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nadziejastar · 5 years

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Lea: I want everybody I meet to remember me. Inside people's memories, I can live forever.

Isa: I know I won't forget you. Believe me, I try all the time.

Lea: See, I'm immortal!

After making the post about Terra, I wanted to compare how much better his final fight was handled compared to Lea’s. Now, Lea’s main themes as a Guardian of Light were “death and rebirth” and “immortality”. His Keyblade is based on the Phoenix, a solar bird represented by the color red. Gee, I wonder if Lea saying he wanted to live forever to Isa had aaaanything to do with his future as a Guardian of Light? Isa was in a very similar situation to Terra. He was not in control of himself, and he was attacking his best friend. In KH2, Axel originally tried to bring Roxas back, but failed. But Axel didn’t give up. He went on the run and kept fighting ‘til the very end. He may have felt miserable, but he still had fighting spirit. He went out in a literal blaze of glory, protecting Sora and Kairi.

“I’ve decided! No matter how many times you guys run away I’ll bring you back, no matter how many times it takes!” he wished—he shouted, he wailed, he vowed.

I’ll bring them back no matter how many times it takes. No matter how many times. For my own sake, for your sakes.

The Phoenix dies over and over again, but it always comes back. Every time. That was the concept behind Lea as a Guardian of Light. In my opinion, his fight at the Keyblade Graveyard was supposed to focus on trying to keep his promise to bring Isa back, no matter what. Isa wasn’t recompleted. That’s why he was retrieved by Braig and Young Xehanort as the “poor soul” while he was unconscious. He was a vessel.

Oh, he actually woke up off-screen and joined totally of his own free will. What the hell was the point of the “Destiny” secret ending, then? Wasn’t it supposed to show that Isa has been taken away from Lea over and over and over again? But no matter how many times it takes, Lea will bring him back? Neither Roxas or Xion’s circumstances really warranted a line as impassioned as that. It’s because Axel was “chasing the illusion of friendship” looooong before he met them.

Lea trained to use a Keyblade to bring Isa back. But as the battle went on, that seemed impossible. I thought it was very sad that Lea was trying so hard to protect Kairi during the fight, but he still couldn’t bring himself to seriously fight Isa, knowing he was not in control of himself. He just couldn’t destroy him. Even to protect Kairi. I hated how the clock tower scene made it seem like neither Lea or Isa took the upcoming battle seriously. I mean, either of them could have died, but they talked like it was a boxing match or something. It was so ridiculous and made me so angry. There should have been a serious talk before the final battle that there is a chance someone will die. And I hated that Lea seemed weak during his fight when it was really that he didn’t want to fight his best friend.

The hostility disappeared from Roxas’ eyes. There was no more fighting spirit, left in that Roxas. Here - there was nothing he could do but disappear.

“Let’s meet again in the next life,” he said, smiling just a little as he said those words, and Roxas nodded silently.

“Yeah. I’ll be waiting.”

There was something funny about Roxas’s serious answer, and Axel laughed.

“Silly… you’d have a next life, but…” Axel said to Roxas–and his figure disappeared in the darkness of a portal he’d opened behind him.

The line was about meeting again in the next life is also about death and rebirth. And in my opinion, it was also about Isa. That’s why Axel initially thought Roxas responding seriously to him was funny. The scene where he almost let himself get killed was probably the saddest Axel/Lea moment for me in the whole series. Which is saying a lot. His final scenes in KH2 were incredibly heartbreaking. If you look at his facial expression, you can tell how resigned he was to his own death. He wasn’t smirking or sarcastic like he was at the end of KH2. He wasn’t planning on going out with a bang. He wasn’t fighting back at all, even though he wasn’t seriously injured. He was just emotionally spent and waiting for the finishing blow.

And that had quite an impact on me, because it’s the total opposite of Lea’s personality. He's a natural optimist. He was smiling as soon as he was recompleted, because he was filled with new hope. He was ready to go after his friend even though he killed him. He was an amazingly strong and resilient person. He tried so hard for so long, and was so hopeful that he’d finally get his best friend back. But in the end...he wasn’t able to save him. And this was the moment he finally lost his fighting spirit. He got his hopes up only to have them crushed. Axel never wanted to disappear, no matter how miserable he was. He always found something to keep him going. But here? He was ready for it. He looked so defeated. But...Isa didn’t finish him off. That moment should have been so amazing. But it got almost no attention. The scene shifted as quickly as possible.

