#ALSO the sora design is a draft but i like how it looks

[numberonepartyboy]

mostly sora doodle dump

[dutchforstrangers]

Rouge - Taikoura one-shot for Shades of Red

For @taioraweek 2023 Day 8

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

A/N: Shades of Red is a very precious little story I wrote for digiweek 2021 about Taichi falling for not only Sora, but for Koushiro as well. A story about the wonders of polyamorous relationships and that it takes self-knowledge to take that one courageous step towards a life full of love. So have a new shade of red <3

Based on a little Taiora-scenario I wrote in early 2021 which @seventeenlovesthree made sure to provide with beautiful art which I'm still so in love with :3 You can find it here: [x].

Day 8: Rogue or Blush | Characters: Koushiro Izumi (POV) x Sora Takenouchi x Taichi Yagami | Genre: Romance, some sort of hurt/comfort | Rating: T | Wordcount: 1.293

A yawn escaped him as he stretched his slender frame, the office chair rolling slightly to the back. Koushiro was still up, the different monitors on his desk lined up and on. After much complaining from Sora, who was according to him unnecessarily way too worried about his health, he had installed a filter on the screens. That way he could protect his eyes, but still work during night time.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t work in the day time, no, he had grown fond of working with both Taichi and Sora around. However, they had the tendency to distract them and so, being the night owl of the three, he decided to catch up on work during the night. Koushiro liked the quiet, the only sound interfering his endless thoughts the sound of keys clicking.

Time had already gone way past midnight when the sound of his fingers flying over the keyboard was interrupted with bare feet entering their shared office. Koushiro peeked over his computer screens, his eyes picking up on red-colored messy sleep hair, his nose smelling Taichi’s perfume she was bringing with her into the room.  

“Sora-san, shouldn’t you be asleep?”

His fingers left the keys as he decided to check up on her. He watched her closely and concluded she looked stress. It wasn’t a surprise with the big deadline that was luring from behind a bush called Friday. Koushiro remembered all of her speedy talking which wasn’t very Sora-like, her calm demeanor sliding off.

“I couldn’t,” Sora answered sounding sleepy yet stressed. “Tomorrow’s the first draft for the collection and it feels like I missed a few details. I have to check it.”

Not for one second did she look at him. As if pulled to her drawing table, she walked towards it, her right hand frantically searching for the right pencil underneath the pile of designs. To Koushiro they were all equally wonderful and knowing Sora, he knew she didn’t miss any details. He also knew she was stubborn, perhaps even more so than Taichi, and so he didn’t ask further. Instead he kept a close eye on her while he kept working, thinking it would only be a few minutes before she would return to bed.

But a few minutes turned into over half an hour and Koushiro grew worried. Without saying anything, he stood up to grab the both of them some tea.

“Thanks.” Was all Sora said as he carefully placed the cup on the only empty spot on her drawing table. Her eyes were wide, completely focused on her work. Koushiro looked over all the colors and lines dancing on the papers forming beautiful designs for modernized kimonos.

“I truly admire your skills and ambition, Sora-san. The designs look unquestionably stunning, I’m convinced that they’re enough for a first draft. I’d like to escort you to bed so you can sleep some more.”

“Tell that to yourself, you always stay up late,” Sora snapped back, but immediately realized how mean that was. She finally looked at him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I’m aware. You must be tired, hence why I wanted to bring you back to bed,” Koushiro explained calmly.

Sora smiled in return, her tiredness didn’t allow her to keep her lips curled up for too long. “And I appreciate your worry over me. But I just can’t sleep yet.”

Koushiro nodded in response. She gave off a tired look, the determination however made her glow all the same.

A little bit defeated, Koushiro headed back to his seat behind his desk. He sighed before his fingers went back to the keyboard, then started typing once more, the room filled with the tapping sound again. Per usual, it made him loose track of time.

Eventually from the corner of his eye Koushiro could see Taichi’s sleeping body dragging himself into the office. The brown haired man rubbed his eyes and a yawn escaped him as he placed himself next to Koushiro, looking over the computer screens in Sora’s direction. A worried expression emerged on his face and Koushiro looked up to Taichi.

“How long has she been up an working?” Taichi asked with a hoarse sleepy tone followed by another yawn.

Koushiro checked the time.

“It could easily be over an hour now.”

Taichi sighed. It was all he needed to know. He kept standing there, watching her work, worried yet the fondness in his eyes easily outdid the worry.

Even though Koushiro was well aware of Taichi’s adoration and admiration for both him and Sora, he could never get enough of Taichi staring so intensely to especially Sora. It was something he could observe day in and out, it would never grow old.

“What?” Came Sora’s voice. Clearly she had been taking notice of Taichi’s staring. It made Koushiro snap out of his thoughts, however, Taichi only intensified the eye contact he now had with her. “Do I have something on my face?”

“No.” He replied. The features in Taichi’s face changed from intensity to softness accompanied by a cheeky grin.

“Then what is it?” Sora asked, the annoyance in her voice returning.

In a way, even though Taichi meant it well, these little exchanges of words between his two partners made Koushiro feel uncomfortable. Simply because it could go two ways. They would either start bickering, or…

“I just think you’re beautiful.”

Or they would jump each other in a more sexually physical way.

Yes, Koushiro loved them both very much, but their intensity could sometimes be a tad too much. Making him blush in frustration or ecstasy. Often it was both though.

He looked from Taichi to Sora and back in anticipation. Because with Sora being stressed and tired, you could never predict how exactly she would respond.

Koushiro had not expected the cherry red blush on her cheeks radiating warmth and surprise.

“Go back to bed, Taichi,” she stumbled, failing to hide how that one compliment had gotten to her.

“Well, you’ve heard the boss,” Taichi said to Koushiro, taking Sora’s words as his cue to go. “Can you tell her I’d like to see her back in bed soon? And you too by the way.”

Taichi winked and gave Koushiro a sweet small peck on the top of his head before he turned his heel to return back to bed. Alone.

Or so Taichi thought.

Right before he would have left the office, Taichi was stopped by Sora hugging him from behind. Her graceful arms embraced his athletic body, her one hand just able to hold the wrist from her other hand. She pressed her head to Taichi’s back and rubbed her nose into the fabric of Taichi’s sleep shirt, a genuine smile happily dancing on her lips before she spoke.

“Thank you, I needed that.”

Koushiro looked at the both of them, standing in the door way exchanging love in a to him beautiful way. It was tender and fragile, grand in its simplicity.

Where Sora’s blush turned into a warm and grateful pinkish one, Taichi showed a knowing one. Accepting the love he felt for her. For them. And all Koushiro could do was take in the little loving still he was treated to.  

He recalled how their love wasn’t self-evident from the beginning, especially to Taichi. But the road he had followed together with Sora and Koushiro had led him to being his happy and cheesy self again. Where his blush first was one of confusion and shame, it now showed his pride and a genuine love.

Koushiro smiled, a shared blush like rouge now complimenting his own face. Happy he was here with them, being able to see the love unfold in front of him over and over again.

[bluerosesburnblue]

This video annoys me. Not only because I've seen the Type-0 comparisons before and it's still just as much of a reach as it was then, but because it does that thing I complain about where Nomura gets involved in a game and everyone goes "oh, Nomura was in charge of EVERYTHING." He was not. The central point of this video is misunderstanding what Nomura's role was in Type-0

Because first off, no, the characters aren't "his." Nomura was only the character designer and that's not how that works. While he's also the character designer for KH and prefers to use characters that he designed when incorporating other Square Enix characters into KH (probably because he has to REdesign them for KH), the difference is that for KH he's also the director and a writer, while he's not for the vast majority of those other characters. Therefore, the process would be for the director and writer of those games to come up with the personalities and roles of the characters, then hand that off to Nomura to come up with (usually several) draft designs based on that, which the director then selects from. Nomura's only role in the creation of the Type-0 characters would be their physical appearances, and even then the finalized versions are the director's pick. He had nothing to do with their personalities, their roles in the story, and he didn't get the final say on the designs used in the final product

(He was also the creative producer on Type-0, but the creative producer's role is just to ensure that all the departments are coordinated together, so the gameplay is matching and serving the story, the design team's designs are being incorporated into models that the programmers can actually use, etc. He has nothing to do with the writing/conceptual work, etc. That's the director's job)

So with that all in mind, what makes more sense? That Nomura is stealing character designs and plot concepts from a game that he was minimally involved in the story of to use in his own game (which would be a total dick move to Tabata now that he's left Square, and even if Nomura's upset about his FFvs.XIII project being changed to FFXV and given to Tabata I doubt he'd be THAT petty). Or that Nomura, when working on Type-0, got a character description that reminded him a bit of a character he'd already made, Demyx, so he incorporated aspects of Demyx's design into one of the draft ideas for that character that got approved and then may have reworked some visual elements that he experimented with from that game into his own?

Also, I really do need to point out that in the model comparison part, the poses don't match up well at all outside of some vague similarities that can be chalked up to "this is a generic pose." Like, Gula's pose matches the Sora render from DDD and Aced's matches Sora's pose from 1.5, that doesn't make them both Sora. And also... we do totally have Foreteller model rips that look nothing like the Type-0 characters. You think the KH fandom wouldn't try to grab those? Please. We have some from the KH3 Re:Mind journal entries and Back Cover. Haven't managed to find any of Ava or Luxu, unfortunately, but the fact that they're all more developed than you'd expect and that the facial structures are consistent between games (even seemingly gaining more detail in KH3) would lead you to believe that the designs are a liiiiiiiittle more finalized than just being placeholders and they sure as hell aren't the Type-0 characters

How do you guys feel about this? I feel it's probably moreso that Nomura is just referencing Type-0/Agito XIII ideas (like the tower and its characters) in Kingdom Hearts now. I kind of hope that the Foretellers and Master of Masters aren't literally supposed to be the Type-0 characters or a Kingdom Hearts version of them, and that that's part of the reason their faces have been kept hidden and that at some point they're going to take off their hoods to reveal Queen, Ace, Deuce, and whoever else's faces (-has not played Type-0 yet-). Because that would be a twist lost on so many people (as this video notes) and a bad decision for that reason.

[simpforroses]

One Piece Modern AU HCs: Law, Zoro, Katakuri, & Mihawk + Vehicles

This is an idea I had in drafts since April 17 that I revisited, based on a modern AU centered around alternative subcultures involving Law, Zoro, Katakuri, Mihawk, Perona, Robin, and my self-insert OC, but I thought to share these vehicle headcanons on main! Law, Zoro, & Katakuri also have their own car too, but for this focus, it’ll be their motorcycles):

Law would have a sleek & cool black and gold Kawasaki

He would customize it with heart motifs that he designed, himself. His jackets and helmet would also be custom designed/painted/lasered too to exemplify his style and symbols that hold a meaning for him.

Aside from his usual rock playlist, sometimes songs from media he grew up with would be played as he drives, such as the Sora: Warrior of the Seas theme song to make him really relish in the feeling of freedom, or ‘Hyperdrive’ would be on to set the atmosphere of riding a duel runner that he saw on Saturday morning cartoons.

A 1st aid kit complete with a syringe, bandages, antiseptic, epinephrine, & I.V. for an impromptu drip room, is always attached in case of emergency. One time there was an emergency in the park where someone had a severe allergic reaction and Law came through, resulting in being invited into the birthday party going on at the moment & kids on the playground thinking he was a superhero.

Kikoku is usually secured either on his person semi-upright or on his waist, using the red sageo, as a nodachi is long and can accidentally cut off traffic if worn horizontally

Zoro would have an electrifying & badass green Yamaha

Usually someone is on speaker with him providing directions or Chopper tags along, so he doesn’t get lost. The last time he was driving by himself, he ended up in the next town, when tasked to refill the water gallons for the Strawhats’ shared flat.

He has tried out the most motorcycle tricks out of the others, since the Strawhat gang would put him up to it (such as Franky making a mini-ramp or Luffy asking if he could nail a Hot Wheels-like course). Of course, up to any challenge, he goes along with it, and comes out mostly unscathed until he gets the stunt right.

There were also a few times he managed to catch a suspicious vehicle that matched an Amber Alert description, leading to him being featured on the news or being invited to schools and other events as a local legend & speaker (though when asked how he does it, he says he weirdly happens to bump into situations like that).

He rides with his bandana & usually has his katanas on him too, safely secured for practicing in a dojo or in an open space at the park.

Katakuri would have a bad-to-the-bone magenta Suzuki.

The under-seat compartment usually carries business cards from Big Mom or modified into a mini-fridge for a donut stash or for deliveries for Big Mom.

Usually has a pager on him to connect him to all his siblings, in case there is an emergency (this came to be after Brûlée & Pudding were bullied as kids. Cracker sometimes uses it to page about his latest WhoTube achievement or if there’s going to be an impromptu game night). He usually gets beeped a lot, being one of the more dependable siblings, but he knows when it’s necessary to rev it up & when to continue cruising.

Sometimes he & his brothers would ride through town in a group, earning the Charlotte family unexpected rep in town, when in actuality, they were showing up for a family wedding, dinner, or parking at the airport for a big trip, when all the cars/trucks on their lot are being used.

