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tapioca-puddingg · 6 months

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The Riku vs Terra Discussion

Hey y'all. So as you can see, I didn't choose violence today.

I've already spoken about this in my Terra video, but I'll reiterate my talking points here bc it's quicker to consume than a video.

So because Riku and Terra have similar story arcs related to darkness, a lot of us are naturally inclined to compare their stories and their behavior. However, I feel like some folks compare them with the added context of Riku’s redemption arc as ammunition against Terra. It’s comparing the life of someone who’s struggling to someone who has already succeeded, so that wouldn't be fair. So if we’re gonna play the comparison game, it’s only fair to start by isolating Riku’s behavior in KH1 and Terra’s in BBS since that's where these two made their starts.

This isn't me trying to say that one is better than the other. They both come from different lives, have different insecurities, and have different personalities. They are both flawed in their own ways. This is just a compare and contrast type of thing.

Riku was far more problematic at the start of his journey.

He actively antagonized Sora and co., worked with Maleficent (albeit it was to try to find a way to save Kairi, but still), was manipulated by Maleficent, was later possessed by Ansem, and attacked Sora while he was possessed.

Not to mention that he was selfish. He was totally fine with never returning home or seeing their parents again. Zexion calls him out on this in Re:CoM; that he was the reason why Destiny Islands fell to darkness.

I guess to give him the benefit of the doubt, the situation was more dire, as one of his best friend's heart was missing, and he was willing to do anything to help her.

Terra showed a lot more self-awareness and restraint. He was trying to do what Master Eraqus told him to do while simultaneously trying to figure out how to control his darkness. However, the desperation combined with his own insecurities made him vulnerable to being tricked by villains, like Hades.

Sadly tho, I don't think that he exercises discernment with some of the villains; Cap'n Hook in particular. And with Xehanort, he doesn't realize that he's been fooled until it's too late (which isn't his fault, Xehanort was playing 5D chess).

Beyond KH1, Riku had a lot of time to self-reflect and come to terms with his darkness, and he also had a good support system in Mickey. Mickey was someone that was genuinely curious, compassionate, and open-minded with him. He was willing to stand by him and support him no matter what. That’s somebody that Terra needed.

This might be a hot take, but Terra didn't have the best support system to be able to deal with his darkness issue. Eraqus was Eraqus-ing and Aqua assumed the worst about him after seeing the aftermath of his actions. Ven still supported him, but I think the distrust from Eraqus and Aqua had way more of an impact on him.

Honing in on Aqua for a moment, she always arrived in the worlds after Terra. From her perspective, it looked like Terra was doing a lot of fuckshit. He did leave the worlds pretty unresolved, so I understand why she was suspicious of him, especially with Terra’s lack of communication. BUT at the same time, she also didn't ask him what really happened. But anyways.

Terra and Riku were both manipulated and possessed at one point. They also both protected their friends from their possessed bodies; Riku protected Sora from himself in Hollow Bastion and Terra tried to protect Aqua from Terranort in the realm of darkness.

Riku is able to succeed where Terra couldn't. Riku was lucky to have Sora when he was possessed, otherwise he might've ended up being possessed for who knows how long. Like I said, he has a year and some change to grow as a person, whereas Terra has that opportunity taken from him.

Currently, Riku already has gone off to rescue Sora. Terra's story arc from this point forward has been undetermined and I have no idea what they plan to do with his character. In terms of the Wayfinder trio, Aqua will be training Kairi (and maybe they'll explore new worlds together?), and Ven might embark on a new journey based on his forgotten memories of the Age of Fairytales. Maybe Terra will help Aqua in training Kairi. Maybe he'll go on his own healing journey. Or maybe he'll eventually retake the Mark of Mastery exam and become a master.

I don't have a conclusion to this, I just like talking about things. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

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goldensunset · 2 years

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Sometimes I'm feeling normal and then I remember that one KH2FM cutscene with Xigbar talking to Zexion about having found Marluxia and what always gets me is that like. Zexion appears to be the same age then as he is in CoM. Which means it's been at least 10+ years since Lauriam ended up in that era (assuming he arrived in the same time as Ven) before he became a nobody/joined the organization and I can't help but just. Think. What happened to him in that time. What did our boy go through :(

this is assuming of course they didn't just pull a bbs and use an adult model to represent zexion even though later nomura was like 'oh ya no the xehanort we saw on the islands was a boy but back then we didn't have it all planned out yet so we defaulted to a grown-up looking guy' but i do think you're probably right and zexion was indeed an adult at that point meaning this happened like shortly before kh1

and ye i do think it's more reasonable to think that it took them a decade to collect all thirteen members gradually, one by one, than to think they completed the organization all the way up to larxene like right away. and of course it's fair to assume that lauriam and elrena existed here in this era for those ten years bc their nobody forms look grown-up already (aka they didn't time travel to right-before-kh1 and immediately get recruited and sent to castle oblivion. there was down time.) so both of them were probably wandering the world for ten years, as humans, growing up alone

the real question is of course. did they still have their memories for those years or not??? we'd default to saying no of course not but like. there is a strong case to suggest that time travel itself does not get rid of your memories. there is a chance that everyone lost all their memories for different reasons. (like. ven could've remembered stuff before mx broke his heart in half but what could he do about it? or ven could've lost his memories after reabsorbing the darkness and falling unconscious cuz he never woke up again after that until after he landed in the future.) honestly the talk about how you need both a medium to rebuild your body and someone with memories of you at your destination to successfully time travel has me thinking that the memory part is for YOU. you need someone to remember you so that you can remember yourself. something something you're nobody until you're perceived by someone else

so that could explain why lauriam and elrena don't remember themselves. but laurie himself says in his character file that apparently he understood that when casting aside your heart, there is a risk of losing your memories. meaning that maybe he remembered everything up until being nobodied. maybe he knew exactly who he was but he still went and chose to join the organization. which would drive me absolutely crazy cuz that would imply some moral grayness in lauriam's very nature. of course all the above would apply to elrena too etc etc

blah blah blah anyway i can't tell which would be more tragic for them. knowing, or not knowing. wandering alone (or the two of them could have met up, actually) and searching for your friends for ten years, growing desperate, and then finally giving in and taking the offer to just get rid of your heart and memories for good, because they're causing you nothing but pain. or wandering alone feeling broken and confused because you know something is missing but you don't know what. either way you're powerless so :(

#this is a long and disorganized ramble but yeaaaahhhhHHHHH i DO wanna know what those years were like for L + E #:(#khux #asks #thanks anon #kingdom hearts

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bluerosesburnblue · 2 years

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Alright, my old phone has been converted into a Xehanort Tamagotchi, so I’ve gone through and played the KHDR finale. I did hear that there was a 5.0.1 patch announced, so fingers crossed that it fixes whatever issue keeps the save data from being backed up to Google’s backup services

I will give it some credit, I do like the vast majority of it. I think it works really well as a self-contained story and I was into pretty much everything that happened up until the credits. It’s just that, unfortunately, I really hate the post-credits scene, but we’ll get into it

Okay, let’s start with the good. I do very much enjoy the premise of the game. The plot itself? Really interesting. I mean, we are essentially watching the second mass-extinction of Keyblade Wielders in action, and it’s due to their own ideologies backfiring yet again. Vidar never would have thought about summoning Kingdom Hearts to purge the worlds if he hadn’t been taught to try to eradicate darkness at any cost, and that comes at the cost of inviting darkness into different worlds in a desperate attempt to suss out the True Lights. Baldr likely wouldn’t have gone as crazy as he did if he hadn’t been taught to believe that his own darkness was something to be shunned. And that all, in a way feeds back into Xehanort

I think, after seeing this game, Xehanort’s mindset is very understandable. I mean, really, he’s just enacting Vidar’s plan again, but this time believes that his own control over the darkness (that he probably assumes he has by comparing himself to what happened to Baldr) will lead to a different outcome. And naturally, he thinks he has more control because he thinks he’s learned from Baldr and the MoM has been telling him as much, his own disgust with what happened to Baldr fueling his desire to control the darkness rather than be controlled. Really, it’s just a shame that this didn’t come sooner in the franchise, because it adds an interesting layer that I think Xehanort needed post-BBS and it comes far too late to do him much good other than in hindsight

Character design was really popping off this game. I think pretty much everyone (sans Odin who was kinda bland, imo) looked great. Really well done all around

I also think the use of Disney worlds was mostly decent. They did some interesting stuff, like having the Beast’s Castle residents latch onto Urd because she’s a girl (is Urd the only girl we’ve ever seen go there? Wild.) and the Underworld was obviously a standout. I’m glad that they really took the time to establish its connection to The Final World and how, while Hades doesn’t necessarily have jurisdiction over people who didn’t die on his world, he can contact them because his domain is death. The timelines are still kiiiiiiiind of fucky? Like, I know that they had the information in earlier updates that time on worlds moves differently, yadda yadda. I get it. Handwaving away why the Dark Road cast can interact with the Disney cast even though this was 70+ years ago. But... how slowly does time have to be moving on those worlds, and how are the KHDR kids affected by it? Did they pick up speed by KH1 to finally allow the stories to resolve even though they were technically still in the middle of them 70+ years ago?

