#but tbh that could be said for literally almost every kh world

[last-flight-of-fancy]

something something deep space level put in bbs specifically to be relevant to vanitas something

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Just... Nomura can’t write female characters. He never has been able to, and he probably never will. And I see no point in denying that anymore, and I find it weird when people do.

Kairi he’s dropped the ball with numerous times (though I do think there’s been a lot of great there, and I don’t think she’s as bad as people say. Like, the fandom consent seems to be that the other girls have at least had some moments of greatness, but Kairi has mostly always been bad. And I don’t agree. I think they’re more on par than people think. Like, everyone always says that Naminé’s better than Kairi, because she had an arc in CoM: an arc where she was being used by the Organization--and partly wanted to be used, because she did want to make herself a part of someone’s heart--but then realized what she was doing was wrong, and stood up to them despite the odds and made things right. They then say she’s better than KH1 Kairi for this reason. But KH1 Kairi had an arc too, that most people didn’t see: about her being afraid of change because of her traumatic past, and having to let of of that in the end, in letting Sora and Riku leave her. And I think that’s just as valid).

Naminé used to be pretty great... but she’s pretty much disappeared from the series at this point (like Kairi used to be disappeared from it, and has pretty much been Exposition Girl every time she shows up again).

Xion... Xion is wonderful (though you still have people arguing this). And I feel she hasn’t really failed yet? But I sadly think this is somehow a happy accident, and it’ll probably happen eventually. Also, there are days I wonder if Nomura treats Xion well, because deep down he mostly sees her as another Sora: a boy. Since she was supposed to be a clone of him, after all. I sincerely hope not, but I still have this fear. Edit: Okay. So here’s the thing with Xion. There are people who think this girl is a complete Mary-Sue and has no development and nothing to her story... and those people are just wrong. They are. You also have people who think she’s useless, because at the beginning of Days she can only fire spells to help you (but not very well). And eventually she loses her Keyblade, and that kind of thing, and has to rely on Roxas and Axel to get her out of this situation. Some people seriously hate on her for this, because they think she was a burden to her friends. And I don’t think these people get what the point of friendship is, then. But Xion’s a pretty good character. Days is half her story (which actually angers some people, as they think she stole what was supposed to be Roxas’ and/or Organization XIII’s). And she does things and drives the plot. We learn a lot about her as a person, see her grow (from someone who’s pretty much an infant--with that little knowledge of the world--to a selfless young woman, willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good). But she’s only playable in mission mode (the only time she’s been playable to this date, so Aqua certainly beats her there. Which isn’t good). I also am sort of irked that she comes back working for Xemans in KHIII (though I get why she did. It wasn’t her choice or fault), when Days had such a huge plot of her abandoning them over and over again. But eventually she defects again, and does as much in KHIII as pretty much anyone who isn’t Sora gets to do at that point. It’s also worth noting that Xion’s the only girl in the series who’s been allowed to breakdown. Aqua almost did in 0.2, but then Nomura changed his mind about it. Like I said, Xion’s pretty great (in my, and others’ opinions). But she’s only been here for, like, two games. Doesn’t seem to be doing much now...  And since this is a series where people have to do things--dangit (at least for other fans. Not so much for me)!--I feel Xion still hasn’t done that much. At least not for the world. More than some of the girls and other characters’ maybe, but not at the top of the list.

Aqua is exceptional, the fandom knows it. But many of us don’t think she really had any character development until 0.2 (that she was kind of static in BbS before that). And people have even criticized her BbS arc: where she doesn’t really have her own plot or her own unique boss (even though she did end up the main character), and was just baby-sitting Terra and Ventus, essentially. A lot of people also had issues with her saying that Sora and the gang had seen her weak (in falling to the darkness) to long and now needed to see her be strong... only for her to lose to Vanitas, and her giving up and letting herself get killed in the Keyblade Graveyard (some people are okay with this, as it was in response to her PTSD. Others are not).

Tifa and Aerith in then FFVII Remake. Tbh, I think they’re only as great as they are, because Nomura had other people helping him with them: Toriyama, Nojima, and maybe even Kitase. And since he’s going off of the great characters form Sakaguchi, Nojima, and Kitase’s previous work with them.