“As long as we remember one another, we’ll never be apart. Got it memorized?”

“But, I mean…it just didn’t sound like you, Axel.” Xion could barely hold in laughter long enough to get the words out.

A wish that they could always be together—was longing for the impossible. But at least they could always remember one another.

This line is similar to Lea’s line in BBS. It’s about immortality and also written for Isa. That’s why Roxas and Xion laughed at him when said it, even though it was the closest he ever got to being emotionally candid with them. Nomura was communicating in a subtle way that Roxas and Xion didn’t understand him. They never did. Axel’s relationship with Saïx was so compelling to me because it encapsulated the themes of death and rebirth SO much better than his relationship with Roxas and/or Xion (which had a different theme). It came full circle. It started off happy when they were kids, then became worse until Axel was killed by him.

His heart was torn to shreds. He felt completely hopeless. Then he is reborn, and the relationship is brought back to life. That’s really powerful. After Isa stopped attacking him, he should have been so happy and hopeful again. Then...Xemnas shows up. All that hope would suddenly be drained from him all over again. Xemnas has known Lea for a decade. He knew exactly the right words to hurt him. He called him utterly useless and forgotten. In KH3D, Lea showed up and ruined his plan to make Sora a vessel. So, he used Isa to attack him, to emotionally hurt him. And that’s basically what he did here. The worst thing Lea could hear would be that Isa forgot about him and that he isn’t able to bring him back.

I think the serious and emotional mood of Lea’s final fight was really compromised, if not ruined. Sure, I think Axel smirking and acting sarcastic when Xemnas first arrived was totally in-character. Telling him that he was never his superior was looong overdue and completely appropriate. But I feel like him saying he had people rooting for him, and “nobody axes Axel” was lame and took away from the gravity of the situation. It all felt way too lighthearted for what should have been such a dramatic final battle. I always thought KH was good at knowing when to be funny and when to be serious.

“Bet you don’t know why the sun sets red. You see, light is made up of lots of colors. And out of all those colors, red is the one that travels the farthest.”

In KH3, Lea is mostly remembered for being comic relief and breaking the fourth wall. I find this sad, because I could see the vestiges of an incredibly emotional character arc that never came to be. There were some truly genuine moments during his fight that unfortunately got less attention than they deserved. They’re the moments that should have been remembered the most. I liked the moment where he was waiting for Xemnas to kill him. I loved the attention to detail in this scene, like the way he was hyperventilating. I knew exactly what that felt like. Lea truly thought he was going to die in that moment.

It’s such a shame that a serious scene like this was ruined by Roxas and Xion’s fanservice entrance. It was so cringeworthy. It really took away from the solemn mood this fight was supposed to have. Like, you’re not supposed to get a sense of triumph while fighting Isa. It wasn’t supposed to be “epic pwnage” or “badass”. There should have been a real sense of tragedy, like there was when Roxas fought Xion. And it was so dumb how Roxas was essentially crediting Isa for bringing him back, while he stood there completely blank and possessed. At least the music sounded appropriate for the mood. This whole fight should have been taken way more seriously than it was. The red sunset line also should have come back into play, just like Terra’s comment he made about the light of the stars. I mean, the line about the sunset was given such prominence. It’s all about the power of light.

Xigbar: The house is looking pretty empty, huh? I thought I'd get a little enjoyment watching Axel throw one last tantrum, but he went a lot quieter than I thought.

Luxord: Perhaps he was ready for it. Perhaps he put his existence on the line and won what he'd been longing for.

Saïx: That's absurd. He won nothing and is nothing. He couldn't stand the emptiness of being without a heart, and that led to his demise. He was foolish and weak.

Xemnas: But...Weakness has the power to awaken that which is dormant. It is clear that through his actions, however foolish they may have been, Axel has touched Sora's heart. Perhaps HE will soon awaken.

Terra needed that moment where he rescued Ven and Aqua because he was the one who alienated himself from them. It was his mistakes that led Aqua to be trapped in the Realm of Darkness, for his sake. It seemed like Lea was the one who always tried his hardest to protect Isa and take care of him. He “made up the difference” a lot. And Lea went as far as he possibly could to bring him back home.

