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ajdrawshq · 1 year

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@ your tags on my post, i am shaking you like a maraca and yelling "YESSSSS"

i wanna see how kh3 tackles that whole thing because it's so eerily similar to what happens in the manga. and in the manga, he is in so much pain and agony, AND HE'S STILL FIGHTING. ROXAS IS THERE WITH HIM, HIS ONLY COMPANION, and then kh3 just tripped and fell on the glass table.

also, i think about this constantly, i want them to do something with it so bad.

YEA i cant wait to see the rest of kh3 manga chapters and how they handle everything, i especially loved the manga versions for days and kh2 and the way their stories were told - even tho kh3 has a Lot going on that might be hard to show well.. amano's been good at it so far tho so i have faith :]

but yeah that whole thing with Roxas is just . oughh. im not gonna lie even i forgot that Roxas was like. still there with Sora when he perishes until i thought abt it writing those tags but now that ive realized that. why the hell did they not take advantage of that!!!! like ok i get that it was more focused on the destiny trio in the ways i talked abt in the tags but yknow. what happened to "he makes up the difference"?? that wouldve been a great moment for it to shine!! ik they already make an example of it during the Xemnas n Saïx fight but still!!

part of me wishes Roxas couldve have more outward influence on Sora the way Ven did. granted, he arguably had an affect on Sora back in kh2, and while i dont remember if it was canon or even intended, that could be applied to both his appearance (his lighter hair, mostly) and his behavior (his hostility towards the organization members; ive seen this argued both as smth Roxas had influence over and purely based on Soras experiences thus far, and i believe in both personally) but Ven in kh3 was literally able to speak and somewhat act through him. im pretty sure this was meant to show that Ven was fully ready to awaken or smth like that, and that wasnt sonething that was needed for Roxas; hes alright, just needed a body/vessel for himself. but i still think itd be a cool way to express the earlier sentiment. and it wouldnt necessarily have to be Roxas "taking over" either, the manga shows very well how Roxas gives Sora strength from within and that he definitely does make a difference

to be fair tho...... whether that wouldve helped Sora in the moment that he gives in to his despair, im not sure. in kh2, both manga and game, hes in a very different mindset than kh3. in that part of the manga especially, despite thinking everyone (except Roxas) is gone for good, he still has the belief that they can live on within him. and that, plus the literal strength hes getting from Roxas, is keeping him going despite it all. in kh3 his self confidence is beyond fucked, and he truly believes in that moment that hes lost Everything, not just his friends. thats hard to come back from

i wonder if he were to remember that Roxas were still there, if that wouldve helped. whether for comfort in the way that hes not really alone then, or for motive to keep living bc if he dies then Roxas is gone too, or whatever reason, i think it couldve changed something, even if its just a little bit. hell, itd have been great if something like that happened afterwards in the final world. id like to think Roxas had a hand in Sora surviving ..... not sure how but its a nice thought. either way i do wish Sora n Roxas' connection and that moment they have in san fransokyo had more....... More. in kh3. it was a great opportunity that they didnt use/forgot about n im now sad abt it forever

#while writing this im now realizing that Sora rly just keeps going thru the 'the real answer was within u all along' thing over n over .#Kairi. Roxas. then Ventus and still Roxas #ANYWAY BACK TO MY MAIN POINT its part of why i love love love the manga i love how they handle Roxas especially #not that i dont like his game stuff tho dont get me wrong. hes one of the most beloved characters for a Reason #its possible that they didnt do anything bc they wanted Roxas' big moment to be when he comes back as himself once n for all #n didnt wanna take away from that maybe ? idk thats pure theorizing here #but also theres that mention of how Jiminy is still with him after death..... and how Naminé appears in the final world n all that.....#thats not related to the previous thing i mentioned it just. feels connected in a way i cant articulate rn #ok my ability to think is going down now thats all i got rn. ty for enabling me again i havent thought abt these guys like this in a While #god. i need to replay kh2 again sometime #kh #ask #storm-driver #as an add on purely for myself - the thing i said at the very beginning of the tags abt the people within being the answer #or important in some way...... he himself is included in that. bc of remind

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composeregg · 1 year

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Blorbo sheet for Roxas?

Send me a character and I'll fill out the blorbo sheet

art by @zillychu (here)

I'm counting orphan because he doesn't have parents lol, and also murderer but like. it's kh that's complicated

he is such a guy, yall

#ask #ask meme #answered #egg answers #roxas #kh #ignore the fixed areas #i misread stuff and had to erase but im using paint lmao

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madeimpact · 1 year

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Kinda tempted to drop all my threads and start over

#seeing all the festive dash icons and stuff makes me wanna be here more #but ughhh......i've only really had the mental energy for discord rp #i think if i start some fresh plots here and force myself to let go of old ones i'll feel a little more motivated #new year new me and all that #i might...also add the Sortas(tm) once i finish kh3 bc hoo that brainrot #i've been writing roxas on discord and he's fun #but i can't really do what i'm doing with sora being at my point in gameplay #bc where i'm at in game rn roxas is...in sora's heart LMAO #so i'll probably just wait until after i finish the series to write roxas (and maybe ven)#but yeah i think i'm gonna just drop everything #except for like one or two starters i haven't answered #i'll let you know if i'm keeping smth but otherwise consider it dropped #unless you wanna keep a thread in which case dm me!#❛ ooc: shut up neg.

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themattress · 4 months

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I hate Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance. Everything about it.

However - there is one scene in particular that I absolutely despise above all others. Don't get me wrong, every other cutscene is bad, many of them even rage-inducing....but none of them quite measure up to this one in its wretchedness. Which one is it, you ask? THIS one.

So after Xigbar reiterates the bullshit Inception-esque "dream within a dream" plot twist that Sora is currently experiencing all because he happens to have an "X" on his clothes (yes, that is an actual thing that Nomura wrote), Sora just randomly declares that Nobodies have hearts after all. What does his base this on? The memories from 358/2 Days that he experienced.

"Axel and Roxas and Namine, and that other girl. I felt what Roxas felt and they laughed together, got mad, and they grieved. You have to have a heart to cry."

First off, "that other girl" shouldn't be here. In 358/2 Days, Namine specifically said "If you return your memories to him, you'll disappear. And since everything about you was built on those memories...no one will remember you when you're gone. There won't be any "you" to remember. I can't save you, Xion--even a memory of you." But this game, just like Coded before it and KH3 after it, is flagrantly ignoring that because the rabid fanbase that Days / Xion / the Seasalt Trio developed, particularly in Japan, demanded Xion back and because he's a clout-chasing coward Nomura complied, the story's internal logic be damned.

Secondly, all of the characters Sora mentioned are special cases. Roxas and Namine were special Nobodies built upon a literal heart-to-heart relationship (Sora and Kairi), allowing them to feel things at the cost of having no memory, when for normal Nobodies it's the other way around. Xion was not a Nobody, she was a replica with a heart constructed from memories. Of course she felt stuff. Lastly, this game continues to ignore that Axel's feelings were...off. Making a connection with a heart allowed him to start feeling things, but his Nobody nature was still technically heartless and self-centered, which meant that his feelings were purely based on himself and what his friends mean to him. He never cared about them the way someone is actually supposed to, as that depth of feeling was still foreign to him.