And Stella... I am a Stella Stan. I always have been, and I always will be. And for the longest time, I resented Lunafreya for taking Stella’s place and thought Stella would have been a better character. Now I kind of find that laughable. Because now I believe Tabata was telling the truth when he said that Stella was a complete damsel in distress (that mostly seems to be a trend of Nomura with female characters. Even when he tries to get out of it), and we’ve certainly seen that with Nameless Star in KH though far (though I do love her personality. And she has given us the key to save Sora now--which I appreciate--and hopefully she’ll do more in the future). The thing with Luna and Stella, is that Luna actually did things... but I feel she had little personality. (Though this can be defended by the plot: she was essentially brainwashed at a young age and then grew up under house arrest, where the only thing she was allowed to do was associated with the thing she was brainwashed for. That was literally all she had, so of course it’s going to be the only thing she cares about. And Dawn of the Future fixes this about her, when she realizes the thing she’d believed her entire life was a lie and now she has to figure out how Lunafreya the person is, not Lunafreya the Oracle), whereas I feel Stella probably would have and will have a lot of personality (maybe. Hopefully), but probably not do much. We’ll see.

And I could get into the other girls, too: Like how Invi in KH is a nothing character thus far... how Strelitzia was created just to die... how Skuld was kind of cool in KHUX, but is now just kind of there... how there have been some consistency issues in Ava’s characterization, maybe (even when she might be shaping up to be one of the greatest KH girls now, if not already there. But I’m not gonna).

Also: This is NOT me bashing ANY of these girls. I love them all--as one should, I feel--and want them to have all the love and content they deserve, that canon doesn’t always give them. I’m just pointing out how Nomura’s not the greatest at them (maybe so we don’t get our hopes up?), and why I think it’s silly to pit them against each other, when they’re all pretty equal in my eyes. And also.. hopefully Nomura could change his ways sometime. -fingers crossed-

Edit: Nomura also has a bad habit of wanting to fridge female characters. It was his idea that they kill off Aerith in FFVII. And now Strelitzia and Kairi. And I think Lunafreya in FFXV was his fault, too (her getting fridged there was probably leftover from when she was still Stella), since Stella herself is pretty much fridged in KH right now.

[luvleekaotix-imagines]

I know its kinda odd but would you be willing to do hc’s for Xigbar? I love the trash gremlin mystery man

I just want to know what everyone’s nicknames are for him tbh. Also, I call bullshit that the blackcoat crew don’t have feelings, so get away from me with that negativity. Nothing in the KH world makes sense, so here, take this.

Dating Xigbar headcanons

Alrighty, look, you gotta sign this waiver before you date Xigbar okay? Let me just go through the questions. Are you okay with not knowing everything about this man? Are you okay with him disappearing every now and then and reappearing without much of an explanation? Are you okay with him going all hot and cold on you at times? These are things are happen with Xigbar and they’re not likely to stop, so if you’re not really okay with this, you’re in for a bad time.

Xigbar has a million and one affectionate nicknames for you. You think maybe he had one nickname for you, but then tried a few more and now it’s just a game to him. You get the usual ‘sweetheart’s, but it could ‘pumpkin’ one day and ‘muffin’ the next, finishing with a ‘cupcake’. Xigbar, maybe you’re just hungry…Hungry for you maybe huhuhuhu

Sarcasm. So much sass and sarcasm. You think he’s never serious about anything, but then after a while, you get good at picking out when he’s being sarcastic and when he’s possibly hiding some truth. Just before you get together, his sarcasm with you is probably better classified as flirtation? Like a ‘like you can’t tell how cute you are, sure, I believe you’, kind of vibe, you know?

Another way Xigbar flirts with you is through subtle touch. Before you’re together, he doesn’t touch you at all, but over time, it’s almost like he can’t help it? Like his hand brushing yours when you’re grabbing for the same thing, lightly resting his hand on your waist as he squeezes by, a hand on your shoulder as he walks past. At first, you think it’s just something he does, but then you notice he doesn’t do it with anyone else. You might think it’s on purpose, but honestly, it comes subconsciously; he wants to touch you. During the time he’s trying to fight his feelings for you, he just struggles to keep his hands to himself.

Reciprocal affection with Xigbar is sometimes hard because at times it’s like you hit a wall. He likes it when he flirts with you because he can control the level of affection that’s between you—he can control how much he feels for you. When you flirt with Xigbar and you’re affectionate with him, sometimes he suddenly gets aloof or indifferent. Maybe he’ll be dismissive and walk away and you won’t see him until much later in the day. It’s not you. He loves it when you show that you want him. This is just him struggling to keep you at a safe emotional distance. He doesn’t want to hurt you, but he knows that possibility is high if you’re with him. He’s got a lot of private stuff going on that no one can know about. He didn’t plan to fall for anyone, but here you are, literally perfect and hard for him to resist. It’s just—confusing as fuck.