I do have some other minor nitpicks. Namely, I think that the way that Hermod and Urd went out was underwhelming. Almost like a footnote. And I get it, we’re lucky we got this ending at all considering the game lost service early, so I don’t totally fault it for that. It doesn’t stop me from wishing that they had more, though. I also think it was a little too unclear what happened to Hoder, Helgi, Heimdall, and Sigrun. Did Maleficent kill them? Baldr’s darkness? We get two conflicting accounts and the discrepancy between them is never resolved. If it was Baldr’s darkness, then why didn’t the upperclassmen mention it when Xehanort and Eraqus talked to them directly? Were they protecting Baldr?

Speaking of Baldr, I love what they did with him. He really steals the show in the finale for me. The way that they established that he had similar heart-sensing powers to Sora and then showed what could happen if that went horribly wrong by having him be so jealous and scared of the light he feels in others that he can’t help but cast deep shadows... brilliant. Incredible. They really nailed the threatening aura from him when he cracks, and how grief (and guilt, I see you KHUx) can warp a person. That flashback sequence where he’s in solitary and you can see his rhetoric slowly morph day by day from “how could this happen?” to “why couldn’t they stop it?” to “it was all my fault” and then to “I have get rid of it all, there’s no hope,” was just wonderfully done

Of course, if anyone’s read my Xehanort’s Apprentice AU then this shouldn’t surprise you. It’s shockingly similar to what I did with Sanya (my version of Player) in it. Oh boy does the Baldr thing open up some interesting avenues for that AU

On the things I’m neutral towards: congrats all “Bragi is Luxu” believers on your victory. I always thought it was too obvious, but there you go. It certainly makes some Braig/Xigbar interaction much more interesting now, and I don’t dislike how it was revealed. It felt natural, even if it wasn’t as exciting as the Baldr plotline. My condolences to the “Vor is Kairi’s grandma” believers, though I was never all that into the idea. Like I said from the start, the eye color being different was a bit of a giveaway, and most of the rest of the evidence I found entirely flimsy. Though congrats to Vor for actually having an arc. She was probably the best handled out of the non-Xehanort/Eraqus/Baldr classmates, though it’s a shame a lot of that arc happened offscreen

Now I guess I have to talk about the post-credits scene though. I’m going to try to be fair, but full warning that this is going to devolve into a bit of a rant

So, admittedly, it’s not all bad. I actually adore the idea that Xehanort has the same heart-connecting powers that Sora does (like Baldr). Given that Xehanort is the main antagonist and Sora the main protagonist, the two have shockingly little connection other than that. Their only real linking pieces prior to the big KH3 finale were that they were from Destiny Islands and that Xehanort wanted to use Sora as a vessel. Otherwise it was just standard “hero fights villain to save the world” fare and Xehanort’s character foil was Riku more often than not. With this, though, we get to see Xehanort as more of a direct opposite to Sora: the one who let his bonds corrupt him rather than being empowered by them. The one who looked into others’ hearts and saw nothing but darkness rather than the one who saw something worth protecting

It even creates an interesting trifecta with Baldr. Baldr has the ability and becomes directly corrupted by it, leading to his own darkness to overwhelm and possess him. Xehanort has the ability and, due to Baldr’s and the MoM’s influence, becomes indirectly corrupted by it. Sora has the ability and, due in part to his own nature and in part to his disgust with Xehanort, does not become corrupted (yet). The chain of connections is endlessly fascinating to me, and how you can say that, in a way, Baldr indirectly influenced Sora. It’s really good and it makes me wish this was established prior to KH3 to really give that finale the extra punch it needed, to make it feel satisfying and natural that Sora and Xehanort would be the ones in the end to face off. Two sides of the same coin

But then there’s just... so many ideas that could have been good. Maybe. But the execution was botched for some and other ideas were just bad from the start

At least now I can finally say good fucking riddance, Playernort as a concept. Good lord I hated that idea so much. I told you! I kept telling everyone that it made no sense with the evidence shown! I’m glad that at least it seems like Nomura agreed with me for once. Player being reincarnated as Missing Link Player is marginally better. Like, okay, I’m still not a fan of reincarnation being used at all. Don’t ever make up a bit of worldbuilding just to force something to happen in your plot and now forget that you’ve established it as a thing with wider-world implications, because we still have issues here. Why was it only Player that was offered reincarnation? Like, ever? How does Player being deleted directly enable them to reincarnate? Why did you go out of your way to establish reincarnation as a very real thing that can happen in this world, but only to one specific person, rather than use what you’d already established?

I’m alright with Missing Link Player being KHUx Player, that’s fine to me. KHML is just a direct sequel to KHUx. But... why did we need to go with reincarnation as the explanation? What was stopping Player from using the lifeboats like everyone else and then being revived during the Missing Link timeline if you needed them there that bad? Brain is there, couldn’t he have acted as Player’s waypoint? Maybe Ephemer kept some memento of them that Brain finds later and that’s what they use. Hell, they could have even established an Ephemer-Player good luck charm right in the finale if they needed to. The four Darknesses could have been sealed any other way and made the KHML setup more natural. I just... is reincarnation ever going to be used again? If not, why ever make it a thing and clutter up the worldbuilding?

And then there’s... *sigh* Xehanort’s retconned bloodline and backstory...

I know that Nomura confirmed in the interview that Xehanort and Eraqus don’t have the same parents, but if you actually read any of my other discussions about it, you’d know that Xehanort and Eraqus being brothers wasn’t my real issue. It was just what I considered the most likely avenue they’d take to canonize what I was worried about, but it seems like they went and did it anyway without making them brothers. That “something” being the erasure of Xehanort’s Destiny Islands heritage and retconning his story to make him this super-special boy with a super-special bloodline that ultimately removes his own agency in his descent to villainy. And the most bizarre part of it to me is that a lot of what they were setting up would have worked better if they hadn’t retconned anything at all

Why does Xehanort have to be Ephemer’s descendant? Because he has silver hair? What does that add? We literally just established in the KH3 Secret Reports that Xehanort has an inferiority complex compared to Eraqus because Eraqus is part of a prestigious bloodline and Xehanort doesn’t see himself as an equal. But now apparently he’s known since he was a little kid that he’s Ephemer’s great-great-grandson???? Which means he’s part of the prestigious Founder’s Bloodline, but he doesn’t bring this up to anyone in Scala ad Caelum for??? Reasons??? (And let’s not forget that Eraqus could still also be a descendant of Ephemer’s; Nomura jossed the brother theory but never said they weren’t cousins). You really want to tell me that not a single person ever brought up Founder Ephemer in a history class, only for Xehanort to go “hey, that’s my great-great-granddad’s name” and everyone in the class lost it?

It’s contrived. It doesn’t add anything to Xehanort’s character because he apparently considers the connection to be irrelevant. Can we actually say with certainty now that the fact that he seemed to be a Keyblade wielding prodigy was on his own merits and hard work making it look effortless? Or was it because he was Ephemer’s descendant and Keyblade wielding was in his blood? And it causes a huge continuity snarl because how has it never come up before? (Particularly in the context of KHDR)

And then there’s the erasure of his Destiny Islands heritage entirely. You know, the biggest thing that connected him to Sora? The thing that was such a huge part of his background that he basically caused a time loop to get himself out of there? Contrived. He’s not a native. He was just raised there to force him to fit a prophecy that ultimately ended up being for nothing since he wasn’t part of it anyway. Newsflash, Player, if the Child of Destiny had to hail from the Isles of Destiny, then maybe the kid who hails from Scala ad Caelum isn’t the one

They didn’t need to do any of this, either! All they had to do was leave things alone. You want to have a prophecy that either Xehanort or Sora could have fit the bill for and part of it is being from Destiny Islands? Then just have Xehanort be a Destiny Islands native like he was to begin with! All you had to do was touch nothing. What was stopping you from just saying that KHML Player found Childnort on a trip to DI, assumed he might be the Child of Destiny, and stayed on the island to keep an eye on him while he grew up to be sure? You had the groundwork there to make the Child of Destiny thing feel natural and you didn’t use it at all. Was it this new obsessing with bloodlines as a theme that Nomura mentioned in the interview? Because, to me, the most interesting way to explore that theme would also be to explore the lack of any notable bloodline as well, and Xehanort and Eraqus were already set up for that dichotomy in KH3

And that’s not even getting into the whole Child of Destiny thing which, as an aside, I’m torn on. Like, okay... I can sort of buy that if we’re now getting into “the Book of Prophecies is a big plot point” stuff that, if it had the whole “darkness prevails and the light expire” part and that refers to KH3, that it would by necessity have to mention Sora and Xehanort’s roles in getting to that point in some way. I can understand why a “Child of Destiny” would exist. I don’t like it, I hate how it screws around with both Sora and Xehanort’s senses of agency, but I can understand it. I just think it would be more interesting if, rather than this generic-ass “oh special boy who will save the world from darkness” thing, that the Child of Destiny actually A. was not a thing either Xehanort or Sora were necessarily aware of, and B. if it ultimately didn’t apply to either of them anyway because the MoM made part of it up. How interesting would it have been if the MoM was unable to see past Sora’s KH3 timeline fuckery and so he made up an ending to try and trick someone into being that hero of light? And then neither Sora nor Xehanort are chosen ones, because the future that was predicted never happened. And maybe that’s why the MoM was focused on Xehanort being “the singularity,” which is a phrase Nomura used in an interview to describe Sora’s KH3 timeline reset; he’s trying to locate the person who threw off his foresight

But I digress. I’m just... disappointed? Annoyed? This was exactly the kind of bullshit I was afraid of. And since it’s been misinterpreted in the past, I’m not against retcons in general, but this removes Xehanort’s agency in a way that I really can’t stand