And finally, this seems to be in direct response to that stupid Tomoko Kanemaki-made scene from KH2:FM of Roxas talking with Axel's ghost and they wax poetic about what a heart is and what it means to have one, ending in a shot where Axel is seen shedding tears ("You have to have a heart to cry"). But even that scene, as bad as it was, was still written with Nojima's KH2 scenario in mind where the answer is a philosophical difference between a literal heart, which Nobodies can't have, and a metaphorical heart, which they can develop through bonding with someone with a heart and find a way to exist (as evidenced by Axel even having a ghost at all) within that someone's heart. But now, we get this from Xemnas:

"A heart is never lost for good. There may have been variances in our dispositions, but a number of us unquestionably showed signs of a burgeoning replacement. Once born, the heart can also be nurtured. Our experiments creating Heartless were attempts to control the mind, and convince it to renounce its sense of self. But understand, one can banish the heart from the body, but the body will try to replace it the first chance it gets, for as many times as it takes. And so I knew, even after we were divided into Heartless and Nobodies, it was just a temporary separation."

Where do I even begin?

"A number of us unquestionably showed signs of a burgeoning replacement"? Is this Nomura's way to "explain" why the Organization reacted emotionally on many occasions? Except that was already explained in KH2! As Yen Sid said, their behavior is a ruse to pretend that they have hearts and properly exist, and as Saix said, it's their memories of their human selves and the feelings they felt with hearts that allow them to do this. We literally SEE Demyx drop the facade and show his true unemotional colors right before fighting him!

"One can banish the heart from the body, but the body will try to replace it the first chance it gets". Um, HOW? The body shouldn't be able to recreate a heart because in this universe the body never created the heart to begin with! The literal title of the series, Kingdom Hearts, is where all hearts are born and where all hearts return to. We established that in Game 1!

There was talk earlier about puppets like Pinocchio "growing" a heart, but that's not even the case. As seen earlier in KH2's Space Paranoids and later in KH3's Toy Box, it's not that the non-living thing "grows" a heart, it's that Kingdom Hearts grants them a heart specifically based upon the feelings someone with a heart has toward them. Gepetto, Ansem the Wise, Andy, etc. The hearts didn't just come out of nowhere from nothing like this game suggests.

For that matter, the heart is established as holding the essence of a person; it's who they are. The whole reason Nobodies "don't exist" is because while they have the body and soul of a person plus the memories of said person, without a heart they are not actually that person, who is actually now a Heartless. So is Xemnas saying the body can grow a new freaking person? Then what will become of the original person once they're purified from being a Heartless? The same bullshit of "recompleting" that Lea and co. underwent? But doesn't that contradict the notion that Nobodies are their own individuals who supposedly deserve to live as such? Also, why does all of this only apply to the Organization? What about all of the lesser Nobodies, like the Dusks? Can they not also "regrow" their hearts? Did Nomura think any of this out at all before committing it to script form? And at this point, Sora yells out:

"Why, then? Why did you lie to them and tell them they had no hearts?"

Yep, that's right. Even though Yen Sid also said they had no hearts, Ansem the Wise's research turned up that they had no hearts, and they themselves largely behaved as though they had no hearts, apparently it was all just a lie Xemnas concocted, stripping away half the depth that he and the Organization in general had. Xemnas is now depicted as just a simplistic bad guy and the others save for Xigbar as total victims of brainwashing. Hilariously, the narrative tap-dances around how, if this is true, then Sora and the other heroes now look way more questionable for killing them. The bullshit train keeps chugging as Xigbar says:

"Xemnas and Xehanort formed the Organization for a specific reason - round up a bunch of empty husks, hook them up to Kingdom Hearts, then fill them all with the exact same heart and mind. Translation--they were gonna turn all the members into Xehanort."

So now the claim is that Xemnas, who totally had Xehanort's heart inside him even when Ansem existing should render that impossible, was gonna use the power of Kingdom Hearts to copy-paste that heart into the other Organization members as part of Xehanort's plan to forge the X-Blade. Just like with the claim that Ansem's goal was the Seven Princesses rather than the Final Keyhole they unseal, this clashes with what we actually saw in the previous games. Why would Xemnas do anything he did if this was the plan? The event that got him his thirteenth "vessel" also set the Seven Princesses loose, then several of those "vessels" perished, and yet he carried on with the plan anyway? KH3 tries to do damage control by suggesting Xemnas was out to betray Xehanort, but that just creates more issues with this abominable retcon trying to force separate villainous plans as part of some convoluted whole.

Xigbar then follows all this up with:

"Me? I'm already half Xehanort!"

.....Moving on. Xemnas proceeds to give us this absolute howler:

"However -through weakness of body...weakness of will...or weakness of trust--most of the original members we had chosen for the Organization were inadequate. Thus, naturally, they never had a chance to attain their goal."

MOST of the original Organization members were inadequate!?

Um, yeah, let's flash forward to KH3 and see who made the cut:

Xemnas Xigbar Vexen Saix Demyx Luxord Marluxia Larxene Xion (as a replacement for Roxas)

So basically, 9 out of 13. Only 4 (Xaldin, Lexaeus, Zexion and Axel) "failed".

.....Xemnas, I don't think that the word "most" means what you think it means.

Then we get to the big, dramatic confrontation as Sora yells:

"Just stop it! You treat people's hearts like bottles on a shelf, but they're not! Hearts are made of the people we meet, and how we feel about them-- they're what ties us together even when we're apart! They're what...make me strong."

This is a good line, but Xigbar proceeds to ruin it with his comeback:

"Duh! You're strong because of the ties you have with other people. As if the Keyblade would choose a wimp like you. But no pouting. We see much bigger and better things in your future...once you side with us."

To which Sora replies:

"I know the Keyblade didn't choose me, and I don't care. I'm proud to be a small part of something bigger--the people it did choose! My friends. They are my power!

Beyond this callback to a famous line in the original game feeling cheap, Nomura doesn't even seem to actually remember the scene in which the line was used! Because the Keyblade DID choose Sora in that scene, precisely because of how he bonded his heart with others and took strength from them. In fact, he may be the ONLY person the Keyblade has "chosen" in this series - the allegedly worthier "other people" who appear in the above image have either had their Keyblade bequeathed to them by a prior wielder, transformed another weapon into a Keyblade, or wield a Keyblade specifically because Sora can wield it. (Also, why are Terra, Aqua, Ven and Xion even there? Calling them Sora's "friends" is a huge stretch, especially when people like Namine and HPO who fit the bill better aren't present! And if them not having Keyblades is the excuse given, I must point out that Donald and Goofy are also here! So are they part of "the people it did choose"!? Where is the consistency!?)

This combined with Xehanort's later "dull, ordinary boy" remark reeks of Nomura being touchy about criticism BBS got for making Sora out to be more special than he was supposed to be which led to him overcorrecting here....which doesn't even stick given Data!Ansem the Wise's later monologue about Sora and the events of KH3. Just terrible, contradictory writing.

I hate Dream Drop Distance. I hate the convoluted dream mechanics, I hate Yen Sid's whole Mark of Mastery test and the stupidity and hypocrisy he displays as it unfolds, I hate the literal TWEWY cast being present, I hate the Lea subplot, I hate Maleficent and Pete doing nothing, I hate the shafting of Kairi, I hate the Sora/Riku queer-baiting, I hate young Xehanort, and I hate all of the screwy, time travel-based retconning and twist reveals in the last act that essentially destroyed the whole series. But this fucking scene in particular, I hate above all.

#Disney #Square Enix #Kingdom Hearts #Dream Drop Distance #Sora #Xemnas #Xigbar #Opinion #Analysis #Stupidity #Bad Writing #Character Derailment #Anti-Kingdom Hearts #Anti-Dream Drop Distance #Anti-Square Enix #Anti-Nomura #Anti-Tetsuya Nomura

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mythicalartistx · 2 months

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Kairi probably has Trauma and her reasoning why she is with Sora and Riku

Ansem the Wise is not a good person

He experimented on children and even fed them to the heartless.

