#But as someone who's had little to no exposure to Sora and to KH in general

[electricea-archive]

@codebestowed​ sent - ✏️ ( Handwritten Notes - Accepting! )

@codebestowed​

I had always vaguely known about Sora and KH but I truly think that it was through your portrayal and blog, that I really grew to love and appreciate the character.  It is always an absolute joy to hear from you and it always bring a smile to my face.

[shadylex]

I see those tags and i wanna know about the (former) kingdom hearts oc real badly now

Oh my god, am I really going to go off?

Am I about to really embarrass myself at my literally 18 year old OC who is the whole reason I got into writing in the first place? And the weird obsession I have with any media/character that has to do with memory manipulation and mind reading?

I sure as fuck am, I'm about to talk about my OC that has basically been my face on tumblr for the last seven years at this point.

You're all about to meet Lexen, and how she came into existence.

Kingdom Hearts 2 released on December 22, 2005, and it was around this time that my ex-friend gave me this game as a sequel to the first Kingdom Hearts I had previously played.

I didn't make any OCs for the first game. I was just so enraptured by being able to play a video game with Disney characters in it and the frankly odd amount of platforming in this game. It was when I was given Kingdom Hearts 2 right after finishing the first one did it all really start to sink in.

Little 11 year old me was FULLY invested in anything edgy or cool looking, as with all kids around this age, and Organization XIII basically took me by the throat and never let go. This was my first jump into fandom and fan art and writing and a whole world that I now was able to read and look. I never really joined any big communities, I actually have a sour experience with the KHInsider website at the time so I really missed out on community.

Which is fine, I think I would've turned out much more toxic if I was part of a large community. What is more important is that KH2 was the beginning of Lexen.

Lexen is a self-insert of myself. Full on, just me thrown into the Kingdom Hearts world and having a good time, marysueing it up and just living it up in the haydays of FF.net. Then I started getting more creative and made a whole new character to investigate a thing that was barely touched on in KH2's plot.

The fact that Sora lost a lot of his memories between 1 and 2. I didn't realize at that time that Chain of Memories had happened, so the only exposure I really had was Namine who is the only character in-game that had any reference to memory manipulation.

So little ol' me though, "I could do better. I can make someone cooler."

And made Lexen.

Lexen is the secret 14th memory (very creative at the time, haha) and was specifically a living weapon that Xemnas used to both seed worlds with darkness and to keep Xemnas protected from danger and potential betrayals within the Organization.

My main concept for her was the fact that Nobodies within KH were said to have no emotions, merely mimicking their emotions from memories they have when they were alive. So... what happens when you are reborn but have no memories?

You have no frame of reference, no ability to experience emotions. At that moment, you are a blank slate. And all it takes is one person to pick you up and basically rewrite you however way they want.

Xemnas was the one to find Lexen first. Give her a name. Give her a purpose.

And Xemnas became Lexen's whole world and universe.

There was a devotion not born really out of loyalty, though that came about later, but because there was a lack of direction for Lexen. There was no reason for her to doubt, so she just followed without thought.

It was discovered fairly early on that she had an ability to mind read and to also extract memories out of a person. Xemnas saw potential in this power and trained her to be more autonomous and skilled with her powers. Eventually getting her to a point where she could made decisions for herself, but they were always to the benefit of Xemnas. To the Organization as a whole? Not always, it wasn't Lexen's job to question that. Just to follow orders and do them successfully.

Somewhere in her training and growing, it was also discovered she had a bit of Darkness within her. Not like she was harnessing Darkness as a power and using it herself, just a ball of Darkness that lived in her body separate from her soul. And it was growing more and more as she went to different worlds to plunge them into Darkness.

Until it eventually got strong enough to manifest as a whole new being.

Introducing: Berserk! The person who has been my icon on tumblr for the last 7 years!

She is not an alter ego to Lexen. She is not a power up move for Lexen. She is a completely separate identity and being that just happens to live in the same body as Lexen. Two minds, one body. And Berserk really wants to have sole control over this body to just cause untold amounts of damage towards anything. Not exactly something Xemnas wants out of his living weapon.

What he wants is total control and total loyalty to his word. Berserk (the name was given to her after she tried to kill him) was a wrench in the plan, but perhaps useful in specific situations.

My personal headcanon for Xemnas' power (which is Nothingness) is that he is an equivalent God to Nobodies. He can manipulate them, solidify their existence, and also erase them. It was how I justified his position as head of the Organization and how most everyone followed his word without asking too many questions. Those who did well... I eventually learned about Chain of Memories and added that to the lore.

