#but SUCH alter: riku core

[system-of-a-feather]

Dude I'm so me sometimes

(Also give me a cookie for doing good theraputic reaffirming and reinforcing of good self care and habits I suck at)

But like

Me: god Im extremely feeling vulnerable feelings and imma tell my bestie that because I need to practice letting thst be seen by my trusted support group more

[princekirijo]

1 and 9 for riku? :3

What memory would your OC rather just forget?

Hm I think there’s definitely a lot of memories Riku would rather forget, most of them stemming from his time with Hatanaka. While I’m still kinda work-shopping Hatanaka as a character, something that hasn’t changed (yet) is how she uses Riku for her schemes. She’s manipulated him into doing some things that he isn’t proud of and he’d definitely like to pretend never happened (which is hard considering the scars he has).

9. Do you have a specific lyric or quote which you associate with your OC?

YES I have so many (I have several playlists for him LMAO) but I’ll just pick one for this ask.

I’m cheating a little here because this is a whole section of the chorus but technically it’s one sentence so:

“Oh captain let’s make a deal, where we both say the things that we both really feel, I feel scared and I’m starting to sink, and I only sink deeper the deeper I think”

This is from a song called Ship in a Bottle by fin which is a song that I think fits Riku but also his story arc perfectly (so much so I’m half tempted to use the title as the AU name lmao). The captain part is a bit on the nose but I think this lyric really captures how Riku is feeling - he feels really helpless and powerless in his current situation and in this case I think that “captain” is actually Joker. Kinda like Riku is speaking to him saying “hey I need to be honest I am straight up not having a good time”.

TY for the ask eheh :3

[runabout-river]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks....

Hohohoho, this list is going to be colourful.

Favorite character in Demon Slayer but only after his backstory was revealed and he got to shine in the future season 4. He's a little crazy, has a cool design, a sad backstory and is absolutely loyal (to the people he doesn't hate). I actually have a fic planned about him (in the far future) where he gets turned into half a demon as a child.

Kai Hiwatari from Beyblade, an oldie here. Cool design, cold personality, hidden depth, intriguing backstory. You won't believe how many fic I've read as a teen about his forgotten past in Russia where he had to grow up in an abusive abbey.

Ling Xiaoyu from Tekken. Not because of her backstory obviously, that's barely existent, but because she's the character I learned all the movesets to. Even years later, every time I get to play the game, my muscle memory activates and I perform her best moves on the spot.

Zack Fair from Crisis Core. I played that game in school between classes. Absolutely love him and his personality even though he's the opposite of the characters I normaly like. That's most likely because the world of FFVII:CC is already gloomy enough without an equally gloomy protagonist. Honorouble mention goes to Terra from KH:BBS.

Texas form Red vs. Blue. I'm guessing that most people from the animanga community have no idea about RvB or only ever heard of it in passing while they watch RWBY. But the series (not the latest seasons or whatever goes on there) holds a special place in my heart. For everyone interested, this is the episode that got me hooked, featuring Texas and Monty Oum's animation, and this is the complete first season on Youtube (made with ingame graphics).

Dr Bashir from ST:DS9. Is attractive, passionate, a little silly often times and has a tragic/intriguing backstory. I always love seening him on screen. Between TNG, VOY and DS9 he's my favorite with Data and Chakotey coming next.

Nightwing (and Robin) from DC comics. I was a fan of Teen Titans, then of Young Justice, then of the comic books and now I have two stacks of graphic novels on the shelfs. I couldn't keep up with the comics anymore, but Nightwing is here to stay. Jason was the runner up.

Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Yeah it's not a character but saying Shakti from the Dungeon doesn't mean much here. I was introduced to this game by my uncle while a kid and even in university I found my first friends by talking about this ancient game. Nearly didn't start writing fanfic because I was just about have another months long playing session with this.

Roronoa Zoro from One Piece. He's awesome and the epitome of cool while still a victim of extremely goofy scenes. He's cool headed, has bloodlust, is reserved and also passionate and loyal. I've watched One Piece since the first episode aired in Germany. This guy is part of my DNA.

Riku from Kingdom Hearts. Every KH fan will tell you that playing these games will alter your brain chemistry. Not necessarily in a good way but they still shake your world upside down. Riku has good character development throughout the games and I like his design, his cool demeaner and his drive to help his friends.

I kept JJK characters out of this list of course becuase I already talk about them constantly, and I definitely forgot entire series and movies and whatnot while thinking of these characters but these ones were the first on my mind so there.

[hyaciiintho]

🌸｡*ﾟ+. Gonna share "P"s bio here below the cut since I don't really have his google doc put together yet (I don't feel like editing colors and graphics and all that right now, but I literally have all this typed up already dfgshjk). I wanted to share though and add to my "Muse List" tag because technically he's pretty much ready to go ✨

I was vague in this, however, there are still heavy spoilers for the game in terms of who P is!!! If you're not wanting to be spoiled, don't read, not even the basic bio on top because? Spoilers????? xD but yeah, here's my new golden child, he's joined the ranks of Link & Riku, and that's saying A LOT right there. The 3rd golden child 💙 I'm excited to write him with others!

Name: Goes by “Carlo Geppetto” Nicknames/Titles: Geppetto’s Puppet, Puppet, Clever One, Doll Face (Only one person is allowed to call him that) Age: ??? (Physically appears somewhere between 18-23) D.O.B: September 19th (Virgo ♍) Pronouns: He/Him Sexuality/Romanticism: Asexual; Demiromantic

PHYSICAL Height: 5’3” Weight: 310 lbs Hair: Grey Eyes: Gunmetal blue Skin: Fair, smattered in freckles

ASSOCIATED FLOWER(S) White Stargazer Lilies

MAIN TAG VERSE | MAIN 🌸 P

FAVORITES COLOR(S): Light blue & Gold SOUND(S): Music & a cat’s meow ANIMAL(S): Cats

By morning, he was born, awoken within the confines of a solitary train in the midst of a city overrun by puppets. With only a voice as compass, and a puppet guide dressed as lamplight for company, the dark-haired puppet boy followed directions without complaint. There was no greater purpose than to prove as useful to the one who had awoken him, and to his creator– his Father, Geppetto. 

There was kindness in the old man’s eyes and something else entirely he couldn’t quite pinpoint. It was nice though, being spoken to with such warmth and gentility. Something within him stirred, if only for but a moment.

His Springs were reacting.

By afternoon, he found himself changing, memories of a life someone used to lead beginning to weigh on his mind more heavily than any physical object he was made to carry. The name Carlo whispered to him in his mind by a voice that belonged to someone who was dear to him– or were they dear to “Carlo”? The distinction was hard to make, and only grew harder as the hours ticked by. The change wouldn’t only alter his form of thought, but physically alter him as well, what was once short and unruly hair now having grown to his shoulders in silken tresses.

His father seemed upset– The puppet couldn’t understand at all as to why.

His Ergo was whispering.

By evening he had felt many new emotions– or were they just being relearned? The feelings coursing through his body, pain that made his mechanical heart ache, lifelike eyes sting with the need to shed something from them– but what? Happiness that rumbled sound from a place within him he never knew existed prior, and anger that caused his body to grow hot from rage. With every new ? bond he formed, he felt himself change; With every loss he endured, he felt himself grow. With every memory he could recall, the puppet boy felt Carlo stir deep within his heart.

His hands were covered with blood, oil, and grime– he wasn’t ignorant to what that meant.

Not anymore.

He felt warmth.

By the next morning, he had been reborn, no longer the naïve puppet boy from yesterday’s rainy morning, and not quite Carlo from those days when he had been alive. By next morning, he was changed– both and yet neither. He would keep the name, though. Carlo was who he was at the core of everything, even if he was hardly anything like the Carlo who used to be, but neither was he the newborn tool having stumbled out of that train anymore, either. 

He was something new, a collection of memories and experiences meshed into one, giving way to someone else entirely. His hair had greyed through the power of ergo coursing through his body, its length being allowed to grow even longer. Though his face still remained youthful, his eyes told the stories of, not just one, but two lifetimes-- and they were tired, if not relieved; There was pain but there was also hope.

'--an Ergo puppet can have a second life and become another kind of human--' He just needed now to decide just what that second life meant for him, now.

His heart was pounding.