Was the cool older sibling dropping off his younger siblings at their school with a truck or his bike

Mihawk would have stately black Rolls Royce

Perona also gets to drive it too on occasion, so she looks like a mafia princess or funeral director’s wife pulling up to the mall (plus it’s perfect for storing all her purchases).

Hidden compartments in the car contains champagne flutes for special occasions, some form of bladed weapon that is able to be hidden—such as a switchblade or a short sword. Otherwise, there is a rapier in the backseat for when he instructs fencing class.

There is also a cross rosary hung around the rearview mirror and a solar-powered Kumashi dancing figure that Perona got custom made on the dash.

The glass & frame are actually bulletproof too. He also prefers to keep a clean car & there is always a pleasant lingering sandalwood scent or ambient instrumentals playing. He acquired the Rolls Royce from his money as a champion swordsman across many disciples (longsword, broadsword, daggers, rapier, sabers, etc. are all game to him) & wine connoisseur editorials he does on the side.

🏍Bonus (ft. Kid, Killer, & Ace)

Kid, Killer & their gang also fabricate their own bikes and vehicles in their workshop, coming up with self-bespoke, custom-made designs. But more often than not, it violates at least 1 street-legal condition. They get it eventually, but at least their non-legal cars can be counted as “art cars” for events like Burning Man

Ace also has his own flame studded bike, and does the mechanical jobs himself. Usually there needs to be loud music playing or Luffy & Sabo on the other side of a voice call, else he may risk falling asleep behind the wheel. However, he is a skilled driver despite his narcolepsy & has savvy for dodging accidents and teaching others how to ride.

Tagging: @jazminetoad, @starrybrujita, @gabrielasalazar18, @undercoverweeeb, @the-witch-of-one-piece, @fireflykaizoku

[polite-pandemonium]

hey this is very random and i hope it is ok for me to ask but do you think you will ever update your takati fic?

Hi! It is absolutely OK to ask!!

I absolutely hope to; I definitely don't think of the fic as something I have abandoned or anything (same goes for 'rom-com'). I have just been tired, is what it comes down to. My job really sucked the life out of me and that was a big factor in why I stopped writing, but as of last week, I started a new one so I'm hoping some balance will come from it and I can start writing again. Also, Taylor Swift has a new album coming out in two weeks so perhaps that help, too!

That said, I do have the rest of the story mapped out; I know where it is going and how it ends. Admittedly, I'm not sure I like chunks of it now (so dramatic?) so I might do some revising here and there. But since everyone has been so patient and kind, here is a small preview from chapter 5, which has been sitting in my drafts for almost two years now.

“Don’t you ever think it’s messed up?” Hikari’s voice sounded high to her own ears. “That only four people in our group are capable of dating people they haven’t known their entire lives? Cause I do. I think it’s really messed up.”

Taichi sighed and closed his eyes. “Hikari…”

“It’s an indicator that something else is at play, onii-chan. That whatever it was that brought us together as kids is forcing us together as adults. It’s not normal, it’s not natural. I don’t…” she swallowed, her throat feeling tight. “I don’t want that.”

Taichi frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to be tied down to something designed for me,” Hikari said slowly. “I don’t want my whole life laid out for me. Every single thing about my existence has been predetermined. I don’t want who I love to be either.”

Pulling back, Taichi ran a hand through his hair. He walked over to the balcony railing and leaned against it. “Hikari, it doesn’t work like that for anyone, not just us. No one gets to choose.”

Hikari furrowed a brow. “Choose what?”

“Choose who you love,” Taichi said simply. “You never get to control who you fall in love with, no matter the circumstances. Your heart picks that. Hell, you think if you told eleven year old me that I’d fall in love with Tachikawa Mimi I would have believed you? Definitely not. But I did and I am. I didn’t choose that. It was something that just...happened.”

He paused. “Sometimes, people are just made for you,” Taichi looked out, Kichijoji stretching across the foreground. “Sometimes, you don’t find them or figure it out until you’re older, like me and Mimi. But sometimes, if you’re lucky, you figure it out young; like Yamato and Sora. It’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

[khtrinityftw]

Holy shit, Doug! ANOTHER perfect review! From such a newbie to KH and serious gaming in general, that is legitimately impressive!

1.) It’s improved from the first KH in almost every way - I think objectively the story/writing and general atmosphere is downgraded, although that’s not to say either are bad here; far from it! (There were also a few gameplay downgrades in the original version, but Doug - like most people these days - played Final Mix so it’s not an issue.)

2.) A reasonable view on the prologue - yes, the pacing is too slow for its own good and it does a tad too well at intentionally confounding players, but yes, if you allow yourself to become engaged with the story that it’s telling it’s very effective and emotional, to the point where getting the game going and leaving Twilight Town and Hayner/Pence/Olette behind will be as much a sad event as it is an exciting one. Also, simulation Roxas > real Roxas.

3.) No disagreements on the combat. It’s fucking spectacular.

4.) The writing in the finale in the World That Never Was in general is on a whole other level. While the beginning of the game kept a little too much mysterious while the middle was awkward in its sudden exposition dumps, the end nails it with how it brings clarity to everything. Giving so much of the exposition to Ansem the Wise, voiced by Christopher Lee, was in particular a brilliant move, since it’s Christopher fucking Lee and he sells it like nobody’s business.

5.) I’ve brought this up before, but the shoehorned-in feel of Maleficent and Pete in the finale is because originally they weren’t supposed to be there. In the early draft of the plot, Maleficent wasn’t supposed to be resurrected and Pete would have made his last exit in the Hollow Bastion war sequence once his Heartless army was decimated. Once the decision was made to include Maleficent, there weren’t that many places in the plot she could be fit in without disrupting it too much. For what they had to work with, I feel they did a solid job; better than what the series beyond does anyway.

6.) “I get people who say there’s way too much going on, it doesn’t make sense, they retconned some stuff, some characters are a little bland...but if you’re someone like me, these are tropes you kinda look forward to; we know they’re a little silly but that’s part of the fun”. And once again I say.... YES! SO MUCH YES!!! KH2 is like an early 2000s anime and that’s part of why, while a downgrade from its predecessor from a writing standpoint, it’s so muck fucking fun. Even the stupid stuff tends to be enjoyable and yes, sometimes intentional (for his faults, Kazushige Nojima has a great sense of humor).

7.) The only time revisiting a world completely failed for me was Agrabah. I feel it’s the weakest mandatory world in the game and a step down from its KH design, and the area they added in the revisit was just...not fun. Otherwise, KH2′s two visits per world format was a really solid one that I wish the series beyond had stuck with.

8.) I would not say the likes of Sora, Kairi and Riku were given more personality here since a lot of their personalities were made more basic, the roles they play are still effective by the end, and the other characters whom Nojima either wrote without anyone else having written for them before or whom he’d supervised in Chain of Memories were great. Special attention needs to be given to Xemnas (or rather, Xehanort) and Ansem the Wise. They were never written better than they were here; Nojima had a clear passion for them.

9.) The Roxas battle is famous because the vanilla edition didn’t have it, to the game’s detriment since the whole sequence felt unnecessary without it. I will say that Doug made it harder than it needed to be since he didn’t grasp how to do special attacks like Sonic Rave while in Limit Form, but it is still appropriately difficult; as though Roxas is testing Sora to see it he has what it takes to get farther than he did and lay siege upon Xemnas’ castle. Add to this a kick-ass battle music and it’s little wonder it’s become so legendary.

10.) Wow, that X-Men comics comparison is the perfect one to make. The X-Men comics in the 80s and 90s famously became too convoluted and ultimately suffered from the Chris Carter Effect (or in this case, Chris Claremont Effect), which is perfectly reasonable. However, before that point was reached, they were still beloved and successful despite these faults because Claremont still had his priorities straight: he ensured that readers enjoyed the stories and characters, and that emotional engagement and exciting spectacle was appropriately balanced. KH2 is the KH series at that exact kind of high point: the flaws are there, but they haven’t overtaken everything and they’re even something of a charm point since they’re paired together with a story and characters that you care about. Had the series beyond been able to maintain this exact level of quality, we’d all be the better for it. But even so, KH2 remains a triumph of action-RPG video games I love to return to again and again. As far as I’m concerned, nothing that comes after it really matters, for KH2 is already the ideal finale for Kingdom Hearts and always will be.

[jcmorrigan]

I saw the tag- I am gonna ask you about the crossover universe- (omg I’m literally gushing about this)

OH, IT IS TIME!

 So you can find a lot of this on the “What is the WHAM ARMY?” page on my blog – I’ll try to remember to link it; I’m drafting this in a word processor first so I don’t use it. Essentially, this is the universe I’ve created for my fanfic “Taking Back the Crown,” which is about…basically my favorite villains all moving into the same house and trying to take over the multiverse. And then it got lore. And more lore. Because I cannot write anything normal. The fic is nearing its 150th chapter and I’m nowhere NEAR exhausted of all the ideas I want to put in it – it’s just my big playground for hyperfixation fun. Anyway, here’s a rundown of the major points of it!

 THE CAST

 The main characters are the eight villains who are the founders of the WHAM ARMY. The faction name is an acronym of their first initials. They’re my ultrafaves, the villains I always get fluttery heart for, and probably the biggest collection of losers you can imagine. I’ll put them in order of the acronym and give you some background on how each entered the team.

Wuya (Xiaolin Showdown) – So the connecting factor between these people is that Mozenrath (his name is a few slots down) is their team leader and the one who decided to build a team in the first place. Wuya was recruited when Mozenrath found her puzzle box in an ancient vault. This is set post-series for XS (and Chronicles is not at all canon), so what had happened is in the big Showdown right after Raimundo was named team leader officially in the finale, the Xiaolin Monks won ALL the Shen Gong Wu to their side and stuffed Wuya in the box. So Mozenrath found her and let her out so they could be pals. A magic potion let her regain human form fairly early on, and her power isn’t even nerfed either the way Chase Young would’ve done.

Huntsman (American Dragon: Jake Long) – ADJL is also post-series in this timeline. Mozenrath has the power to resurrect people from the dead at will because he’s memorized an ancient and incredibly complex ritual that he can execute mentally (note that this means you can remove this ability from him by tampering with his memories). The Huntsman was resurrected so as to show Mozenrath around the old Huntsclan vault (which is where they found Wuya’s puzzle box). No other Huntsclan member survived the purge except Rose (and 88 and 89, but they don’t count and aren’t in this story), so the Huntsman is starting from square one.

Ayam Aghoul (Aladdin: The Animated Series): Basically just got sick of losing. He’d teamed up with a few other rando Aladdin rogues to try and pick a fight with Maleficent, and she sent him packing. So he ended up finding one of the few residents of the Seven Deserts who was powerful enough to match him AND had a similar grudge against Maleficent.

Mozenrath (Aladdin: The Animated Series): The man of the hour and the creator of the entire team. He starts the fic by crashing Maleficent’s KH Disney Villain alliance and trying to add himself to it, but…ends up being such a disrespectful nuisance that Hades just drags him straight down to the Underworld. That moment inspired him to get his OWN band of friends and start making a name for himself.

Archibald Snatcher (The Boxtrolls): Met Mozenrath in the Underworld after his death in film canon. Annoyed Hades one too many times by claiming that he wasn’t actually supposed to die, seeing as he isn’t allergic to dairy (he is), so Hades threw him in the same cell as Mozenrath and…

Roman Torchwick (RWBY): I started writing this fic in 2016, immediately post-V3, so it’s canon-divergent after the last episode of V3 (but I got all the later-game characters to show up eventually). Which means Roman is ALSO dead at the start of this fic. He ALSO comes storming up to Hades insisting he’s not even supposed to be dead. At the same time as Snatcher is already pestering him. Which is how Mozenrath, Snatcher, and Roman end up in the same jail cell in Tartarus and get the idea that maybe they should break back into the world of the living and try to build something BETTER than what any of the three had beforehand.

Mad Madam Mim (The Sword in the Stone): Mozenrath, immediately after breaking out of the Underworld, attempted to take over Arthur’s kingdom by just walking in and throwing magic around. It backfired horribly when Merlin showed up. But then Mim showed up to counter Merlin and realized that maybe she had a potential friend here who was as blackhearted as she.

Yzma (The Emperor’s New Groove): Post-TENG, no KNG or TENS (but I reference things from TENS every now and again). Merlin turned Mozenrath into a rat, so Mim brought him to Yzma’s Secret Lab to change him back. There, they found Yzma as a cat, and she so desperately wanted out of her living situation that she added herself to the team. She was also restored to human form shortly thereafter.

 There is a potential ninth member of the core in the form of Vexen (Kingdom Hearts). KH is canon-divergent after DDD and basically ignores almost every game that comes out after Fragmentary Passage. Vexen, as Even, was trying to integrate into life as a hero in Radiant Garden, except everyone annoyed him way too much, so he decided to go be with people that would give right back any insults he dished out. And then realized he was much happier being on the evil team and doing mad science with no ethics. However, he will not be promoted to the upper ranks because 1. it would spoil the acronym and 2. he is unanimously agreed-upon to be the biggest wet blanket of the group and nobody wants him at the founder parties.