Saïx/Isa often heard screams from the Ansen's study and when he and Axel/ Lea snuck in, it's no wonder they tried to find X after she went missing. No wonder why Saïx was so obsessed with finding her because Ansem the Wise does this stuff.

In ff7 nobody likes Hojo and he's seen as a bad person. Ansem kind of does the same thing except people are supposed to feel bad for Ansem and are like he's good now because he regret it??

The thing is we don't see why he regrets it or anything. And we just see he feels bad about Roxas and Naminé. We also see that he only stopped because he took it too far?

But this is the stuff Ansem did and his apprentices continued, or at least Terra-Ansem.

And Terra Ansem was interested in Kairi because she was a princess of heart. He kidnapped her and then he probably did experiments on her.

She probably has trauma. Then he sent her with that pod to Destiny islands because that's where a key blade wielder is at and whenever a pod is used a meteor shower happens.

And then we get to the start of KH1 and there's some things I've noticed. When Sora asks Kairi what her old home was like, she says she cannot remember. Sora asks “nothing at all?” and she makes this interesting expression. Before answering she frowns before quickly changing to a smile when she says, nothing.

What if she does remember and could be lying here because the experience was so traumatic and does not want to share what happened. However, she barely remembers it and could repress what happens, so she could remember it being bad but says nothing because she truly can't remember because of trauma.

No wonder she seems content on the island. Everyone is nice and she has fun with Sora and Riku. Nobody is trying to experiment on her.

She then goes along with it because they want to. People say she doesn't want change and yes that is true because of the trauma she faced. She's scared to go out into the world because of what happened.

When she talks with Sora later she reveals that she was hesitant at first, but now she's not. She probably was hesitant because of the fear that people like Terra Ansem are out there and might experiment on her. Then knowing that Sora and Riku really want to and they all can go together, she wants to. She is with them and isn't alone. She relies on them when doing things and bases everything on them.

However, that doesn't happen and her heart goes inside of Sora's. Riku's darkness gets the best of him and he believes Sora doesn't care about him anymore and is getting left behind, something he always feared.

And during the games going forward she always focuses on Sora and Riku. She mentions how they left her behind in kh2. She has changed and tried growing as a person but she still relies on them.

When Sora and Riku get the letter from Mickey, Kairi seems sad because they will leave again.

Then in kh3, she is keyblade training. She cuts her hair like Riku did. In the novel she wonders if Sora likes short hair and does it because of Riku. She then grows close to Lea / Axel someone who once tried to kidnap her for his own gain. Then she realized he was hurt and was trying to see his friend again and that isn't something that bad. But above all, he is sorry about everything.

She is often left behind. Unless she is in immediate danger, she isn't really thought of. Sora's mind always goes to Riku and what Riku is doing.

In kh2, he keeps trying to find Rikuand only focus is on finding him. It isn't until someone mentions Kairi that he thinks of her. In kh3 he talks about wanting to call Riku and that he wants to show how cool the MH6 world is to Riku. When he sees Kairi in kh3 that's when he realizes oh, you're here too.

She constantly wants to be with them fuelled by both trauma and friendship, However they're constantly leaving her behind.

Tetsuya Nomura once said that Kingdom Hearts is about the friendships that change alluring to how destiny Trio dynamic changes where Sora and Riku aren't as close to her.

In re:mind / mom Kairi falls asleep, hoping to be useful and wake Sora up so things can be like they have always been between the three of them.

Then when she wakes, she and Riku go to try to find Sora and realizes she must stay behind as it is Riku's part not hers. Kairi must grow on her own and not with other people that constantly held her back and left her behind.

I don't think she should be friendless but I think she should grow without them because they hold her back and she is left behind a lot. She is constantly relying on Sora and Riku.

Also it would just be interesting to see her with other characters as it could be an interesting dynamic. I would have loved to see her with the sea salt trio + Twilight gang. Her interacting with Vanitas would also have been great (though not sure if it's possible since he went away).

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aeonphantasia · 2 months

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...following up on this ,

i love the idea of roxas and axel being the 'veterans' (excluding xehanort and eraqus) when it comes to gay stuff so post-canon roxas basically becomes the go-to guy on bottoming help for his brothers friends.

You're gonna have riku asking him which moisturizing cream is best to apply after a rough butt sex session. Or you have sora texting him for tips. Or ventus actually calling him to ask him which position is best for a first time (*clears throat* ..with lauriam )

Poor roxas. But he just answers each and every question. And he's also quite proud of his brothers.

#akuroku #soriku #roxas #kh roxas #kh riku #kh sora #kh ventus #kh lauriam #lauriam #sora #riku #akrk #kingdom hearts

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gavillain · 3 months

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How do you think KH2 compares to KH1 in terms of the direction they went with story and characters?

I am well aware that I'm in the minority here, but I always thought Kingdom Hearts II was a big letdown after Kingdom Hearts I. I still ENJOY KH2 and I have fond nostalgia for it, but it's just as not as good as the first game, imo.

My biggest problems with it:

The Disney Worlds are entirely superfluous. You could literally cut every single out, even the ones where Organization XIII appears, and it would not change the plot at ALL. And that was NOT the case for KH1, where every single Disney World DID have a purpose, whether it was to advance the main plot (Wonderland, Deep Jungle, Agrabah, Monstro, Neverland) or to underscore major themes or ideas (Olympus Coliseum, Atlantica, Halloween Town). In KH2, you're basically playing through shittier versions of the Disney movies without it impacting anything until the time comes for you to actually go do important stuff in Hollow Bastion or Twilight Town. And the Disney worlds are the majority of the game! So it just feels like most of the time, you're just wasting time with filler.

The twist that Ansem wasn't Ansem and that he was ACTUALLY a guy named Xehanort, and Xehanort has a second incarnation who is leading the Organization while the REAL Ansem is a good guy who has been in disguise as DiZ working to undo the damage his apprentice has done was a dumb twist. It undercut Ansem's motivation and characterization from the first game, and it was just needlessly convoluted and started the trend of the series just being convoluted for the sake of being convoluted.

Riku had an incredible arc of character growth in Chain of Memories with him deciding the walk the Road to Dawn and use light and darkness together in his own way. That got thrown out the window so that Riku could be emo and mopey, turn into Ansem for some stupid reason, and be on the periphery of the plot. I get that they needed him to be offscreen for most of the game, but having him arbitrarily take like twenty steps back in his arc wasn't the answer.

They set up Organization XIII and the Nobodies as being morally gray sympathetic people trying to regain their hearts, and we have Roxas as a sympathetic person grappling with his existence as a Nobody and the question of what measure is a non-human... aaaaand all of that kinda just gets brushed aside in the main game where Organization XIII is just unambiguously mustache twirling evil, and Sora just has to kill them all. It's weird, and it doesn't jive. If you're gonna try to make your villains sympathetic, it can't just be an informed attribute where one character feels sorry for them for a reason they never showcase. Axel and Roxas aren't even in Organization XIII for most of the game. No one is conflicted, no one has any redeeming qualities. And that's FINE. You can have pure evil villains, and they WORK as pure evil. But the weird informed "oh you poor thing" quality doesn't go anywhere and it muddies the waters in a way that just makes what you as the protagonist have to do in the game feel... icky. And it's never examined.

The game design does away with like 90% of the platforming, so the level design is almost exclusively big empty rooms. You run from one side of the big empty room to the next, you trigger a cutscene, then you run across another empty room for another cutscene, and so on. I found it very boring to actually play outside of the boss battles, and there's just no exploration element in this one. Which, compared to KH1 where exploration, climbing on things, finding secret passageways, and completing puzzles was such an integral part of the gameplay.