[theblueprincess590]

I made a massive analysis on Sora’s story in Re:CoM and I’m gonna show it here because I’m really proud of it. The two main themes of Sora's story are memories and fairy tales. The memory theme is fairly obvious it's in the title after all but what the game is trying to say with the theme is less obvious. If the Heart is what shapes a Body in KH then it's memories that Shape a heart. We see this with Soras and how much he changes after Namine alters his memories with him becoming more aggressive and neglecting his relationships to focus on saving Namine. Replica Riku also shows this with how his entire personality and motives are shaped by the false memories Namine gave him. However while memories shape a heart they can not truly define it. Sora's core remains the same even after his memories are altered. Shown best when he choses to save Namine even after finding out his memories of her are fake because Sora is the type of person who will always help others. The Fairy Tale theme is something you probably wont realize on a first playthrough but once you do you will never be able to think about Sora's Story in Re:CoM without it. Sora's story in Re:CoM is Nomura and Watanabe's take of the classic fairy tale of Prince Charming rescuing the Princess from the Tower. Sora is prince charming, Namine is the princess, and Castle Oblivion is the Tower. At first the story seems like it's playing this Fairy Tale straight what with how The members of Organization XIII all fit a classic fairytale villain. Axel is the mischievous jester playing both sides for his own gain, Larxene is the haughty villainess tormenting Namine for her own amusement and mocking the heroes at every turn, Vexen is the mad Scientist/Wizard using magic to create homunculus in the form of the replicas, and then there is Marxluxia who is the Grim Reaper always casting the shadow of death on those in the Castle ready to strike the killing blow at any moment . Even Replica Riku fits this theming with him being the rival prince that fights the hero for the princess's affection. But then Nomura and Watanabe pulls the rug out from under us by revealing that Namine is not at all a princess but rather a witch, the dark counterpart of a princess. Everything from the moment Sora set foot in Castle Oblivion has been an lie created by Marluxia and told through Namine to manipulate Sora into becoming a puppet. Sora is no Prince charming he's just Pinnochio falling for the tricks of selfish adults. And then Nomura and Watanabe pull the rug out from under us all over again by showing us that even if Namine is a witch she is still someone worth saving. Namine is not evil or vain she's a just a scared and lonely girl looking for friendship. And that is why Despite knowing everything was a lie Sora still saves Namine because his feelings are real. It doesn't matter if you're a princesses or a witch nobody should be alone forever and everyone deserves to be rescued. Now then lets talk bout how these two themes work together to tell the final message of Sora's story. The final message is that our memories are in the end stories just like a fairy Tale. They stories that shape our hearts and help make us into the people wea re to day. and just like stories it doesn't matter if our memories are real or fake because our feelings behind them are real. Sora choose to save Namine even if all his memories of her were fake because the feelings he had for her were real even if they were meant for someone else.

[cheshire-qilin]

Full transparency, writing this hit me with the two hour delayed "oh fuck you talked about it" and OOF but honestly I'm mostly fine and regret nothing cause at this point as long as I remind myself that its now and not then, other than being a little dissociated I can stay grounded but 😂

But full transparency, even mostly remissed having not had notable trauma symptoms in over 1-3 months (depending how you define "notable") if I directly talk about the core emotions of the trauma loop my brain does get tripped up a bit but 😂

To be expected tbh

Honestly the other thing is, at this point in remission, even when I do get triggered the "I am in the present and that is the past" and "Im here now and able to care for myself" is a lot more effective of an affirmation for grounding and self soothing cause at this point, the present is good and I have very much shown I can care for myself - ESPECIALLY if "myself" extends to and includes my parts

TLDR having somethinf to hold onto in the present no matter how silly or dumb or childish and having someone genuinely engage you in it can do miles

Which is genuinely also why I gotta thank purple @reimeichan for being an external Riku honestly. It did motivate me some to go from being engaged internally to being engaged externally as well which was a really big step to being recovered to a standard that I function like the more ANP themed alters like Riku and XIV (and Chunn if you label ANP stuff relative to his subsystem)

(CW: CSA and grooming topics mentioned; should be content warned and all)

(also this is a personal side blog to @/system-of-a-feather)

Why is starting a post always the hardest thing to do?

Anyhow, I was talking to @reimeichan and I thought it would be nice to revisit the topic again and might be neat to share it with those that might want some perspective that I don't see brought up much, but the longer that I am out of the 6 year trauma loop that I was stuck in, the longer I realize that my experience was a very unique dissociative experience that even among "trauma holders" is not really the most common standard, but I also know it isn't abnormal either for people with DID.

When I say "6 year trauma loop" I mean that for six years straight following The Trauma I was stuck in, anytime I was near the front it was almost always 24/7 all consuming flashbacks and when it wasn't it was emotional flashbacks and trauma rumination that overloaded my ability to process things. As a result, the only real moments I had any peace back then was when I was as far from the front, as dormant as I could be as any moment where I had any sense of consciousness or sentience was immediately filled with nothing but pain, fear, and hurt.

I think in that sense, it was an understatement to call myself a "trauma holder" more so that my life as a part was just trauma. In regards to that, you couldn't really talk to me about anything, or talk me out of it, or really even properly comfort me because even if I could "hear" internally, even if I could "hear" externally, very little of what could or would be said really would not be processed beyond a superficial level - not because I didn't want to listen, but because I functionably could not process anything at the point of overload that the chronic state of flashback put me in.

I say that because I think it might be important for those that can't really communicate or get a productive conversation out of a trauma holding part that is in a similar position to the place I was. It's not a personal support issue on your end, nor is it a personal refusal on their end. They're not there to be receptive to much. Please be gentle on both yourself and them regarding how communication might be.

Additionally, trying to deal with anything more than surviving and not-being-in-pain can be very stressful and overloading for a part in that position. We had tried brainspotting with our therapist and Riku (I think) at the time ended up connecting with me when I was otherwise dormant and I admittedly got really pissed and aggressive and mentally slammed a door in their face for so much as contacting me because it deeply upset and hurt me to be conscious even slightly. It was important and I think - even with how short that interaction was - it was a really important step to helping me out, but do walk carefully when interacting with parts that are in a similar state. Anger and aggression are often a response to hurt, pain, and an act of self defense and/or a response to overload. It's important to understand that even the most gentle and scared and "fawn" response parts in these situations can be momentarily internally hostile and/or perceive you as the threat.

With all that considered, in my experience and opinion, more than anything, it is absolutely important to respect and honor a part's desire to avoid being near the front, interacting and talking. If they want to be dormant, it is best to let them stay dormant (not to force them, but also to not intentionally try to engage them). It might not seem that painful or hard or it might seem as a "greater good" to bring them out and make them talk, but it's retraumatizing. They will likely end up out on and off whether they like it or not regardless of your actions by the nature of trauma and triggers being hard to control. Take their natural fronting frequency and meet them there. Help them when they are already here and I would really ask people to be considerate of parts that simply don't want to exist due to being in a similar position.

Your "greater good" and the systems sense of "needing to process it to heal" is not considerate to parts that are not ready or not comfortable dealing with life. Your desire to "heal properly" does not give you the right to treat trauma holders like obstacles to overcome and tasks on a list to recover. If anything, if I had to say which parts needed to be treated the most human, it would be those parts as they likely got the most inhumane treatment already. Take yourself out of the picture if you intend to help these parts, it will likely get in the way of actually being there for them and trust me, we can tell when you are talking about "helping us" for yourself and "helping us" because you actually care and are concerned about us. It is very off putting and very uncomfortable.

That being said, those are key points from my experience as a part that was in that hell that I wanted to iron out as they were things hosts, protectors, and non-loop-stuck trauma holders took a while to learn.

What @/reimeichan had asked that made me want to revisit this topic was about how I got out of it, which I answered like... half a year back or so here. I actually have not read my original reply to preserve the current and present look back on it as that response was written by Rin/Lin 1.0 and I am Lin 2.0 aka Qilin so while I am still that part, they were not me.

As for getting out of it, I don't think there is advice I could give a part in the same situation. I don't think there is any point to me giving any advice to a part in the same situation, they likely don't have much bandwidth to change what they are doing themselves. At least, I know I sure didn't. So I am not gonna write anything for "the part in the loop", I don't have anything to say other than that I'm sorry you are suffering, you deserved better, you deserve better and do what you need to survive. There is an end to it.

My main advice goes out to those that are wanting to help a part in that situation, which is advice that I got from talking about the situation with Riku - who I largely credit for helping me out in the beginning.

If the part is as chronically overwhelmed and stuck as I was, it can be extremely helpful to have a part simply exist around them with no direct pressure or interest in the topic of the trauma or the flashbacks they are obviously experiencing and to just be there as a stabilizing force near them. It can be awkward, it can be a bit of a rough interaction, you might be seen as somewhat annoying, you might honestly get a lot of bleed through from the part and that will suck, but sitting there with them can help a lot with slowly regaining some more sense of awareness internally.

It can be particularly more helpful if you can give them something even a bit distracting or interesting in the present to ground them to away from the hell loop in their mind. For me, Riku found some good old classic Vocaloid music covers and would sit there and find something that would help sooth me and after a few times of this I actually grew a strong comfort to a specific song. It helped a part of my brain in the loop wake up and go "I really need that song" which while small, was a huge step in the sense that I was - even mildly - looking for something to soothe and calm myself despite being swamped in flashbacks.

Finding that one comfort, that one distraction, is a foot in the door that can be a starting point to build a bridge out of there. Once that song actually did good to slowly calming me down, it opened me up to have a SLIGHT interest in seeing if there is anything else like that which made me feel or think of anything other than my trauma. That opened me up to looking at OTHER songs on my own volition. I wanted to seek an internal experience that wasn't trauma or dormancy. It motivated me to exist despite everything to try to get anything slightly positive.

Riku was honestly great at fostering this and honestly, I think they're really stupid OP with this sort of thing because they were unintentionally and just instinctually really good, but its really helpful to enthusiastically engage in their small piece of, well peace and helping them grow that base into something more.