(Imagine my disbelief when the actual canon arc for Vexen was THE REVERSE ONE IN WHICH HE JUST DECIDES TO GO LIVE AT RADIANT GARDEN AND NOT BE ANNOYED BY ANYTHING and that’s why JC doesn’t like Kingdom Hearts III)

 Anyway, this crew is a bunch of silly friends who enjoy partying, singing, dancing, drag, indulging in vices, causing mayhem, taking over cities, arranging for mass murder, piecing together smear campaigns…but they’re all pretty much ride or die for each other. And that goes double for the ships of the set: Mozenrath/Huntsman, Mim/Aghoul, Wuya/Yzma, and my favorite ship to end all favorites, Roman/Snatcher (RedHatBlackHat is the ship name).

From there, you have a B-Squad of, like, seventy other people based on my faves. Nonnie, I know you saw this because of Vincent Edgeworth, Victor Blake, and Albert Krueger, and they are three of COUNTLESS examples. It’s a found crime family that keeps getting bigger as I get more fave villains and there’s hardly a rhyme or a reason. Currently, they live in a floating fortress designed when they stole Terra Cyclonia (Storm Hawks) and hefted it out into the aether between worlds with crystal technology.

 They have a rival hero faction in the form of the Cinnamons: a gathering of people who they’ve wronged who turned out to make pretty good friends themselves. While the WHAM ARMY are the villain-protag team that you feel slightly bad loving the escapades of, the Cinnamons are the rainbows, fluff, sunshine, (secret crippling depression and anxiety), and pep-talkers of the multiverse. They’re the deuteragonist team as opposed to the “villains” of the story. They also have eight “leaders,” but they were picked up a little less quickly than the WHAM ARMY founders, instead coming together over the span of a much longer quest. These people are:

Sora (Kingdom Hearts): Heart of the team and the person who pulled them all together, because Sora loves everyone. He, Riku, and Kairi witnessed the WHAM ARMY wreaking destruction on both Radiant Garden and Disney Castle, and Sora decided no one gets to treat his homes-away-from-home like that and get away with it! Between Mozenrath and the still-looming threats of Maleficent and Xehanort, he’s now collecting pals from all worlds to fight against evil and do as much good as they can do! (While having sleepovers.)

Ruby Rose (RWBY): Before she, Nora, Ren, and Jaune could get into Mistral, Sora interrupted them on their path and directed them right back around to Vale with the news that Roman Torchwick was back in action. After an incident involving the Destiny Trio and Team RNJR having to team up and actually kill the massive Grimm unleashed in the V3 endgame, they all headed out to Radiant Garden together to continue their mission.

Papyrus (Undertale): Sora found him while exploring worlds and they clicked immediately as pals. Then the WHAM ARMY, who was living in Mt. Ebott at the time, sparked an anti-monster racist sentiment through the town, and Papyrus was advised to leave the world for his own safety, so he went traveling with Sora.

Stork (Storm Hawks): Maleficent, who is also an active player in this game, made a power play by destroying the Condor with the entire Storm Hawks team onboard while they were on the Far Side of Atmos (post-series). Stork, believing himself to be the only survivor, attempted to take his own life – only for Sora to show up just in time and offer him something better: hope that his friends survived, and new friends to tag along with until they could prove either way.

Jasmine (Aladdin): The Cinnamons came looking to Agrabah for more information on Mozenrath. When Jasmine heard he was causing chaos, she decided to get personally involved.

Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender): Post-ATLA, no LoK. Sora made a trip to the Fire Nation to see if he could head off the WHAM ARMY’s latest scheme, and ran into the Gaang along the way. After helping Katara, Aang, and Zuko protect the Fire Nation from a very near miss, Sora invited them to come travel with him. Only Katara accepted at first, the other two wanting to clean things up on their homeworld.

Kazuichi Soda (DanganRonpa): Post-SDR2, no DR3. Xehanort requested Izuru Kamukura be used as a vessel, and Kazuichi went in Izuru/Hajime’s place so his buddy didn’t have to. But the first chance he got, Kazuichi turned and ran from the Castle That Never Was…where Sora had just crash-landed. Kazuichi patched up Sora’s ship, and immediately became part of his crew. (Worth noting: in this AU, the Remnants of Despair were never brainwashed and were completely aware of what they were doing. Kazuichi is basically a redemption story, trying to be a better person to make up for the hell he caused. Also, while on the Despair side, he’d hacked off his leg to sew Junko’s in its place, disabling himself – that leg goes through an arc regarding what prosthesis is in its place.)

Rapunzel (Tangled): After the Vardaros arc of S2 of Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure. Rapunzel was targeted by the WHAM ARMY because she was essentially a living MacGuffin for one of their spells. Sora showed up, and Rapunzel decided to go along with him for safety AND fun, leaving Cassandra to continue the pilgrimage to the Dark Kingdom. (Wrote this before KHIII was out. And before the Evil Cass twist.)

 And just like the WHAM ARMY, these folks have a huge B-squad that lives in the Radiant Garden castle and helps them deal with the various tragedies they have to clean up after. Riku, Kairi, and Jaune Arc in particular get a decent amount of stage time.

 As you can see, Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty/Kingdom Hearts) and her forces are another big set of chess pieces on the board! After she sent Mozenrath to gay baby jail and it didn’t stick, she’s been trying to continue plans for domination as usual but ALSO wipe the WHAM ARMY off the face of the multiverse. She, Jafar (Aladdin), Ursula (The Little Mermaid), and Hades (Hercules) all came straight here from KH. But I’m working to model that team’s inner circle on the team in “Quite a Glittering Assemblage,” the sister fic by gavillain (it’s basically this premise but Maleficent gets a team to start instead, but similarities end there, his is a whole different, fresh, and fun flavor). I’ve just gotten all these characters intro’d instory, but the other biggies are Loki (Marvel – I based him in the Cinematic Universe but he’s kind of just an amalgamation of Lokis), Dr. Doom (Marvel), Captain Hook (Once Upon a Time), Russell Edgington (True Blood), and Fish Mooney (Gotham). Currently, they operate out of the Forbidden Mountain in the Enchanted Dominion.

 There’s also a very new addition as of the 140’s chapters: the Heathens. This is a squad of villains with moral lines in the sand (and some antiheroes or corrupted heroes). Basically, these aren’t your killers for fun. These are the people who steal candy from the gas station and think they’re slick, but the point is they’re enjoying themselves so just let it happen. The four founders of this one are Harley Quinn (DC – based on The Batman but an amalgamation of Harleys that leans sympathetic), Yang Xiao Long (RWBY), Giovanni Potage (Epithet Erased), and Velvet Crowe (Tales of Berseria). Currently, they operate out of the old mansion in Twilight Town.

 The Xehanorts are here, and that team is largely who you think it is – though I stripped away Vexen, Demyx, Marluxia, Larxene, and Luxord in order to replace them ALL with Xaldin. More crossover shenanigans to come on this front. This team isn’t very active – they’re waiting for the Keyblade War – but they’re operating out of the World That Never Was.

 There’s also another side villain faction: the Morbians, led by Mirage (Aladdin: The Animated Series). These are the demons of fear, the stuff that lurks in your nightmares, and…the villains I really like but who I don’t quite think fit in with the WHAM ARMY or any other more prominent group. But to give you an idea of what the flavor of this team is, she’s recruited not one but TWO Boogeymen – Pitch Black (Rise of the Guardians) and Oogie Boogie (The Nightmare Before Christmas).

 There will be more villain factions to come, and I kind of want to splinter the Cinnamons to multiple bases as well. Obviously it’s easier to split villains up because they’re fun to write at war with each other – when I have hero teams come up against each other, usually they end up becoming best buddies instead of fighting, and that’s how I like it, but that’s why there’s just ONE BIG HERO TEAM as opposed to the many villain squads rattling around.

 THE SETTING

 So as you have probably gleaned, the multiverse setup is largely based on Kingdom Hearts, which is one of my favorite things (in the KH1 through Fragmentary Passage era anyway). There are many worlds that can be visited either by Gummi Ship or Corridor of Darkness. Basically any evil-aligned sorcerer can use Corridors in this ‘verse – they’ve opened their souls to Darkness and have magic, so they can do so.

 The implication is that every world represents a separate “story” or part of one. As in if it’s a work of fiction HERE, it’s a world THERE. Some characters are actually savvy enough to know they’re fictional (e.g. Megavolt from Darkwing Duck, Xayide from The Neverending Story). Most of them aren’t built to handle the news, though, and just shrug it off if told. (No, really, the cosmic order prevents them from taking that news seriously if they’re not from something that regularly leans on the fourth wall anyway.)

 But sometimes, things get AU’d in without their full worlds. I was inspired by how Final Fantasy is treated in canon KH, and once I started bringing in more FF stuff by the same method, I felt motivated to do that with MORE fandoms if I felt the characters could be divorced from their settings and histories easily. I’ve done it for most Disney Channel non-animated properties as well as Satellite City (ain’t that the worst combo you’ve ever looked at). I’m planning to do it for Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn because I’m coming up on a location I want to delve into the civilization of but don’t have many canon characters for, so guess what, you get the FE cast now.

 Major worlds or relevant locations in play are the Cyclonian warship, Radiant Garden, Twilight Town, and occasionally the Enchanted Dominion, but we move from plotline to plotline with journeys to many, many, MANY worlds of things I want to play with the settings and casts of. Also, the Cyclonian warship is about to get replaced with another WHAM ARMY base; we’ll get there.

 THE STORY

 For the first major “book” of TBTC, the WHAM ARMY has found a spell that they think will let them conquer the entire multiverse by giving them control over Kingdom Hearts itself. All they have do to is collect a bunch of MacGuffins that correspond to twelve elements: fire, water, earth, air, light, darkness, life, death, time, space, entropy, and aether. In order to do this, they visit the worlds of KH, RWBY, Avatar, Storm Hawks, Okami, Undertale, Wakfu, The Legend of Zelda, The Neverending Story, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and many many more. The Cinnamons catch wind of what they’re doing and start assembling. Meanwhile Maleficent is on the hunt for the Book of Prophecies and starts hiring villains on her team as well. After many madcap adventures and some devastating tragedies near endgame, the Cinnamons accidentally put the Book of Prophecies in Maleficent’s hands at the same time that Maleficent finally captures Mozenrath and gets him under heel. The WHAM ARMY and Cinnamons both launch attacks on Maleficent’s forces, and each walks away with what they came for. This is also the part where we slowburn up to the four major WHAM ARMY ships and many Cinnamon ships. In the end, the WHAM ARMY actually gets all the ingredients for their spell, but what they don’t know is it will actually cause the DESTRUCTION of the worlds. So an outside force intervenes (Discord from MLPFIM, who later joins the WHAM ARMY because he wants friends who actually appreciate him as a villain and won’t make him change) to stop them, and the next thing they know, they’re starting from square one.

 We’re now in the second “book” of this story. The Cinnamons are gathering up all lost friends – the rest of Team RWBY, the Gaang, the Storm Hawks (who did in fact survive the explosion), the lost KH characters. The WHAM ARMY, on the other hand, is gathering up more villains to bolster their forces for a new evil plan: to conquer the worlds one by one, starting with Atlantis (Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire) and using portals to link to other territories of interest. While the WHAM ARMY is essentially working through a to-do list of what they need before they can launch such a massive invasion, the Cinnamons are finding strength in numbers because the writing’s on the wall that between Mozenrath, Maleficent, Mirage, and Xehanort, things are going to get worse before they get better, and as evil builds, good will need to rise to protect the innocent. As for Maleficent, she’s no longer able to chase the Book of Prophecies, and so, because she’s got Hades, Loki, and Salem (RWBY) there and they’re all like “Even though we’re pretty godlike, we are not that happy with how the gods we knew have run things,” Maleficent’s new goal is to slaughter the gods of all pantheons (minus those in her care) and replace them with her allies.

 Anyway, as I had said in the post you saw, Anon – I basically take everything fictional I love and shove it into this AU for daydreams because it lets me imagine my faves having CROSSOVER INTERACTIONS and doing cool epic stuff on a multi-world scale. (But as much as I’ve talked up the epic aspect, a lot of it is just…like…people fucking around and hosting karaoke nights.) Anyway, I hope this gave you a good sense of the madness, and I hope it serves as a reminder to everyone that they can and should just. Make a daydream and/or fanfic universe that’s indulgent as hell. Just do it.

[sorakingdomhearts]

I just finished watching all of the Kingdom Hearts game cutscenes in 16 days! Under the cut, my super-long analysis post.

This was such a bad idea and also the best I’ve ever had. I can no longer tell the events of separate games apart, other than the stuff I added to this post’s draft while watching, but it’s given me so much to do in the quaran-times.