Let’s use Xion as an example. Xion herself is a retcon into KH Days to move part of the plot along. We need to get Roxas to the point that we see in KH2 where he quits the Organization because he doesn’t trust them. He thinks they’re hiding things from him, and depending on how you interpret “no one would miss me,” he probably thinks he was replaceable. What Days needed was to find a way to get Roxas to come to these realizations, and the path they chose was Xion

Xion’s existence doesn’t remove any agency from Roxas, she’s just the method by which these revelations come to light. They were keeping things from him, and Roxas comes to that conclusion on his own by noting the discrepancies in how Xion is treated and what’s going on with her. That they have some larger connection that no one will tell him. He was replaceable, and he finds this out by going off and asking the higher-ups on his own to find that Xion was his replacement after their actions to potentially eliminate one of them get to him. Nothing that Roxas believed by the end was false or manipulated to get him to act a certain way, and Roxas has to actually put in the legwork to get these answers in the first place. Xion’s existence as a retconned part of Roxas’s backstory doesn’t take anything away from what we know about him and only adds to our knowledge of how he develops anyway

Xehanort, though? What’s our takeaway from these retcons? His all-consuming ambition to leave the islands? Oh, he’s totally justified because he always knew it wasn’t where he really belonged, it’s not about an actual character flaw of his at all, he’s not bad. His jealousy towards Eraqus? Oh, that just doesn’t exist now. There really was no reason for things to get that bad between them, certainly not any pesky character flaws that Xehanort has. His motivation for wanting to reset the world? Oh, baby was just justified because he was manipulated into thinking he was the super special prophecy boy who was saving everyone! Even though he wasn’t, but still, he didn’t mean it! He was just trying to make his adoptive grandparent proud~

The Xehanort who was just an average boy with an exceptional ability, whose ambition and loneliness got the better of him such that he ripped apart time to free himself, whose jealousy towards his best friend, being forced to murder another friend, and pessimism corrupting his gift screwed him up so bad that, when combined with his own ambition and arrogance, led him to believe that he alone could truly “fix” this flawed world will always be far more interesting to me than this retconned bullshit

And it’s so sad, too, because KHDR’s plot itself is good. It’s just this obsession with forced connections that don’t matter dragging it down, especially since they’re prioritized over fleshing out organic connections. They took one step forward and two back with the Xehanort/Sora dynamic by giving them the same heart-connecting gift, but then removing the shared connection as both Destiny Islanders and ordinary boys who find themselves pulled into this whole Keyblade mess (Xehanort by choice due to his ambition, Sora by his compassion due to trying to save Riku during the fall of the islands). They tried to force a connection via prophecy and ended up sugarcoating Xehanort’s very real and interesting character flaws. I think that pretty much everything I hated about KHUx/KHDR at this point all ties back to “things that will be explained in Missing Link,” which is not making me excited for ML at all

And I feel like the fixes are right there. Just don’t retcon Xehanort’s childhood on the islands. Don’t have him be part of Ephemer’s bloodline. You know who would be cool as an Ephemer descendant? Fucking Baldr! (And I guess Hoder by extension). How interesting would it have been if they’d just removed the whole “hailing from the Isles of Destiny” part of the prophecy and had it be that, due to his gift of being able to sense hearts, the Keyblade Wielders of Scala thought that Baldr was the Child of Destiny? And part of his breakdown was due to the pressure of being treated like that crashing down on him when he caused Hoder’s death, feeling that he failed everyone as the prophesied child? Xehanort is, as I said before, a DI native that ML Player finds and thinks he might be the Child, so they hang around to keep an eye on him and that’s why he still sees Player’s memories. But they’re determined to keep him from Scala because they fear there might be conflict with Baldr and those that believe in him (hell, you could do so much with the idea of Player being conflicted because they want to support Ephemer’s descendant, but find themselves abandoning his bloodline for this other kid)

Xehanort isn’t made aware of the prophecy and keeps his gift to himself when he reaches Scala (you could even say it’s because Player warned him about letting others know about his ability). Baldr notices, though, but doesn’t seem to hold it against him. In fact, he’s almost grateful to have someone he can push the responsibilities of the Child onto, and that’s what motivates his speech about their similarities in the actual ending. He’s symbolically handing the torch to Xehanort, who’s unaware of what he means and that uncertainty, that driving curiosity to erase unknowns, eats away at him slowly but surely. Hell, Baldr and Hoder as Ephemer’s descendants would make her death and their final confrontation really fascinating parallels to how Ephemer thought he was putting down a darkness-possessed Player

And I think that’s what I’m most disappointed by. The lost potential for what I think could have been a fascinating and natural way to take things that was ultimately screwed over by this need to force everything into the “everything is connected” tagline of Missing Link. It really was so good right up until that final scene and I just... I liked Xehanort more when his flaws were at the forefront, but you could still see his sympathetic parts and understand why his mindset became so warped, like what we saw in the main story. And then to just have the wind taken out of those sails right at the very end... it’s like they intentionally went with the most contrived and boring thing they could have

So I want to say that Dark Road is good and I liked it... but only if you stop at the end of the credits and ignore the rest. It’s better than KHUx, I guess, and I’m glad that we’re done with Playernort, but they unfortunately went in on plot developments that I was really scared that they were going to. So ultimately, I’m no less apprehensive about Missing Link than I was for Dark Road after the KHUx finale and it’s a real shame. Nomura has interesting ideas, but he really needs someone to tell him when to stop sometimes, and that final scene was one of those instances

Also, as a final piece, I’m aware of the speculation that Xehanort may be coming back in KH4 due to the whole “14th lifetime to see the world” thing and the fact that Nomura’s celebratory art piece looked very modern and possibly like he’s in Miyashita Park. I don’t mind the idea of Xehanort coming back as a possible hero, unlike some people, especially if they can do something interesting with an “enemies to friends” arc with Sora. I like how his personality was written in Dark Road for the most part. I just... have concerns about them erasing his flaws, excusing away his actions, or not delving deep enough into his rocky relationship with Sora if they go with that arising from the way they handled the very end of Dark Road. Keep the flaws in. I like the flaws. I like Xehanort as a reclusive, slightly arrogant, very ambitious young man. Do not give him the Riku “flaw erasure without developing anything new, making him less interesting” treatment. Guy needs to be knocked down and taught some humility, true, but then develop other flaws. Make him work for a redemption

EDIT: Christ, totally forgot to mention, but I also find it really interesting that traveling to other worlds was actually part of the training for the Mark of Mastery in a similar vein to how I described in my post recently. And it’s totally understandable to my why, at that point in time, taking the test directly on worlds wouldn’t be a thing (though I do hope that at least the world tour portion of the training was monitored for evaluation purposes). Now that datascapes are more commonly in use, I’d love to see that come back as an actual part of the exam since they can simulate real-world experiences with them without having to worry about upsetting the actual order of things

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Tagging @ramix-the-red since you asked so nicely for my thoughts before

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts dark road #khdr #liz's shenanigans #you can probably see exactly how i'm planning to rewrite things for the apprentice au in here

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rainbow-tazer · 1 year

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Happy Valentine's day to everyone who follows me or is considering following me!

Since it's Valentine's Day and I'm stoned I thought I'd treat you all to a little story of my youthful degeneracy and how that's going for me.

In high school I was apart of a gay nerdy outcast friend group, like we weren't what I would define as popular but people knew us and associated with us. However, outside of us was another outcast group made up of entirely guys, guys that no one fucked with. People honestly just didn't mess with them because they were in general often unpleasant to interact with (use your imagination). On some social occasions however our group would mesh with this group especially when our high school school anime club started lol. There was maybe 5 or 4 guys in this group, 2 of them though that no one in my group messed with. I knew one of them was a pushy hyper sexual cowboy and I didn't know what the other guys deal was, so my dumbass was like "let's find out".

So I start talking to the guy (I'll call him Ted) and he seems like just a very awkward human but overall pretty nice, we shared a lot of common interests in video games. After say two weeks of just texting and being friends with Ted he starts getting wierd. He started wanting to talk about my sexuality a lot, specifically how hot he found it that I was attracted to girls and asking about the things I've done with my partners (which I was not fucking with). So I told Ted to drop the subject let's talk more about Kingdom hearts or something. Later Ted started bringing up how desperately he wanted a girlfriend, which occasionally he would bring up but now more adamantly, and how he just wanted to kiss a girl or feel a breast. Like okay denji what the fuck you want me to do about it? 🙄 So I would always say "yeah that's rough man, I'm sure you will get one/to one day" and would change the subject. Ted soon realized he would get no where with shooting empty shots at me so he finally straight out asked me to go out with him, which I was like "you seem nice but nah man Im not interested in you like that". He then responded by asking "because you like girls? I thought you were bi" and I was like "lmao I am bi, I'm just not interested in you like that Ted but I enjoy your friendship". So he starts trying to fucking haggle with me like I'm a fresh off the market commodity "well can I at least feel your breast?" Hell nah man "what about a kiss?" Fuck no "what about a hug?" Bro wtf no like what do you think this shit is the deli?