They often sat and would try to remember old songs from my era of existence to try to find again or catch up on and it was fun - even if I still felt like shit - to have those low energy, low effort explorations. That eventually lead to them noticing that I really liked a lot of Wooma MV videos and asked about it, to which I kind of got a little excited and they were like "hey you know, we draw now, I could help you out if you want to learn Wooma's art style"

And that was honestly huge for me. It was an actual hobby, an actual thing to study, an actual thing to THINK about that engaged my brain and my frontal lobe which made me ground a bit so I could engage and enjoy in the hobby. A lot of the time I still needed Riku for emotional support and a sense of stability, but this became a strong foundation of our relationship with one another and they authentically became the first part that actually treated me like a person and a friend in the system through this shared hobby.

As I stabilized a little more and the routine hobby of doing art together became more of a casual thing we learned to do, we talked ab it more about things, often real things where trauma topics came up and we were able to just listen and hear each other out.

(below this part is likely hyper specific to myself and my trauma, I am sharing it for myself and for a case example)

They sat there with me through so many bad episodes, they didn't need to ask, but they knew - one of the things that my brain went to a lot in my flashback and trauma loop was just the sheer betrayal and cruelty the world had on me back then.

(CW: Somewhat raw grooming and csa talk)

I had immense hurt and grief. We were a kid, a traumatized, lonely, isolated kid that was very desperate, very in need of someone who cared about us, who was kind to us, who liked us, that saw us as a person with issues and not only would stay there with us, but actively loved us unconditionally. We were desperately in need of anyone to be nice to us, anyone to be gentle with us, anyone to care for us and love us. We had already been through so much and we really needed someone - anyone, just one person. We thought - I had thought - we had that. I thought we had a person that was like that. I trusted them entirely. I thought I loved them entirely. I thought I found the person I'd have in my life forever. I had the person who would save me, who would protect me, who would be there to build my new life away from trauma and hurt with. Before I had the chance to admit that to them, they admitted it to me. I was over joyed and in less than a week, I had somehow been turned into a sex object and over the next year, I'd be nothing but a sex object. Not only did I loose that person that was nice and kind and caring, not only did I loose a friend and someone I loved, but I had become nothing but a sex toy and object of someone else's desire. All of it ruined in less than a week after what felt like the best day of my life and a change that I waited to change but only got worse.

The world had saw a broken and injured kid begging for help, and fed me to hell hounds that then consumed my corpse for years. My brain never let that go, my brain kept that on repeat. I was a lonely kid. I trusted. I was happy and over joyed. I was stabbed. I was used. I never stopped being lonely. I never stopped being sad. I never stopped being hurt. I was a lonely kid. I trusted. loop loop loop for six years.

(CW cleared)

I was a lonely kid- but during one conversation, I had casually brought up that and Riku had sat there and went, "That's really awful, in a different way I can relate.... but... you know, at the very least, at least we have each other right? You had no one before, no one cared about you, no one loved you, no one gave you attention, no one had genuine interest in you but.... I'm here now and now we have each other."

And that didn't have any huge immediate changes, but it really stuck because it did break that loop a bit, as for the first time, it did make me realize that I wasn't a lonely scared kid desperate for some help. I had at least one person I had a genuine connection with, a person that both existed internally and that I could tell - by the nature of sharing a brain - had no ulterior motive other than genuinely being my friend.

And at that point, I was a lonely kid that did get a friend who was authentically interested in me, authentically cared about me, that was authentically gentle and kind and authentically loved me unconditionally. I had what I had needed that got me into the situation I was abused in. Why would I have to go back over as to why that abuser used me and hurt me? Why did that person matter anymore?

The starting point of the trauma loop had been addressed and answered. The narrative of lonely -> manipulated -> betrayed -> hurt -> lonely was changed to lonely -> got the care they needed -> life???

And to that narrative point, I think its important to sit there and find what is that starting point and fulfilling what that starting point of the loop needed to have it go in a different direction.

But with that being said, I still don't recommend directly trying to figure it out as the part that is not going through it. It can come off as very invasive and that cerebral approach to being there with the part you are trying to help will make you feel distant, cold, and will likely feel like an ulterior motive.

To that point, I cycle back. Just sit with the part, speaking or not. Sit with them and meet them at their interest and rate of being around.

Honestly, there are a number of other parts in this system that were in the same situation at me, and there was a space and periods here and there when we were both stuck in only emotional flashbacks that I had grown to really like, and I honestly miss them sometimes. I very much want to help them out of there which is why I've been actively discussing this topic with Riku and Ray, but these sorts of things take time. I will be overjoyed when they are ready to be helped, but until then, I'll be waiting for them.

Anyways, enough rambling, I've held the front during Riku's personal time for an hour to write this and I ought to give it back to them. Hope this long post was insightful or helpful to anyone reading it.

[ma-tsu-the-male-goddess]

Sora Kingdom Hearts is literal/Sora has main character syndrome (i.e. only his choices matter)

aka

Sora is, will be, and always has been Master of Masters

Some background & initial ideas/explanations: 

[[Key blades are High Pass Filters that judge the worth of souls and eliminate souls/hearts for power. That judging can be based on (good vs bad, importance of choices, weak vs strong, etc.) whatever the wielder deems necessary, albeit it may be subconsciously) 

[high pass filters only allow high enough frequencies to pass, turning a very slow upward slope to Kingdom Hearts created by millions of Hearts returning, into a very sharp jump between planes (i.e. the portal)]

Ex: when a heart is freed from a heartless, the keyblade vaporizes the darkness for power.

There is only one Kingdom Hearts, it’s just on a different plane and you see it through different frequencies (which is how you get different colors/different forms) The ‘true’ Kingdom Hearts is simply breaking through the final layer of reality to see it. The Door in KH1 means that the portal created to access Kingdom hearts is very close to their reality/it's not very powerful/useful from their standpoint, so it shows itself as a door bc it is most feasible to them.

In this case, the KEYblade is the ultimate High Pass Filter, only allowing very Light and Powerful hearts through to the Kingdom Hearts, creating a portal to pass people/hearts up to the plane where Kingdom Hearts rests. All other hearts that lack light/power/sentience are vaporized to accomplish this.]]

Now the big idea:

Sora is the same across all instances of time. Sora *is* Master of Masters

From the very ‘beginning’ he is predisposed to absorbing light/hearts, like there is no way to completely fill him up.

& ‘Master of Masters’ as a title, exists beyond the general flow of time. I.e. Even when Sora is ‘Sora’ his existence/being is still affected by and affecting the other instances/versions of himself.

Because of his circular existence, Sora is able to guide reality based off of his own perceptions, due to his power and connection to how reality works/Kingdom Hearts.

At the end of KH1, Sora uses a Keyblade to split himself into his darkness(heartless) and body(Roxas) [Ventus goes with Roxas to give him a Light] The power to sustain the splitting and freeing of Kairi is Sora’s Light. (Here he is separated from his body for the 1st time)

Then he is put back together, now with no light, but he still *thinks* he does/should so his power creates almost an artificial light within him only powered by his perception.

Wow sora sure has a lot of doubts about how good/worthy he is (almost like his subconscious knows something that he can’t bear to think about)

Later, after KH3 (having been split from his body again during the death/timeline rewind thing), Master of Masters grabs Sora and hooks him up to the Black Box, which contains thousands of Wielders’ hearts and sets off a chain reaction where Sora’s Darkness overcompensates and turns him into a Dark Kingdom Hearts.

(Which, again, is just a collection of darkness that exists on another plane of existence)

Since he is now linked to the Darkness of the universe, he starts absorbing the Darkness and getting rid of the Heartless. (At his core, Sora is still empty/prone to absorbing light/dark/hearts around him)

To avoid Sora’s death or alteration of what he is & will be, MoM locks him a fictional alternate world and time loop to fight Yozora for eternity and sustain the fictional world with the Dark Kingdom Hearts within him.

Over time, he loses his sanity and perception of the ‘light’ he holds, turning him into a darkside that attacks when Kairi and Riku try to ‘free’ him. (All he knows at this point is the need to protect, and that he cannot leave this place, or else he will bring untold destruction)

When they save him and try to remove the excess darkness in him until he is balanced, his levels fall to almost nothing because he has no light at all now.

Eventually, filled with no light or darkness, barely connected to the body he’s been separated from so many times, he turns into Master of Masters.

Alll MoM knows is the responsibility to protect.

His existence, his friends, and the current timeline (which he knows will continually loop because points of time all exist simultaneously.

Master of Masters will do whatever is necessary to sustain the current timeline.

Some additional Proof?:

Whenever Sora tries to make key chains, they turn into bastardized versions of the KEYblade, like he could be nothing else but what he is.

“You started out as trying to steal hearts to begin with, and you’ll end up as me, who is nothing at all”

Also:

At the end of KH1, the bare bit of Sora’s light that survived the experience left Sora due to the betrayal between soul and light and sheltered within Riku. The fake light that Sora has is based in/on Kairi’s heart of light. Master of Masters despises being near Riku because it feels like his soul, barely connected, is trying to leave and reconnect with the light within Riku that was once his.