I would say my favorite games at this point are KH3, BBS, and 358/2 Days. I actually played through KH3 to like 90 something percent so I’m most attached to it, but storywise Aqua, Ventus, Roxas, and Axel/Lea have the best plots. If I had to pick a top favorite, other than Sora(because. Well. Sora’s my chosen middle name for a reason) I would say it’s Axel/Lea, and Aqua is the world’s closest second.

My favorite Disney worlds are probably Traverse Town for the music, Nightmare Before Christmas for the costumes(both the wintery ones and the spooky ones), Disney Town for the character appearances and aesthetic/colors, and BH6 for the plot/dialogue. Honorable mention to Hunchback of Notre Dame for being the only one I hadn’t heard about before starting this journey AND being a friend’s current hyperfixation so I got to share hyperfix joy with them for a bit.

I think Aqua has the best voice in the series. Especially with BBS 0.2/KH2.8 there’s quite a few scenes where the only dialogue is her talking to herself and she’s got such an emotional, pretty voice to pair with her heartbreaking journey home.

Axel/Lea’s relationship with his name is the same as a trans person with their deadname and I love that for him. For example, in the end of Dream Drop Distance, he gets frustrated with Riku not knowing it’s changed to Lea again but gives up on correcting him because the rest of what’s going on is more important. I’ve definitely done that with people deadnaming me.

On the other side of that coin, in ReMIND Demyx struggles to remember it’s Ienzo, not Zexion, but he corrects himself over and over. He doesn’t seem to want to deadname Ienzo, he just hasn’t gotten used to it yet. I think that more than anything else is what proved to me personally that Demyx really was trying to do something good.

Also, with Axel/Lea, can he not make bad jokes IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS OWN DEATH? Hello?! I said this on Twitter but hey, buddy, I love you dearly but now isn’t the time.

Xion’s name is pronounced she-on, not zee-on like I thought when I read it. Idk why I thought it was that way when I read it printed but it’s not.

Donald is always cute, all the time, and he’s cutest when he and Sora are squabbling like little kids. I love him. Or maybe that’s the Ducktales fan bias creeping in...

Speaking of HEY, WAS ANYONE GONNA TELL ME HDL AND SCROOGE ARE IN MORE THAN JUST THE KH TRILOGY?!?! What a pleasant surprise to see Scrooge in BBS and to visit Disney Town.

Nobodies make the wobble sound of laminated paper being shaken. I keep thinking about that for no reason.

Does anyone else think Riku saying he can “smell the darkness” on people in ReCOM is weird? Am I just really late to the party, or are we just going to ignore that? Yeah? Okay.

Aqua’s end of Birth by Sleep has some of the sweetest, most poetic dialogue in the series imo. When Aqua and Mickey are talking about Ven, and Sora and Riku talking about hurt within the heart? Yeah. I’ll cry.

Also, another sad scene: Isa and Lea as kids when Lea explains his whole “get it memorized” thing is so he can be remembered and live on, if need be. I cried real tears at that one.

Conversely, some of my favorite sweet scenes are: in the beginning of BBS when Aqua tells Ven and Terra they’d ���make the weirdest brothers,” Sora meeting Santa in KH2(I think?) which reminds you hey, these are children, the scene right after they find out Goofy’s not dead and Donald flips out, Lea summoning his Keyblade for the first time(powermove,) and of course the series of reunions in KH3. There’s at least a solid scene or two in each game that really warms my cold sad heart.

Speaking of the KH3 reunions, the best one I think was Xion, Roxas, and Lea’s. At least with Aqua/Terra/Ven they started out with hope, and Aqua and Ven at least had the ability to hold onto that hope to get them through. The ex-Nobody crowd really didn’t have anything. Just the promise that they’d meet again, and maybe not even in this life. I will cry.

Some of the voice casting is surprisingly great. Like, Nala’s voiced by Vanessa Marshall, who did Gamora in the GOTG tv series. Love her. And Hynden Walch who does Starfire is the Alice voice at one point which was such a pleasant surprise.

Also hey, Zachary Levi went so fucking HARD on his voice work. Even Rapunzel has some lines that fall a little flat compared to the tone of the original, like the KH version of the “first time outdoors” sequence. But Flynn Rider has this consistent energy to him that I really love.

In ReCoded I really liked the second-person Mickey narration. Idk why. It just made me super happy.

Hercules is a movie that frequently becomes a level in these games and like every time they continue that trend of Phil’s “I got two words for you” joke like guys, wasn’t the thing in the original that it translated to two words in Greek? Not that he couldn’t count? Anyway that’s the best reoccurring joke. I hate it and love it in equal measure.

One of the frequent things in KH that I love is there’s this sense of ridiculousness to it. Like, it’s a lovely story with excellent worldbuilding and character designs, with a brilliantly complex plot, but like. You get into scenarios like the end of ReMIND, and Sora’s time-travelled to save his dying and sorta already dead friend(Kairi). He’s cradling his other dying friend in his arms and talking about how he found his way to them by tracing the connections between their hearts. Beautiful, poetic, showstopping, right? Except it’s Mickey motherfucking Mouse. You can’t find this anywhere else.

Speaking of ReMIND, the part where Sora connects all the keyhole things? It looks like a starry sky full of constellations? Yeah. Holy fucking SHIT is that pretty. I literally had to pause it twice to absorb the visuals in that scene.

To end off, here’s some of my pride headcanons: Terra and Xion are trans, Ventus and Riku are nonbinary, Saïx/Isa is agender, and Sora is genderfluid. Axel/Lea is pan, Kairi, Riku, and Sora are poly, and Aqua is bi. ((I definitely have more of these but these ones I think are most important.))

[dennou-translations]

TBS Pamphlet Interview with Director Akane Kazuki

Raw || Index

Note: This interview is from TBS Anime Festa 2018, where Hoshiai no Sora premiered back in August. The pamphlet also includes a mini interview with Itsuka, but this one sadly wasn’t in TBS’s site.

——Please tell us how you decided to make an original work this time.

Akane: I had been thinking about all sorts of things for ten or so years, but then my staff asked me, “How about you stop making sci-fi and parallel universe stuff and try making something original?”. And so, since about five years ago, I had been feeling like tackling some sort of new genre.

I joined this industry roughly in the 85’s. It was exactly the period of the Gundam Boom, and I think that Gundam caused a new movement and has always been riding on its flow until now. Animation is entertainment, but I believe its trends are becoming specially strong nowadays and I feel like it is already turning into something closer to amusement movies. But the young creators can be the ones doing that. As for us, it has been more than thirty years that we have been in this business already, so isn’t it about time for us to move on to new branches and possibilities of animation? Aren’t we already at ages where it is all right for us to create new things now? While thinking about such things, I received this story.

——Was the theme in your head from the start?

Akane: When I first received the order, I think I was expecting a series based a little more on current animation – in other words, on entertainment. Yet I was like, “Isn’t it okay to not do just that, but also test out something like the possibilities of animation?”. I, for myself, want to reflect the eras through animation. I had a strong feeling of wanting to try and create not only animation simply about the funny and weird aspects of the current times, but that also properly expresses the suffering and worries of young children in particular, and other such things. Of course, it was going to be aired in television, so the fact that it is entertainment goes without saying, but I think it would be great if we had a plus alpha there, and if we managed to successfully trace the emotions and thoughts of young kids into a drama.

——What was the reason for choosing “soft tennis” as theme?

Akane: There is also the fact that I have experience with it, but I think soft tennis is a sport that seems like a characteristic of puberty and boyhood. Even though the number of competitors is enormous among middle schoolers, it cuts to about half when they become high schoolers, and when they become college students and posteriorly adults, almost nobody is doing it anymore. It made me think that this tendency was the same as some sort of teenage feeling. We also forget things that were very obvious to us during adolescence when we grow up. I wonder if this doesn’t link up rather well with emotional traits. Plus, there are no professional players in soft tennis. In a way, we can say that it is a sport with no self-interest. It is neither for the sake of earning money nor for becoming famous. We occasionally can see pubescent children make moves without calculations as well. However, around the time they become high schoolers, they gradually start looking ahead and thinking about the future. In short, self-interest starts being born. In that sense, I thought this sport was as pure as adolescence.

——What are the two main characters like?

Akane: This will be the story of children who carry with them all sorts of scars, yet I believe I want to make it into a tale of friends who do not lick each other’s wounds at all, but instead fill up and compensate for them. I cannot go into detail, but those two, who have certain problems in their home environments, want to run away but are unable to because they are middle schoolers. If they were adults, they could get away from it by leaving, but middle schoolers cannot afford to do that, so they end up bearing wounds in their hearts. Those are the types of wounds that people forget when they become adults, but I want to try properly expressing them and writing about how they will overcome them and grow up. In this sense, I also want adults to remember their own. The wounds that they used to carry. And realize that they are the ones hurting children now. I want to make it into a drama that causes people to feel what is happening in real time.

——Aside from home circumstances, how will the schools and club activities be depicted?

Akane: The boys’ soft tennis club, which will appear in this story, is a bit of a flighty existence even within the school, so if I had to say so myself, they are looked down upon. They have not had a victory in four years and are on the brink of being disbanded. As they are asked if a club like that has any right to exist, they themselves give up at first. Like, “We can’t do anything anyway”. Then, a chemical reaction happens as the main character, Katsuragi Maki, joins the club. To put it in an extreme way, this starts off as the story of a group of losers. There is nothing so terrible in the real world like being losers while middle schoolers, but our society does want to say such things about them. But I want to tell children, “Don’t give up; overcome that standard”. It might be fiction that only happens within animation either way, but I want to create a drama like this. Of course, sci-fi dramas where people try to survive in crumbling worlds are also interesting, but I want to make a drama about boys living in a realistic world while preserving their pride and identities. That might be the main theme this time.

——It seems this will be a work full of things to observe, but director, what is the point you want people to pay most attention to?

Akane: I am thinking of trying my first approach on the current situation of our society, which I had not depicted so much in animation until now. Many things that have not been a topic even in the news or the internet until now are the subject in it. I also want to get to the heart of the issues that the world is burdened with nowadays. That is quite a challenge for animation, but I believe that animation is also becoming a type of media that can portray such things. Of course, just being funny and weird would is okay too, but I want to make a drama that will not be only this, and that will make the people watching respond more strongly to it. I do not know how deep we can go or until what point we can bring out results, but I would be happy if people could pay attention to this part and think together with the characters.

——Please tell us your reason for choosing Itsuka-san for the character drafts.

Akane: It will turn into a rather serious story, so in my mind, I had imagined them as more realistic characters. That is why, when a producer introduced me to Itsuka-san, I thought at first, “I wonder about this”, but I thought it over, like, “Isn’t the imbalance of something serious like that with a design such as this very much like Japanese anime? Isn’t it a little wrong to make them realistic characters just because it’s a realistic story?”. The art that Itsuka-san draws is very sensible, and this drama is also done in an extremely delicate way, so in that sense, it is perfect. We are often misunderstood, and just because the theme is soft tennis, people go, “Akane-san, you’re making something rooted in sports this time?” (laughs). I wanted to rebound these preconception-like comments, and thought of trying my hand at challenging myself with directing an animation that used Itsuka-san’s sensible characters. In fact, we made videos as a test, and they were very easy to get familiar with.

——Then, lastly, please leave a message for the people looking forward to when it airs.

Akane: Both drama and art-wise, I am thinking of doing a new challenge and forming a new world-building, so I would be happy if people could also look forward to the synchronization between drama and art. I think it will be a peculiar anime, but I want to make it into a series that will cause people to feel the difference in that instead, so please wait for it to air while looking forward to it.

[kitsoa]

Ok after reading your latest kh3 remind meta essay. Are you saying Sora's original lion person chainsaw weilder design is the one Yozora might be recalling? Because that'd be awesome if we got to see that Sora design in the game (also Zidane could be introduced around then as a FF companion). I'm definitely getting the impression Yozora knows a lot about whatever higher power is in the KH universe. Which makes sense since/if he's based off V!Noctis then Yozora should have deep connections to -

2 whatever diety of life/death/rebirth(?) that's most likely active in matters of universal laws. Which doesn't seem all that different from Sora's connection to Kingdom Hearts. How KH seems to choose and favor Sora over all other Keyblade weilders despite many weilders thinking others are more qualified. The big difference is is that Yozora is more aware of this reality questioning relationship then Sora is. But Sora is catching up. If KH1's first quote is anything to go by. Sora's always-

3 been confused and sensed something is wrong by his senseless reality. This alone binds the two characters together. Even characters who know the history of Keyblade wars and the Realm of Light being fractured don't sense how senseless their reality is. But deep down Sora and Yozora naturally question and feel unrest by existence itself. Something is wrong. Something isn't real. Does Yozora know his own current corrupted state even if he doesn't have the reasoning/ability to do anything-

5 about it yet? Does he see Sora as corrupted and needing to go back to his original design in order to fit the uncorrupted story? Whatever the case I think the bartending is important because it serves 2 purposes. 1) More insight/mystery of Yozora's personality and agenda. His idea of saving and connections to the FF crystal mythos that preserve and immortalized characters. 2) foreshadowing Sora's inevitable fate if he loses too much strength. Sora will be immortalized by Yozora. That is a -

6 fact I believe Yozora knows. He doesn't lose. I don't think he thinks he's really lost yet considering he just says 'my powers aren't needed YET'. How ominous. =I Maybe Yozora is in a war where all of reality is collapsing and they're fighting for their right to live on passed being CANCELLED to put it lightly. But Sora is special. He's from a different realm. But Yozora is heavily invested in saving him no matter what. Maybe Sora turning crystal will ensure he survives passed any end?