At this point I don't want to be Teds friend anymore, so I go to school the next day where I ended up telling some of my friends that know him about what happened. All of the friends that I told pretty much had the same story of how Ted would try to bargain with them for kisses or would make uncomfortable comment about their sexuality. So I decide I'm done with the guy but on the way home he texts me offering me money to kiss him. So ya know my dumbass is like let's see where this goes I'm curious just how much money he'll offer me just to kiss him. So the top number he offered was like $100 or something (which for one quick peck from me of all people is just fucking ludicrous), I'm not going to lie a part of me was like $100 for a kiss what's the big deal? But then I thought about actually having to go through with kissing him. I very soon realized I didn't have it in me, the thought of actually having to place my lips on this guy's lips actually disgusted me to the core. So I said never mind forget it sorry man I don't want to do it "you can borrow my original version of Kingdom hearts 1 and 2 for the PS2" .....

I was really into Kingdom hearts it held nice memories to me of my childhood with my brother, it was the one game he would let me play instead of having to watch, other than GTA. At this point I had only watched playthroughs and knew lore but never got to actually sit down and play KH2 I only played a little bit of KH1 with my brother as a child. I had really wanted to borrow his games in the beginning of our friendship when we first started talking but he had been like no fucking way. However the thought of kissing him still made me want to throw up, so I started bargaining 😂 "What about the cheek?"

"For my My Kingdom hearts no way"

"Sorry man that's all I got in me" ... a couple minutes passes he responds.

"Fine after school directly Infront of the school". So it's the next day and it's dawning on me I'm still going to have to physically place my lips on Ted. At lunch I see Ted talking to his friends pointing at me, I can tell he's telling them that I'm going to kiss him after school meanwhile, I just had the worse pit in my stomach thinking about the whole situation. So the end of the day rolls around and I walk out with some of my friends who I told about the situation while he is standing in front of the school waiting for me with half his group of friends right next to him. I just took a deep breath walked up to him and was like "okay but how about that hug ☺️" lmfao this dude's jaw dropped! I didn't want to hurt his feelings and tell him I was disgusted by the thought of even placing my lips on him physically, so I was like: listen man I can't do it I'm sorry you were right about me I'm just too gay 😭 💀.

He honestly was just like "I knew it, I just knew you were a lesbian" and actually ended up accepting the hug with the stipulation that I would kiss him when I returned to the games. We walked back to our friend groups cuz we were literally only a couple inches away, and his friend's dogged him about how he was lying. Which he quickly responded by yelling at them " no I'm not you'll see, you'll sees she'll kiss me next time!". I just walked over to my best friend who wrapped her arms firmly around my waist, because of how over protective she is of me (her over affection usually driving me crazy but i was very thankful for it at the time because it drove home the too gay bit 😭). Soooo I don't have to kiss him if I never return the games right... Right?! 👀(thats big brain work right there) Because it turns out in a very fortunate sting of events 2 days later he ended up getting a girlfriend. She was the new girl at school and she was honestly just as awkward as him (like these two look like they were made in a factory for each other). Turns out he was smart enough not to come back and bug me about the games because of all the shit he tried to pull with me, with the knowledge in mind that he was trying to pull that stuff while pursuing her. So he just fucked off completely of his own volition and never bugged me again after he got his girl.

So flash forward to now my partner, who is male, bought me roses because I jokingly said while we were grocery shopping "there's the cereal, there's the bread, and there are the roses you should buy me". He said "you want roses girl? You got rose's!" So I decided to post it on my Instagram story and the jig is up. A decade later this man has realized I am not as gay as I originally claimed i was, also he has gone through a divorce from the girl he actually dated in high school and is currently in my dms 😭 questioning me about my bf lmao help.

#tazer talks #story time #lgbtq #bisexual #girls who like girls #pansexual #i feel bad but he sacrificed his kh and got a gf thats a blood exchange if ive ever seen it #hope yall enjoy another story from the void that is my life

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sensitive-charmy · 2 years

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I really want to share my experience with KH and how I got into it since I know everyone’s stories are so unique. KH is the one and only passion I’ve had that carried from my childhood well into my adulthood. There are things I liked as a kid that I still like now. But nothing touched me to the degree that KH has. And it’s amazing to me just how long it has stuck with me. It’s amazing to me that I still think about it literally every day of my life. So here’s my very long, unnecessary, personal story.

I had just started middle school and became very close with my new friend (we’ll call her Jessica for the sake of privacy). Jessica lived right up the street from me, and we would go over to each other’s houses every single day after school and play video games. I wasn’t much of a gamer myself. I always had video games growing up, but I was never really good at them and didn’t take it too seriously. Jessica had a burning passion for video games, though. And that’s just how we bonded.

Jessica had Sora’s crown necklace. And one day, I asked her what it was. And I guess she had the realization that we play video games together every day, and somehow, I didn’t know about Kingdom Hearts. She demanded I go over to her house and play because “it’s a Disney game,” and I was “sure to love it.” Once Friday hit, I went to her mom’s house and started playing. I had very little experience with Japanese culture or anime. I was never allowed to watch or play Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Dragon Ball, Naruto or anything of the sort. I had a very toxic impression that anime was “bad” and therefore, I was highly disgusted by Japanese animation. When Simple and Clean started playing and I had to sit through that trippy opening sequence, I was very turned off towards KH. I thought this was gonna be about Disney movies? I thought this was about Disney princesses? Not anime boys. I voiced my discontentment, and Jessica’s mom said to me, “Just play until you meet Donald and Goofy. That’s when the game actually starts.”

I don’t know if it was the combination of both Jessica and her mom forcing me to play or if I genuinely enjoyed playing it or if I just felt pressured to say I liked it. I don’t remember exactly what I was feeling after having met and Donald and Goofy. But apparently, I told my dad about it, and he immediately bought both KH1 and KH2 for me.

I remember really struggling to beat Riku in the race and thinking I had to win. It was very difficult for eleven-year-old me who was (and still is) very bad at video games. It took me about two years to finish KH1 simply because I milked it for all it was worth and really took my time exploring every single inch of every world. I loved that game. And it holds a very, very special place in my heart considering it was the first video game I ever completed by myself. In the time that it took for me to beat KH1, Jessica moved out of the city and we lost touch. I never got the chance to tell her just how much Kingdom Hearts meant to me. We barely had the chance to bond over it at all since I fell in love with it in slow motion. But I still think about her every now and then, think about how much this silly little game still means to me, and I wonder if she still loves it too.

It took me about a year to finish KH2 for the same reason. I played and played and played those games like I’ve never played a video game before or since. Neither one of my sisters played Kingdom Hearts. And none of my friends did either. I had absolutely no one to talk to about it, which is really why I remained oblivious to any “spin-offs” that had been or were currently being made. I grew up in a very sheltered home where YouTube and the internet was not allowed to be explored (not to mention that YouTube barely had much footing at the time).

I had made my own binder cover with images from KH and paraded it around school proudly, waiting for the moment that someone would recognize it and strike up conversation with me. It finally happened one day around 2012 when someone said, “Have you played Birth By Sleep?” I said, “No…?” because I had never heard of that. And they said, “Oh, that sucks. I guess you’ll never know who Roxas really is.” (Because people were theorizing that Roxas was Ven’s Nobody at the time.) Of course, I freaked out, and decided to look up this stuff on my own. I found that Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days, and Birth By Sleep had all been released and that I had no clue what their stories were about at all. Panic set in as I realized they were all on different consoles. Even though I already had a GBA, a DS, and a PS3, my silly child brain thought it was completely illogical to ask for video games. I never brought it up with my parents. And I basically forced myself to suffer. I thought, “I have to know these stories. But I can’t play these games. I’ll have to just watch cutscenes and read Wikipedia articles.” And that’s exactly what I did, lol. I braved the world of YouTube and looked up KH cutscenes and consumed the games in that fashion, especially since Let’s Plays were still a very new and foreign concept. (And people who did Let’s Plays were typically very vulgar and inappropriate, and I was a good child, lol.) The exact same thing happened when Dream Drop Distance was released. I remember walking around Best Buy with my dad and seeing the poster. He said to me, “Do you want that game?” And I didn’t want to be a burden. I didn’t want my dad to have to spend $60 on a video game plus however much the 3DS was. And I knew I wouldn’t play any other games on the 3DS except DDD. So I said, “No, it’s just a spin-off. It doesn’t matter to the story. And 3D makes me sick.” So he didn’t buy it for me. And I forced myself to suffer in the same way, watching cutscenes on YouTube and silently wishing I could’ve just played it myself.

In 2013, the only thing that mattered to me was the official announcement of KH3. Honestly, that announcement rang so loud it my ears, it drowned everything else. I somehow managed to miss the fact that 1.5 was released even though its trailer was coupled with the KH3 announcement. I literally didn’t even realize 1.5 was a thing until the end of 2013. And I had this incredibly dumb thought that it was gonna cost hundreds of dollars because it was “three gaming experiences in one package.” Stupid dumb little Lea who had no idea how to navigate the internet or any information. I still had this idea that the KH “spin-offs” were unavailable to me due to money (even though I already had a PS3. Seriously. Stupid dumb little Lea.) So once I learned about 1.5, I decided the best way to consume it was once again through YouTube.