So Xemnas used his powers to create a mental wall between Lexen and Berserk. Lexen would always have control of the body, was the dominate mind, and Berserk was locked away in a box to never be released unless used for specific means. Lexen was thrilled about this, no need to worry about the second person in her head. Berserk grew to have an absolute vendetta against Xemnas and Lexen for being her jail and jailer.

And it all came to a point by the end of KH2. When Xemnas was in the final showdown between himself and Sora and Riku. Lexen was waiting on the sidelines, looking for a signal to jump in and save Xemnas. But it never came, but Lexen decided to make the choice herself but she never was able to save Xemnas. Because as Xemnas was getting his ass handed to him by Sora and Riku, his focus on Lexen and Berserk's mental barrier faltered and Berserk took over.

Berserk and Lexen fought at this moment. A mental battle over who would have control over the body and have access to the rest of the universe. It concluded with Lexen having formed a mental barrier herself and blocking off Berserk long enough to regain sight and hearing with her body, but it was all over by then.

She had failed in protecting the one person that was her entire reason for living, and he was dead. The world she was on was falling apart. She has to decide right now if she wants to escape and keep living, or give up and let Berserk take over and never be seen again.

Lexen obviously took the step to escape. Was it out of survival? Maybe revenge? But she don't have the emotional output for revenge, and what good was it afterwards when her person that gave her purpose is dead forever?

These are all questions she had as she escaped onto a ship and flew off into space. Questions she never had reason to think about until now. It was now down to Lexen alone to decide what to do with this life and non-existence she was given and to make a person out of herself.

I dub these her Wandering Days.

And this is where I usually hang out in my internal exploration for Lexen, because there is where I can drop her into any fiction work without changing her character to fit the place. I start reading a book series I like? Throw Lexen in there straight from Kingdom Hearts and just let her explore. I'm watching Star Wars now? Just throw her in there with the Jedi and have them be confused at her magic powers and mind manipulation without the Force.

This is also my way of having Lexen experience lots of different cultures and people and learning that she can make something of herself. She doesn't need to be a living weapon. She doesn't need to devote herself to a singular purpose or person. In fact, as time goes on, she grows to see the logical disadvantage to being unjust, cruel, and malicious to people. She starts interfering in worlds that are oppressed to try and help them out.

But why would she do that, if she doesn't have the emotional capability to empathize and feel sorrow?

Well, I figured that if there was no emotional response from Lexen, then she solve all things with logical conclusions. And even from an emotionless, non-existent being who was cruel and ruthless before she could still logically come to the idea that it is better to not be like that anymore.

And this is a very, very, very messy summary of Lexen and Berserk. I haven't even touched on how the two minds interact with each other in their mind palace sort of dealio. Or my explanation of how Lexen's memory removal powers work as well. Or how my username is a mash-up of an old name I had and Lexen shoved together to make my new identity!

If you got to the bottom of this wall text, thank you very much!

I deeply appreciate anyone who read all of this and enjoyed even a second of it. Lexen is my heart and soul of a lot of creative writing I do. I keep working on her, updating her story with new ideas and lore as it comes to me and maybe one day I'll share her full experience to the world.

[themattress]

More bullshit from Mod A in regards to Xion.  Mod M is more reasonable (although I question if toxic male fandom does hate anything that reads like fanfiction at first glance...I think that if it reads like the kind of fanfiction they like, then they’ll eagerly accept it. I like to consider myself equal opportunity in this regard: if it reads like any kind of bad fanfic, then I dislike it.)

I’m with @riniuchihaa here. For me, Xion, far from being the best KH character, was the first glaring neon warning sign that the series was going off-course, that an original character was being created for the sake of it despite not being able to impact much of anything given her placement, and then was not ever let go of even though the excuse given as to why she was forgotten by KH2 should have rendered it impossible for her to appear in the series again.

“not a damsel in distress, action girl or sex object”

Is she not those things, though?  She has to be rescued or protected several times throughout the game. She wields a Keyblade and can even be better at it than Roxas if she’s absorbed enough of his strength. And there are a lot of creepy guys online that will argue that she is sexy, particularly with KH3′s model of her suggesting that she’s not wearing anything underneath that coat, which is open all the way to just above her chest. By KH3, she’s even taken Namine’s “plot device to make convoluted shit happen” status. If anything, people take issue with her being all of those things, and not even being them as well as other KH girls. She’s very derivative with little to add for herself.

“she’s a regular human being with a regular human emotional arc”

I would actually say that of Xion in the manga.