That being said, when affection is accepted and Xigbar is indulging, it’s really nice. For someone who says he doesn’t feel much of anything, it sure does look like he feels something like contentment when you play with his hair or when you compliment him on his skills or whatever. Xigbar generally has this very sharp and rough killer kind of look, but when you’re with him his expression just softens. It’s different and it makes you feel special.

You might forget that Xigbar is honestly much more of a dangerous person than you really know. He’s had a lot of time to perfect his facade, so it’s easy to think he’s just some sassy and sarcastic dude and that’s it. However, sometimes you notice that some people who cause problems for you might just—not be a problem anymore. Maybe they suddenly stop or they’re just not around. You have an inkling that Xigbar might be the reason, but he never says anything and you have no proof. Maybe you’re just lucky—maybe not.

This relationship has a lot of bittersweet moments and a lot of conflicted feelings. Xigbar is caught between keeping you close and keeping you at arm’s length, so there’s a lot of mixed messages going around. It’s pretty stressful at times, to be honest, but stay strong! He does want to be with you, just understand that being with you also really conflicts with some longterm plans of his. Who knows what the future holds for the two of you?

[ivanaskye]

So I finished KH3.  Some thoughts, in a bullet-point list, because my brain isn’t quite working well enough for connected prose:

There… wasn’t a lot of signaling to the audience about when the game would start ramping up to end.  Specifically, there was no middle game—there was plenty of low-consequences world-hopping and gallivanting, right up to the point where suddenly we’re rescuing Aqua and then everyone’s talking about a final battle and then oh heck it’s over.

Lots of things could have made this better, but the most glaring omission was an actual *final checkpoint* before heading onto the last battle.  Previous games had huge doors you had to pass, which would actually say “there is no turning back from this point, do you want to proceed?”.  This game didn’t, and it really could have used it (especially since there were some false endings before the actual final ending.)

Similarly, keyblade power levels didn’t ramp up quite enough as the game went on—yeah, there were some pretty powerful ones, but there wasn’t really an equivalent to Oblivion as an actual late-game keyblade.  There also didn’t seem to be a lot of form-changes with minor teleportation abilities other than Rage Form—and since those were the most powerful form-changes in BBS, it’s what I would have expected as a signal for “okay, we’re almost at full power, the game will end soon.”

Actually, just… the transition directly from a disney world to the freaking Keyblade Graveyard was.  Not a good idea.  A full location in between as buffer would have been really nice.

ALSO, some of the final -ga spells, and freaking glide, only got obtained in the Keyblade Graveyard!  That really implied that either the Graveyard would be larger than it was, or that there’d be something after it, or… something.

Pivoting thoughts here, the treasure chest situation was the best the series has done since the very first game—you actually had to work to find some of these, which was always one of my favorite parts about the first game.

The lucky emblems added to that a lot too.

Although every single time I found a lucky emblem, I screamed and/or groaned.  “REALLY?  THAT PILE OF BARRELS IS MICKEY TOO? HE’S EVERYWHERE!!”

Ratatouille is adorable and I love him.

But cracking eggs is apparently not one of Sora’s skills.

Actually, Sora pretty much has no skills other than hitting things with a big key.  Literally everyone teases him for this.  All of Sora’s conversations seem to end in him getting ROASTED, which is hilarious.

But of course, the best roast in the game was from Woody to Xehanort: “You’ve never had friends, have you?”

As always, there are just so many Xehanorts.

But unfortunately, despite that one speech about how if the world starts over maybe there’ll be less darkness(???), his motivations are still pretty unclear.  “Yeah I time-traveled a lot and recruited a bunch of people and created all these heartless and put in decades of work…. because uhhhh…. there will be more light in the world if it starts over!”

Meanwhile, Eraqus: “lol dude, #AtItAgain I see, you should probably stop trying to end the world, but then do you wanna hug?”

Speaking of characters, THE WHOLE GANG WAS HERE.  Literally basically everyone made an appearance.  Which I really liked!

But… the villains who had whole worlds to introduce their return in (Larxene, Marluxia, Evil!Riku, Vanitas, Luxord) didn’t have full-scale battles in those worlds.  Which would have been fine if they had them later!  They were, each of them, set up to become a bigger deal as the game went on… and then barely re-appeared between their introduction world and the Keyblade Graveyard, in which you didn’t even fight them one at a time, but three at a time, like each was suddenly inconsequential or something?  TBH, Luxord probably got the best deal of the bunch, because at least you kinda do fight him one-on-one in the carribbean.