Oh and they try to compensate for that shortcoming by adding in a bazillion annoying minigames that are equally boring. Thanks, I hate it.

This one's mostly a personal gripe, but I missed the Disney Villains council from the first game. They were fun, and tbh I feel like they were MUCH better villains than Organization XIII, wherein most of the members were glorified boss battles without any real character depth. Maleficent also kinda gets turned into a sap, and the lifelong Maleficent fan in me hated that. She gets an interesting arc, but at what cost? XD

Kairi has nothing to do, and she is pointless in this game. And characters can exist without a utilitarian plot purpose, but they never really find anything interesting for Kairi to do even just in a flavor way. She's just kind of in the game because she was important in the original and they didn't want to leave her on the island for the entire story.

WHERE THE FUCK WAS DODGE ROLL IN THE ORIGINAL GAME??? I know they added it in Final Mix, but in the base game, it just doesn't exist, and there's just no good way to dodge for the majority of the game. And to add onto that, I hate the way you have to level up Drive Forms to get abilities that make traversing the game easier, but they only level up in arbitrary ways and it's hard to even get to use them because the drive gauge takes forever to fill up. You really only can get the movement abilities in the late game where they don't even really matter anymore.

Look, I know most games have the camera being controlled by the R3 analogue stick, but I genuinely hate that. Having it controlled by R2 and L2 in KH was so much more intuitive and made me so much less motion sick. I wish they'd had a way to toggle the controls for that.

But there are a few big positives that I have to say:

The whole end scene on the beach with Sora and Riku is amazing. one of the very BEST moments in the entire franchise. Even though I didn't like Riku's arc, him and Sora getting to just sit and talk at the culmination of a hard won victory was wonderful, and this scene was a great cherry on top for their stories over KH1, CoM, and KH2. Also, I will go down with this ship.

The Roxas prologue may have gone on for a bit too long, but it was GOOD. It was well written, Roxas was interesting, and the way they used the end of summer vacation as a metaphor for the end of existence hit SO hard home for childhood me playing the game. VERY powerful, very well executed, no notes.

As previously mentioned, I like where Maleficent's arc ended up going with her trying to return to power in her own way with the deck stacked against her. I don't necessarily think it was handled especially well for most of the game, but I enjoyed getting the chance to root for my favorite villain to usurp her rivals. And that has definitely influenced my writing a lot.

The combat gameplay is really fun, and even though I don't like the mechanics of the Drive Forms, actually using them in combat is super fun. You feel POWERFUL, and it's exhilarating!

The music is amazing. It's Yoko, so of COURSE it is.

I like what they do with Pete. I know most people don't and think he's just KH's Team Rocket, but I thought Pete was fun. And I like the depth they managed to give him too.

Olympus Coliseum's story is genuinely great. I like how it's actually mostly a NEW story instead of just a retread of the movie. Hades is in peak form, and playing around the Underworld is just the best.

The Disney Castle / Timeless River story was likewise really good. I think those two and Olympus were the only two Disney worlds that I thought were actually worthwhile.

So, yeah, there's a lot that I actually genuinely really like about KH2, and I'm nostalgic for it, but I have major beef with it too. It's not as good as KH1 (which, for the record, I thought was damn near perfect), but as its own thing, it's definitely better than a lot of the subsequent installments.

#Kingdom Hearts Critical #Kingdom Hearts #Kingdom Hearts II

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nadziejastar · 4 months

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When did Kh go to complete shit in your opinion

The short answer is that the series experienced a gradual decline after the release of BBS. I think it officially went to shit with Union X, particularly the story arc that started after the Keyblade War. The longer answer will be under the cut.

KH2FM/Days/BBS (2007-2010)

Since Birth by Sleep is the first part of the Kingdom Hearts storyline, I'd like if you considered it as Kingdom Hearts, "Episode 0". This title isn't placed as a side story, with its storyline and battle system, it is substantial like that of a numbered title.

During this time, the series was extremely healthy and at its peak of popularity, with a bright future. KH2 was a beloved JRPG classic (and still is). The Final Mix introduced interesting new mysteries surrounding Xemnas and solid gameplay extras like the Lingering Will. Days was a side game, but it gave more development to fan favorites Roxas and Axel. The PSP wasn't the most popular system in the West, but BBS still sold quite well. It was a bit of a downgrade from KH2 due to the lesser hardware, but it was still a true mainline numbered sequel in the spirit of KH2 and was well received by fans. Tbh, I'd consider BBS the last truly great game in the series.

Re:Coded (2010)

After BBS the next new installment was...a filler game in the spirit of CoM. Recycled Disney plots, and an even more nonsense story with the datascape stuff. But it was just a DS port of a Japanese flip-phone game. It was a title that you could completely ignore and not really lose out on anything. Still, it is a low-quality title that didn't need to exist and wasn't doing the reputation of the series any favors.

Birth By Sleep Final Mix+ (2011)

[D]uring that movie there were the words ‘A fragmentary passage’, weren’t there? That means a ‘bits and pieces of something whole’. In short, a story for ‘Volume Two’ exists that ought to be told, but the story cuts off with those scenes. Because of that, I won’t say there is absolutely no chance that we will produce a title to follow KHBBS, but there are no plans as of now.

This game had an interesting playable secret ending and video. Volume 2 was supposed to be a numbered game (KH0.5), a mainline title that would fill in important gaps from across the timeline. But BBSFM didn't sell well in Japan. Which isn't surprising. Final mixes made sense in the PS2 era. But the extra content for BBS could have been released as DLC. Not many people want to buy the same game again for some new content.

Dream, Drop, Distance (2012)

KH3D was put together relatively quickly, I was still concepting the story when I brought it to the table.

This is when the series started going to shit. It started gaining quite a bad reputation and articles like this began to pop up. Re:Coded could easily be dismissed as filler, but 3D was advertised as more of a mainline game. People were eager for KH3, or at least a game with the same quality as BBS. DDD isn't terrible or anything. But you could tell that it didn't have as much thought put into it as BBS.

It was originally just the beginning part of KH3 that got stretched out into a full game and it shows. The Disney worlds don't fit into the normal timeline, there's fewer of them, Disney party members were replaced with animals, and the drop gimmick was controversial. There's weird time travel stuff that is convoluted and not explained very well. This didn't help with the story's reputation.

I originally planned to make that [a mystery KH title] after KHBBS, but we ended up making KH3D and the project was stopped. It’s a shame, but we won’t be starting that project again.

BBSV2 was planned after BBS. Production stopped to make DDD. The secret ending of DDD showed Young Xehanort on the beach of Destiny Islands, which was one of the events shown during "A Fragmentary Passage". There may have still been plans to start production of BBSV2 again after KH3D finished. But Square changed their minds. I suspect the reason for that has to do with Versus XIII.

Versus was being developed by the Tokyo team which made KH2. BBS was made by the Osaka team, which also made DDD. The original plan was for the Tokyo team to finish Versus and then make KH3. But things were a mess with Versus and eventually it was decided that the Osaka team would make KH3. So, if the Osaka team was busy on KH3, then they wouldn't be able to make BBSV2.

X (2013)

To tell the story about the Keyblade War we need the capacity of hi-spec hardware and we need to accumulate all of our knowledge on this hardware. And in telling this story, we will need to tell it in separate episodes, and how specifically to tell it has yet to be figured out.