In the game, I think this is a case of projecting. Xion’s personality and arc are written as such a blank slate, with more people talking about Xion and what she’s going through than her and it being onscreen, that it’s easy to project on to. But when looked at objectively, there isn’t much humanity to it at all.

Ask yourself this: what is Xion like when she’s not around Roxas and Axel, doing missions and eating ice cream? What are her likes and dislikes, her own personal hobbies or aspirations? What are her feelings on matters completely unrelated to her friends?  For the life of me, I can’t come up with an answer. The closest I can get is with the text of her Secret Reports, where she honestly shows more character than she actually shows in the game itself (but then, that’s the same with Roxas and his Diary entries.) 

Before her identity crisis kicks in, all of Xion’s scenes are shared with Roxas and/or Axel, in the context of missions, ice cream, and being good friends with them, simply going along with whatever they’re doing and saying. Any feelings of inadequacy she feels during periods of time where she’s “malfunctioning” are skimmed over, and again is talked about more by other people than by her. Once her identity crisis happens, any scene she has apart from Axel and Roxas either still works them in somehow (they are consistently her biggest motivations in her own personal conflict, the only reason she’s conflicted about her existence is because of them since they give her a reason to exist) or just focuses on her freaking out about the fact that she’s a replica whose personality was formed based on the fragmented memories of another person that leaked into Xion through that person’s Nobody, which makes her less fit to exist than those who aren’t meant to exist. Yeah, totally a regular human emotional arc right there!  Can’t count the number of times in the history of the human species that people have had to go through that!

Kairi in KH and Namine in COM actually felt like human beings with emotional arcs in spite of their extraordinary circumstances. Xion feels more like KH2′s Kairi and Namine, where I get the basic trope behind their personalities and development, but can’t really pin them down as three-dimensional and realistic. That’s Xion - the writing for her is very trope-y, not human. The main points of how she was written were three-fold: as a plot device (a means of getting Roxas from point A to point B), as a wish-fulfillment character (she’s basically Tomoko Kanemaki’s self-insert), and as an exploration of a theme (the “What Measure is a Non-Human?” theme that Kanemaki is obsessed with). The humanity being inferred in regards to her being a trans girl case study was not at all intended to be there, and it can only happen because she was sketched thinly enough for it to be applied to her. 

“complains that she’s taking too much space or stealing the spotlight”

I’m sorry, but this is a valid complaint. When it was announced there was going to be a game about Organization XIII set between COM and KH2, everyone was wanting and expecting more development and focus on the members who had already been firmly established, most of whom were in desperate need of such development and focus. So to suddenly have Xion introduced and be the major focus of the game, whether she’s actually on-screen or not, would be very jarring and disappointing. 

What’s worse is all the games she pops in after Days, as not only does it destroy the established rules of canon in regards to her fate, but she ultimately steals the spotlight in an even more harmful way in KH3: Kairi, the original KH girl, who had been receiving build-up for YEARS as a Keyblade-wielding Guardian of Light, is literally screwed out of this role in favor of Xion, her Mary Sue copycat whom no-one asked for to begin with and whom many people weren’t keen on having return, as not only did it destroy the main thing she had going for her (her nature as a tragic character) but it robbed Kairi of development and focus that, again, she was in desperate need of. But Xion got over 30 more votes than Kairi in a Japanese popularity poll, so...priorities?

“Xion’s story is about the right to define her own existence, to live as her own true self, etc.”

No, that’s not what Xion’s story was about. It was about her learning that she had no right to her existence because it was actively hurting the existences of others, including her best friends’, and that the right thing to do is to disappear. I take some issue with how it played out (mainly that Xion accepts this way too easily and becomes a “Too Good For This Sinful Earth” type who does the right thing for the sake of her friends even when a more angry, selfish and conflicted Xion would’ve been more engaging and human, and that Riku is OOC in his treatment of her considering his treatment of Roxas), it was still incredibly tragic and it owned that. So for that tragic story to be undone in favor of a “lol, just kidding, Xion can exist and get a happy ending with her friends after all, no tragedy here!” way of appeasing the fans who called foul and raised a stink about it (especially in Japan) will never sit right with me, especially when the writing doesn’t even TRY to justify it. It just happens for the sake of it.

“It has a lot to do with the fact that Xion is a young girl whose story expects us to genuinely empathize with her”

OK, here’s a tip: it is rarely EVER a good idea to expect your audience to all feel a certain way toward something and try to force that reaction. “Death of the Author” is a thing, which is why you’re best not taking sides or playing favorites when making a story, you’re better off putting your personal feelings aside and just letting things play out, allowing people in the audience to make up their own mind. When the story pushes for the audience to genuinely empathize with Xion, with lines by others such as “poor Xion!”, then it’s not surprising that the opposite effect happens: some fans don’t like or empathize with her because they resent the hamfisted attempts at being told that they should. 