[nadziejastar]

I’m glad the creators want to emphasize thatCloud’s “badass, silent dude” personality was just a fake persona he created. I think a lot of fans had the misconception that was his true personality all along.

Warning: FVII Spoilers

Nomura: “While Cloud may look this way, he was a dork. I believe those of you who played the the original would understand what I mean by saying he’s a dorky character.”

I totally agree. I think a lot of people aren’t good at picking up subtle characterization, especially since the original game didn’t have advanced cutscenes or voice acting. Cloud always seemed like a dork to me after I learned he really had dissociative identity disorder and his whole SOLDIER thing was just a persona--an alter. Barret knew it, and made fun of him. So many people complained that Cloud was OOC in Advent Children and I remember feeling confused because I really didn’t think he was? He was depressed, but it seemed realistic after everything he’d been through.

“In severe cases of mental splitting when the extreme pain drives that person into disassociation, at the moment the person disassociates from their body, the soul-psyche manifest coping mechanisms to survive. To disassociate from the painful trauma felt in the body, the soul and mind will split into sub personalities, or create alternate identities. These are called alters.”

While we’re on the topic of Cloud’s fake badass silent persona, the way Tifa repairs Cloud’s fractured mind in FFVII always reminded me of the power of waking in KH. I’m sure FFVII was the precursor to this idea. Cloud developed his badass persona when he watched Zack get murdered right in front of him. He dissociated and took on a tough guy alter in order to cope.

Sora turned around. Empty husks? Is he saying they’re going to break them with sorrow and put another heart into them…? Or did they already do it?

“Translation—they were gonna turn all the members into Xehanort.”

“Make more Xehanorts?” You’re hollowing out people’s hearts to put Xehanort’s inside them?!

In order to turn people into Xehanorts, they had to break the person’s psyche with pain. That way, the Xehanort “alter” can take over the body. I’m sure that’s what the mind control experiments were about.

You could say Cloud’s heart was in the Realm of Sleep, like Ventus’s was when he first met Terra and Aqua. He was unable to talk and he was not really aware of his surroundings. Cloud’s mind was in pieces and Tifa had to “dive” inside his psyche to repair him and restore him to completeness.

KH3′s tagline was “face your fears”. When I write my KH3 rewrite fic, I wanna give each of the Seven Guardians one of these segments to fully explore their fractured psyche. A time for them to face their insecurities and fears, and actually show them being healed. That’s THE biggest thing I think KH3 was missing. Before waking up, each character needed a Tifa to help them piece themselves together. Riku got swallowed by the Demon Tower in the beginning. I think the Demon Tower was supposed to be something that causes you to be trapped in your worst nightmare. Then he’d have to face his fears with the help of Mickey. His “other self”. He’d have to confront all his insecurities and his guilt over feeling like it was his fault Destiny Island got destroyed.

Mickey got swallowed by the Demon Tower later on. Then he had to deal with his guilt over feeling like he failed Aqua and left her to rot in the Dark Realm. I think the Dark Aqua boss fight was probably originally supposed to be part of Mickey’s nightmare that Riku was trying to wake him from. All the things she said sounded like a reflection of Mickey’s worst fears. And that darkness bubble thing looked like the same thing Sora was trapped in at the end of KH3D, when he was in the nightmare.

I think ALL the main characters, including Sora, were supposed to get a segment like that to give their arcs closure. Sora would have to dive into the abyss at the beach (the KH equivalent of the Lifestream that Cloud fell into). That beach is basically the collective unconscious. All of Sora’s sleeping memories (of Castle Oblivion/Namine, Roxas, and Xion) would have to be confronted. And after that, he’d have to help Aqua face her worst feelings, which was that she failed to save Ven and Terra.

The whole opening of 0.2 foreshadowed the part where Sora would wake Aqua up. Sora didn’t really connect with her heart in KH3 or help her face her fears, though. The whole saving Aqua thing felt so rushed. I think higher ups at either Square or Disney thought that a AAA game like KH3 shouldn’t “waste” so much time with exploring the characters’ psyches and the story needed to move at a faster pace. But we missed out on so much.

I’m sure Ven was supposed to face his fears of feeling like he failed Terra. Lea would have to face his fear that he abandoned Isa for his new best friends and forgot all about him. He’d have a lot of guilt over that and he’d have to face a Nightmare Saix which would be the manifestation of all his worst fears. Honestly, I’m sure the FFVII Remake will do a better job demonstrating the power of waking than KH3. Which is sad.

Back to Cloud. In Crisis Core, you see a shy insecure kid who can’t even face Tifa. That’s the real Cloud. The part of himself he can’t accept.

Cloud never even really wanted to be a SOLDIER for its own sake.

He just wanted to accomplish something. He was lonely and depressed and thought a man was “supposed to be” a soldier. He just wanted to be noticed by Tifa. And Tifa didn’t know this. She genuinely thought Cloud was just a typical boy who wanted to leave home so he could fight in the war.

She took care of him during his time of weakness. And the whole point of FFVII was that Cloud was “weak”. I liked that he wasn’t the generic badass hero who simply “won” the girl by being strong and cool. And it made me like Tifa, too. At first, she wanted her and Cloud to fulfill the stereotypical heterosexual relationship roles. She told Cloud that when she was in trouble, her hero would come rescue her. Then Tifa got to know the real Cloud.

He loved her. But he wasn’t really that heroic. Even his mom thought he needed a girlfriend that would take care of him. But Tifa accepted him anyways, even when he didn’t live up to her knight in shining armor fantasy. She got her relationship with him, with all its flaws. She was HIS hero, actually. I liked that because FFVII was really the first game I ever played where the main couple had what I thought was genuine intimacy instead of simply the girl being the “prize”. And I LOVE FFVII. After he is pieced back together, Cloud acts completely differently. He isn’t cocky or cool. He seemed humble, quiet, and not so much a natural “leader” type.

Zack was the badass everyone thought Cloud was. He took care of Cloud after they were experimented on and Cloud was broken. I cannot help but think that Lea and Isa’s past was originally similar to theirs after being experimented on. Crisis Core was an inspiration for me in imagining their past. Lea is similar to Zack. Cheerful, confident, resilient, and heroic. Very compassionate, too. The way he talked to Cloud even when he was “broken” was very sweet. And I think Isa was similar to Cloud who is more sensitive, vulnerable, and needy. Cloud mentally fractured after watching Zack die in front of him. I wanted to write something similar with Lea and Isa. Isa mentally shatters because he witnessed Lea lose his heart. :)

[system-of-a-feather]

Okay a little more context on this, but before I was a regular part of the system / aware of myself as a part, our system was such a fucking fascist capitalistic hellhole of internalized brain rot and control issues due to a combination of how we were raised and how we survived

And so like Riku 1.0 was this like fucking tyrant in angel clothing that TO BE FAIR didn't MEAN to be like that, but ended up with a hugely oppressive 'if you aren't useful then [systemic ways of putting down the part and keeping them out of the front and shit]' and like literally all the overt poorer masking trauma holders and EPs and shit were just like shoved into silence - myself included before I realized I was a fucking SEPERATE PERSON (internally, cause it was easy to let it fly when I was convinced I was just a Bad Thought TM)

And so like XIV 1.0 was just like "Aight Imma burn this system to the ground and make everyone cry about their stupid rules cause this shit dont work for me and I aint gonna be quiet about it" and as I got more into actually functioning WITH the system I was just like

Ok well I'm unionizing all the EPs and creating a strike against them until they get their shit together or they let me take over

And UNIRONICALLY when I was first breaking myself into the system, I was originally recognized as the EP / Trauma Holder Union Representative and Leader in those exact terms

And then at another point in our subsystem two persecutory parts that were originally not working together and unrelated both realized they could feed off eachother and cause havoc and we all were like "fuck the persecutors unionized FUCK."

But unironically, our system since I've been around have regularly discussed our brain as a commune and we regularly state the mantra "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" at one another and to parts and keep that as a core rule that is the underlying thing of our system

No one really has formal jobs or roles or anything, everyone just provides what they can and receives as they need it and we will cover one another whenever shit is needed. It's a large reason we threw out roles beyond the ones that are not as much "job" roles and more so "type of alter" roles - ie age markers, introjects, gatekeepers, and just general experience notifiers.

Unironically I think everyone should turn their system into a commune. Its 500x more healthier imo so.

being an anarchist in a polyfragmented system like main system? sub systems? you mean the community system and it's unions

.

[system-of-a-feather]

if you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life what would it be

(Welcome to the new era of the blog where we live with our fiance and thus co-front, co-con and switch 20x ungodly better than we already did)

baby shark (or mr blue sky, slamming head meme version) -Aya

I honestly am not too sure. For me it would probably either be a King Gnu song either Prayer or Hikoutei, Lady Maria of the Clocktower / Ludwigs Holy Blade (@londor ) or... Dies Irae by Verdi. Those three never get old

-Riku

Ballad of Buck Ravers by Refused (Samurai), God by Polyphia, Bury the Light from DMC5, or Gasoline by I Prevail

-XIV

Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso is particularly special, but it would probably be a Chopin piece. I'm not sure which one and you can't expect me to pick.