Enter: SkywardWing

I found his Road to Kingdom Hearts III series and watched the hell out of it. Every morning before school while eating breakfast, I’d watch the most recent episode he uploaded. Finally, I got to see what Re:Chain of Memories gameplay looked like. Finally, I got to the heart of 358/2 Days. Finally, I was able to live vicariously through Sky. Finally, I had someone else to “interact with” about KH. Even though I am a very passive lurker and rarely comment on videos or interact in large ways on the internet, I felt like Sky was a friend. I’d readily consume every single theory or fun video he’d make leading up to KH3. And of course I watched the other Key Keepers as well, but none hit as close to home as SkywardWing. Without him, I genuinely wonder if my love for Kingdom Hearts would’ve eventually tapered off. Waiting for KH3 was such a long process, I wonder if I would’ve eventually lost the love and passion if I didn’t see his videos on my feed every day.

In April of 2014, I was having a very bad week. It’s a long story and not worth telling here, but the tipping point was when my friend was trying to help me out and asked if I wanted to go to a drive-in theater with her and her family to see the new Captain America movie. Captain America is my favorite superhero, and I always wanted to go to a drive-in, but this week in particular, my mom had an iron grip on me and told me I couldn’t go. I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever been so mad at her, especially considering I was plenty old enough to make my own decisions. My dad must’ve felt really bad for me because he went out and bought 1.5 for me completely unprompted.

When 2.5 released later that year, I didn’t have to ask my dad for it. He knew how much I loved 1.5. Of course, KH2 got put on the back burner. I played BBS first. Do you know how long I had been waiting for the opportunity to play that game myself? Aqua, Terra, and Ven felt like old friends who I hadn’t seen in years. That’s still one of the most magical memories in my life.

Some time passed, and my sister’s husband introduced me to his friend who really loved Kingdom Hearts, and he became my boyfriend. Kingdom Hearts was the glue that kept the two of us together. The relationship was not healthy, but I really clung to the fact that he liked Kingdom Hearts. I didn’t have any friends who played these games. I didn’t know anyone who cared anywhere near as much as I did. It was so important to me that my boyfriend played them and enjoyed them as much as me. I didn’t wanna let that go, so I held on much longer than I should’ve. We were dating when 2.8 came out, so he came over to my house and played with me because we were both incredibly excited. My boyfriend and I broke up shortly after (thank goodness). And cue more impatient waiting for KH3.

By 2019, I was dating a different boy. He had never played KH a day in his life, but he respected that it meant so much to me. He came over on release day and happily watched me play KH3 for hours. I’d give him the controller during the mech segments in Toy Box because he loved first person shooters. That day will forever be etched in my heart. That was the day I had been waiting for for so long. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it and all its emotions.

I look back and find it silly that I was dating one boy when 2.8 came out and then a different boy when KH3 came out and now I’m not involved with anyone. I sometimes wonder if I’ll be with someone else whenever KH4 finally releases and I laugh to myself. I can count on one hand the amount of people I’ve personally met who have played these games. And none of them had long-lasting impacts on my life except for Jessica and my initial introduction to the series. I am once again at a point where I don’t have anyone in my personal life to talk to about it. But making this blog and reading y’all’s posts has been monumental. I love hearing what everyone has to say, everyone’s experiences and opinions. This silly little video game means so much to me. And I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who feels this way.

#doubt this will get any notes but here’s some personal info about my life and kh experience #maybe I’ll make a follow up to this post because I really didn’t even say half of what I wanted to #no joke y’all this silly video game changed my life #kingdom hearts #kh #long post #personal story #personal

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embraceyourdestiny · 2 years

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Another kh thought that won’t leave my mind: Why is Riku the one to introduced the paopu to the series?

Why not Kairi, Sora’s supposed love interest? Kairi doesn’t even mention the paopu tree at all, Sora and riku are the ones caught up on it and the only time she ever interacts with a paopu before kh3 is when she sees sora drew her one. Never before that or after.

Riku is quite literally the first time we ever see it or it’s mentioned. He appeared with one out of nowhere and even explained the tale. “If two people share on, their destinies become intertwined, they’ll remain a part of their lives no matter what.” As Riku says this, he walks past Sora. They meet in the middle as Riku and Riku disappears from screen as he says “they’ll remain a part of each other’s lives no matter what.” Foreshadowing the events of kh1? With the paopu fruit?

Isn’t it funny how there’s no implication to Kairi at all in his words? Isn’t it funny how after this Selphie calls the paopu “romantic” even though Riku is the only one to talk about or be seen with a paopu around Sora so far?

And it was so randomly too. “C’mon, I know you wanna try it” before he laughs and runs away.“You wanted one, didn’t you?”

Riku remembered, who knows how long ago, Sora mentioning wanting a paopu fruit. It couldn’t have been kh1 sora, could it? Why would sora look so and caught off guard and confused then? That Sora who was awkward about his feelings and didn’t understand them. How long ago did sora say he wanted a paopu and why did Riku keep that thought in mind?

Another thought. Riku gives sora the paopu on a very particular day. It’s the day before the storm. It’s the day before he knows the island is going to fall. Did Riku give sora the paopu fruit because no matter what happened that night, he wanted them to remained intertwined in each other’s lives? That maybe even after he was going to do, Sora wouldn’t leave him?

“I should’ve tried that paopu thing”

There’s only two other moments we see Riku with a paopu.

Once in official art

And once on the manga

Why would Riku have a paopu? He has no one to share it with, right? Sora and Kairi are a pair, right? There’s no one left for Riku to have a destiny with, right? He has the paopu all by himself, somehow for some reason, right?

Doesn’t it seem so strange that Riku holds the paopu alone in the first art, looking back at someone, and in the second art he stands next to Sora, who looks down at the paopu in surprise? Who is Riku looking at? Why does Sora look so surprised by the paopu? Why is he the only one looking at it and not the camera?

And isn’t so interesting that Sora and Riku actually do share a paopu? On the keyblade that represents their hearts coming together?

We never see Sora and Riku share a paopu and yet there it is, attached to ropes woven together like they are in their lives. This is purely symbolic because of how much the paopu means to them. They didn’t actually share a paopu but they didn’t have to. Their wills were stronger than fate. They made themselves apart of each other’s lives no matter what all in their own.

Why did Riku introduce the paopu to the series?

Because Riku wanted to share the paopu with Sora. Because Riku wanted to make sure that he and Sora’s destinies were intertwined. Because Riku loves Sora.

#og #kingdom hearts #kh #sora kh #riku kh #kh1 #kingdom hearts 1 #soriku

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lilyginnyblackv2 · 2 years

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So, in the recent 20th Anniversary Event Q&A Nomura stated that Utada wrote the lyrics first, and he would add the imagery after. This makes some certain image choices very interesting and kinda changes the perspective on how certain scenes can be read. It makes the image choices absolutely intentional now. Certain images and lyrics matching up wasn’t just because of the music accidentally lining up with a moment or anything like that. Those kinds of readings now, especially for Simple and Clean and the KH1 OP, don’t fit now that we know this bit of information.

So, with this in mind, I am going to be taking a deeper look at the OPs (specifically for KH1, 2, and 3, since those three all have different songs).

Though, in this post, I will only be looking at KH1. I'll try and get posts up for the other two OPs some time this week.

"You're all I need." - That's the lyric and the image is of Riku’s initial appearance and him reaching out to Sora. The other lyrics that accompany the scenes between Sora and Riku in the KH1 OP all have to do with a relationship becoming more complicated and difficult to navigate like "Don't get me wrong, I love you, but does that mean I have to meet your father?" and this segment ends when Sora surfaces from the water with the last lyric in the Soriku section of the OP being "No, I don't think life is quite that simple." A sentiment very squarely from Riku’s POV.

This ends up foreshadowing Riku and Sora's dynamic for the rest of the series pretty much, until we get to the end of KH2 and then from DDD and into KH3, we see that their relationship has gotten a lot easier to navigate for the both of them. But that doesn't mean that there aren't still some hidden challenges. There likely still are or will be, and I won't be surprised if we see some of those being explored. More likely from Sora this time, rather than from Riku.

Next up, we have the Sokai section of the KH1 OP, which is where we get the chorus of "When you walk away, you don't hear me say, please, oh baby, don't go. Simple and Clean is the way that your making me feel tonight, it's hard to let it go." And this falls *right* in-line with the fear of change that Kairi expresses to Sora in KH1 when she tells him to "never change."

Also, the lyric of "hold me" fits in with her taking refuge in his heart in KH1 (Sora essentially holding her and protecting her throughout the game). The general theme in this segment of the opening is her fear of growing apart from Sora. KH3 highlights this with her desire to share a paopu fruit with him, so that they will always be together.

The section focused on Kairi and her bond with Sora ends when the lyrics of "Whatever lies beyond this morning is a little later on."

It then transitions to both Sora and Kairi looking at another version of Sora falling from the sky, with the lyrics "Regardless of warnings the future doesn't scare me at all." This brief segment of the OP at the end is about Sora and Sora alone.

In KH1 he just runs head long into everything, this continues all the way through the series, and even into KH3 where we see him using the Power of Awakening incorrectly, even after having been warned. Here the lyrics indicate that nothing scares him though, while the lyrics of KH3 indicate facing fears, but I'll talk about that more in another post.

"Nothing's like before!" - Is when Sora has gone back under the water, Kairi reaches out for him in shock and fear, and the water ripples causing the image to disappear. This ends up paralleling Sora disappearing and essentially dying at the end of KH3. That change and separation that Kairi feared has happened and because Sora didn't think of consequences for his actions, things have now irreversibly changed.