But...he just wasn’t strong enough to take on Xemnas and he knew it. I felt so bad for him as he just accepted that he was going to die. He was still a new Keyblade user, and knew the odds were against him. He took a gamble. This was Isa’s moment to shine. He could use the strength Xemnas forced him to acquire...against him. He should have done what Terra did and clobbered Xemnas. I would have preferred we play as Isa fighting Xemnas, not Roxas and Xion who literally just came out of nowhere. I think Lea trying to keep his promise would have been the right stimulus to awaken Isa’s heart, like it was with Terra. Xemnas thought Roxas/Ventus would awaken (without a replica!) after Axel sacrificed himself in KH2. But...he didn’t. That’s because it was Isa’s role to be awakened by Lea, not Roxas’s role. Aqua was the one who needed to awaken him, because they were closer.

If I wake up…I hope I can see Roxas. I just want to see him again. No—I know I will. Roxas… Hey, wake up. Are you really in there? Didn’t we promise…we’d meet again in the next life? We were best friends. Weren’t we? And then Axel faded from existence, vanishing into nothing.

A promise… We’ll meet again…in the next life. We did say that. I remember. I remember our promise.

Even when I first played vanilla KH2, looong before Isa even existed (so there was no shipping bias), I got the sense that we weren’t supposed to take Axel and Roxas being “best friends” at face value. They didn’t even seem that close in vanilla KH2. I got the sense that Axel was mostly being tongue-in-cheek when he said they’d meet again in the next life. After all, Axel didn’t think he had one. And honestly, to me it sounded like Roxas said what he did more out of pity than anything. I mean, he didn’t sound particularly heartbroken or anything. But later, Axel treated this like some super important special promise they both made to each other, like the promise Sora made to Kairi when she gave him the lucky charm. Axel always came across like a maladjusted person with a tragic life story. It wouldn’t have surprised me AT ALL to learn that he only said that to Roxas because he was thinking about someone from his past. In fact, it makes his character far more believable and relatable.

I was so excited after playing KH3D because Lea was growing so much more as a character outside of the sea-salt trio. He even started going by his real name again. It was very satisfying character development. I thought we were finally gonna learn about his past and his REAL best friend. I bet Nomura cynically put the line “especially Roxas” in as a parody, honestly, because he never sounded more pathetic. Putting Lea back with the sea-salt trio really regressed his character. There was no point to his entire subplot with Saïx now. It felt like he reversed all the progress he made. He was able to stand on his own two feet in KH3D, without using Roxas as an emotional crutch. He was so positive and empowered. He sought out Mickey and Yen Sid on his own. He was so awesome.

I liked Roxas and Xion a lot in Days (KH3 ruined them for me). But the sea-salt trio just holds Lea back from coming into his own as a person. He couldn’t even use his REAL name due to being stuck in that trio. His entire character arc was stripped bare. There was no meat even left on the bones. That’s why he and Isa (and Kairi) were pushed aside as quickly as possible to make room for the cheesy Roxas and Xion fight. It’s bad enough Lea was reduced to being a babysitter, but then he was reduced to being a cheerleader. An amazing character like him deserved so much better.

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts 3 #kh3 #kh axel #kh lea #kh saix #kh isa

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thedreamerdelta · 5 years

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I need help finding a fanfic.

Okay, so years and years ago when Kingdom Hearts 2 was mildly new, there was an amazingly long, complicated, and very well-written fanfic. When I say amazingly long I mean like over 200k words, monster sized *novel* of a fanfic.

(Of course, there are several out there, but this inquiry is about one in particular.)

I can’t remember if it was on FFnet or AO3, though given its age I suspect the former, as I don’t think I’d heard about the Archive yet.

Anyway.

The story goes, Roxas and Sora are brothers (possibly cousins) who are going to college. They meet Axel, Riku, and I believe Zexion and/or Demyx, who are all living together and filling in for professors who ‘suddenly’ couldn’t make it that semester. One of them taught biology or chemistry or something like that and had access to a lab. Sora and Roxas (mostly Roxas) are followed around by flies a lot for some reason. (This is actually important.)

One day Roxas starts having very vivid dreams about an animal in the forest (jungle?) and the destruction of its habitat. He wakes up to find this black gunk coming out of his ear. After this happens a few times he takes samples to the lab professor (Zexion?) who promises to check it out for him. Results come back and, surprise of surprises: the gunk is made out of the flies. Oh, and they had cameras in them. Understandably, Roxas is freaked out.