There is evidence that X was probably intended to be an MMO on high-spec hardware. Square had a lot of trouble with the transition to HD consoles, so it was downgraded to a minor release on browser. It's an okay title. Interesting lore that expands on the fairy tale of Kairi's grandma. But it's got the typical recycled Disney plots and low-budget gameplay. Not exactly lighting the world on fire for the core audience.

If you do know, then you will enjoy the world of KH all the more, make no mistake. However, you don't have to know everything. The protagonist himself, Sora, doesn't know everything. That said, I'd be happiest if you did play it (laughs). If you do give it a try, I think you'll be surprised at what a rich experience you get for free.

But X was not meant to be a title with an emphasis on story. It was a spin-off, totally separate from the main plot thread. It was written alongside KH3 and the two were intimately related. If you played X, it would enhance your enjoyment (Ephemer cameo), but it was not essential.

X was rebranded as Unchained X and rereleased for mobile in 2015. X was also remade into Back Cover, which was included in the 2.8 HD Remaster collection. People would naturally assume that Back Cover told you everything you needed to know about the X story in preparation for KH3. And maybe at one point, that was the plan...

0.2 A Fragmentary Passage (2017)

As far as content goes, we can’t include a full volume of content to play with like the second chapter of KHBbS, so it’s just a “fragment,” and we left that part of the subtitle. 0.5 is one of the letters and numbers that appeared in the secret episode of KHBbS FM, and that meant full volume, so we decided on 0.2 this time, to indicate that there will be more content to come.

IMO, this is the first high-quality release since BBS. But it's still just a 3-hour prologue instead of a complete game. The events with Aqua are interesting, but they are just one "fragment" of the whole 0.5.

Actually, this was what I worried about the most. We showed this for a bit in the secret episode of [KHBbS FM], but the concept for two chapters of [BbS] is something we've had for a while, and because of problems with time, it's become just a morceau.

Releasing it as a full game on consoles would have delayed progress of KH3. And after nearly a decade of nothing but remasters and low-quality spin-offs, that was the last thing Square wanted. Despite how important 0.5 was, fans would be upset if the next mainline game wasn't KH3.

Union X (2017)

As a gacha with a worldwide audience, X was extremely profitable, so its storyline was extended past its natural ending. Even though X was a complete story that was meant to lead directly into KH3, Nomura retconned the ending, allowing the story of Ephemer and friends to continue in a new story arc called Union X which began in 2017. UX was...strange. It took place in the afterlife? Or the datascape? It had tons of filler, very infrequent story updates that barely progressed anything, and weird retcons, like character backstories that felt like they were in the wrong game (Why tf are Ventus and Marluxia here???).

Unlike X, the story of UX felt like it was being made up on the fly. Also, UX did not directly tie in with KH3 anymore. Its run actually continued past KH3. It was as if Nomura knew there were going to be too many plot holes for KH3 to properly resolve. So, he began using UX to set up the plot of KH4. People who only played the remasters were going to be completely blindsided when they played KH3. It wouldn't conclude anything that was set up in Back Cover, like the black box. KH3 would actually just be one big "to be continued" for KH4 with UX acting a band-aid. IMO, this is the point when the series had officially gone to shit.

KH3 (2019)

I had quite a tough time writing the story this time around. So many characters appear in this game, with each of them having their own set of problems and needing to choose their own fate. [...] I believe that KINGDOM HEARTS III is truly completed when the two thoughts - whatever you feel from playing the game, and my thoughts that I’ve secretly placed in the game - match up together. I hope that everyone playing the game will complete the game for us.

The long-awaited big budget mainline title on home console was a decent game, but it just wasn't a complete experience like KH2 was. 0.5 should have properly developed the relationships of Lea/Isa, Ansem the Wise/Ienzo, and Xehanort/Eraqus. Instead, these backstories only get lightly touched on in the Secret Reports and then one cutscene was given to "resolve" their problems. The new original world that was shown off in a private trailer in 2014 dubbed "Cable Town" was completely absent from the final game, except as the final battle stage.

KH3 had beautiful production values, solid gameplay, and vastly improved level design. But it didn't capture people's hearts like KH2 did. More incomprehensible time travel, rushed unsatisfying reunions for the trios, plot holes galore, and a cliffhanger ending only made things worse for the reputation of the series. The story is infamous in the gaming community now. A meme. KH4 doesn't have anywhere near as much hype as KH3 did.

Fans all have different favorite characters, so I thought I should give each of them their own time to shine, but because the amount of things needed to be explained was too large, I had to find a way to have Sora move forward, at the very least. Actually, when the scenarios were being written, the Keyblade Graveyard part was the most difficult. If I focused on each character at a time, the progression of events would be quite slow, and the battles involving Sora were necessary to be shown, so making allowances for everything was difficult. The way I imagined it, all of the characters tied to each other should fight in order and put an end to everything [themselves], but if I did that, the explanations would end up being too long.

Re:Mind was content that should have been in the main game, but was removed due to time constraints. For instance, the Final Fantasy characters from RG. Also, being able to play as the various guardians of light in their respective battles, rather than just Sora. Roxas and Xion weren't even supposed to be revived in the middle of Lea and Kairi's fight, but were included to please fans. The focus of the DLC is on Yozora, a new OC reminiscent of Noctis, showing that KH4 will be an attempt to revive the cancelled Versus XIII. The series is just...a hot mess at this point.

Melody of Memory (2020)

Another budget side game nobody wanted. Only has a tiny bit of story at the very end. Similar to Re:Mind, the plot felt like cut content from KH3. Stuff like Kairi's childhood flashbacks of Apprentice Xehanort, her arrival in the Final World to look for Sora's soul, then having a confrontation with old man Xehanort. All stuff that should have been in KH3. Ya know, when Xehanort was still alive...

Dark Road (2020)

I know what you're probably thinking: the Dark Seeker Saga, which depicted the battle against Xehanort, finished with KINGDOM HEARTS III, didn't it? Well, it's a grey area, but I wouldn't call this title part of the Dark Seeker Saga. Why? Because this isn't about battling against Xehanort—it's about the battles of Xehanort. And maybe you're thinking that's a bit of a reach, but… okay, maybe it's a bit of a reach. However, I had the concept in my head for many years. It got shelved because it never really fitted what our team wanted. But around then, I heard from the Union X team that they'd like to do a parallel title with a new protagonist. And, since it seemed there was an unexpected number of Xehanort fans out there, it all came together like it was destined to be.

This story was no doubt one of the missing "fragments" of 0.5. Unlike many KH games, DR has a very solid premise and an interesting storyline. It's just a story that should have been told in a mainline game before the Xehanort saga ended. Because it was rebranded as part of the X series, there were weird retcons like Xehanort being the reincarnation of the UX Player. However, the main problem was the VERY low budget. The chibi pop-up book graphics fit the childish fairy tale story of X, but don't fit this story. Story updates were slow and gameplay was trash. Didn't even last a year. The scenario was truncated, and we got an abrupt ending that didn't even delve into Master Odin, how Xehanort fell to darkness, or how he and Eraqus grew apart. At this point, the state of the series is just pitiful.

Missing Link (2024)

"Kingdom Hearts: Missing Link" is a work that fills in the blanks between the two arcs and acts as a bridge, so it doesn't belong to either the "Dark Seeker" or "Lost Masters" arcs.

When UX finally ended, the Player, who was already dead, dies again. Only, instead of going to the Final World (X's ending) it's implied that they're reborn. This is because Square wanted to make a new UX with a parallel protagonist. But DR flopped. So, they retconned things yet again. No, no. Xehanort wasn't the reincarnation of Player-kun. Rather, it's this new robed person and Xehanort just absorbed their memories. ML is the REAL mobile follow-up to UX.