Of course, when Nomura was creating the imagery for this first opening, he wasn't thinking about the events of the future games yet. Just the ones of KH1, in which all of the imagery still works. But with knowing the future events of the games and how character arcs play out, plus the fact that we know now that the imagery was created to reflect the writing, rather than the other way around - it honestly makes the KH1 opening way more interesting and far less abstract than it used to be for me (it was always the most abstract of the bunch, but now I can appreciate how KH3 tied in pretty well to this opening).

#KH #Kingdom Hearts #Soriku #Sokai #Destiny Island Trio #Sora #Riku #Kairi #Tetsuya Nomura #long post #image heavy post

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dahniwitchoflight · 3 years

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Then finally, one last post sbout what all those changes I would make might culminate into in KH3 plus one small other thing I'd change:

Continuing on then, from my changes I'd make for ReCoded's purpose essentially being to tell the untold tales of Namine and Riku, fixing Sora's memory of Namine and CoM, partially fixing Xion juuust enough that people know someone else is still lost, and moving up the end of DDD's plot point about Ansems Research being insides Sora's heart to be more at the end of ReCoded, because its purpose is to be the key to reviving all the Lost gone over in ReCoded

and then changing DDD to just, include Kairi from the start and have her training arc be the same thing alongside as the boys re-training arc because DDD purposefully reset them to zero training in order to re-train them properly, so why not Kairi, with a dash of Lea can also get his how to summon keyblade training from merlin a tad earlier as well so hes not too far behind the pack too

A third small thing I'd change before delving into how all these changes already affect KH3 is one small change during the Blank Points scene:

Instead of Ansem the Wise sitting on the rock speaking with Aqua slowly reminiscing, Aqua would instead come across Ansem the Wise lying on the beach, half in the water and slowly dissipating into darkness, fresh from his KH2 machine explosion.

Aqua at this point is also fresh off Fragmentary Passage, talking to herself, going crazy from loneliness etc comes across a man in the abyss, but he's fading away.

She can't do anything for him, but she needs to talk to him, needs to speak with someone, and they have a much quicker chat that covers that Ansem is here from his own foolish mistakes, his last act was to try and fix it for those he hurt to atone for it, that he hopes Sora, the boy with keyblade can continue what he started and fix the rest, and convey to Aqua that much time has passed, but these are the shores that once connected him back to the realm of light, so if she remains and waits, surely the same might happen to her as well.

He fully fades away in the abyss soon after reassuring her she won't end up like him, and instead Aqua is left alone on the beach, crying and saying to herself, "I'll remain here and wait for them. Someone will come find me. I won't fade to the darkness, I'll remain whole." just, really struggling to not think too hard about how she's just gonna end up fading away like that poor man she just watched die here.

(Aqua then slowly dissolves here, she has no influence on mickey in kh1, despite him being there and looking for her, he doesnt find her, she never sees riku etc etc except at the end of kh2, when shes near fully sunk under the water in the abyss beach, she notices riku and sora's lights and tries to reach out to them, desperate, but she doesnt make it through, and she despairs as more people leave her in the dark, and this would be her true descent into Anti-Aqua when depression and lonliness breaks into angry bitterness and despair, so her lashing out at Riku specifically in kh3 has a bit more weight to it, as shes watched him basically grow from lil kid, to young teen to older teen so hes just a direct reminder of how long shes been anbandoned for)

Yeup, Ansem the Wise dies fully here, no more him plotline in KH3. Controversial choice I know, but when you think about it, was he himself really necessary for what's needed in KH3?

Ansem The Wise is in KH3 for two big reasons: To contribute to the restoration of the Lost in some way through his data and as an excuse for Xehanort to reveal that he's looking for Subject X, which Ansem the Wise doesn't even have any current lore dumps or info about anyway, he's literally there just so a protagonist (Aqua) can witness a Xehanort admit to searching for a Subject X as a really hard forced shoe in

For the first part, all of Ansem's research is already inside Sora, they have it. And, Even and Ienzo are literally the most qualified people to do anything about it already, Even was already the main brains behind the replica program and making data into hearts and adjusting them in the first place. Ansem the Wise himself isn't necessary for this part, it's already fully believable that Even could do it on his own and hes not even alone anyway.

As for Subject X, this is already supposed to be a plotline that focuses more on Lea and Isa anyway, since they are the ones that have a personal connection to her, or are supposed to anyway, we just don't have enough plot to attach to to make that believable yet.

Ansem the Wise's lack of knowledge on her current location isn't important, at most it could be a footnote in an Ansem Report that he knew of her.

But in old KH3, Saix we know is a double agent, we've had hints of this for a long time, that his secret goal has always been the same since BBS, find Subject X, the girl from the basement that him and Les befriended, and he has singlemindedly pursued this goal across the series, so why stop now? KH3 Should be the game where he tries harder to pursue that goal, under the banner of Xehanort wanting to find her as well, to keep his allegiances hidden for now as well.

Any forced scene of darkness ansem interrupting blank points to ham handedly talk about Subject X, someone Ansem SOD has zero interest in anyway, could have easily easily been replaced by a scene of Xemnas ordering Saix to focus his efforts on searching for information on Subject X above all other orders.

Since Saix gets redeemed at the end as Isa anyway, he's already the side protag that has the most info about Subject X anyway, so by the time that Subject X is gonna be relevant for KH4 anyway, Saix can already be our exposition expert on her current status, all she needed in KH3 was to be reasonably foreshadowed, which is better done with Xemnas and Saix than Ansem and Ansem, and continues it being a plot thread important and core to Isa's character. And its reasonable to assume that anything we need to know about her for KH4 can be provided by Isa in KH4 when its relevant, because he can be believed to have done background investigation on his own during KH3.

So, Even doesn't become Vexen again in KH3 and is instead their full time replica scientist, no need to force that weird "scientists must atone" idea as strongly, let Evens sincerity about helping out for once hide behind his snarkier "hmph i only really care about my research, only doing this for that, no other reason" attitude of his, it would feel like a more genuine guilt instead of a character personality 180 and he does everything Ansem the Wise would have.

Saix directly interacts with Demyx under the guise of researching Subject X, but he helps out in his own double agent im actually on the good side way by just directly doing whatever sneaky atonement Vexen did in KH3, basically no more need for the Vexen middleman for them, and honestly all of Demyx's dialogue really remains the same "I can count on one hand all the times weve hungout" works just as well for Saix as it did for Vexen. This has the added bonus of having Isa's tearful redemption in Lea's arms feel less hammy and more genuine because it can be revealed more strongly that all of Isa's goals, all of his pursuits, has been for Subject X the whole time and he never wavered in that from the beginning, never lost sight of that no matter what else happens, could even be something he says a few lines to to Demyx even.

And just like that, we've made two characters in KH3 even better than they were, and Ansem the Wise no longer has a purpose in KH3, meaning we're free to have him die in Aqua's arms in blank points post kh2 to make Aqua's angst of seeing her future if no one rescues her even tastier!

Aqua is now free to slowly erode away from grief into Anti-Aqua in a slower more believable erosion until Riku and Mickey find her, instead of just getting smacked by dark ansem for no reason.

This gives Ansem SoD a lot more freetime in KH3 but do we honestly need to see him doing much? He was only here because there wasnt a free villain to spare for these side stories in the first place, its not like they did much for him anyway

though i do admit i will miss the hayner ansem drop kick

Any cinematic time wasted on him is honestly spent better elsewhere

Like the fact that if we take in all my other changes, we've got a head start on decompiling the ansem data from the start of kh3, lea and kairi don't have to spend as long in merlin jail, if they even need to at all, leaving more opportunity open for scenes with kairi and lea

perhaps as Riku and Mickey investigate Aqua as usual, Kairi helps Namine investigate Terra/Lingering Will internally, perhaps finally putting that concert only terra namine conversation finally into a KH game, Lea can search for information and Data about Roxas (and Xion) in Twilight Town, through meeting Hayner and them and doing stuff with the computer, perhaps also having some run ins with Saix who is investigating Subject X instead of Ansem SoD was doing before, but its just Spicier to imagine the angst of Lea and Isa confronting each other from opposite sides, needing access to the info on the computer to save different chosen friends, and sure why not, Hayner can try to drop kick Saix instead

or Kairi could just, join Sora on his KH3 Adventure from the start and just fill the game with more opportunities to flesh their relationship out before things go to shit, thats a great possibility as well

Man, the things I'd do differently with this series lol

#Kh #Kh3 #Kingdom Hearts #KHIII #Changes Id make to the series overall out of personal taste and i think its better

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kicktwine · 3 years

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ask dump (big long)

1) ABDBHTDND YEAH THEY DID UM, they did the ”no THANK you..! etc etc BUT IM WEAK” song too! Wild how that is now. points at them hey I know those guys

2) OHHH….. THIS HITS……….. I like missio sometimes but this is a nice chorus also: Vanitas… yeah I, like, always love music recs. they can be hit or miss but it’s only fair with how much music I find and then immediately go what if I showed everyone

3) how many does he have in there now, eleven? Twelve??? He signed up for one mouse and he got eleven human children or at least nine to ten human children, two young adults, and two regular adults who aren’t going to be helpful—

4) aaaaaaaaa thank you!!! 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

5) MMM I haven’t thought extensively about cowboys for a while… it’s been mostly space up here for now, haha. I like my space murder. But that’s not to say I haven’t given them some fond passing thoughts! Two bros sitting in a river 5 feet apart cos they’re covered in mud and smell awful and one of them is very loudly blaming the other for the plan that involved hiding behind a barn (actually the last thing I wrote in my notes is a mini totally unfinished drabble of hiding in Lea’s bar but the “great hiding place” Lea has is in his floor)