Later Sora and Roxas discover that they were being watched the whole time because they were perfect candidates for a program that, in the future, was being used to restore the populations of nearly-extinct species. (If memory serves me right, it was called the Carrier project, but I’ve tried searching under that name and couldn’t find anything.) One of the reasons they were a fit was because if they were removed from the timeline at that point, it wouldn’t affect history. Which, if you think about it, is a little depressing.

After *much convincing* Roxas agrees to go, and so does Sora (with much less convincing), and they are transported to Axel & the other “professors”’ time with nothing more than the cotton clothing on their backs (since only organic materials can come through).

The rest of what I remember is very jumbled and not in any particular order.

Sora acclimates to the new place very well, Roxas a bit less so, with his internally directed homophobia causing a lot of trouble for him and Axel’s relationship. He takes a long time to warm up to him and the idea of having lion(?) cubs. However he runs into Vexen and some other high class hoity toity lady (Larxene?) who are married despite Vexen having come forward in time to be with the Carrier Xion. He still does his part for the money but wants nothing else to do with it otherwise and is disgusted with the concept and the species. After seeing how unhealthy that relationship is, Roxas attempts to make amends with Axel who is grateful to say the least.

Riku is a snow leopard, and I think Demyx was a giraffe. Xion was a prey animal, and in the trip where they went to a cabin on the mountain so Riku could practice animal instincts, Xion is killed by poachers, who are now even more illegal because of how extinct animals are but on the other side the furs are now worth that much more because of it. It turns out the poachers are traced back to Saïx, who was one of the heads of the program and who nobody liked because he always treated the Carriers (ie the animal-human-machine hybrids) as nothing more than beasts who didn’t have feelings. In a discovery that shocks everyone, Saïx turns out to be a Carrier himself - one of the original ones. Axel naturally flies into a rage upon learning this and nearly kills the guy who has been abusive to him specifically as well as others, and racist against carriers (despite him being one in secret) from day one. Ansem (who sort of built the Carriers) pushes everything under the rug and Saïx is relocated (I’m pretty sure - not jailed since he isn’t human) for everyone’s safety.

—

Thats pretty much everything I remember. If anyone can help me find it I would be very grateful, though I think it may have been taken off-line as I think the author mentioned at one point that they wanted to turn into an actual published book with the names changed.

@deadcatwithaflamethrower @wrenseroticlibrary @alloverthegaf @tellyouastory @britishhoennpimp and others, any help you can give would be awesome.

#akuroku #soriku #fic rec #fic request #fanfiction #kh

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nadziejastar · 4 years

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It's sort of amazing the difference between the fan interpretation of RAX and how they interact in canon. In Days they're super dysfunctional, border on being toxic, and their friendship was unsustainable from the start even if they didn't realize it. In fanon they're a picture perfect family who can never be torn apart. And the KH3 went with the fan interpretation instead of acknowledging any of their issues.

I totally agree. I think the reason is that the fandom tends to be very young. It’s a big reason why Akuroku became so popular, IMO. Young teens tend to misinterpret unhealthy obsession (like Axel’s) as romance and true love. And the Sea-Salt Trio’s dysfunction also was also overlooked in a similar manner.

I gotta be honest. I feel pretty uncomfortable with the general interpretation of the Sea-Salt Trio in this fandom. It’s just so bizarre to me how Roxas and Xion’s friendship with Axel was put on such a pedestal and how his relationship with Isa was pretty much ignored by almost everyone. It’s just…amazingly unrealistic if you think about it. I think it’s a testament to how young the fans are, in general.

Axel’s relationships truly aggravate me, because he was written a LOT differently than Sora or other simplistic characters. I know that the target demographic for Kingdom Hearts is pretty young. And in the end, I think Axel’s character was a victim of that. Nomura tried to write him very authentically at first.

But his characterization was dumbed down to fit in with a largely tween/teen audience and their preferences. I don’t say that to be disparaging to younger fans or anything. But, had KH3 not been a Disney property, and had it been targeted to a slightly older audience, I think Axel and his relationships would have been handled a LOT differently.

I definitely think the Sea-Salt Trio was VERY misunderstood by the fandom. Axel has known Saïx for at least 10 years. Probably more. Even before their backstory was explained, you could tell they have been through hell together in the organization, without anyone else to trust besides each other. Axel was willing to do all of his dirty work.

Then Axel meets Roxas and Xion. Two kids who—let’s be honest—are about on the level of your average fifth grader. Not a bad thing. They’re just very naive and childlike and he obviously can’t be 100% himself around them. Do people really think Axel is gonna replace his best friend so easily with two kids he’s known for less than a year? Apparently, yes. Let’s look how absurd it is.