Poor Demyx, though…. dude only had two scenes…

Even/Vexen was also kinda sidelined, but in a way that worked better (especially since he’s had plenty of spotlight earlier in the series)

HOWEVER, as a general thing, the return of LITERALLY EVERYONE was super cool!  I screamed in excitement when Ienzo showed up.  NEVER had I even DARED TO HOPE that he might get a moment in this game, and here he was with several!

THE IENZO + EVEN + AELEUS + ANSEM THE WISE (+ DEMYX???) REFORMED EVIL SCIENTIST CROWD.  I LOVE THEM.

See also: Xion’s return, THE SAIX THING, pretty much everything to do with Axel, Namine…

On the other hand, I kind of wanted more content for most of these groups.  I didn’t really expect it, but come on, if this game can’t throw me the bone of EXPLAINING IT’S MAIN VILLAIN’S PRIMARY MOTIVATION, it can at least distract me with more drawn-out side goodies…

I haven’t even talked about the gameplay yet

Bullet lists are hard

ANYWAY THE BATTLE SYSTEM WAS GREAT, and basically had everything I wanted???  Good motivation to use a LOT of magic, frequent form-changes(!!!), other cool/weird ways to do damage (focus lock, attractions), and of course the usual attack mechanisms.  Some form-changes even gave ways to attack at range!

(I ended up using ranged combat whenever possible, wearing three cufflinks at once for ALL THE HIGH MAGIC.  I avoided using cure pretty much always so that I could keep up the magic, lol.)

(On that note, I used a LOT of aero and water in the early game, because I got those cufflinks first, but unfortunately, like always, Thundaga eventually replaced almost all other magic as the clear most powerful.  Sigh.)

Also!  Wall-running and flowmotion!  Those are pretty much literally just The Things Sora Did In The Final Battle of KH2, but now he can do them All The Time, which really shows the character power progression even though due to video game mechanics, he had to start over at level 1, lolsob.

Speaking of Sora progression, he kind of has character development now!  I sort of finally care about him!  And then he just disappears forever lmao

Having ALL the characters back together really highlights KH’s tendency to have, basically, RECURSIVE TRIOS, which is kind of cool even though I kind of wish that maybe ONE of these trios could have two+ girls instead of one or none??? Please???

Speaking of sexism, Aqua saying “it’s my time to shine” and then immediately getting thrown across the room for Ventus to save her was… uh, classic.

Otoh Anti-Aqua was one of the coolest villain designs of the series

There were Not Enough worlds.

HOWEVER, The Caribbean in this game was the best KH world in the franchise’s history, IMO.  GORGEOUS underwater scenery, also gorgeous above-land scenery, AND SO MANY ISLANDS TO EXPLORE.  Completely non-plot-relevant islands!  That you could just go to!  And look for treasure in, like a pirate!  (There was a lot of treasure… that one sunken ship had, what, five chests in one place?  It was the ideal pirate aesthetic.)

Also the Caribbean had the best BG music.

Sora DEFINITELY has a crush on Jack Sparrow.

…On the other hand, if I’m gonna mention worlds I DIDN’T like, the plot in San Fransokyo was so cheesy I almost died.

Olympus was great though!  It had such good design!

Corona made me desperately want it to be summer, it was great.

IT’S TOO COLD OUTSIDE FOR ARENDELLE, ESPECIALLY WHEN SORA DOESN’T HAVE A COAT— but it was really, really pretty.

Axel’s “Don’t you know how popular I am?  I have tons of fans rooting for me!” was one of the funniest lines of the series.

There is not enough Winnie The Pooh content and that makes me really sad.

It’s even WORSE in that Sora actually SAYS, “oh, I’m losing my connection to Pooh, and I think I know why,” and then just… leaves, like that’s fine??? IT’S NOT FINE, SORA.

IT’S NOT FINE

Also idk if that cat plushie is a character from some FF game, but they’re the Worst Possible Version of Mandos.

(Cute, but. Hmmmm.)

ALL THAT SAID…

I have yet to mention the most important part of the game.

WHICH IS THE FLANTASTIC SEVEN.

They… are pudding.

They wiggle!

They ask you to play games with them!

They’re so cute!

They’re into vore!

I LOVE THEM!

.

Tl;dr: The game felt like it ended too suddenly, which made me sad because it was doing so much to fight my depression.  But I loved playing most of it, and I really need a flan plushie now…