-Lucille

I Can't Make This Right, Dennis Aarssen

-Ray

The Baddest -KDA

-Aderis

[olivemeister]

the “two vanitas chess pieces” catch people have made is very interesting in its implications, especially given that one of the void gear pieces is the first that eraqus claims. there are two vanitas pieces, there are multiple shots confirming that two pieces with void gear’s keychain are on the board. at first i thought it was just that the piece had moved off-camera as the game continued, but there are shots where both pieces are visible. so while i was skeptical, i no longer am. a while back people were claiming that there’s a light vanitas piece, but this seems thoroughly debunked; both pieces are dark, but there are two pieces.

i haven’t checked by watching the scene again, but apparently eraqus uses sora’s piece to take vanitas. this checks out with the timeline, now that we know that kh3 vanitas is time traveling and therefore presumably returns to his proper time upon his defeat by sora + ven + aqua. after he’s back in his own era (and subsequently has his memory wiped as per the laws of time travel), he’s defeated again and returns to ven, at which point ven seeks safe haven in sora. this lines up with the idea that the sora piece would be used to take the vanitas piece - alongside ven, sora literally takes vanitas.

the claimed piece’s positioning once taken is also different from the other pieces eraqus takes, as it’s standing up while the others are knocked over. not sure if that means anything. afaik we never see eraqus claim the second piece (the one speculated to represent past vanitas), but presumably it would be lying on its side like the other defeated seekers if it truly does mean that vanitas was not “killed” at the end of bbs. if that’s the case, then him being a dark piece standing on the light side would make sense; he hasn’t changed sides (yet?) but is surrounded/contained by the guardians via ven’s apparent... absorption, of him, in the same way that roxas returned to sora.

also interesting is that almost every other piece seen with a duplicate has an intuitive and meaningful reason for the duplicate.

terra’s two pieces were noted basically immediately, and the reasoning for that was pretty obvious from the start given that there’s a light piece and a dark piece bearing the keychain for ends of the earth. while the dark piece turned out to be representing terranort rather than meaning both the guardians and seekers consider terra to belong to their side, the duplicate pieces held major significance and were unquestionably intentional.

there are two “riku” pieces on the light side, but the second presumably is for repliku. the symbol chosen for riku is an altered version of the heartless emblem (missing the thorny x), which is also the keychain for way to the dawn. not only is that keyblade passed on to repliku in kh3, it’s also on the chest of his outfit since he still wears the dark suit. the second “riku” is repliku, serving as excellent foreshadowing of his alignment in the game.

the only hitch in the theory is that there are two pieces for ansem sod; they’re even seen side-by-side on the board. all i can think of as an explanation for that is that one of them represents ansem’s guardian, which works as far as i’m concerned... but that would have a strong overlap with terra given that kh3 confirmed the “terra is terranort/ansem’s guardian” theory. so while there is a potential explanation for two ansem pieces, it’s much weaker than the reasons for the duplicate terra and riku pieces.

still, i think there being two vanitas pieces should not be overlooked; this could mean something big no matter where it hypothetically would go. there’s a lot of potential for him as a character if the narrative is competent enough to bring him back in this way. the idea of revisiting sora and ven’s olive branch could mesh very nicely with how sora and kairi so firmly rejected that roxas and namine giving up their existences was the right thing to do; while vanitas isn’t a nobody, his situation with ven is really no different from sora/roxas and kairi/namine. they started off as the same person, but were split and became individuals distinct from one another. while the details aren’t the same, the core concept is and functionally there’s no difference. we know vanitas has a heart of his own, and while roxas and namine started off as nobodies they don’t actually fit the description anymore. all three of them have hearts that belong only to themselves. the only legitimate difference is that vanitas is not on the same side.

if they follow up on the idea that vanitas returned to ven and his heart still exists within him, i think it would be a safe bet that sora would try again. he already reached out once even though vanitas fought against them. if the writing is good and sora’s beliefs don’t change, i cannot believe that he wouldn’t consider vanitas returning to ven and ceasing to exist to be anything but a tragedy no different from roxas and namine.

[zdbztumble]

So About That Roxas…

Well, it’s that time - time to invite unholy disdain upon myself for my blasphemous views on fan favorite Roxas!

OK, that’s an exaggeration. I don’t know how unpopular what I’m about to say really is. And to make this perfectly clear up-front - I don’t dislike Roxas. I think he’s a fine character, and his (very) long prologue is one of the strongest parts of KH II. But I do find Roxas more valuable and compelling in how he relates to other characters, and in the fact that he is an aspect of Sora, than in his own right. All on his own, I don’t find Roxas to be particularly active or interesting.

And that isn’t a flaw. Given what Nobodies are (prior to DDD, at least), I would expect that from Roxas. Almost every member of Organization XIII isn’t terribly dynamic or dimensional on their own merits - their personalities are one-note (if that), which can be by turns tragic, obnoxious, or an effective foil for the protagonists. When Roxas draws jealousy from Hayner, general confusion from his friend group, some amount of pathos from Axel, mixed emotions from Riku and disdain from DiZ, and attraction from Namine, he’s a great example of the latter. I never find him obnoxious, and when he is on his own, there is a sense of tragedy with him. Because while Roxas may have agency, and does display a curiosity - almost an obsession, after a while - with gaining answers for the strange things happening to him, he’s ultimately empty. None of his joys, none of his curiosity - and not even his rages and despairs - last. He ends up defaulting, always, into a quiet, resigned, and hollow state, and he doesn’t seem happy about that. 

This is true of the Twilight Town prologue, at least. In the brief flashbacks we’re given in KH II, and at the beginning of the Sora/Roxas fight, a different Roxas appears. He’s still empty at the core, but his front to the world is crueler, dismissive even of the words of his supposed best friend Axel, and predatory. We learn later in the game that DiZ altered Roxas’s personality when he dropped him into the digital Twilight Town, and it’s not hard to see why. Even with the altered personality, the strongest display of feeling Roxas can manage is anger. It’s only when Roxas confronts Sora, accepts him as “a good other,” and fully rejoins with him, that Roxas appears genuinely happy and alive in KH II.

But I do have problems with how Roxas is used, in KH II and especially in 358/2 Days. To start with II - there are some pretty big missed opportunities. Roxas was a member of Organization XIII, presumably working toward their goals (to go just on what we see in KH II), and every member of the Organization who sees Sora recognizes Roxas within him. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have someone else do the same? If, when visiting one of the Disney worlds that Sora hasn’t been to before, there was a character who had a negative encounter with Roxas, and therefore fears Sora and the Keyblade?

The lack of any such scene speaks to a larger problem with Roxas in KH II: his limited relevance once the prologue ends. He does come up here and there throughout the play time, which I do appreciate, but he doesn’t really have an impact on Sora before their clash other than as a source of mild confusion. Sora’s reactions to being called by Roxas’s name never progress much past “huh? Cut that out!” and he has no real reaction to learning that his own Nobody was a member of Organization XIII. Had Roxas’s activities over the past year created a negative consequence that Sora had to deal with, that might have invited some internal conflict within Sora’s heart, culminating in a much more emotionally charged clash with Organizers like Xibar and Saix. Hell, even without such a scene, the knowledge that a part of him was a member of the bad guys could have, and should have, made Sora feel at least a little upset. That’s not to say that the absence of such a mini-arc is a dealbreaker for KH II; what we did get works well enough. But, much like Roxas himself, something seems to be missing.

A future game might have been able to address this issue...had it not been for 358/2 Days.

This isn’t a revisit of Days; I can’t very well revisit a game I only ever played the first few minutes of, years ago, before losing touch with the friend who had the DS card for it. You’ll get no views of the gameplay here. But I am familiar with Days; I’ve read the breakdowns, researched its writing, and watched the movie multiple times. And I gotta tell ya - I know the game has its fans, and it may have some strengths and concepts missing from other titles, but I really don’t care for its story. And that has a lot to do with how it mishandles Roxas.

I’ll start with a caveat - I am not the audience for Days. At no point while playing KH II did I ever want to know any more about Roxas or the Organization than that game saw fit to reveal. What we got was enough for them to work as the villains in that story, and that’s all I ever needed them to be. This was always going to be an easy title for me to skip, or at least not take any real interest in. But that’s a matter of taste. Plenty of people take more interest in the backstories of Roxas and the Organization than I do, and this was perfectly acceptable as a subject for a midquel game. But the execution, IMO, is a complete mess. It ignores or retcons several of the snippets we get about the Organization in KH II, to poor effect, and fails to expand on any of the villainous Organizers in a way that might turn them from one-note video game bosses and elements of a hive mind into fleshed-out characters. Axel is given several coats of whitewash, and his history with Saix lacks any resonance when Saix is left as such a hollow villain. There’s no playing alongside Disney characters in a game so given over to original KH lore, and that lore is rewritten in ways I don’t like. The trends of mystery for its own sake and teasing histories and future events at the expense of the story at hand continue, the same few points of lore and logistics are over-stressed, and the dialogue and voice acting just isn’t good (and can anyone tell me why they re-dubbed Christopher Lee in the HD movie version? I mean...it’s Christopher Lee!)