Day 75

Inseparable

The Genie we met in Agrabah said he and his friend Al are "inseparable." Axel told us best friends can be inseparable even if they're not always together, but it sounded like he wasn't too sure about it himself. I thought Axel knew everything. Oh well...

At this point, Axel spent quite a while at Castle Oblivion. He hasn’t even gotten to know Roxas that well, and he’s only known Xion for a few days. It’s totally realistic that he’d say he doesn’t have a best friend. He sounds like he knows what it’s like to have a best friend, though. He just doesn’t have one anymore.

Day 96

Roxas: I just…want these days to last forever. Hanging out, the ice cream, the sunsets…

Axel: Nothing lasts forever, man. Least of all for a bunch of Nobodies. But you know, we’ll still have each other…even if things change and we can’t do this anymore.

Roxas: Yeah?

Axel: As long as we remember each other, we’ll never be apart. Got it memorized?

Roxas: Ha ha, wow, Axel. That sounded ridiculous.

Axel: What? I thought it was pretty deep.

Not even two weeks later, he’s acting all touchy-feely about the time they spend hanging out together. Roxas and Xion make fun of him because even they know they’re not really that close, lol. They hardly know each other at this point. If you read between the lines, you could tell that he was thinking about Saïx here, too.

Friends

Author: Axel

I feel like I’ve been spending more time talking to Roxas and Xion lately than my old friend, Saïx. This has to have been what it was like, friendship.

But if that wasn’t obvious enough, the report clears up all doubt. He WAS thinking about Saïx. The message I got was: Lea and Isa had a very close relationship as humans. They were the ones who were really inseparable.

Axel misses that and, the more he remembers it, is desperate to fill the void. Every time he mentions “best friends,” it relates back to this. But this concept went “whoosh” over 90% of the fandom’s head. It baffles me. I really just don’t get it. Again, I have to think it’s due to the fact that this series skews really young.

Day 118

You Changed, Not Me

Author: Axel

Talking to Roxas and Xion always brings back memories of my human life, back when I was a kid. It’s a weird sensation. I ought to be able to share all this with Saïx, but I just don’t feel like it anymore. It’s strange, but I’m content with just missing what’s gone. I’m not the one who changed. You did.

Anyways. Three weeks later. Axel is very hung up on the past. He sounds like a heartbroken lover (because that’s exactly what he is, if you ask me). The reason Axel spends so much time with Roxas and Xion is because Isa changed.

Day 150

Too Precious to Lose

Axel and I talked for a while about the things we can’t bear to lose. Axel thinks that for Nobodies, it’s our pasts, because that’s all we have to remember the pain of losing something. I don’t remember my past, but the idea of losing the present–Axel or Xion–scares me.

A month later. Axel comes back from Castle Oblivion yet again, and he’s even more nostalgic for the past than last time. I bet Axel’s time at C.O was gonna be featured as a blank period in BBSV2. But whatever. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing his memories of the past.

The reason Axel treasured his memories so much was because it’s all he had left after losing something. OBVIOUSLY it’s because of his relationship with Isa. I mean, duh. It implies a pretty special connection between Axel/Lea and Saïx/Isa for him to feel that way, especially considering how mean Saïx is to him.

I’m not trying to trash Axel’s feelings for Roxas and Xion, either, or make them out to be unimportant. They were important to him, for sure. But they absolutely did not reach Isa’s level of importance to him. No fucking way. Not. Even. Close. Especially not on Day 150. By the end of the story, Axel couldn’t bear to lose Roxas and Xion because they were all he had to fill the void of Isa.

That’s not to say that he didn’t care about them as friends, or that he was just using them. It just means that I don’t think Axel really would want to be “inseparable” with Roxas and Xion once he was mentally and emotionally healthy. He’d want to be friends with them, of course, but not hang out every day like Hayner, Pence, and Olette. He’s not on the same level as Roxas and Xion. And that’s fine.

Terra: Protect the things that matter… Right. My friends matter to me, too. So, I still have things that I have to protect.

To use a comparison, Riku was very important to Terra. I LOVED the connection between them. Other than Lea and Isa, one of the things I was most excited to see in KH3 was Riku and Terra reuniting (yeah…). They had a very special bond. Riku helped comfort Terra when he was down. But. Riku was NOT as important to Terra as Aqua and Ven were. Even if Terra had spent a whole year with Riku, he still wouldn’t be as important to Terra as Aqua and Ven.