Oh, thank you anon for really considering that crazy meta essay I wrote.

Re:Sora’s “Original” appearance--> I didn’t want to say it outright because there is ultimately no substance to back up the claim but if we are to assume Yozora doesn’t always look like himself and we have a good suspicion that he is harkening to his V!Noctis-- then yeah-- The only other variation Sora has in the modern consciousness is Beta-Sora. I am alluding to that, which if true would be… admittedly kinda fanservice-awesome, but it would also complete the parallel the two types of endings draw between Sora and Yozora. It’s worth mentioning that… by definition one of these protagonists is wrong so the truth is that only one of them actually “got corrupted” and that is very much Yozora by meta-logic but the inverse created is meant to challenge what is real and fiction and expose the proverbial Creator from the woodworks. 

Re: How much Yozora knows→ Despite potentially not knowing of Nameless Star’s absences, I agree that Yozora has experienced a games-worth of content with the “I wandered here on accident and did some trials” line. He’s clearly encountered someone who has tasked him with Saving Sora and this fated meeting has MoM’s name written all over it. But I hesitate to think that Yozora is more cued in than Sora about the meta-reality. I think he has a different relationship to his dreams than Sora does and it makes his experience in the Final World and the meeting with Sora more grounded on his end. He understands them as ‘not real’. “I don’t look like this” “This isn’t the real world” etc. etc. Sora has more respect for the realm of dreams and thought because his world thrives on the happenings in between the physical world more so than probably Yozora’s does. That and Sora struggles with what is the real world on a regular basis due to his profession. He’s just too close to the action to have the clarity necessary to function. Yet in the end quote, Yozora’s just as confused about what is ‘real or not’ as Sora so it’s even.

As a result, I think Yozora is not aware of his corrupted existence. It’s his hostility to Sora of whom he wishes to ‘save’ that convinces me that he is unknowingly projecting his situation onto Sora (most likely due to some outside manipulation).

Re: Doomed End and Immortalization→ I don’t have the FF context with crystals to bounce off your point but it’s very thrilling to see this ‘crystal=preservation’ idea supported in some way because then his actions are a means to Save Sora. Your doomsday scenario is very enticing because of that.

In the essay, I talked about what it means to be alive and dead in the meta-perspective-- how sharing one's story is a form of immortalized preservation and how the story is never-ending unless something smothers it like executive meddling or the obscurity of time and negativity (a parallel for darkness and light? I once made a meta draft on this exact theme). That would work immensely well with Yozora’s motives but would require him to be more aware of his level of reality than I think the text supports. If we want to really dig in and continue to compare Yozora with V!Noctis and the FF15!Noctis-- knowing that this incarnation of Yozora represents the latter scenario… then that means he could be actively fighting against the ultimate DLC-cancelled fate of FF15. But I honestly think that strays too far from Nomura’s story. 

God! this is good stuff. Big thank you to you anon!!

[maikatc]

black sun tale but it’s the original first draft i wrote back in seventh grade like three or four years ago

and yes, i mean the entire 2k words of it, unedited too

Hyhqwv

“I wonder what’s going on right now,” I was in my living room couch and checked out the latest news on YouTube from my black laptop. New York City has been going wild on the internet lately. There have been pictures and videos of dead bodies and people proclaiming that they saw monsters. News stations are even going on saying that deaths are occurring at random places with no evidence for a reason. The subway, buildings, even some at the theme park. The unknown cases are causing major panic for most, parents aren’t even letting their children go outside. 

“I don’t think anything will happen today,” my dad replied to me while he was in the kitchen. 

“And you probably just jinxed it,” I continued scrolling through the page, skimming at the titles until I found something. The headline said Children Are Not Safe Anymore. I clicked on the video, there was a dead small girl inside a house. She looked like she was only five years old. No injuries at all. The babysitter said she was in the kitchen while the child named Alexa was in her bedroom playing with her dolls. Apparently, Alexa was the daughter of a new model, Lumi Katsmann, and she was too busy to have much time with her. I suppose she kept the little girl inside like most would but now there’s no certainty that would work. 

I went on my phone to see if Twitter or Instagram has anything. When I turn on my phone, there was a text notification from Sora. Saying that I was late 

Sora has been my friend since middle school because of me being the first person she met. She’s nice, but does have a bit of a temper, doesn’t really matter though. When summer began, we planned to meet up the day after she comes back from her summer trip, July 2nd at 3:15. 

2:31

Sora: Jackson, you’re late

Jackson: But I thought you said at 3:15

Sora: I said 2:15

I scrolled through my phone all the way until I got to when we planned the outing. As I looked at the conversation, I realized that she did say 2:15. Well shit. I got up from the couch I was laying on, my legs wobbled from not standing up for a few hours. All I had on were bowers and a T-shirt I used when I sleep so I decided to change clothes. 

“Are you going anywhere,” I forgot to tell dad. 

“I’m just meeting up with Sora at the park,” I spoke while rushing to get myself ready. I put on a white shirt with black stripes, blue jeans and a pair of Nike shoes. Before I left, I grabbed my phone just in case something else happens today and went off. 

“Bye dad.”

“Be careful Jackson.”

“‘Kay,” as I close the door. 

I turned around to go to the destined land, the park. Sora would be a bit moody when I make it there for being late but I guess I should tell her what’s been happening lately. She would at least be intrigued, she’s interested in mystery. I know enough things about her that people would think we’re childhood friends, but we’ve only known each other for five years. Now thinking about it, we’ve been together for a long time. I remember in freshman year, I even got interested in her, but I knew things would get awkward between us, especially if something bad happened. At the end, I decided to not say anything, eventually the interest faded away. Now, everything’s chill and we’d hang out every few days or so

Some good breeze was passing through me while walking. The weather said this was one of the best summer days ironically. Aside from that kid’s death, perfect weather , good time of relaxing, it has been an enjoyable day so far. And now I’m about to be at the park.

Wrgdb Eulqjv Wkh Ixwxuh

It’ll be a few seconds before I make it to the assigned area. It was more silent than usually, no sound at all really. I stood as I got to the entrance. The breeze flew throughout knocking some leaves off the trees while I saw something terrifying.

Blood.

Dead bodies.

Sora’s dead body.

Right in front of me.

Impaled.

Her brunette hair dyed with blood.

What happened?

What caused this to happened?

Why is everybody dead?

Their guts are even showing.

Why?

Why?

Why?

Why?

I see something over there.

It looks big.

It looks like

A Chinese dragon.

It has claws.

They’re covered in blood.

Buried in blood.

Run.

Run.

Run!

RUN!

I ran as fast as I could in the wish of survival. A girl, light brown hair, walk past me, walking to where it was. 

I stopped. “Don’t go there! You’ll get yourself killed!”

She paused her walking and turned around. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine,” she smiled while her hazel eyes glistened in the distance as she continues to the land of demise. 

I have no time to save her, she would die either way, so what’s the  point? She chose to go there. It doesn’t matter now.

My mind was in survival mode, the side of humans which doesn’t make them think heroically in the shows. Reality is different, we’re selfish in this mode, you do whatever to survive. People probably don’t except this fact, hell, even I don’t like to except it sometimes, but one day they have to. 

I was running through the streets. Bumping into people the entire time. Looking at me like they should. I looked like I saw the depths of hell and ran like a madman. I didn’t care, I saw something that could’ve killed me. I was getting tired, I needed to rest. I was about to come up to an alley, I turned to the dark surroundings, sat down and closed my eyes for a second. 

“Wow, how ironic you came here,” the voice sounded like a kid’s. I opened my eyes, Nike shorts with bright green sneakers. Looking up I saw more of the child, white shirt with a few stains, a black hoodie with bright blue highlights, half zipped. I wasn’t sure if they were a boy or girl. Their black hair was droopy and went down to the middle of their neck, but by the voice, I’m guessing it’s a boy. What really caught my attention was his eyes. The left one was only a deep sea blue, somewhat rare but still normal. Then there was his right eye. There wasn’t even a pupil or iris. It was silver in background but covering most was a design that looked like a black sun.

“Alleyways are popular here aren’t they? And you came to the alley where I live,” I looked around and saw it was decorated a little bit. A calendar and a few papers on the wall which contains drawings that each said ‘accomplishment’. There was even a small dream-catcher.

After a few seconds, I noticed, “How old are you?”

“Ummm, I’m about to turn thirteen soon, but don’t think about messing with me,” he was definitely lying. He was much shorter than me and his voice was barely deep. He seemed like he was in around the end of elementary school. What questioned me was that he was saying he lived in the alley. He was too young, he’d die. “Wait a minute, what’s that on your forehead?”

My black hair covers the majority of my forehead, but it looked like he saw something there. He began to reach it with his hand. 

“What do you think you’re doing,” as he split the front hair. His face started looking surprised, confused, but had some excitement.

“Woah,” he smiled,” you’re one of us,” he turned around and paused for a second to think. I was in confusion the entire time. Who is he? Why is his eye like that? What does he mean by one of us?

“Let’s go,” he grabbed my hand immediately and got me up with incredible strength for his size.

“Hey Aladdin! I have defeated the dragon th-,” then appeared the girl with light brown hair.

Phhwlqjv

“Wow, finally we found somebody else,” the girl has a yin-yang T-shirt and blue baggy shorts, nothing that revealing, but there was something black poking out of her chest.

“Who are you people,” how was she still alive,and she said she defeated that thing. Why did she call that kid Aladdin? That’s a fictional character, who would name their kid Aladdin?

“Glad you asked! We are Black Sun Tale! We are people who have special abilities and defeat these monster, creature things. And you’re apart of it!”

“What,” These people are insane. How am I apart of this? I thought to myself.

“You didn’t explain everything Annette.”

“Why don’t you call me by Belle?”

“Because your ‘code names’ are stupid.”

“I think they’re cool,” she said in a pouty face

“They’re fairy tales!”

I saw them bicker at each other for the next two minutes until I had enough, “Can you explain to me what is going on? I don’t know who both of you are and somehow I’m a part of this group? Why?”

“Well-” the girl called Annette started speaking until the sun-eyed boy stopped her.

“Let me do this, explaining it with your peppy attitude will make him think we’re insane.”

“Fine,” she said with crossed arms.

“Okay, so see my eye? Well Annette-”

“Belle!”

“Whatever, Belle, has a black sun mark too. Show it.” the so-called Belle lowered her shirt to show a black sun mark on the top of the left side of her chest. 

“And if you look at your forehead, you have one too. Oh and for a bit more detail, we have three members so far and I’m the leader.”

“How are you the leader.” I questioned him. I didn’t believe a group that defeats creatures that kills would be a little kid.

“I was the one who got this stuff in the first place and found all of you guys. I’ve also been though some traumatising shit, how do you think I’m living here? My family kicked me out? Why the hell would they do that,” his voice filled with anger, it looked like he was about to cry.

“Can you calm down. Look sure I’ll join whatever you’re doing. I just have a few more questions.”

Belle came into the conversation, “Um sure. What do you wanna ask?”

“Well you said that there are three members right? Well then who’s the third member?”

“Oh! Well, um, uhh she’s not that active with the group lately. She’s the youngest in the group, turning twelve in two weeks, but she’s, what do you call them, oh, a shut in. She was to be somewhat hyper like me, and she annoyed Aladdin even more than me because of her being a fangirl over stuff like anime and such. Now, she’s consumed by the internet and almost never goes out. She also sleeps more at day than she does at night, but I think she’s Aurora, or Briar if you like the book more, from Sleeping Beauty!”

“Second, what are your real names?”

“Oh fine, since you’re in the group. I’m Annette Jasofy, Aladdin’s name is Ayu, he never told me his last name for private reasons, and Briar’s is Roselle Karzen. Oh I forgot to ask, what’s your name?”

“Jackson Bardsly,” I wasn’t hesitant, they were younger than me, they couldn’t do anything. “Lastly, how old are you guy’s?”

“I’m fourteen, Aladdin-”

“Ayu!”

“Yeah yeah, he’s twelve and Briar is as I said, eleven. And we’re wondering about your age?”

“Seventeen.”

“Thanks, I can’t wait to see your power, so Aladdin what do you want to do now?”

I didn’t notice but Ayu was observing the whole conversation. He had a bored look but still had a bit of curiosity in his eyes.

“I don’t know, shouldn’t we let the newbie choose,” he spoke with a somewhat sarcastic tone but looked at me. 

“I would like to meet the third member,” Ayu looked at me with a face that said he did not want to go there at all, “but I think I’ll  go home… My friend was at the park.”