6) gosh I Have to wonder if it’s a case of destiny/universal “the nature of humanity is that every so often someone invents homestuck again” or if we just, like, had common knowledge of the book of prophecies. Or not even the Book, maybe, I have to assume that knowledge/observance of the Foretellers phased out pretty quickly, but prophecies left unfulfilled would linger for generations probably. Or maybe they’re even old stories, a tale of seven masters of the past drawn in to a chess game, or the game based on the old fairytales, or the numbers 7 and 13 are ingrained in local culture … see, because obviously Xehanort implies that this prophecy/old masters stuff ISNT common knowledge, but Eraqus CERTAINLY knows about it and it’s in all the architecture/local myths… ok but then also, if we’re to take the opening chess game as more than just clever symbolic narrative bookends, everyone’s symbols ARE right there. I just kind of registered that’s probably what you were talking about. In which case our questions are still there, how much did the common populace know and how much did eraqus know? Did he like, end up with three apprentices who had very distinct chess symbols as keychains and go uh oh john or what—

hey why’d you do this to me. I’m a tired college student in scala on my sixth response paper about the prophetic legitimacy of foreordained keybearers versus the self-imposed creation of destiny as following common legend and I’m arguing with some guy named Einar about how you can’t just fake a prophetic fulfillment by claiming to be the Crown piece in chess. You can’t just KIN A CHESSPIECE, Einar.

7) ABGDJGD TY..!!! To be honest they also live in my head rent-free! Some of them need to start paying rent because I’m supposed to be in school getting Better at storyboarding—

8) hard same hey thats just bc magnet is uhhhh. The best spell? Aside from mine spells

9) SEE AGAIN I DONT KNOW bc for one Sora obviously isn’t ENTIRELY unique, if he’s able to be diagnosed so quickly, but this “holding your nobody and two to four other people in there” kind of thing probably has never been seen before. But for another, Roxas and Xion have copied a keyblade. Just like — a keyblade? Copied entirely? Wild.

anyways keyblade manifestation is a mystery to me and I’d love to see it explored because what we know the Lore is, is this: they were fashioned after the likeness of the x-blade. They can be bequeathed to others (shown to not necessarily mean that exact keyblade is passed down, probably this means the ability to wield can be bequeathed). They can be WILLFULLY given. They come from the heart, they are not welded out of steel. They are…. questionably sentient, or maybe just sapient, or somehow are picky about who holds them. Side note khwiki is telling me things I Did not know about the whereabouts of Ven’s heart during 358 and also the ability to wield two which requires more than one heart obvi but which is named synch blade??? always question the wiki but these have sources. Anyways. Keychains can swap their forms so they have a Base and Custom Skins mode. There are three kinds, Light (common), Darkness (Michael mouse??? Not his bbs one the rod one which I GUESS is a counterpa Iiiiii am getting off trackaaaaa), and Heart (which I’m guessing is just the x-blade, maybe the gayblade, and the kh1 keyblade of heart??). Um. What was my point here. OH yeah I was just gonna say Bro Wild. This is completely a mystery to me. Does every keykid’s base form keyblade look different, and we were all just given cool keychains? Are there some kids who melded unique keychains? If I were connecting dots wildly and with reckless abandon I’d say yeah and also you cannot just suddenly one day wield one, you HAVE to be bequeathed, but as soon as that happens it sparks the creation of your own personal heart sword. Every keyblade is manifested independently — those wielding a family keyblade have the ability to summon their own, if necessary, but the family sword is taking up that space in their heart and theyd have to get used to making their own. since, it seems, keyblades (summoned) will die and solidify if their bearer dies, but keyblades (unsummoned) will either disappear or summon themselves somewhere else and retain a small piece of your… essence. A legacy keyblade, I feel, would be a little something like feeling every past Avatar and you are the avatar, but you can’t talk to them. They’re there tho. Also I think that having an exceptionally strong heart would be not only a moral requirement for ensuring the keyblade’s duty is upheld, but also a physical requirement! youre carving out a bit of your heart to make room for a sword. Weak hearts should not do that even if they want to.

aye… how was that longer than the scala answer? You got me on tangents again in these essays I

10 (submission from licilou22)

NGDBFDBFSHGDHFDHGDA 😎👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 WHEEZING

#ask #MANY ASKS (10)#well 9 and a submission #anon #kh #oh to be a tired scala graduate student #oh to write thesis papers about keychains #anyways love u alll……. Thank u for asks #…… 💕💕💕👁👄👁#paopubell #rosie-kairi #licilou22 #infernal-fox #metazone

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blissfulnightrain · 4 years

Photo

KH OC Week Day 2 - Bonds of the Heart

(Header artwork by @crezzstar)

I really wanted to create some artwork involving even more characters Amaya meets along her journey, but due to a time crunch I haven’t been able to T_T But I figured I could at least go over the three most important people to Amaya from the start (and share some commissions/some of my own artwork ads;fsdk)!

Amaya has a unique bond growing up with the other members of the Destiny Squad. Click below the cut to find out more about her relationship with her younger brother Sora and her best friends Riku and Kairi!

Sora

(Artwork by @wingbladeweaver1357)

(Artwork by me ajsdfj;sd it’s a year old please don’t judge;;;;)

A little over a year apart, Amaya and Sora are a very close brother and sister pair. Amaya’s more reserved, overly-cautious nature can sometimes bring up a rift between these two, especially when Sora expresses much enthusiasm over building a raft, which Amaya stands staunchly against. Still, she ultimately wants the best for him and wants to keep him safe, so for his and their friends’ sake, she does help out with some of the prep work and planning.

Their family is very tight-knit and includes their mother, a nurse and excellent cook, their father, a fisherman, and their rambunction little sister Haru, who could use a lesson or two on boundaries xD They have a healthy dynamic at home, which makes it all the more heartbreaking when the Islands eventually disappear....

Without getting two spoilery, after the Islands disappear, their family is never the same. Sora and Amaya spend the majority of KH1 desperately trying to find each other, though they find themselves separated once more by the end of it and weave in and out of each other’s journeys from there on out. They both go through major transformations throughout their journeys and remain close throughout, but some changes do take their toll...

(Artwork by me - As Sora and Amaya both get ready for bed, the sight of a certain mark on Sora’s chest catches her eye)

Kairi

(Artwork by @wistaria-92)

(Artwork by @n3k0c0)

As the girls of the squad, Kairi and Amaya have a fun bond of sisterhood. Amaya finds Kairi extremely easy to talk to, especially when stressed (which happens...quite often, to say the least). Though Kairi is younger and more carefree, Amaya always finds herself taking her advice into consideration when going through with things. The two also love watching crime shows and dramas, and going shopping together!

When the Islands disappear, it’s Kairi that Amaya worries the most about, her heart hurting at the thought of her best friend having to lose a home world again. While they are briefly reunited by the end of KH1, circumstances drive them apart once more. They spend quite a bit of time apart over the next year, with Kairi in Destiny Islands and Amaya in Hollow Bastion, but they don’t grow apart. In fact, Hollow Bastion serves as an avenue to uncover some previously unknown details about her friend’s past...

Riku

(Quick sketch from last year’s oc week from me!)

(Artwork by me)

Complicated is probably the best word to describe Riku and Amaya’s relationship. Despite Amaya being Sora’s sister, being the same age she’s actually known Riku the longest. One could describe them as best frenemies at the start of the story - Amaya finds Riku’s cocky attitude irritating, and Riku has very little patience for Amaya’s constant naggy attitude towards many of his endeavors (including the infamous raft). Still, the two do acknowledge and respect one another’s intelligence, often still choosing to work together on school projects and the like.

Things change drastically when the Islands are destroyed. They are separated at first, but when they finally reunite, Amaya witnesses his slow spiral down the slipper slope of darkness. Riku’s actions and Amaya’s attitudes toward them affects their relationship greatly, to the point where they are completely alienated from one another. It is after Riku disappears into the realm of darkness that both parties are able to reflect on their actions. The year leading up to KH2 is a turning point in their relationship, where they must work together and learn to understand each other to play their respective parts in keeping Sora safe.

When they rekindle their friendship, it’s stronger than ever, and though they must focus on the tasks ahead of them, it eventually becomes impossible for them to ignore the fact that their relationship has become something more...

(Artwork by me)

asdklfs I am so so sorry for that behemoth of a post but if you read that whole thing here is a sticker *sticks on you*

@khoc-week has been wonderful so far! Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far <3 <3 <3

And as always, if you’re interested in reading Amaya’s fic, it is linked here:

FFN | AO3

#khocweek2020 #kingdom hearts #sora #riku #kairi #rimaya #amaya #riku x oc #kingdom hearts oc #kh oc #keeper of the keywielders #kotk #blissfulnightrainart #blissfulnightrainwrites

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slightly-gay-pogohammer · 3 years

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Oh, top five boss fights? Like, the whole experience - gameplay, narrative, and the character(s) in question all taken together

TOP 5 [ ALWAYS ACCEPTING ]

HHHOH BOY this is interesting sdnff mostly i have. SO many bossfights i adore, so with just one (1) exception i could literally write so many other ones here let's gooo

spoilers obv

5. hehe doing this like a real top 5 so starting with 5 buuuuut I'd say Reflux from Rayman 3, and after some thoughts I decided to go for the final boss rather than his first fight. Rayman final bosses are always a little underwhelming to me, but this one REALLY gives everything it got. you're going against a god and it SHOWS, it's a continuing growth and each phase makes things more threatening. Big Love for this one and hint hint it's exactly why i love #1 so much so :^3c

4. Pontiff Sulyvahn in Dark Souls 3. I was this 👌 close to put the Abyss Walkers because, to be fair, with Artorias I think it's the most emotional fight in the series, and if it was just for that I'd totally put them here, but. b u t. Sulyvahn is one of the VERY few real bad guys in the series. His influence is seen in so many areas and even in other bosses, and taking him down makes me feel like I'm actually putting an end to someone who fucking deserves to have his ass kicked.