Roxas and Xion being portrayed as the most important people to Axel is as ridiculous to me as Riku being portrayed as the most important person to Terra. It would be weird if 99% of the fanart out there depicted Riku as Terra’s best friend and Terra’s reunion with Riku got more spotlight in KH3 than his reunion with Ven and Aqua.

That’s how I feel about the Sea-Salt Trio. I really liked it for what it was in Days. A complex, morally grey friendship between an emotionally damaged adult and two innocent kids. But I really don’t like the overly saccharine, cutesy, cuddly, one-dimensional fandom version of it, where Axel is treated like he’s on the same level as the two teens. It’s a testament to how young the fandom is that people really thought Lea would be “meh” about reuniting with his childhood best friend who’s been possessed for 10 years, and be waaaay more excited about getting to eat ice cream with two teens every day once again.

Day 172

What’s Love?

On my mission at Beast’s Castle, Xaldin told me about "love” and the special power it has over people. I tried to ask Axel about it, but his explanation didn’t make any sense to me. Every time I ask him about this kind of thing, he tells me I need a heart to understand. It’s like he’s dodging the questions.

Axel tolerates severe emotional abuse from his possessed best friend because he loved him back when he was normal. He copes by with his extremely shitty life by living entirely in the past, through his memories. Hanging out with two kids helps him remember his old life, back when he was happy. God, he was such a fascinating character. Such wasted potential.

Day 193

Best Friends

Xion's awake now. The three of us were gonna go get some ice cream after our mission, but she passed out again, so we had to take her home. I talked with Axel in her room until she woke up. He said the three of us were best friends—inseparable.

Axel said he had no best friend on Day 75. Now it’s Day 193. That’s only 119 days. That’s less than four months!! He gets in a fight with Saïx, who, once again, says he’s changed. A very sore topic for Axel. Then immediately afterwards, he says these two kids are his best friends.

If I was gonna compare it to real life: Let’s say Lea and Isa were two normal high school kids who were kidnapped and raised in a gang. Axel is a 25/26 year-old former gang member. He’s got blood on his hands. He’s a good person deep down, but he’s seen a lot of shit. Then he meets these two fifth graders. This adult gang member, with tear-drop tats and everything, suddenly starts calling these two fifth graders his best friends. He wants to spend all of his time eatig ice cream and playing Minecraft with them.

If this was real life, would anyone say how cute it is that they are best friends? Two kids who he had to teach the concept of “best friends” to? NO! No, they’d say that’s unhealthy and weird and that the guy needs therapy. Because it IS unhealthy and weird. Perhaps it easier to see that as an adult. Perhaps it’s easier to see it in a romanticized way when you’re young.

The Sea-Salt Trio was, in a way, Axel forcing the label of “best friends” on two kids in an attempt to cope with the heartbreak of his loss of innocence. It did have genuine cuteness and sweetness. Of course it did. Axel was not a predator or anything. Roxas and Xion loved him. Axel loved them. But…it wasn’t as cutesy and wholesome as people make it out to be. At least not from Axel’s end. It wasn’t JUST a cute wholesome trio.

That’s what made it so good. It was complex and grey. Axel never went against the organization, even though he could have if he really wanted to. It got to the point where he nearly killed both Roxas and Xion, just because he couldn’t bring himself to go against the organization. And the reason he couldn’t go against the organization was because of Saïx. Yes. Axel came thiiiiis close to killing both Roxas and Xion for a sociopath who treated him like shit. Their friendship was very dysfunctional and had a lot of kinks to work out.

Again, I’m not trying to denigrate the bond Axel had with Roxas and Xion. It was still genuine and sweet, in a sad and messed up way. I can still appreciate the cuteness of it.

But I hated the Sea-Salt reunion in KH3. Because it only focused on the most one-dimensional, saccharine and cutesy portrayal of them possible. They didn’t have to talk about anything. It was just instant hugging and ice cream, now they’re best friends forever. Everything played up to the max to manipulate people’s emotions. None of their issues were worked out and they had no better understanding of each other than they did at the end of Days. Honestly, even though Roxas and Xion got the red carpet treatment compared to Isa, the resolution to their trio was just as pathetic as Isa/Lea’s duo.

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