It was silent, even Annette wasn’t sure what to say. Ayu then grew dejection on his face. He walked up to me slowly and raised his arm to my shoulder. Having small tippy toes and eyes down to the ground. 

“It’s fine, you can come here anytime… We’ll help I guess.... And don’t worry, something like that happened to me too,” he was quiet at first but by the end he was smiling with some hope in his eyes. 

After we said our goodbyes, I left to my house. Unsure of what to tell my dad, and thinking of what to do tomorrow. Should I just stay home and be on my laptop all day? Or should I hang out with those kids. Questions flying all around on what to do.

“I’m back, Dad.”

“How was your date?”

I froze for a moment, thinking back on what happens, but I about that aside.

“First of all, it wasn’t a date. And… Nothing really happened.”

[astryelle]

for the writing asks, 1,6, 13, 17, and 46 with "See it all in bloom"?

Hey Anon!

Okay, so my favourite place to write, favourite character I’ve ever created, how do I deal with writer’s block, on average how much writing I get done in a day and what my story would look like as a TV show or movie?

1. My favourite place to write

I write in various places depending on the story. If I’m just doing headcanons or possible scenes/plot points, I’ll usually jot them down on whatever’s closest. For see it all in bloom, I like writing on my couch or anywhere comfy, because I put the characters through a lot and I’m a terrible person.

Jk. I just like being comfortable, but I also like being where I can get up and walk, because I walk to think about stuff.

6. My favourite character I’ve ever created.

So, in the See it all in bloom universe, Aaron Tyler was my first OC for bnha. He’ll always hold a special place in my heart, but my favourite character in See it all in bloom is Lana. She’s gone through a lot of drafts (her name used to be Sora) but I just love her character design and can’t wait to develop her.

13. How do I deal with writer’s block

I don’t.

But in all seriousness, I, like all writers, hate writer’s block. Sometimes, I’ll totally give up, scrap the chapter and start with something new. Other times, I’ll scroll through tumblr for prompts or I’ll switch the story I’m working on. Most of the time, though, I’ll pull up the playlist for the story, delete the part I’m working on, and start with something newer. (Usually an altered version of whatever the chapter was going to be.)

17. On average, how much writing do you get done in a day?

I’d say… .75-1.5 pages on average. Some days I’ll get a ‘writing high’ and write 5+ pages in one sitting, because I have this great idea that has to be written immediately.

46. What would my story look like as a tv show or movie?

Honestly, I think this story would be better as a TV show, because of how many “reveals” there are. With a movie, I think the story would have to be reversed; you know all of backstory and then watch as everyone interacts with Izuku. Aizawa would probably find out in the beginning and the story would be about that.

But with a TV show, it could be more spaced out; the story as it is now could be translated pretty easily. It sounds weird, but I think it could sound a lot like Daredevil or Jessica Jones. Not plot-wise, just mood-wise.

[aliceslantern]

Beyond this Existence: New Life, short 11-Revision

Recovery is a tedious, nonlinear process. Demyx, Ienzo, and the others living in Radiant Garden's castle have to learn to come to terms with their pasts and their memories, learn to grow, and begin to understand what, exactly, it means to be human. While there is unexpected joy in this, there is also unexpected sorrow. A series of oneshots set after Beyond this Existence.

Current short: “Revision.”  While getting his help with the memorial project, Ienzo has a troubling conversation with Dilan.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

“Thank you for finding the time to look this over for me.”

Dilan took the roll of plans from Ienzo. “Of course. I’m glad to do it.” He settled down at the work table across from Ienzo. “I best use these skills before I lose them.” He gently unfurled the prints, taking in Ienzo’s handiwork with an unreadable expression. Ienzo kept his face angled towards his book, but peeked up at Dilan through his bangs.

There was still a seed of awkwardness between himself and Dilan. Even in the past they had never been very close, and as Nobodies their personalities had utterly repelled. Dilan was not the only one who could help him, but Ienzo figured it would be something of an olive branch.

A small smile played on Dilan’s lips. “You could draft much more neatly on the computer, you know,” he said. “Rather than physically manipulating all this paper.”

“I’m aware of that. Though for some reason I feel a strange aversion to it.”

“Your funeral.” Dilan flicked through the plans, circling things here and there and making notes in pencil. “This irrigation and drainage situation confuses me. I understand the… symbolism, of it, but we must also consider the practicalities. I’ll look into that for you. Perhaps there’s something that can be salvaged.”

“I appreciate it greatly.” Ienzo glanced down at the text and tried to read. His vision was starting to worsen; he wasn’t sure if it had something to do with the loss of his powers, an accumulation of a dozen years in front of books and screens, or if it were simply his natural state. It was hard to absorb the words. His heart was beating too quickly; Dilan was the first person who had laid eyes on the plans, aside from Demyx, and he was much more objective. He had to wonder if he was doing the right thing.

“Ienzo?”

“Yes?”

There was something cynical in his wide violet eyes. “I think in practice the design will be quite lovely. Most of the changes are more logistical, and something I’ll have to take a look at. An environmental study, if you will.”

“...Of course.”

“But there is one thing that causes me some concern.”

Ienzo looked up. Dilan smoothed one of his plaits back from where it had come loose.

“In this… history, do you plan on publishing our names?”

He frowned. “Well… it’s a matter of public record. Isn’t it? People remember Ansem the Wise, they remember us as the ones who did these experiments.”

Dilan crossed his arms. “I merely wish to not make your life more difficult than it already is.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Then I’ll put it simply. Go public in this way, and you may face more blame than you can take.”

It took Ienzo a moment to fully process what Dilan was implying. “I’ve had my guilt--twelve years’ of it,” he said. “This gesture… is to help us all grieve. Not just us, but those who lost their loved ones. Have you faced a level of scrutiny that I have not?”

“Not to my knowledge--but people are fickle.” Dilan pursed his lips. “I’d hate to cause trouble when we cannot… slip free, so to speak.”

“If anything, this is the opposite of trouble. I do not believe that we will face undue hardship--these people have suffered so, why should they suffer more bringing us to supposed justice? Even if that were the case, wouldn’t we deserve it?” A heat rose behind his cheeks. “In fact, we should consider ourselves lucky that there is no real, consistent legal system yet in place. And that the committee considers us allies.” Ienzo clutched his hands together, tightly. “If I may ask. Don’t you feel guilty, Dilan?”

He grit his teeth. “I am not heartless,” he said slowly. “Nor do I have the excuse of being a child at the time of the atrocities.”

It was becoming clear. “Dilan, I’m afraid that in order to move on we have to accept what we did, and feel that pain and that remorse. I tried defending myself from it--and I almost was destroyed in the process.” Thinking of those endless, sleepless, wrenching weeks when he sought to help Sora made him feel sick.

To his surprise, Dilan chuckled a bit darkly. “I’m not afraid of pain,” he said. “Nor am I afraid of consequence. I will accept my fate and be pleased it is not worse. No. I suppose if anything I am afraid of the hypotheticals we were willing to explore.”

Ienzo swallowed. He had a feeling he knew where Dilan was going with this. “We needn’t discuss this,” he said softly.

“This is part of it, Ienzo.”

A cloud passed over the sun, dulling the bright light that previously filled the library’s alcove.

“Those… children we brought in,” Dilan said. “Did you ever think that we might make you one of them?”

“My memory has become… hazier.” He squeezed his eyes shut tightly for a moment. “I recall, however, you and Even arguing that I might… consent to something, or another.”

“That is correct.”

He took a deep breath. “If you all had not willingly cast aside your hearts that day, what would have happened?”

“I am not sure.” Dilan’s eyes were glassy. “That is why I find coming to terms with this so… difficult. Moreover, what would you have done?”

He felt a twitchy smile cross his face. “I probably would have submitted to it.”

“We cannot hope to erase these betrayals,” Dilan said. “Or the atrocities.”

“But we can apologize. Publicly. Gracefully.” He sighed. “And we can do our best to make this world better.”

Dilan’s expression lost some of its wryness. “...I suppose we can.” He shook his head. “It is not fair of us to let you do all this alone.”

Ienzo looked down at the revisions. “There will still be a way you can help.”

“Perhaps. Or maybe it’s too late for some of us to be saved.” He stood, and for a moment he reached out with one hand, as though to touch Ienzo. “That is not necessarily your burden to bear.”

“I don’t believe it’s too late.”

He smiled. “I wasn’t talking about you.” A slight pause. “We lied to you, Ienzo. As much as we like to blame this on Xehanort, on his influence, I cannot change those facts. We knew how brittle you were after your parents’ deaths, and yet, we still saw fit to tell you Ansem had abandoned you. Those… ripples of trauma. How can you merely move on?”

Something hot surged under Ienzo’s breast, and he couldn’t find the words.

“Aren’t you angry?” Dilan prompted. “All this talk of Ansem’s betrayal… really, we were the ones who betrayed you.”

He felt as though he were being shaken, the ability to form coherent sentences slipping out of his grasp. He felt himself getting taken back and back, through the annals of memory, to that time of confusion and lies. He left the room, ignoring Dilan’s further prodding, and tried to cover up the panic before he unraveled more.

---

The conversation threw Ienzo. He found himself sitting in front of the window in the apartment, trying to make sense of what Dilan had said. He loosened the ascot at his throat and ran the fabric across his fingertips in an attempt to self-soothe.

Were they truly beyond forgiveness?

Forgiveness was such a subjective concept. So much stemmed from it, yet it was so aqueous, hazy. They were not entitled to be forgiven for what they’d done--as apprentices or as Nobodies--but so far nobody had questioned them, or truly looked down upon them. Yet, if he were looking at it from a purely moral standpoint, shouldn’t they? And then what? There was no law enforcement, no jails--during Ansem’s time as ruler, he’d strongly believed in rehabilitation of those who had committed all but the most arduous of crimes. Towards the top of the list? Dismemberment of a human being. And arguably, their experiments had led to the dismemberment of metaphysical beings--

They’d lied to him.

Ienzo buried his face in the ascot’s folds and tried to steady his breathing. He heard keys jangling in the door’s lock and nearly sprinted for the bathroom for privacy, but the panic had him in such a way that it was easier not to move.

Demyx’s reaction was predictable. “Hey,” he said slowly. He came over and sat next to him on the sill’s cushion. “Breathe with me.”

He tried. He could feel his heart beating as quick as a mouse’s.

“Do you want me to calm you?” Demyx asked.

“Yes,” he hissed through his teeth, in a stranger’s voice. Ienzo heard him go to the kitchen, heard running water. He was handed a glass of water that was tinted vaguely green. It tasted too sweet, and he almost gagged on it, but he forced himself to drink it all down.

The effects were almost instantaneous. He felt heavy, but the adrenaline stopped burning in his veins, and his airways loosened. “Better?” Demyx asked.

Ienzo reached out for him and felt himself getting drawn close. He laid his head against Demyx's chest. The beat of his heart was grounding.

“Did something happen?” Demyx asked.

“In a sense.” His breathing had stabilized, but there was something wheezy about the way he spoke. To Demyx’s shoulder, Ienzo asked, “Do you feel guilty?”

A slight pause. “In general?”

“About bad things you might have done. In the past.”

“Well--to a degree--of course.”

“Do you think I’m beyond forgiveness? That all of us here are?”

Demyx pulled away and held him at arm’s length. “Of course not--who put that bullshit idea in your head?”

“Dilan.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” He scoffed. “The guy’s a real ray of sunshine.”

In a few clipped sentences, Ienzo explained what had happened. Demyx processed it for a moment. “I mean, I agree we totally did some real fucked up shit. But you… you went above and beyond to try and put things as right as you could when it came to the experiments. And even if you hadn’t, Ienzo, you tried so hard to help Sora, to point yourself in the right direction. That’s not for nothing. The others, too. Even, with his vessels. Me, delivering them, and healing. And I’m sure everyone else has their own ways of making up for what happened. I’m sure the public sees that.”

“Don’t we deserve some kind of punishment?”

He raised his eyebrow. “You don’t think a decade’s worth of trauma is punishment enough?”

“I… suppose.”

“Even whether or not we deserve forgiveness, we’ve been forgiven. So all we have to do is try our best to live up to it. Right?”

Ienzo dabbed at his damp eyes. “You’re right.”

“It’s like you said. Panic hates logic.” Ienzo allowed himself to settle back against him. Demyx wrapped his arms around his waist. After a moment, Demyx spoke again. “Not to be, like, fake deep or whatever, but trauma and guilt are so wrapped up it’s hard to tell one from the other sometimes.”

That was true.

“Also it sounds like he was projecting hardcore onto you.”

Demyx was stroking his hair. Between that, and the medicine, he was feeling drowsy now. “Since when have you studied psychology?”

“Not so much studied as listened to you. I've learned a lot that way.”

“Am I supposed to feel sleepy?”

“It can happen. Why don’t you nap for a little while? I’ll make some dinner.”

Against Demyx’s collarbone, Ienzo mumbled, “Alright.” He tried to find the energy to stand, but Demyx hefted him up and carried him over to the bed. Ienzo wondered if this was what it was like to feel drunk. “I feel… fragile.” He curled under the covers.