But as I said, the real problem is with Roxas. For a character meant to be the protagonist, Roxas cedes a lot of narrative real estate to new character Xion. Like Days itself, I know Xion has fans - ardent fans. I can’t argue with that, nor would I want to; you can like what you like, and I won’t assess and critique her as a character here. But all I can say about Xion is that, as a writer, she strikes me as redundant. A member of Organization XIII, unusually lacking in knowledge about their life beforehand, wielding the Keyblade, inducted into the Organization within this game, derived from Sora through unusual means, with a connection to Kairi and whose existence arrests Sora’s full restoration from the events of CoM; setting her character aside, Xion’s narrative function is exactly what Roxas’s was established to be by KH II.

One could say that the game makes a point of this, turning it into an orchestrated conflict between the two by Xemnas, but practically speaking, this means that Roxas spends a key chunk of the story displaced. He becomes a friend on the sidelines as the real meat of the story concerns a character who, from the very beginning, anyone who played KH II would know isn’t going to matter past this game. This ends up making Xion more important, and more interesting, than Roxas within Days itself. But almost everything that Xion goes through could have easily been given to him by dint of what we see in KH II. That Sora’s restoration is upset because his memories of Kairi are being absorbed into another being would have been especially appropriate for Roxas, since Kairi’s very name is always fractured in the restoration process during II’s prologue at first, and the process itself is at such a low number despite a year having passed until Roxas is in DiZ’s hands. Those character elements unique to Xion herself, and the conflict between her and Roxas engineered by Xemnas, aren’t enough to justify her presence in the larger KH story IMO, and end up confusing elements of the lore (replicas, memories, etc.) If she had been cut, and those aspects of her story relating to Sora’s restoration given to Roxas, the story and lore integrity would’ve been better for it.

But that wouldn’t have solved everything wrong with Roxas in Days. Let’s look back at what KH II shows us of a pre-DiZ Roxas again. A cold and predatory figure; the Dusks who first come for him in Twilight Town address him as their “liege,” implying that they served him the way other Nobodies serve the Organizers; the Organizers themselves seem to have been quite close to Roxas, taking his betrayal hard and referring to him as “brother.” And Organization XIII, as we see it in KH II vanilla, is a collective, with no real secret about its motives within the ranks - that motive being, in so many words, to let the remaining Heartless continue their genocide across the worlds just so that they can swoop in with the Keyblade, harvest the captive hearts, and offer them up to their Kingdom Hearts in a mad bid to gain hearts of their own.

So why is Roxas so innocent in Days?

That cold exterior, the flashes of temper - that’s not what we get from Roxas here. What we get is a blank slate who becomes a puppy as he strikes up a buddy-buddy relationship with Axel, and who later performs the same function for Xion. He talks about fighting the darkness and asks hopefully if he’s performing “good” deeds. His interactions with his friends show him to be cheerful and open. The Samurai are supposedly under his command, but that’s a detail relegated to the reports. His relationships with anyone in the Organization other than Axel and Xion don’t even warrant scenes in the movie, and nothing suggests that they would deem him “brother;” Saix and Xemnas regard him as no more than a tool . And even though he’s destroying Heartless with the Keyblade, and those hearts are becoming part of the Organization’s Kingdom Hearts...somehow this is a point he needs explained several times? And he and Xion openly doubt why they need hearts at all - a point presented as one to be sympathetic toward, despite everything from KH II and a good chunk of this very game stressing that it is in fact a problem that Nobodies lack hearts?

This is not what was indicated in KH II. What’s worse, it’s boring. A far more effective choice IMO would have been to let Roxas be villainous. Go the dark protagonist route; give us a cold hunter of a character, with the impulsive anger and fractured psyche Sora showed in CoM, fully aware of what the Organization is up to and the price that others will pay for it and still committed to the cause. Then, when the events of CoM play out in the background, and fragments of Sora’s memories find their way to Roxas (assuming we still cut Xion in this scenario), that’s the turning point. That’s when Roxas can doubt the Organization’s cause, when he can begin to question his lack of memories and his true identity, and betray the Organization by setting out to find Sora. Give him two separate fights with Riku, to justify the dialogue claiming such in KH II. Let him develop some awareness of Namine after he gets Sora’s memories; Namine’s dialogue in KH II indicates that they’ve never met before, but a connection at a distance could serve to give more substance to their relationship, and supply Namine with opportunities to develop as a character. Depict the scenes where she first comes into contact with DiZ and Riku, agrees to take on their help in restoring Sora’s memories, and feels conflicted about the moral gray area their harsh but necessary actions occupy. Let her be ultimately responsible for setting Riku on the right trail that ends up bringing Roxas into their hands.

Of course, one reason why they may have opted not to do this is because having a dark protagonist complicit in an evil scheme involving the deaths of countless people may have been difficult to pull off while still earning an E10 rating at most. And honestly, the story told by Days doesn’t strike me as  necessarily the best fit for a video game even as-is. They might have been better off with planning it as a proper movie from the get-go, instead of a string of cutscenes divorced from the gameplay as they ultimately presented it in the HD collections.

And another objection to this approach might have been that a villainous Roxas and morally ambiguous Namine might have been less “likable,” and therefore less usable in future titles. To that I say - so what? I didn’t want Roxas and Namine as characters in any titles past KH II anyway - not because they were bad characters, or because I didn’t like them, but because their stories concluded. Concluded on terms they chose, and were at peace with. It was tinged with a bittersweet quality, but they did get a “happy” ending. If a midquel story complicated their morality, that wouldn’t negate the events of KH II or the resolution they received; it would have created a journey to get them to that point, starting from a much darker place, and given more weight to the idea that it was necessary for them to rejoin with Sora and Kairi. I’d argue that would enrich what we see in KH II, whereas the actual route they took in titles like DDD and KH III disregards or undermines everything that made the ending of KH II work.

[decaffeinatedtrashbird-blog]

How Many People Are/Were In Sora’s Heart?

Kingdom Hearts has been going on for over a decade now, and it’s one of my favorite series of games, so I figured I’d make a post about it. This is a question a lot of people ask, so I’ll go ahead and put it out there.

SPOILERS FOR ALL KH GAMES

First off, we have Kingdom Hearts 1. Except not really. You’d think we could start with 1, but we actually have to start with the prequel, Birth By Sleep. In BBS, a lot of stuff goes down that could be a whole different post, but here, we’ll focus on Ventus. Ventus, before the events of BBS proper, was used as a lab rat by Xehanort (The Big Bad of the series) to extract Ven’s darkness to form a heart of pure darkness, which creates Vanitas. This leaves Ventus with a broken Heart of pure light, which is in danger of dying out. Luckily, at the same time, a new baby is born, who becomes Sora. Sora’s newly created Heart offers Ventus’ heart refuge, and given time, it mends enough to allow him to recover. BBS goes down, and Ventus manages to re-merge with Vanitas, losing his heart in the battle. As Ventus’ body rests in Castle Oblivion, his re-broken heart returns to Sora, and is in there to present day, healing and waiting to be reunited with Ventus. That leaves us with TWO hearts in Sora before the events of Kingdom Hearts 1. Next, we have KH1. At the start of the game, Sora’s home, Destiny Island, is consumed by the Heartless, and Kairi, one of Sora’s best friends, is taken over. However, Kairi’s heart is made of pure light, as she is a special Princess of Heart, and cannot be turned into a Heartless. Seeking safety, Kairi’s heart joins Sora, upping his heart count to THREE. Now, before the game’s climax, Sora finds this out, and selflessly unlocks his own heart with his Keyblade, releasing his heart (with Ven/Vanitas inside it like a Russian nesting doll) as well as Kairi’s, turning himself into a Heartless to give Kairi her heart back. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Sora’s heart is later restored, which leads us to KH: Re: Chain of Memories.