Honestly, ML doesn't look too bad. Unlike UX, it will be able to deliver a console-like experience (yay controller support!) and the story seems like it will be closer to a mainline game. I imagine most of the unused "fragments" from 0.5 will be included as "missing links" this time around. Better late than never. But fans are definitely burned out from the vast amount of side games and most just want KH4. Fortunately, mobile games only need a few dedicated whales to stay funded. ML won't delay progress of KH4 and it can dole out its story gradually, and it won't have to be rushed or shortened like KH0.2.

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sailforvalinor · 7 months

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Val! I've been playing KHD and just finished up the manga connected to it, and goodness I have thoughts. Conflicting thoughts, mostly about Roxas. So, it got me wondering what your thoughts are on Roxas, nobodies in general, and KH3. The whole storyline feels messy to me, but that probably makes it all the more compelling to me. Why do I do this to myself? Anyway, as you know I love hearing your thoughts on stuff, so I thought I'd ask. I know you're either have already started school or about to, so no pressure with answering. Take your time. I hope you're adjusting okay to your new surroundings and that you're having a lot of fun too. :)

Waugh that's so exciting! I've read the Chain of Memories novelization, but otherwise I've not actually had the chance to read any of the mangas--I'll have to keep an eye out.

As for thoughts on Nobodies, yeah, I agree the storyline does feel messy at times, yet still so so compelling! I think the guiltiest party for me in that respect is how it's revealed in KH3 that Nobodies are capable of regrowing hearts. Because that seems to contradict everything we know about Nobodies from previous games, but if you actually go back and look at those games, there are actually a lot of hints about this--Axel caring about Roxas and Xion at all, "Roxas, are you sure you don't have a heart?", Saix being capable of feeling betrayed by Axel, Vexen displaying panic and annoyance, Namine's entire character arc, Xigbar/Luxu even being capable of playing his long game at all. Some members are more emotionless than others (Xaldin and Marluxia, I'm looking at you), but why would you even want a heart if you didn't feel any emotions? Desires are driven by emotions--one can't really exist without the other.

The terrifying thing about this is that the Organization members seem to rationalize this away (Axel especially) by saying that they are remembering what it used to be like to feel emotions and trying to project that onto their present moment, an idea so specific and bizarre that I can only think it was perpetuated by Xemnas to keep them from figuring out the truth. But of course it's not true--Namine has no memories, how could she feel loneliness?

As for ideas about Roxas, by the end of 358/2 Days he is so attached to Xion, so so angry, so human, that I almost wonder if he hadn't completely grown his own heart by then. He still had to go back to Sora so he could be recompleted, but that explains why he haunts both Sora and the narrative so much, especially in DDD.

I think the same goes for Xion, but perhaps even more so, when you consider that she was never actually a Nobody--just a replica using Sora's memories of Kairi as a blueprint. I suppose that since we know she was created without a heart, she is essentially a Nobody, but I have to imagine that having Sora's memories pouring into her head all the time gave her a bit of a boost. (Wait, does this mean Replica Riku didn't have a heart either? Somehow I've never thought about that.)

I think Axel was also pretty dang close, he was just in severe denial about it, especially now that we know he was burying his grief and despair over being unable to find Subject X after sacrificing his humanity to find her. Roxas and Xion left him just like she did, and burying those emotions and having that ready and waiting excuse that you're not actually feeling them is a lot less painful than having to confront them.

358/2 Days is such a fascinating tragedy, and watching it bleed its way into DDD and KH3 because it's begging to be resolved is just absolutely beautiful. I'll admit the resolution in KH3 seemed a little quick (perhaps because the BBS storyline was also resolving in a similar fashion), but it was great all the same (especially when Sora confronts Xion, my gosh, the fact that he knows her when no one else does). And Hearts as One playing in the next battle, mixing both Roxas and Xion's theme into a joyful and glorious battle theme, makes me absolutely insane.

I know Nomura wants to move on to other things in the next game, but I really hope he doesn't drop these characters. But on the other hand, maybe he should leave them alone? They need to be happy for once.

(Also I think about the scene where Axel looks at Kairi and sees Xion for a split second daily. It *might* be my favorite scene in the entire game.)

#i have a love/hate relationship with nomura's retcons because you go back and realize it wasn't actually a retcon at all and then you have #to rethink everything about what you thought about the world #anyway thank you for the ask!#oh and thank you I'm adjusting pretty well actually!!

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cq-studios · 10 months

Text

Haven’t posted in a hot sec and the brain rot never left, so how about some UX magic headcannons/theories (def leaning into HCs tho) with some evidence?

Before we get into the meat of this post, a quick disclaimer. I made this post with my own knowledge from playing the game (in 2020 and later) and the KHUX Wiki. I tried my best to check as much as I can but there’s just so much there’s no way every attack animation for every medal level was archived and watched by me. If I get something wrong let me know so I can make addendums.

And with that out of the way…

Have you ever noticed how flashy all the spells (and special attacks in general) in UX are? Like these kids are constantly throwing explosions and other big magical displays around. Almost all of them are akin to endgame spells in other games. Think Trinity Limit, or the BBS room clearer spells.

On top of that, from what it looks like on the KHUX Wiki, out of the levelled (-ra, -ga etc.) spells we see in other games, Cure is the only one that is stated to have different levels. The rest (Blizzard, Fire, Thunder, and Aero) are all in the “-ga” level, even on 1 star medals

^ Source ^

(Raging Blizzard isn’t actually magic, just a physical attack, still flashy tho)

So what point am I trying to make?

Well, all of this seems to point (to me at least) towards the fact that magic during this time was less controlled. And when you take into consideration the fact that it was very unlikely these kids were properly trained it kind of makes sense. It’s very likely that a lot of the magic here is figured out by the wielder themself or by another wielder who had figured it out and showed them how.

(Which is fun, since the longer the game was up the faster you got powerful spells, which in a way kinda makes it like you are learning the more impressive spells faster because other people had been wielders longer and had more time to figure things out)

The flashiness of everything can be explained by that too. I mean, they’re all kids after all. You mean to tell me that they’re not making everything as extra and explosive as possible to show off? Especially in the power centric place of Daybreak Town?

And if you’re thinking “well what about the other high level spells then? The ones in the other games”, I have an answer for you too. I was thrown a loop for a bit with that too because it doesn’t make much sense. Like even in Dark Road, in the same app, has the proper spell progression. But that got me thinking, what if the -ga versions of those 4 spells are the default and the “basic” versions of the spells are ones toned down for training.

Because when you think of it, we’ve never actually seen/played as a wielder who hasn’t had proper training, other than Player of course (and Roxas/Xion, who are exceptions, I’ll get to them). We’ve already touched on DR. The Wayfinder Trio are all trained by Eraqus, Vanitas by Xehanort. Sora is taught by Donald, Riku by Maleficent presumably (Dark Firaga is a tell for me). Roxas and Xion, while technically not being taught magic by anyone, already had some subconscious stuff from Sora.

So, you know, it’s possible.