“That’s like saying Kairi didn’t matter in KH1 because Sora forgot her in COM”

That’s a false equivalence if I ever saw one. KH came out before COM, and Sora didn’t forget her so much as she was replaced by someone else, Namine, in his memory, which drove that story’s conflict. Its resolution was Sora learning the truth and remembering Kairi again. Kairi is still a factor in COM, a very important factor at that. Days came out after KH2, where there isn’t even a hint of Xion, she is not a factor in that game because she wasn’t invented yet. Sure, Xion matters to Days, but that mattering doesn’t feel like it amounts to much when she isn’t seen, heard from or mentioned for the entirety of the game it was leading up to.

“But so what?”

So, it feels incredibly unnatural to have a character jammed into a pre-existing timeframe and pre-existing dynamic prior to KH2, with mass amnesia being used as a plot device to explain away why she wasn’t present in any way in KH2, only for every game taking place after KH2 (and thus after Days was made) to suddenly start featuring Xion again, with the mass amnesia plot device being casually discarded. What’s worse is how canon rules were obliterated so that Xion could return in KH3 and reverse the tragedy element that made her story effective to begin with, at the expense of characters like Kairi who have been around longer than Xion and who desperately needed exposure more than Xion. Seriously, in addition to the point I already raised about Xion taking Kairi’s place, just think about this: characters that were created as a trio, Sora, Riku and Kairi, are no longer a trio, just the duo of Sora and Riku, while characters that were created as a duo, Roxas and Axel, are now a trio thanks to Xion. It feels like a slap in the face to all the fans who liked Kairi and the Destiny Trio, and it’s a big reason as to why Xion’s inclusion in the series feels like a mistake to those fans and thus why she’s such an off-putting character to them.

The only statements made here that I agree with is that Xion sadly wouldn’t have gotten as much hate if she was a badass, older male character, that her being forgotten due to memory magic isn’t really a mark against her since that’s a cheap plot device that happens to a lot of characters in the series, and that you can’t really do the story of 358/2 Days without her since she’s so integral to it...but on that note, the story of 358/2 Days didn’t need to happen. The KH series during its early days was meant to be Sora, Donald and Goofy’s story, so leaving the period of time where they were asleep a blank made perfect sense. We never needed to know about Roxas’ time in the Organization beyond what was said and shown in KH2, and to this day I honestly wish we hadn’t.  In game form, anyway. The manga is great, it can stay!

[kiibearer-a]

My url?

5 STAR REVIEWS | accepting

My Opinion on; NDEAVOR / CLOUD

Character in general: OKAY, I am of the small populace that has ... never played FFV. EVER. I’ve never played it, and that’s namely because I HATE FF’s turn based combat system. I am not at all a fan of it despite how much so many of these games are wildly fascinating to me and practically the reason why I got into Kingdom Hearts in the first place. Aside from KH my only other exposure to Cloud was through Advent Children as well, which I REALLY liked that movie even though I had no clue what was going on. It was beautiful and sad, and WILDLY amazing, and Cloud was such a interesting character to me. IT IS BUCKWILD that Cloud is ACTUALLY the type of character that I like outside of the anomaly that is Sora, I love complex heroes? People who question their own integrity and moral lining, ones that fit the grey areas better than being defined by black and whites, and there is so much to Cloud’s overall attitude and cadence that brings forth this really deep perception that I don’t think he truly gives away to anyone not paying attention. How they play them: From what I’ve seen and even gotten to experience, THERE IS SO MUCH to your interpretation that it’s almost amazing how much love and effort goes into each though of your perceptions of Cloud, all these nuanced mannerisms and subtle actions to convey all these larger parts of his personality in short, curt actions. I love seeing all of these differences between his relations to different characters, between friends to enemies ; how he isn’t just this STOIC soldier but someone with a lot of emotion just gripping the edge to only allow the necessary aspects through. Your actions through him are deliberate, and calculated ; there is WEIGHT in his words and their meaning, and for someone who speaks very little, you do a wonderful job to make sure that not a word is wasted. The Mun: We haven’t talked often ooc but you’re such a joy to my dash that I enjoy seeing, you are wonderfully amicable and funny, I love seeing your thoughts and opinions surrounding your muse and think you are just a very swell person !

Do I:

RP with them: We do !Want to RP with them:  ABSOLUTELY. Sora needs more big brothers. 