3. ohhhh I was so close to put KH1 Riku/Ansem in here, ppl who played it know which one I'm talking about, you'll never take kairi's heart yadda yadda, or final Xehanort in KH3, but. Listen. Listen. I waited for YEARS to play as Kairi, and when I do I actually get to actually super murder the one asshole who's been ruining everyone's lives? As my daughter who deserves to kill murder and maim??? Yeah it's Armored Xehanort in KH3Re:Mind. Go queen give us everything

2. ofc I'm gonna put Gehrman from Bloodborne here. It's left pretty vague of why he's an antagonist, but from what I got he's. Pretty much the reason anything happened, even if it's not out of malevolence but just as an act of desperation. Taking him down feels right not only for Yharnam, but for him, too. He deserves to rest, and maybe it's just me but in Bloodborne I find battles with other hunters to be much more engaging than the beast battles, as much as I adore them too. Like the Moon Presence and Mergo's Wet Nurse are ok final bosses but Gehrman is just. So good. It's so good it actually made me walk through the entire fight, bow down when it started and kind of "mimic" him, using two-handed weapons and special moves only when he did too. It had to be a fair fight between hunters at the same level.

1. this is the only one I wouldn't change at all and. Kefka in FFVI. The whole thing. Starting from the very bottom until you reach him, it's such a good crescendo, especially considering the final dungeon in itself is already SO long and difficult and. idk fighting not to stop someone, but to put an end to his domination is so good. the series often puts the character against gods, but I feel like FFVI really nailed it. Eps with the whole "if someone dies they're replaced by someone else" thing going on, it really makes you feel like every single character you grew to love through the game is giving their all and it slaps. Also I still think that Dancing Mad is THE best final boss theme in anything, it's just so good. Literally the cherry on top of one of the best games out there

SPECIAL MENTIONS: Muggshot in Sly 3, Keiki in Touhou 17, Kuja (any fight, really) in FFIX and Emperor Griffin in Dark Chronicle

#gio replies

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asteriskheart · 2 years

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@bravewielder asked; plot please.

► ❪ PLOTS // always accepting ❫

Plot 1. Riku and Kairi are still close, though I do believe their relationship has changed in some aspects since the days before kh1. There's plenty of opportunity for exploring that. We don't see them on screen at the same time very often but they do talk, and I'd like to think at some point they addressed the events after the destruction of Destiny Islands. One idea for general interactions could be during Kairi's training, since he did visit her while she was learning under Merlin. Sparring sessions and the like, whille Kairi gets her footing in learning to wield a keyblade. Another could be how they took Sora's disappearance, and how they're taking steps to get him back again.

Plot 2. It would have to take place before Sora vanished, but it's always great to have interaction between Sora and Riku. If you think about it, they've never traveled to a world together in any game. Maybe there could be more moments where their journeys intersect during their respective investigations. Like, there could be a scenario where they run into one another and end up scouting the world together as a group. It could be a world that appeared in kh3, another disney property, or something else entirely. Sora could also invite Riku aboard his ship in the Pirates world, and they can spend a day sailing and traveling to the various islands.

Plot 3. It could be interesting to touch on Xion and Riku. A lot happened in days that pretty much never went addressed. Post kh3 Xion is learning what it means to really live her life as her own person, though she's still a part of the search effort. She could accompany Riku on some of his attempts to follow up a lead on Sora.

Plot 4. Something with Zack. Maybe its a little out of left field but I think there could be an good dynamic with these two, given their self assigned roles as guardian figures to others that have looked up to them. It could be good for them to compare experiences.

#bravewielder #➥ options. ┊ answered.

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eradicatetehnormal · 3 years

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Thinking About Soriku

While it's no longer my OTP, SoRiku is and likely always will among my favorite KH ships. I admit that part of that is because I went in with a bias, due to a fan comic type thing that I read, prior to finishing the first KH game. After playing the games and seeing the community I shipped it more.

To be completely honest though, I didn't really see the ship outside of THE scenes in KH2 and through that symphony of sorcery scene in DDD. It was when I interacted with the community more that I realized how much there was to the ship. How they pointed out details like Riku technically sharing the paopu with Sora and that being the keychain on the combined keyblade dubbed "the gayblade" by the community. How jealous Riku acted in KH1 while suspiciously being more focused on one-upping sora than actually saving Kairi. How Riku did everything in his power to make sure Sora can come back safely in KH2 and 179 days, and of course the entirety of how their relationship is portrayed in DDD, with how Sora is disappointed with having to be separated from Riku and Riku always talking about Sora with almost nothing but positive things to say. All the other pieces of evidence that could point to hints of romantic attraction. From what I hear, people having a better understanding of the ship after interacting with the community is actually kinda common.

Soriku is one of those ships where the implications are subtle. If you're not looking for it, it's blink and you miss it, outside of a couple of stand-out scenes. If you ARE looking for it, it's extremely obvious to the point of almost coming off as intentional, especially post KH2 if you're looking at it from Riku's pov. I bet it's the work of the event planner:

Here's like, the thing with the community though. It's been at odds with a certain other group of shippers and they go at it A LOT, and it can make the community unbearable to be in sometimes. Not to mention how oversensitive some members of the community can be and how unwilling some of them are to live up to their past. The past of Sorikus being yaoi-obsessed fangirls who wrote and drew smut is real is very real and is a legacy that still lives on, even if it's not as bad as it used to be. There were consequently, children who saw that content. I understand Sorikus not wanting to acknowledge that past because

A. a lot of them consider it something that was a part of their cringy teen years and don't want to acknowledge it

and

B. Many Soriku shippers are genuinely queer and either aren't responsible for that content or fit into the prior category

And to be fair, a lot of the times when Kaisos bring this up, they do tend to have bad intentions and try to dismiss their own homophobic behavior, but at the same time if the yaoi side goes unacknowledged, especially when it comes to the older fan content, then it does seem like we aren't owning up to the fact that some of us are fetishy and it can leave and unwanted mark on the community. Also, yeah, going back to what I said earlier. Some of us are over-sensitive and do have a habit of calling people homophobic for saying that Kairi is Sora's most important person on their own platforms, and that's an issue too.

That being said, despite the community I still like the ship and it is still an S-tier pair for me, not GOD-TIER, but S-tier. When I actually remember how good their relationship is in the series, and good some of the fan content is, I can't bring myself to hate it.

Here's the other thing though. What if it actually happened? What if the series ended with Sora and Riku in an embrace saying that they'll always love and be there for each other, and then a strongly implied off-screen kiss? Regardless of how people feel about it, or what the intentions on Square and Disney's part, Sora and Riku ACTUALLY getting together would be a huge fucking deal. Not just for the KH community but for JRPGs and gaming in general. Hell, it'd be a huge mark in Disney history, as they would be among the few confirmed MAIN LGBTQ+ characters in a Disney property. Because of that people. will. riot. There will be many calling it the product of an agenda. There will be idiots saying that this ruined their childhood (which honestly if THAT's their argument, they didn't have a childhood worth ruining) and there will be people angry at Disney and ALL OF JAPAN for "forcing" children to see homosexual content. Probably giving prejudiced conservatives who like to be controversial, leeway to the yaoi argument as means of racism and homophobia. There's also the question of narrative meaning in Kingdom Hearts. First off there's the obvious, which is the writers will have to address Sora's relationship with Kairi else it feels disingenuous, and that can get messy rather quickly, especially because a lot of Kairi's relevancy is linked to her relationship with Sora. Pairing him with Riku can risk undermining his relationship with Kairi and if she doesn't do anything with Aqua and the other characters, can reduce her down to nothing but wasted potential, nostalgia, a cute design, and a cool backstory. As sad as it is, a big part of her appeal is her romantically coded relationship with Sora.

The series has always been about friendship first and foremost before everything else, even if it does value other types of relationships. Sora and Riku are considered by the creators, to be what the series is all about. What does it say about the power of friendship if the two leading characters were in love the entire time? This is less of a narrative issue with Kairi because she was never portrayed to be Sora's friend. She was always written to be a love interest to him in some way. Whereas with Riku, he was always written to either be Sora's rival, or embarrassingly close "friend", at least on a surface level. Sora and Riku getting together romantically could work to undermine the theme of friendship being the most powerful form of magic. Both Kaisos and Soriku's would probably just say "WELL IT CAN BE ABOUT BOTH", but part of what makes it so special in the eyes of many people is that it's NOT about both. That it consistently keeps its friendship theme and never safely comes out of it by making overly big moments with the love interest (except for Kairi single-handedly being the most important person to Sora. Why wouldn't it be Kairi AND Riku). So that initial message getting underplayed can risk taking the series down a peg for a lot of people.

#shipping #ships #queer ships #kingdom hearts ships #kh ships

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