“You’re really not.” Demyx kissed his forehead. “Don’t let him get under your skin.”

“How do you do it?”

“What?”

“Remain stable.”

Demyx knelt by the bed. He looked sheepish. “I hate who I was as a Nobody, but the thing about Demyx… he could really take the slings and arrows.” He shrugged. “I try not to let the bad things get to me. If they do, I… well. Talk through it, write through it, play through it. I try to keep telling myself that… things will be okay.”

“And you believe that?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“I’ll try to believe the same.”

Demyx kissed Ienzo’s hand. “Get some rest.”

He drifted off into a haze of uncertain dreams.

---

Ienzo woke, suddenly, in the middle of the night, his breath catching audibly in his throat, the vestiges of memory not quite freeing him. The sensation of breathlessness shouldn’t feel familiar, but it did. He sat up and pulled his hands through his hair; the calming draught must have worn off.

Something was coming undone; he had enough wherewithal to understand that much.

So much for being intelligent and psychically strong; Dilan’s words had opened a vein of scar tissue, spilling free pain he hadn’t been aware he’d had.

They’d lied.

It was easy to blame Ansem for his problems, but really he wasn’t at fault; they were. They let this happen. They were going to--

“Ienzo?” Demyx sat up. “What’s going on?”

The room was dark, the quarter-horned moon not quite enough to see by. He tried to form words. This was not so much going nonverbal as losing hold of something. A thick sob caught under his tongue.

“Hey,” Demyx said. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe.”

He felt himself getting drawn close, and the pressure of arms around him was welcome. The sobs sounded like they were coming from someone else. He couldn’t stop it. The severity of these revelations was almost too sharp; he realized he was squeezing Demyx’s arm very tightly and tried to let go.

Even once the sobs had stopped he felt curiously barren, a heat replacing the awful stillness. “What’s wrong?” Demyx asked. “Was it a nightmare?”

“Of a sort.” His voice sounded hoarse. “I must… I have to talk to Even.”

“Right now?” Demyx smoothed at Ienzo’s hair. “Can it wait until morning?”

“I don’t know.” He pulled away from the embrace.

“At least let me come with you,” he hedged.

“No,” Ienzo said, with more sharpness than he thought. “No, I… I can’t.” He fumbled for shoes, his gummiphone, his robe.

“I’m worried about you,” Demyx said.

Ienzo hesitated. “Go back to sleep,” he said, in a voice he hoped was placating and not as unhinged as he felt. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

He went down and down and down the well-worn halls, the light of his phone harsh and unreal in the darkness. He suspected he was not mentally stable, but in that moment it didn’t matter.

The door to Even’s lab, normally locked, was open.

There he was, a single lamp all that was illuminating the room, bent over a book, scanning feverishly for something, his blond hair falling over the pages. At the sudden noise, Even flinched, and looked over his shoulder. “Out for a nighttime stroll?” he asked drolly. “Or did you have a lovers’ quarrel?”

“You lied.”

Even paused, but didn’t seem surprised. “What is this about?”

“You lied to me. About Ansem.” He was breathing hard, and fought to get it under control.

“Yes, I know. I thought you did, too.” He turned towards Ienzo.

“I want to know why.” His words were failing him, caught in a maelstrom of meaninglessness. “Why did you all do it to me? Did you think I would not understand? That I--” His eyes warmed with tears.

Even sighed. “It is… handy to blame it all on Xehanort.” He drummed his fingers against his knees. “Truthfully, I like to think that it came from a place of protection. But that is all bunk. It we were to separate you from Ansem’s influence, then we could continue our work, unfettered. Simply… if you had nothing but us, you would rely on us, and comply with us. I cannot overstate it--as soon as it happened, I regretted it, Ienzo, because I saw how devastated you were. But by then it was too late to undo the damage. And I was a weak and selfish man. I really did believe we were better off without him.”

The explanation fell, heavily, at Ienzo’s feet. The hand holding the gummiphone trembled.

“It is one of my biggest mistakes,” he admitted. He clucked his tongue. “I cared, but I didn’t care enough, in the right way. I should’ve--as soon as we did what we did, I should’ve tried to retrieve him. Or at the very least, tried to take you out of that situation. Let you grow up normally, and not become a stunted husk. But I didn’t. I… I held my work above all, and in the process, destroyed what was most important.” His green eyes were bloodshot. “Does that answer your question?”

Ienzo still struggled to breathe, but the heat in him was cooling, hardening into something heavy and painful.

“I do not expect your forgiveness,” Even said softly. “I do not deserve it, either, after all the suffering I’ve retroactively put you through. But know that I… I am trying to atone. To grow. It is so… difficult--Ienzo?”

A rough sob cut the speech in two, and he clapped a hand over his mouth. Even stood, and reached out to touch him, but Ienzo flinched.

“You are not well,” Even said. “Sit.”

He sat on the cot that served as Even’s bed and hugged himself tightly.

“Pain hides in pockets,” Even said. “Compartmentalizes. You knew of our betrayal, but for whatever reason, only now are you processing what it meant to you.” He exhaled. “If you wish for us to have no further contact--”

“I don’t wish that,” he said. “I… I want to trust you. If only because the thought of holding onto this is too much.”

“Then don’t,” Even said gently.

“You’re all I knew.”

“...I know.”

“I wanted to please you. I would've done anything to impress you.” He shook his head. Things inside of him kept shifting, refusing to take form. “Once it all started… I never wanted people to get hurt.”

Even sighed, a derelict sound. “Nor did I. But then… I convinced myself that it was all alright, not only because it was in the interest in something greater, but because our victims supposedly consented. To be more colloquial, denial is one hell of a drug.”

Ienzo tried to stem the flow of tears. It seemed as though they were coming from the past itself.

“The only person you owe forgiveness is yourself,” Even said softly. He took Ienzo’s hand and, when he didn’t pull it away, gave it a squeeze. “Remember that.”

[tumblunni]

Hhhh bunni legs pain accomplishment day

I HAVE FINISHED THE SHOPPING OF HELL

Tfw u only get paid 4 days before christmas and have to rush everything aaaa

It was bad enough today so i'm so glad i got it done before it got even more busy!

Misc boring essentials i bought for myself: new phone charger cos broken, new trousers cos i spilt hair bleach on my only two pairs, new shoes cos my left shoe literally snapped in half down the middle like wtf even happened there, cheap pink hair dye from a discount store cos i wanna try different colours but in a thrifty way

Now for EXCITING CHRISTMAS PRESENT TIME!!!!

First off SO MANY pc and xbox 360 games from Every Charity Shop In Cardiff, St Mellons, Rumney and Llanrumney. My sis has been trying to find some games to play but was like 'dont worry about it i can just wait til the charity shop gets something good'. So i thought i'd get some stocking stuffers via all the charity shops on my side of town. By our powers combined we will blitz the entire vale of glamorgan's discount gaming scene!!! I found SO MANY good stuff for £1/£2/£3 like holy shit i love when charity shops dont know the proper price for shit XD

speaking of which i also found a WEBCAM for £2! If its that cheap it probanly isnt great but itd still be fun to play around with! :D and the same store also had an old vintage G1 My Little Pony coffee mug in excellent condition. Oh god the nostalgia! My support worker gave me a lift to llanrumney so i had to awkwardly explain why i had an armful of weird 80s mugs and big teary eyes!

Speaking of vintage, i found this new vintage toys and games shop in cardiff called Galactic Attic! The name hooked me in and then they actually DID have pokemon inside! As well as all sorts of stuff ranging from 40s to 90s, wow! There was even a lil pile of old 90s gaming magazines in the corner, covered up by a bunch of boxes. I'm glad i noticed them! I got the announcemt issues for pokemon diamond pearl and platinum in a weird old pokemon fan magazine that i loved as a kid. Im kinda sad that nowadays we just have one official magazine fpr each console and not the wild madness of amateaur journalists failing horribly to get news from japan. Shame they didnt have Beckett Pokemon cos that one was infamous fot drawing its own terrible interpretations of pokemon sprites to avoid copyright. And speaking of terrible, they even had bootleg pokemon!! I talked to the cashier and he was like "you know those are fake right" and i was like "yeah its so nostalgic thats why i want em" and he was like "lol yeah they actually sell pretty well so i'm not mad my supplier ripped me off". It was a pretty good and awesomely terrible fake at the same time? There was this exact replica of some japanese display stand for the product and then the actual pokeball toys looked perfect BUT the mini pokemon inside were.. Really not. I am so damn happy with the surprise inside my one, surprise inside has never been more accurate! I can't take a picture now cos my phone is charging but REGICHEETO. Just..just imagine that, and whatever you're imagining it is probably worse. I love it so fuckin much. Also less hilariously there were some bootleg mini pika plushies with actually (as far as i can tell) their own unique design? They have cute lil winter scarves and an art style that reminds me of the Magical Pokemon Adventure manga. A really cute and good bootleg that i would have loved to see as a real product! The only way you can even tell its a bootleg is because there's no marking on the tail. I dunno, maybe if i still have some brown fabric in the cupboard i could fix it? Or maybe its unique tail makes it even more special! I mean there's Cosplay Pikachu with its double tail marking so maybe this is her cousin Accessory Pikachu with no markings? He just likes wearing scarfs and hats and stuff. OMG HE'S THE POKEMON GO EVENT PIKACHU!!!!!!

Along the miscness of finding a few things for myself, i also found: cute lil pokemon pencilcase, kingdom hearts blind bag, cheap copy of Fruits Basket volume 1 cos the new remake is coming out soon and i wanna Get Hype! The KH blind bag was really weird cos i didnt know they now have an entirely different set as well as the keychains i bought before. Its kind of a shame the art style doesnt match cos vexen is only in the keychains, alas! But i do really love these ones! Theyre apparantly made by funko pop but dont have the art style AT ALL, they just look like really accurate versions of the characters in mini form. Its kinda like the 'distance animation' style in steven universe? (Incidentally they also do SU ones but they missed the opportunitu to actually use the distance style, lol) I got a Sora in his kh2 outfit and i'm decently happy with that, its not one i really wanted but its not a bad one either. But i think now i've tried the fun of surprise once i'll just buy the actual ones i want off ebay later. They have roxas in his organization outfit! With a happy smile!!!

Oh oh and then EVEN MORE XBOX GAMES OF THE WILD THRIFT STORE VOID! i managed to find the whole fable series, two assassins creeds, saints row, gta, some misc shooter games and racers that she wanted but i dont know much about, mass effect 2 and ff13. I think maybe one or two others cos i cant fully remember right now. Theyre all in separate bags strewn across the room and my shoulders feel like death so i'll sort through them later.

Aaaand i wrote up like 14 paragraphs more but tumblr didnt save my draft fpr some fuckin reason and now im way too tired to do it again

Briefer summary:

* had a huge horrible panic attack getting stuck in a skyscraper shopping centre clothes place full of screaming and every perfume smell and WHY DO I HAVE TO NAVIGATE THIS HELL MAZE TO FIND THE ESCALATOR and seriously i was my most primal animalistic self and i went full fight or flight on this bitch

* had a lovely time visiting Cool Shop Grandma and rambled the story of how i met her and how we became friends but hhh too tired to rewrite. But anyway today i gave her a christmas pikachu plush as thanks for everything and cos her shop is moving on to its next location soon. She got really teary and gave me a big hug! She's gonna be at a comic con in march so i hope i'm able to go to that and see her again.

* went on a wild goose chase looking for harry potter merchandise and eventually found a gold plated replica of the movie prop version of the time turner and HELL YES my sis will love it!

* rambled about several market stalls that were cool but i can make a separate post about that in the morning when i find their contact details to advertise them

* got a plushie delibird and decided to take selfies with it everywhere to try and fight my social anxiety somehow. We went to a neat lil restaurant and had cheesy fries and a coke float!

* asked for a refund on an item for the first time ever and im proud of myself

* went off on a mystery bus trip to buy a preowned 3ds and pokemon games from a lady in an online preowned stuff facebook group and it didnt go horribly and i am glad! She was really nice and i witnessed A Good And Smart Parenting Moment and man it healed my heart and i wish i'd been raised that way. Again i'll probably ramble about the details later when im less tired, it really touched my heart seriously! And now i have MANY GIFTS FOR SIS!

* in total i was out present shopping from 9am to 8pm and i clicked my shoulder out of its socket for a split second from.all the heavy bags. Now im in a lot of aches and i need a sleeps

The End

[colorelijahtheory]

After game thoughts: Kingdom Hearts

Welp, I completed Kingdom Hearts 1 100% (except for 4 Gummi Ship missions because F**k them) This was written in a Discord chat, but nobody really responded to that apparently. 

WARNING: Obvious first draft of long text incoming!

I think this one washed away my frustrations with Birth By Sleep. Because while the gameplay starts off kind of slow at first, it starts to pick up much better. Anything that was frustrating in KH1 mostly comes from the slowly teleporting enemies, and I mean there are a lot of enemies that do that, or the platforming.