Anyways that’s my thoughts. Probably not organized well because my brain’s not organized well today lol

I tried

#I think about this all the time and I finally bit that bullet and wrote it out #the only think I don’t have a real explaintion for is the cure spell #but if you ever read that Lauriam Crutches AU fic maybe it’s something like that #like the spells power is dependent on your knowledge not the spell itself #but there’s literally nothing in canon that suggests that (unless there is in which case please let me know)so take it with a grain of salt #anywhoozles there’s my random KHUX thought of the month #khux #sometimes i think about khux #(also side note for Starlight Wayfinder you sent me that ‘wish fic’ ask and then I never finished the fic lol #I’ll get to it soon just been possessed by Art Fight.#know it’s probably not a huge deal I just thought I’d let you know #keep you in the loop)

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fragmentsofsorrow · 9 months

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3, 9, and 18

(two of my favorite fics of yours are Maybe Some Things Are That Simple and Not Your Sacrifice. Wholesomeness, heartbreak, and Xion: my three favorite things)

3. What’s a fic idea that you have but haven’t written yet?

there's a few of these floating around but the most well developed is probably my Nobody Ven AU

so the short version is Castle Oblivion gets a little confused and ends up letting Naminé into the Chamber of Waking, because the Castle was activated to keep a keyblade wielder safe, and Naminé—who has keyblade potential via Kairi—is very much not safe. it then mistakes Xemnas for Terra and lets him find Waking, with both Naminé and Ven inside. Ven's heart is occupied with Sora things (or I guess it'd be Roxas things at this point) but Xemnas is able to wake him up without it, i.e. as a nobody. and since the Organization happens to be two members short after Marluxia and Larxene's betrayal...

(side note: do you know how hard it is to come up with a good Organization name for Ventus? it's hard. it's quite easy to find bad ones though! I ultimately settled on Sunvext, which I do really like but really ended up going with because it's the only reasonable option I found in however long I spent looking for one)

anyway, my goal with this AU is a lot of character exploration, mostly of identity and trauma and how they interact

I want to dive into the identity stuff that comes with Xemnas not being Apprenticenort who was in turn neither Terra nor Xehanort despite being made from both of them. Naminé being around also gives me more options to explore re: Xemnas and the memories he doesn't have, especially since she's been canonically shown to be able to reach out and connect to Terra before he was restored, and that sure has implications when it comes to Xemnas

having Ven's nobody around gives me some interesting things to work with re: him having first had Vanitas's and then Ven's heart both pulled out of him and him trying to figure out what's even left behind for him to be. and also since he's in the Organization, Roxas also being there not only opens up more identity issues but also, Roxas literally passing out from being near Ven's body is a thing

I also want to get Aqua out of the Realm of Darkness. not before she starts losing herself to it, though, because I love exploring Aqua's relationship to darkness whenever I have the chance. but also what is it like to be the only one of your family/friends to have a whole heart? what does it mean when she's technically the only one with darkness in her heart as a result?

plus this opens up the Wayfinder Trio Sibling Dynamic But Slightly to the Left, which raises the question: what happens to an unbreakable connection when you break everything around it but leave the connection intact? they're still a family, in a way; one of them is missing a heart, one of them got possessed and then got amnesia and then became a nobody, and one of them has a heart being overtaken by darkness. but that connection sure was unbreakable

ultimately the whole thing is about trauma and how to heal and recover from it when it's completely changed who you are as a person and learning that you don't owe it to who you were beforehand to try to become them again and figuring out how to move forward as the person you are now

why is literally everything I write about identity issues in some way

9. What’s your favorite line(s) or scene(s) that you have written?

answered here!

18. Recommend someone else fic! (And tag them if they have a tumblr!)

I have a text document I just keep filling with kh fic recs and I just. can't find it for some reason. and I don't want to just leave this ask in limbo where it'll get buried in my drafts and I'll inevitably forget about it, so. rain check on that fic rec instead?

#q&a #alphascorpiixx

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daylighteclipsed · 2 years

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(i'm the anon you just answered) thank you for taking the time to give me such an in depth response. gave me much to think about :] you make a great point about sora revisiting castle oblivion on coded and accepting the fact that he's losing his memories while also being confident that he can work through it and gain them back. i never pieced that together on my own and it's very interesting!

Of course! And you know, it’s something Coded actually touches on even before Data Castle Oblivion. Before Data Sora and Data Riku are reset, Data Sora tells Mickey, Donald, and Goofy that he’s okay with losing his memories because he’s still got them as friends. “As long as you remember us and everything that we’ve been through together… Well then, who knows?”

The sentiment’s then echoed in Data Castle Oblivion, as a parallel to CoM. Mickey tells Data Sora, “Inside your heart, the adventures you shared with the friends you made in the datascape will always live on. And you know what? I’ll bet that’s also true for all the time you spent with the folks that those cards showed to you.”

Data Sora realizes the fact that he feels pain over forgetting his friends means that his heart’s still connected to these friends, and so it’s possible to recall these memories by using the pain he feels, rather than despair over the loss of them. He’s in pain because love is still there. That pain is the key.

Then, a little less related, the fight with Data Roxas, which is about empathy and compassion. The ability to feel for others hurting because you have experienced pain. And I would argue, this also parallels reality — this is the message the real Roxas and Sora reflect. While Sora doesn’t need to be taught compassion, he does fail to show sympathy towards Roxas until he realizes Roxas has a heart/is hurting deeply.

Anyway, fast forward a bit. Data Sora meets Namine who tells him we can wipe our pain away on the surface, “but there’s also a pain that always stays with you.” Once again, returning to that CoM parallel.

She then tells Data Sora the other crucial part of this lesson: “And if it happens that the hurt is too great for you to bear it alone, well, then you turn to a friend close to your heart.” You open up and let others help you with your pain, something the real Sora — while he will absolutely criticize others (like Riku) for not doing — desperately needs to do himself.

And that’s true! While nobody likes to go through tough times, we all do and sharing our pain is another way of connecting with others. Trusting others to help us with the hard stuff does strengthen our bonds with them. :)

All in all, I more or less see this as the arc Sora was supposed to go through because of CoM. This is the personal growth we should’ve seen from him, and we can see that it mirrors Riku’s arc. But Sora’s unable to face his pain head-on and accept it. Instead, he forgets/represses his memories of CoM and the pain attached to them, so his character’s kind of stunted, with his pain just building and building over each game, with each bad experience, the longer he avoids facing and accepting it…

I think it’s all coming to a head in KH4. I’m hoping Sora will remember CoM (especially since that game featured Marluxia and now Sora’s with Strelitzia), but either way. Sora’s friends can extend a hand, but he’s the one who has to take it. He has to choose to help himself, to save himself.

#kingdom hearts #sora #I’m a big fan of the toxic selflessness we’re seeing addressed in kid heroes nowadays #having so little value for your own life is not cool actually!#caring about yourself is healthy and important #sometimes making the choice to help yourself is the hardest and bravest thing you can do #if that’s the direction nomura’s going in i mean. it seems like it

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akashicmuses · 5 months

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ROXAS TO SORA: ❛ why can't the past just die? ❜

“Roxas…” Sora looks at Roxas with a little bit of a frown. He’d found his Nobody standing all by himself, away from some everyone else. Sora had noticed that Roxas seemed to do this often. It was like he didn’t feel welcome, or like he fit in…

Now, with most of their little group piled into the Radiant Garden Castle to peek at some data the Restoration Committee and that Ienzo guy had dug up, he’d noticed that Roxas hadn’t joined them. Sora had wandered down the halls, peeked into other doors, but no dice.

It was only when he’d found his way into the room that Sora paused. Everything looked so different with the huge portal dismantled and the pods removed, but Sora immediately knew where his feet had led him. This was where Sora had unknowingly created his Nobody.

A small sigh left Sora’s nose, and he steeled himself to start walking up the stairs.

And there Roxas was, standing alone in the middle of the room.

It had worried him, honestly, so he’d sped up his pace and waved to his Nobody to get his attention. “Hey, Roxas, what are you doing over here? I thought you wanted to hear about all that data stuff.”

Honestly, he felt a little bad missing out on it, but he was sure he could just get it out of Riku later.

