he's my absolute favorite Kingdom Hearts character.