In Re: Chain of Memories, we learn the concept of Nobodies, and although it isn’t explained yet, it’s important to know that they are what happens to the Body of someone with strong will who loses their Heart to Heartless. They start out without a Heart, or emotions, but can grow their own Hearts if they form emotional bonds. Sora fights through Castle Oblivion, not knowing Ventus is there, losing his memories until he meets the memory alter-er, a Nobody named Namine. She is a Nobody who was formed by the special case of Kairi’s heart being released by Sora, making her linked to him, and giving her a unique power to rewrite his Memories, as well as those close to him. He entombs himself, along with his party of Donald Duck and Goofy, for approximately a year within a separate wing of Castle Oblivion, as Namine restores their altered memories. The Heart counter didn’t change, but it was important to know about Sora’s memories and Namine for the next game chronologically. 358/2 Days. In it, we follow Sora’s Nobody, Roxas, who was created when Sora released his heart during KH1. Roxas joins Organization XIII, a group of Nobodies dedicated to regaining Hearts, who were tricked by their leader, Xemnas, into believing Nobodies are doomed to have no Hearts without his plan. During it, Roxas bonds with another new recruit, Xion. Xion is a clone of Roxas/Sora made from Sora’s leaking memories during the events of Re: CoM, and as the game goes on and Namine fixes Sora’s memories, Xion gets increasingly conflicted, until she goes rouge from Org XIII, and Roxas is forced to kill her. Xion returns to Sora, although doing so erases her from Roxas’ memories. This increases Sora’s Heart count to FOUR. Next, we have KH 2. A continuation of 358/2′s ending, where Roxas is kidnapped by Riku, Sora’s other best friend, to be brought to a Data World where he could be convinced to return to Sora to finish his restoration, takes place as the introductory level. As it goes on, Roxas becomes increasingly unnerved, and is finally convinced to return to Sora after 7 days. This is the last part of KH 2 that we need to go over, as it increases Sora’s Heart Count to FIVE. That is the last time Sora gets a new Heart until the next game he stars in, Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance. During Dream Drop Distance, Sora and Riku take their Mark of Mastery Exam, which involves going into the Dream World to save worlds consumed by the Heartless. As it unfolds, we find that Xehanort, aided by his past incarnations via time travel, are using their Heart to create 13 Xehanorts that will unleash The True Kingdom Hearts, and allow Xehanort Prime to control all beings with Hearts. His final vessel was planned to be Sora, so Young Xehanort tricks Sora into going to the Xehanort Hideout, where they attempt to force Sora to be the final vessel. This increases the Heart Count to SIX. Riku manages to save Sora, but sadly, the trauma of that event has caused Sora’s Heart to retreat into itself, rendering him comatose. Riku, attempting to save his friend, dives into Sora’s Heart, where he finds Sora’s Core protected by Ventus’ Keyblade Armor, which he defeats, freeing Sora. This is the final update before Kingdom Hearts 3, bringing the Heart Count to SEVEN.

TL;DR: Sora has had Seven Hearts in his own at one point or another, including Ventus, Vanitas, Kairi, Roxas, Xion, Xehanort, and Riku.

Please tell me if I missed anything in this explanation!

[khantipode]

The Year Between: Final Mix Changelog

Recently, I went back and updated The Year Between in preparation of getting Antipode rolling again and for the sake of my own satisfaction. In hindsight, there was just a lot that didn’t age well. Plotholes, characterization oddities, and pacing problems that ultimately worked to the story's detriment. So, I have begun going through the fic to tighten and refine elements for the sake of my own personal catharsis. This final footnote will be where I keep a log of what has changed, so those who want to know may look if they so desire. For those who want to see the original versions, I will be working to get a backup uploaded in some way or form. Perhaps some google docs? For now, you can find older versions of Antipode chapters here!

You don't need to read the re-edits to enjoy the current fic, as the core story is the same. This is just a heads up for the curious. :)  As of 2/8/19, I have gone over all the major story chapters and made changes where needed. Disney worlds will see some fine-tuning in the future. The Pocahontas climax will likely be the most significant, upping the stakes and delivering a more satisfying conclusion for Kairi's first adventure as Keybearer. The other worlds will feature smaller changes simply to provide another layer of polish (and in the case of Gargoyles, an additional scene with Xanatos is coming!)  So, without further ado, here is the current list of changes...

Chapters 2 - 4: DiZ is much more practical with how he treats Xion. He gives her clearer directions on what to do and how to proceed rather than throwing her to the dogs. She is also much more innately competent with fighting, while her lack of social awareness remains. Kairi also has a bit more of a bonding moment with the girl to better establish their friendship to come. In chapter 3, I have upped the overall competence of the folks in Hollow Bastion. Scrooge shows more of his talents in tricky situations befitting his status as adventurer, and the nature of the conversation between Kairi/Donald/Goofy and the Restoration Crew is more in line with the Fragmented Truths re-edits. Overall, I just wanted to make the characterization smoother and better explain certain decisions (like why they'd take an incomplete cloaking chip). Additionally, the Organization scene in Chapter 3 has seen edits as well- they now know Kairi has a Keyblade, as Axel confirmed this during the interrogation scene added to Fragmented Truth's epilogue. Some minor dialogue refinements to the scene as well. Additionally, there is a more extended scene with Xion, Pinocchio, and Geppetto in Traverse Town. Aqua, Sora, and Ven's conversation regarding all that has transpired has also been changed a bit, though they still touch on similar subjects- the worlds, Maleficent, Sora's actions, and the Organization. I just felt Aqua's characterization could use some refining. Chapter 9: I edited the Xion scene to better reflect the changes in previous chapters. DiZ now allows her to mingle with other people across the worlds for the sake of information gathering but asserts that she is not to be distracted.

Chapter 12: There were some minor edits to the Organization scene at the end of the chapter to reflect previous edits (mostly regarding the situation with Kairi, as previously mentioned). I do plan to polish the climax here a bit at a later date to make the monsters Inc. cast a bit more involved and add a bit more tension for both the heroes and Saix, but that will come at a later date. Chapter 13 - 14: Edited to keep consistency with the Fragmented Truths edits in light of Rep's new reasons for fighting Riku (direct blackmail from Xemnas with threats of a killswitch being flipped on his friends.) Chapters 18 - 19: For Chapter 18, I wanted to keep the consistency with the Fragmented Truths re-edits, so Roxas now brings up Xemnas' threat from the previous fic and is a touch more distrusting as a result. In Chapter 19's case, it was more edits to keep in line with Xion's previously edited scenes. Since DiZ has granted her permission to do a limited amount of mingling, this is reflected in her initial Agrabah scene.

Chapters 20 - 25: These will be edited at a later date. For now, I have added a small edit to Chapter 23 to keep consistency with previous edits- namely, Merlin being more direct of the nature of Keyblade Inheritance in the edited Chapter 3. This world on the whole is due for some edits in the future- namely, a more exciting introduction to Hudson, trimming down the exposition dumps, and a new scene at the end with Xanatos and Zexion. I plan to roll out these updates within the coming weeks, so stay tuned! Chapter 26: Consistency with previous edits and the new Fragmented Truths ending. Since Riku was contained in the simulation for his darkness issues as well as his memories, this is reflected here, giving a greater reason for Riku's continued containment. Chapter 27: Similar edit here. It's pretty minor, tbh.

Chapter 30: Just a minor edit to reflect the edits to Chapter 4- since Xion did have tea with Geppetto and Pinocchio, I needed to reflect that here.

Chapter 35: Since the Replica and Kairi parted on more positive terms in the Fragmented Truths re-edits, it's reflected here. Rep is less nervous around Kairi, and the two also have a bit more lighthearted banter before they part ways.

Chapters 40 - 45: Disney Town's arc received minor overhauls, chief among them being a clearer reason for Rep and Namine to stay in Disney Town- not just to evade the Organization, but to give Namine a safe place to continue work on Riku's memories. Additionally, Kairi and co. have a clearer reason to have arrived than just vacation; a "note from Mickey" was planted to urge them to go to Disney Town. Kairi and Namine briefly discuss Riku's heart and the darkness that went wild during FT's climax, with a throwback to CoM where Nami mentions that she could suppress Riku's darkness, but it'd rob him of memories. So she naturally is opposed. In the climax, the heroes do not use their Keyblades but continue to use their replacement weapons so to make a statement to the Organization, and in the end, they agree to attempt a siege on TWTNW even though Riku isn't ready because they still have numbers on their side. Chapter 46: Two significant changes occur here, both to address plotholes. The first is a flashback scene showing the heroes attempting to siege TWTNW and discovering the barrier surrounding the castle as well as getting overwhelmed by Heartless and forced to retreat. As the heroes retreat, the Heartless abruptly stop moving and lightning strikes. Xion hesitates as if she sees something there, but Xiruk pulls her through the corridor. The second new scene reveals that Xemnas and Xigbar have used the fake Kingdom Hearts to draw the Door to Darkness to them, better explaining why the heroes didn't close the darn thing. Rather than flimsy reasoning (no more easy Gummi travel when KH2 proves this is not the case), the heroes simply can't. And the Org now has a good source of darkness to justify the attack on Twilight Town. The DiZ scene also sees new additions. Kairi lets slip that she has a Keyblade, the heroes reveal that Namine is safe and Xion technically did succeed to a degree and even joined them in their failed siege. He is much more reasonable as a result but remains stern and suspicious to a degree. On the whole, this helps smooth out DiZ's arc. He's no longer in a constant state of judgmental assholery.

Chapter 47: I trimmed some of the exposition here and made this chapter more consistent with the new scenes. Sora and Aqua learn of the failed siege, that they can't corridor straight into the castle, and this further motivates Sora to try and wake Ventus. Overall events are the same otherwise.

Chapter 49: Namine is much more helpful toward Xion, at least trying to look into her memories to figure out why she's experiencing so much of Riku's life. The results are inconclusive, but she promises to keep looking into it.

Chapter 50: Xion finally snaps at DiZ, standing her ground and airing her true feelings toward him over the course of the story. After she storms off, the meeting with Marluxia reveals that he was there at the failed siege and assisted in thwarting the Heartless to let the heroes escape. This gives Xion more of a reason to trust him, and he also reveals where she can find him later.