Roxas didn’t reply. Not at first. Sora furrowed his brow and wondered if Roxas hadn’t heard him, or maybe—

“Why can’t the past just die?”

Which brings us to the here and now.

Sora crosses his arms and shifts his weight between his legs. It’s such a loaded question that he doesn’t even really know how to answer it. So, he just stands there with his eyes dimmed with concern, feeling worlds apart from someone who he’d spent so long wanting to meet.

“I don’t know,” Sora admits, letting his arms drop to his sides. “It really seems like…whenever we solve something, there’s always something else—something that got started so long ago. It’s like all we do is play catch up sometimes…”

“But, I’m not sure if that’s what’s bothering you about it.” Sora reaches up to start idly toying with one of the more pointed strands of his hair.

“You know, after I found out about you, I thought about you, a lot,” Sora says, dropping his arm to step a little closer to Roxas, leaning in front so he can actually look at him when he speaks. “I wondered what you used to think about, the things you liked to do…what kind of person you are. And, even though you’ve been inside of my heart, I don’t think I know any of those things.”

“So…what do you mean?”

Because Sora does want to talk with Roxas, a little desperately, even! But he also wants to make sure that Roxas knows it can be a two way street, that Roxas can talk to him, too.

#c; sora.#keyofhearts #sora is Concerned #Also I know this is a lil messy but dkdjdjd its all i got yo #Also I want you to picture sora eating some good food and being so hopeful that roxas can feel the good vibes in his heart djdjnd

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nicedracula · 2 years

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Since we’re on the topic, I find Xigbar’s interactions with Xion and her similarities to Luxu interesting.

He’s been in the loop on the replica program since at least early on if not since the very start but he treats her like any other member of the org. He knows, even if Xemnas doesn’t, that if the plan fails Master Xehanort likely will be back somehow and all the org will be vessels for Xehanort’s darkness in his pursuit of kingdom hearts. And maybe-

And maybe that rings a little too close to home with Luxu. Who had been told straight from the Master of Masters himself that he was meant ultimately, to be a vessel to trap darkness, to follow orders and proceed down a path he had no real choice in.

And maybe he looks at this puppet- this replica designed to mimic a keyblade wielder but which is more deeply, more truthfully, designed to be a vessel with possession in mind, who is alive and a whole individual person despite what himself and the others might say- despite what others and even himself might see reflected back.

And maybe he wants to give her some time to be a person, before she loses herself one way or the other to a plan she had no choice in being a part of.

This was supposed to be part of the chunk of thoughts on Xigbar and Xion but I rewrote that a few times and my points shifted and it felt weird tacking it on so here’s it separate.

I feel like Xigbar probably answered questions Xion had about things that Saix deigned not to answer bc of her replica status- and that possibly Axel or Roxas couldn’t help with, and that whenever they were sent on missions together that he sometimes sent her back early or otherwise wrapped up missions quicker so she’d have more time to hang out with her friends.

He knows she has a ticking timer on her life and I think he tries his best to encourage what happiness she can get in the most hands off way he can, like he can feel kinda sorry for her and her friends and how they’ll all fall apart when the time comes- but he’s been around so long there’s no need to really get himself involved and care just bc something about her tugs at long buried emotions.

Xion of course isn’t meant to notice really, beyond that surface level of friendliness, but occasionally stuff slips through from Xigbar here and there. Never enough for her to really think on it (at least not until years later on reflection), but enough that something subconsciously relaxes around him. They aren’t quite friends and he can be a bit rude but he’s like the coworker you seek out to chat with on breaks or your weird uncle that only gives life advice in riddles and has odd jobs for you that pay well.

Oh yea, that's pretty much how I see it. Though I had forgotten about the parallel with Nort planning on using the Organization for vessels and MoM using the apprentices as vessels for darkness. Much to think about...and weird uncle is probably the best description for his role in the organization haha

I could probably write essays about Xion, Luxu, and then also Xion and Luxu. But I think I'll save it for a comic where I feel like I'll have a better time articulating it.

#under the cut just bc of length #anonymous

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allegorism · 2 years

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See, I have always find fascinating that Nomura and company, which like... Square, seem to hate women... they also do not? Specially when you put Kingdom Hearts under scrutiny since the flag that puts Kairi on a different light is the romance one.

Literally only Kairi is denied dept and agency, on any game after the first one because almost anybody that wrote that game left after it except for Chain of Memories which... explains stuff. Also, there is the thing that CoM and 358/2 Days were written not primarily by the usual people.

Anyway, my prime example of this is how Naminé changes writing wise. Chain of Memories? She is allowed complexity that only Riku is allowed, she manipulated by Marluxia and Axel but she also admits of agreeing out of her loneliness and selfishness... that is interesting! That even when knowing how to do better? She choose to attempt to keep Sora for herself, that is interesting! but then again... Chain of Memories does have character depth that other games lack... even Sora is actually an interesting character here.

Same with Xion, but this does put in some other level since Days is complex character wise just by its premise of a friendship that has a clock over it, she is allowed complexity. Xion becomes very aware that she has her days counted, that her friendship is finite and yet even when Axel denies it and Roxas is unaware... she confronts it! It is so interesting how Xion, with the worst demise, does not run away of her fate. Even when she is told that looking for answers is bad and such bad things happen she keeps on going.

Is there the fact that CoM and Days have different writing teams in play? Absolutely but also, a game with the regular team and shit... Birth by Sleep.

BbS is... lackluster in writing but Aqua is the one allowed the most complexity of the three, being basically the main character at a certain point and I want to point out her relationship with Terra... I think everyone and their mother have noticed that... they are somewhat romantic but never... actual romantic? And to me this is simple to see why, because this is just like Roxas and Xion and more importantly... Sora and Riku, when the writing is not about romance? It flourishes, it truly does. They write about people being devoted to each other, trusting one another and wanting for not only actual safety but also a caring for self actualization and emotional growth.

Kairi is truly not allowed anything because of her role as romantic interest and it is wild to me! But then again, we have the sister series The World Ends With You which has romantic undertones but allows the female characters, Shiki and Shoka, be their own and be complex... with Shoka being the best character of her game.

kh is a Weird case because you do have female characters like xion (which is in my biased opinion the best written out of all of the female cast), aqua and namine and then you have kairi. i have some issues with both aqua and kairi. aqua because of the rushed development in kh3, but also with some of the writing in bbs. however, aqua does have her own moments and is the main character of her own story at a point. kairi has never been the main character of anything, not even of the game in which she's supposed to be that.

there's also the fact that destiny trio hasn't been a trio since kh2. it's always a two-character dynamic, it's always sora and riku or sora and kairi, never sora, riku and kairi. that's one of the reasons why i like axel, roxas and xion so much, because they take the time to give the same dedication to each side of the trio. wayfinder trio... i have my own thoughts on it, but at least the same work went for terra and aqua. not mentioning ventus here because that guy's lore is insane.

moving on to the romance thing... yeah, you're completely right! aqua sacrificing herself to get terra back and then dooming the world to 12 years of darkness because of that choice... that's literally more romantic that anything sokai has ever done. it's obvious that they tried to fix it with the kh3 dlc, but. honestly, after neglecting kairi for entire years, a single dlc is not going to work.

and well, talking about kh3. the writing for women there is just. wow. namine only showing up for the epilogue, everything that went down with kairi, aqua having no agency in her fall to darkness and then everything being solved with her after you beat her up, AND THEN needing to be rescued by ventus... that last thing would have been acceptable because, well, she's been 12 years down there in the darkness and now we beat her up, but damn, this among everything else doesn't look good.

#so sorry for the long answer but i have Lots of opinions on kh #theunstabblejester #asks

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