What is my;

Overall Opinion: I think Cloud absolutely has been this very sweet satellite character that I’ve fallen in love with through many people in the fandom, and your take on him is so vastly interesting than anything I could actually glean from canon. His voice is so strong and resounding through your writing, that his actions ring so true to his nature and the path he walks. I genuinely enjoy your portrayal of Cloud a lot !

**Note: Mun’s answer are all to be completely honest. Don’t send url if you don’t want brutal honesty — @ndeavor

[quillfulwriter]

Demisexual Demyx

I headcanon Demyx as demisexual and here’s my TED talk on it. So what does it mean to be demisexual? According to AVENwiki, “a demisexual is a person who does not experience sexual attraction unless they form a strong emotional connection with someone.” <Source>

So where do I get the impression that Demyx is demisexual? Well, let’s take a look at his general personality and habits… Mostly from the manga, where he got the bulk of his development.

Demyx is lazy.

From the KH manga

He doesn’t want to work at his missions or even just simple tasks assigned to him. He’d rather relax, play music, read comics… Hide in a closet from Saïx…

But the main point of this rather obvious observation is to demonstrate that it is exceedingly difficult to motivate Demyx to action.

What does motivate Demyx?

To be fair, like most people, he’s easily motivated by fear.

That’s likely what keeps him at the Organization and doing the bare minimum required to get by without being turned into a dusk.

But that’s what motivates him against his will. What would it take to willingly motivate Demyx to work?

No surprise here:

Friendship.

* For the sake of your friendship

I needed this page, but the translation was a little off. Whoops!

If he’s given a choice, he’ll work hard for the sake of friends – even friendships he’s not part of! Roxas had a very poor opinion of Demyx and while we can agree exactly whose fault that is (DEMYX), it shouldn’t foster much kindness from Demyx to Roxas.

And yet there he is, willing to go above and beyond his normal zero effort… So Roxas can go to the beach with his friends. Close emotional bonds clearly mean a lot to Demyx on principle since he’s willing to actually do something in the name of it!

But how does this make him demisexual? Plenty of people place high value on emotional ties without being demisexual.

It’s all about heart.

SPOILERS FOR KH: DREAM DROP DISTANCE AND 358/2

Nobodies don’t have hearts, but it’s confirmed by Xemnas (revived Xemnas, mind you) in Dream Drop that a Nobody can re-grow a heart and the ability to feel. To understand how this works, let’s look at Axel at the start of 358/2.

He’s everything that King Mickey describes Nobodies to be: lacking a heart but good at faking emotions well enough to be convincing. But as he gets close to Roxas and Xion, his heart starts to form.

…ONLY TO BE RIPPED OUT BY ALL THE SAD IN THAT GAME AND KH2.

Anyway! Why did Axel’s heart form? He was prompted by the things that mattered most to Lea: being remembered, particularly by those you hold dear.

That triggered his heart to develop along with the ability to feel genuine emotions. Considering that template, let’s revisit Demyx!

Nothing seems to strike him as overly pressing or important, as we all know. But he’s far too expressive and emotional to not have a heart and have had one for quite some time.

No one in the Organization took him seriously enough to consider it. And why would he tell them about it? Exposing a conspiracy about Kingdom Hearts not being needed for them to get their hearts is way too much work for him, let’s be real.

But he definitely had a heart throughout the games and books he was in. In the manga, when Saïx explains to Demyx that he has to kill Sora or else he’ll kill the rest of the Organization, Demyx hesitates:

“D-doesn’t that make him one of us?”

To feel hesitant due to kinship, you have to truly feel. Not to mention forming an emotional connection so important to Demyx that he considered Roxas “one of us” after he killed most of the Organization.

In the games, it takes Sora and Donald rejecting his statement that Nobodies do have hearts for Demyx to finally get serious and accuse Sora of being a traitor. Before trying to kill him–

While there are theories that Demyx was dropping a facade in this scene and showing his true heartlessness, I believe this shows his genuine emotional depth (as in the ability to feel so deeply betrayed that he actually wanted to fight).

The manga has a similar scene prior to their fight (for comparison and reference):

This kind of depth could only be achieved by having his heart for a long time without anyone realizing. Now how did he get it?

Because having emotional connections was the most important thing to Myde just as being remembered was the most important thing to Lea. (Note: Demyx’s Somebody doesn’t have a canon name yet, I just like Myde.)

Exposure to what you value most will get your heart back for almost any Nobody that’s retained their human form. For Demyx, this prompt was constantly being near people who were considered just like him and his need to have the emotional capacity to connect with them.

With that in mind, it stands to reason that he would be demisexual due to placing such a high priority on emotional closeness.