The problems with platforming come from Square Enix experimenting with how to make a 3D real-time battle system, while also figuring out how to make the worlds. Unlike the later games where the worlds are mostly composed of big separate areas meant for bosses, and hordes of heartless, KH's worlds have this maze-like mentality where there's more than one way to enter a room, and even in Wonderland and Hollow Bastion there are a couple of secret rooms once you solve a puzzle or two.

I understand how that could be confusing to newer fans, or even fans who only played KH2 where the worlds are more streamlined or straightforward. But I do miss worlds like Traverse Town, where it feels more like a town with a bunch of other people from other places, and not just a bunch of areas.

The only way that that town could feel more alive and at home is if they have NPC sidequests and stories on par with something like Majora's Mask.

As for the Gummi Ship, I do get people's complaints about how the Gummi Ship starts slow at first, but once I started upgrading my ship, from its armor, to its weapons, to it's engines, to even a few gadgets and doohickeys, it's a bit more fun. Again, kind like upgrading your arsenal and abilities.

The Final Mix version adds in some missions for more parts and blueprints. Some of them are simple as getting a higher score or getting a high score while having a specific weapon. Some of them can go straight to hell like getting no score while not getting hit.

Speaking of Final Mix, the additions they made to this game is pretty impressive from new weapons, new enemies, new cutscenes, fixed glitches, and new bosses that mostly tie in to the next game. It just sucks that we common international people never got a chance to play this until it was released until the PS3 which even then I didn't think we'd get at the time. I played this on the HD remix collection on the PS4 and it still looks fantastic even if they didn't change much.

(I was hoping they would alter a lot of scenes where they have the low quality facial models for the HD remixes)

Despite that last parenthesis comment, the graphics still hold up for even to this day. Square Enix games have this tendency especially during the 64 bit era where they look good at the time, but will get dated about a year or so. But the graphics here, even though you can tell it was made during the PS2 era, is expressive, colorful, and cinematic. A lot of love and care went into making sure that the Disney characters and worlds look like their respective movies, even the original worlds have a lot of detail and imagination that Disney would do if they made an RPG.The choices they made for the Disney worlds, stand out on their own both in aesthetics and in structure, from Tarzan's Jungle, to the desert of Agrabah, to Halloween Town, and... okay a little confession to make.

The first KH I ever played was Chain of Memories for the GBA, because I didn't have a PS2 at the time. So I didn't know much about the first game, other than the trailers showing me which Disney movie is going to be represented, including the Nightmare Before Christmas, which I had vague memories of watching before playing CoM. So I thought that the Heartless originated from Nightmare Before Christmas. I mean can you blame me? The heartless are black creatures some of which with pointy antennae, and they mostly look Tim Burton-esque.

In fact, if Tim Burton himself designed some of the heartless, it wouldn't surprise me. 

Notice I haven't even gotten to the story yet. I mean at this point before all the sequels, midquels, and prequels, the story is actually easy to understand, with a few hints of complexity and ridiculousness that Square Enix put in. Now the crossover element isn't fully there, but that's okay as long as the original characters are interesting, fortunately, they are.

As much as people mock Sora for being a young idiot, he's one of the few Square Enix leads that is an optimist. Which even before Square Enix tends to not have anymore. He's not a brooder like Cloud or Squall, but he's not as annoyingly immature as Tidus. Although if I were writing the story as I was, I would have a small moment where Sora realizes that his home is destroyed, and everybody he knows might be dead or the very least missing, he could cry even though he's trying not to, and the others are trying to comfort him. Because I don't care if he's a teen, you'd be emotionally f*cked up if your home is destroyed by an unspeakable force.

Riku actually does have an interesting character arc throughout the series. He starts off as a troll who wants to leave his home, and then becomes manipulated by the villains to make him jealous of Sora join the dark side, becomes possessed by the real villain, and then redeems himself in the end. I noticed how the Final Mix main story cutscenes mostly revolve around him. One scene he's waking up in Hollow Bastion calling for Sora and Kairi, realizing they've been separated, and another has him walking in the Realm of Darkness realizing that he's lost everything, and wishes that he could apologize. This makes him a bit more sympathetic I'll say.

The only real issue I have, that I think is being brought up in KH3, is the world order stuff. Like don't meddle or chaos and darkness... I don't really know what, but it's never explained why it's a good thing. In that case, why would they bother with the other worlds, other than to find Riku, Kairi, and King Mickey? Wouldn't you want to tell them about the heartless so that they know what to look out for? It also makes King Triton kind of a jerk, I mean more of a jerk. What would he do if the Keyblade master never came to your world and saved it? You wouldn't do anything because it'll be gone, and everybody would've died. I mean the trio doesn't even try to defend themselves by saying he's trying to save the other worlds if that's what they're even doing, which they are, but it's not exactly their number one priority. There's responsibility as a king, and then there's responsibility as a protector.

But oh well, it was mostly dropped in KH2 because the villains f*cked up everything at this point, although I think it's being brought up again in KH3. But if I'm speculating based on the cutscenes I've seen, maybe most of the story could be about the world order collapsing, because the world's inhabitants are getting smart, and the only choice to have is to risk the world order or the universe will be no more.

All in all, Kingdom Hearts 1 is not my favorite, mostly because I have yet to play all of them again. But it's definitely up there, just for having all that Disney charm, and being a neat little experiment. I say play this first, if you want to know how the games evolved from here to Kingdom Hearts 3. But for Disney fans, this is the few KH games that still retain that Disney charm, and for Final Fantasy fans, there are many familiar spells, references, and cameos that I'm sure those fans appreciate. I might do another when I beat Chain of Memories.

[divincr-arch-blog]

steph’s guide to roleplaying

Heyo! Bare with me, for this is a long post.

So, within various fandoms, I have seen a common trend that rubs me the wrong way. People asking, either their followers or blogs they follow, why they aren’t popular/roleplayed with. Or, they ask for advice and do not apply it, for one reason or another.

I have been in the indie Tumblr roleplaying community for over three years now, across three big fandoms (Marvel, Harry Potter, and Fire Emblem) as well as smaller fandoms. I have seen many trends come and go, many popular roleplayers come and go, and more.

It’s hard to get your foot in the RP door on Tumblr. I was there. Your favorite blog that you cry about being so good was there. Everyone was there. It’s a BIG pond, with many fish. Things are ever changing on Tumblr, so this will be reference guide to what you need to get started on your RP blog!

When it comes to edits, whether they are icons, themes, or promos, they are very important to RP blogs. Icons are a staple within the RP community, across fandoms, indie, and group. It may seem hard to get and make graphics without Photoshop, a very expensive program, but there are ways around it. Your graphics do not have to be fancy or hand drawn, but cleanly sized and cropped. There are many image editors out there, but these are my personal favorites. 

GIMP- a free and downloadable image editor. it works very similarly to Photoshop, and will work for basic things like cropping, coloring, and resizing images. It does not have all the features of Photoshop, but will work fine for simple things.

Pixlr- a free image editing site that requires no download. Again, it works similarly to Photoshop and Gimp, but more on the basic side. I recommend this if your version of GIMP or Photoshop is acting wonky or broken. If you are iffy about downloading programs, this will be perfect for you.

Photoshop Torrents- While stealing, pirating, and torrenting is wrong and illegal, Photoshop is expensive. You can get older versions of Photoshop through various torrents on the internet (I found mine through tumblr). I like using CS5 because it is a well known version with plenty of tutorials online. I recommend downloading Photoshop Portable, as it can easily be stored on your flash drive.

As for what is actually on the blog and what people like to see on a roleplay blog, there is a few things that people prefer not to see. The number one thing most followers want from a roleplay blog is writing. They may want that through interaction with you as a partner, or they just like reading it as a personal or follower. As for the things that people do not like to see, there are the top few things. 

6 Pages of Memes- It is okay to reblog memes. It is how interactions between partners start, and can serve as good ice breakers between new mutuals. However, as someone who has gone through many blogs, six pages of memes with a few RP post in between is not appealing. Just because you may not be getting responses right away, does not mean you should spam your blog and the dash with memes every half hour. People may not be online or interested in that meme. If you like all these memes, queue or schedule them for when people are online more. Also, send some to the people on your dash and focus on making new threads from them.

Short Replies- Before I start, yes, one liners are fun. They are quick, easy, and light, but they should not be the only thing on your blog. Many people like to expand to paragraphs because they are writers. Paragraph responses also show potential followers how you write and if it will click with their style. They may seem intimidating, but take your time on them. Save part of your responses to the drafts and come back to it later. Roleplaying is not about how fast you can respond, but the quality of your writing. This is especially true when you do not use icons. If a blog doesn’t use icons, I look for description in shorter replies rather than dialogue.

Negativity- This monster comes in many shapes or forms. Negativity/guilt tripping, drama with other blogs, and personal posts do not belong on a roleplay blog, though. Instead of guilt tripping and vague posting, talk it out with a friend for a confidence booster or take a tiny 1-hour break from blogging. Keep whatever beef you have with someone private, as well as your personal/political beliefs about an issue. That’s why personal blogs are things.

Lack of Pages- Pages about your blog are very important! It serves as your personal anchor on your blog, as well as people’s knowledge to your and your character prior to following and interacting. If someone does not see pages about your blog on it, they are more than likely to brush your blog aside. A rules page is the first thing people look for. They want to know how you are as a person, and how to interact with you. Besides the general “do not be a jerk” rule that everyone has, many people elaborate on how interaction with them work. An about page also helps people know your character. Do not just link a wiki page, especially if play as a canon divergent canon character. A well thought out about page helps both OCs and canon characters. It gives a personality and base for your muse and sets it apart from others.

Make it this far? Hella! You are almost through that metaphorical door! Now that the basic and bare bones of your blog is out of the way, let’s talk about trends, or what it is more commonly called aesthetics. They constantly change in the rp community. GIFs used to be the common thing, now it is still icons. While the trends may change, the basics of tumblr rp stays the same.

Themes- Right now, as I write this long essay of a post, container themes are all the rage. They were not always, nor are they required of an RP blog. As long as a blog does not have the basic preloaded themes that tumblr offers, most people don’t care too much about what it looks like. A few good theme blogs for RPers are soldierholiic, theme-hunter, and octomoosey. Don’t like any of those? Look at someone’s blog. There is usually a small icon in the bottom corner that links to the theme maker’s blog. My personal favorite is soldierholiic’s sora theme.

Formatting- You do not have to format your post to be considered quality! You do not have to hate formatting to be considered quality! As long as you can use basic grammar and spelling, you are good. Many people use small text because it looks a bit cleaner. The shortcut for small text is ctrl+shift+ -, if that helps. Also, many people expect your posts to be cut, meaning the latest two replies on a post. If you do not want or cannot download x-kit or other extensions, just politely ask your partners either through talking OOC or in your rules, to cut your post for you.

Function>Aesthetics- While having a nice looking blog is...well, nice, if someone can’t read or navigate through it, then they most likely will avoid you. Many experienced blogs are guilty of this too, not just over zealous newer blogs. Make your posts readable, both on the dash and the blog. Make your pages easy and accessible to find, especially for mobile users. Use colors that won’t kill my eyes because I’m reading your reply on your blog.

Graphics pt 2- While many blogs have personalized or hand drawn icons and promos, it’s not a requirement. You can use the icons you find in the tags. You can have icons that don’t match your theme. As long as they are sized correctly (100x100px is the norm), they do not have to be super edited. For promos, many fandoms accept the casual promo, containing an icon and a bit of info about your blog. It’s easy to spread around and learn a bit about the mun/muse. A fancy photoshopped graphic designed promo is not 100% necessary in most fandoms right now.

I know this post is getting very long and boring, but I swear I am almost done. Your blog is set up. You know the basics of roleplaying on tumblr. But everyone seems so scary with their rules, friends, and mains, etc. Many people on here are shy when it comes to new people. You probably are too. This is how you talk to people who seem intimidating. 

Be Casual- There is no need to call everyone senpai or quality or perf. That just makes things awkward. Just be casual with people you want to interact with. Talk about your fandom, scream headcanons with them, ask for their name. You do not have to go in with ‘HI DO YOU WANT TO RP WITH ME, [muse name here]-MUN-SENPAI?!!’ That comes off a bit strong and off-putting.

Be Respectful- First off, don’t be a jerk to people. Secondly, just read someone’s rules before messaging them with questions about something. While many are open to answering any questions a follower may have about them, if it something already stated in the rules of that blog, just save you all some trouble by reading them. Also, do not hate on their interpretation of a character. Each blog is different, even if there are 100 duplicates for that character. 

Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help- Is there something in the reply you don’t understand? Something about their character you don’t understand? Questions about the universe? Feel free to ask a partner for help! They won’t bite if you are respectful about it. Also, if you are close to your partners, they will often be open to help you with graphics if they have experience/time. Just don’t strut into their IMs expecting a theme done before you get there. Ask first! Be okay with their answer, even if you do not like it. 

Lastly, roleplaying is a hobby. Do not let it consume your life or stress you out. If that does happen, it is okay to take a break and come back. It is okay to restart your blog from scratch. It is okay to follow new and different people. Just have fun and be yourself.