Chapter 51: This is, by far, the most significant change in the entire remaster. While Xemnas still goes to meet with Aqua, he brings Zexion with him. The confrontation between Xemnas and Aqua is more tense, with Aqua showing much more of a backbone and Xemnas dropping some... dubious hints. Midway through, Xemnas seems to ripple/distort ever so slightly, but it's too brief for Aqua to worry about it. The confrontation then escalates to a battle, but Aqua is struck down by a surprise attack from Xigbar, who had been eavesdropping on the entire ordeal. It's revealed that midway through the confrontation, Zexion had taken Xemnas' place, partly as a precaution, and partly to utilize his powers of mimicry if negotiations failed. Xemnas heals Aqua and bluffs that he's going to send her to the Realm of Darkness, but in reality he plans to send her to the Chamber of Repose. Before this can happen, DiZ appears and threatens Aqua's life (Xemnas sees through the lie). Things escalate further as the rest of the heroes arrive, Kairi nearly kills Xemnas, and Aqua defies expectations by healing him. As the Nobodies flee, the heroes try and fail to reason with DiZ, who storms off in fury. Aqua is taken to Mysterious Tower to heal.

Chapter 52: The beginning is altered to reflect the changes to Chapter 51. Aqua awakes in bed, still sore from the battle. The heroes and Aqua are forced to grapple with the fact that they nearly killed Xemnas, but Aqua's lapse in judgment spared his life. Roxas is pissed. Everyone contemplates how to proceed going forward, especially since Zexion and Xigbar were there as well. Aqua admits that her sentimentality toward Terra was the cause for her actions and that, for a moment, she thought she saw a sliver of Terra within Xemnas. Chapter 53: Minor edits to tie into the edits to Chapter 46. The heroes talk about the DTD situation with the new reason for their inaction and there are minor edits to the Xemnas scene at the end. Chapter 54: Further consistency with previous edits. Namine is more direct with her concerns about fixing Xion and there's follow up to their conversation in Chapter 49. DiZ also apologizes for his outburst in the new Chapter 51.

Chapter 56: The opening narration addresses the fact that the heroes had failed to adequately warn Twilight Town in light of the presence of Xemnas, Zex, and Xigbar. Additionally, the Xion and Roxas confrontation with DiZ has become much more heated. Consistent with Xion's growth to this point, she is much more assertive, and now she is the one who attacks DiZ. This gives DiZ a stronger reason to open a corridor, and to better justify her slow return, she hits her head as she lands in the Realm of Darkness and is knocked unconscious. Additionally, she remembers Marluxia's words form before, which lead to her landing in the Dark Margin.

Chapter 57: Mostly minor edits. Worth noting is that Xion's reasons for staying in the dark margin differ now- she contemplates if Marluxia will find her, and he does.

Chapter 58: Unlike the original version, Kairi doesn't merely stand outside a closed door while talking to Ansem. Instead, she uses her Keyblade to open it, only to get attacked by a digital version of the Demon Tower. She fights her way through it while speaking to Ansem SoD but ultimately rushes into the digital DTD to make her way to Riku.

Chapter 59: Kairi manages to fight her way to Riku toward the end of the final battle. The two work side by side (with some support from the digital Twilight Town kids), and Riku's final confrontation with Ansem on his Station of Awakening has been refined to be more reflective of Riku's struggles thus far, how his friends have at this point surpassed him, and how he isn't really the hero anymore. He ultimately doesn't care, however, hoping to do his best to aid his friends, even if it means using the full force of Ansem's darkness to do it. After all, it's his heart, and he's taking it back! Riku and Kairi work together to finish Ansem, though Riku delivers the final blow.

Chapter 60: Minor changes here. Axel has been punished for his wishy washy behavior over the course of the fic and been branded with a Sigil (though he doesn't yet realize what this means). Xion and Marluxia's scene has also been refined due to the previous smaller changes leading up to her trust in the Nobody.

[system-of-a-feather]

Man, I'm (Fei, final fused state) listening to the Loki Season 2 Part 2 Soundtrack and the line "Purpose is often more burden than glory" really sticks with me cause man 0 if there is anything to summarize the core locus that defines the "Riku Part" in relation to the rest of the system, the thing that makes the basis for every elaborate dynamic and role they have with the other parts, it would be best summarized as "Purpose and/or Passion". Everything about their role in the system boils down to them being the sole carrier and center of purpose and passion and that they are functionally there to provide that not only for themselves but the entire system - and ever since our childhood / original host situation got fucked up around age 7-10 they've been living that on full drive as a host / one of the hosts / one of the most frequent fronters since then.

And honestly, having to be responsible for giving, providing, and generating a sense of purpose for the system - a genuine "why" to keep going - when growing up being abused, being targetted for MC-related stuff from a snake of a sister that was our "only non-abusive older person in our life" who gave us up to predators and left us for daring to be hurt by that, being disabled and having multiple mental health issues, being otherwise a lone, and having almost every friendship we invested to end with no closure (moved without goodbyes) or turned abusive - was both an insane pressure and a mammoth of a task, especially when you consider that save for the first and last two years, they were the ONLY host and they lived through MOST of the last half of our childhood

They had to experience and endure the garbage of life as a teen and then the climb out and survival in college as the main person experiencing it, and still - despite it all - keep their head up and never waver in their purpose because if THEY lost sight of it, if they stopped believing in it, if they wavered, the system as a whole would collapse beneath them. And that sounds like a catastophization, but as a fused state of all our parts, I can say for certain that - especially during any point before we graduated college - if they ever did genuinely stay down for more too long, we would have imploded. Most other parts don't have any motivation to heal, recovery, or keep trying. Most don't have motivation to try to do better or even really live on their own. Some parts - even with Riku's radiating vision - barely managed to hold faith in them to not just off and kill themselves or go off and commit crimes that would end in a rather short life.

And thats what XIV - hell most of the parts that are otherwise headstrong, angry and closed off and/or smarter, wiser, and more capable than Riku on their own - respected the most out of them despite the fact that they're fucking idiots 95% of the time. Out of context, Riku is really nothing special - they're stupid, they've got shitty stamina and are completely whiny about any level of physical discomfort, they are the worlds largest hypocrites because they know whats right and struggle A LOT to actually do what they suggest, they are control freaks and particular as fuck and there are alters here that can do almost everything way better than they can and yet a lot of the time they are stubborn and even though they CAN easily switch with any of the other parts, they choose to make themselves suffer. In our trauma therapist's words that Riku agreed to - they are addicted to their own misery. (Which probably comes from the fact that they find it easier to find and see their purpose better when they are suffering than when they aren't suffering)

All in all, Riku out of context is a very mediocre and an average normal person (a generalist, which isn't bad, but as a stubborn control freak it is very frustrating from the specialist views) in relevance to the rest of the frequent fronters (a lot of us being a lot more specialists in that we have very specific extreme skills and huge deficiencies elsewhere), but within the context - Riku is beyond a specialist in their sheer resilience and ability to always see something worthwhile in the garbage of everything.

In a similar but very very different way than XIV, they never loose because they never see an end to the "why" and more than anything else, thats what really got us to our place in life. Thats why I am able to sit here and be me, a fused whole for the time being, writing the genuine insight to the host of 15 or so years that somehow always kept their head up and kept trudging through.

It's why Riku as a part is known in this system for being the part that no part can genuinely hate for long. There are so many reasons a lot of parts have to hate them, or be frustrated with them, or want to usurp their central role to the system, but in the end of the day - they really believe in the most for all parts of our system, in the world, and others. They see the most potential in others and look at the most dismal situations and "give up on it" situations and both internally as a part, internally as a system, and to those around them, really dedicate to wanting to see people reach where they belong. To them, those they come to know have a place to be, a great thing to become - maybe for the world, maybe for society, maybe for their close peers, maybe just for themselves - and they just really genuinely like to see all that potential grow and flourish against all preconsceived notions of what is possible.

It's not anything "special" for them, it's just their way of existence because its their extreme that they got from our childhood, our trauma, and our disorder. They see potential - a why - in almost everything and anyone they spend enough time with and they love to see that why be realized.

I dunno, I feel like Riku and XIV have spent time trying to pinpoint and explain the nature of Riku and how - despite being considerably average to the other parts in the system - Riku is by far the most respected and loved parts in our system. Perhaps its cause they're so average as well that they are the best.

You know, "Sometimes the best horse is the worst horse, and the worst horse is best horse, because the best horse learns too easily and misses the marrow of the practice where as the worst horse will fail and struggle and yet persevere to deeply understand the practice and when that worst horse learns the practice, he will have a much deeper, much more full understanding and appreciation of the practice" - the allegory(?) from Shunryu Suzuki that our system loves, I think best summarizes the nature of Riku.

[system-of-a-feather]

Me: Watches an anime to take my mind off of looking at my negative core beliefs that I really need to tear down and fix

The Anime: Hey, do you want two episodes directly talking about the two halves of that issue and nearly directly speaking said negative core belief out word for word perfectly?