#i can't draw or do any visual arts stuff but it would be SICK to see liu xiao with no name/the gazing eye

[psychopomp-namine]

as someone who also likes both lc and kh, what keyblades do you think the link click cast would have?

hi anon, thank you for giving me an opportunity to ramble about two of my current media fixations at the moment :D

let's also add a bonus to your question. let's assume the link click cast can wield a keyblade regardless if they have an ability or not (this is just so I can give a keyblade to vein, xia fei, and S1 qiao ling). however!! in kh, we know that you can dual wield keyblades if you have another heart in you (this was supposedly the explanation for why roxas can dual wield, though it does get iffy when you think about KH3... but whatever, that's not the point here). so let's add a spin here where if a link click character gains an additional ability from another person, they can dual wield with the other person's keyblade!

I'll do a summary here, then explain under the cut why I chose these keyblades for each character (because tbh I think the overlap between the kh and link click fandoms is very small lol. who's gonna care about my character analysis of link click characters from a kh lens? probably just a handful of us)

cheng xiaoshi: way to the dawn (riku's keyblade from KH2, though hinted at the end of chain of memories). later, in S3, this is upgraded to kingdom key (THE iconic keyblade that we all know and love, that was originally meant for riku but was passed down to sora)

lu guang: oblivion (in japanese, the name is called "passing memories" — see where I'm going with this?). this is the keyblade sora gets from riku in KH1, and is part of roxas's dual set. later, I think lu guang can dual wield oblivion and way to the dawn when cheng xiaoshi dies and lu guang gets his dive ability to timeloop. post-yingdu, oblivion is upgraded to braveheart (riku's keyblade in KH3).

qiao ling: oathkeeper. this is the keyblade sora gets from kairi in KH1, and is part of roxas's dual set. later, she can dual wield with li tianxi's keyblade when she gets her ability at the end of S2.

li tianxi: destiny's embrace (kairi's keyblade)

li tianchen: ends of the earth (terra's keyblade, upgraded from earthshaker after his visit to destiny islands). after li tianxi dies, his keyblade upgrades to two become one (sora gets this after he merges with roxas). it has the light & dark ability which causes sora to always be in either anti or final form during KH2; but for this post, I imagine li tianchen is more often in anti form (I also toyed with the idea of giving him vanitas's void gear but I think I like the idea of anti li tianchen more)

xia fei: wayward wind (ventus's keyblade)

vein: flame liberator (lea's keyblade). or axel's chakrams, that looks way cooler imo

liu xiao: wooden stick. lmao I'm kidding, I'm kidding. he has no name/the gazing eye of course. this is like, the easiest one of the bunch. a no-brainer pick. actually, considering how no name functions, liu xiao wouldn't really be wielding it. so I think he'd have two. no name is passed around or whatever, and the one he actually wields (when he's forced to wield one) is kingdom key d (king mickey's keyblade). but it's not his main main keyblade, you know? no name matters more here.

wang qing: stormfall (aqua's keyblade, upgraded from rainfall after her visit to destiny islands)

shao yuanyuan: master's defender (master eraqus's keyblade that is passed down to aqua). aqua uses this keyblade to turn the land of departure to castle oblivion (do you also see where I'm going with this?)

okay now for the character deep dives (with keyblade pictures!!). this is just gonna be an essay on which kh character arc I think fits each link click character, so feel free to skip if that doesn't tickle your fancy. I'm just having fun at this point, and we have a lot of characters to go through (or just skip ahead to the character you wanna read about)

cheng xiaoshi: way to the dawn -> kingdom key

you would think that I'd start with sora's keyblade for him, since cheng xiaoshi is the natural parallel to sora. but I think it's the opposite, actually. I think cheng xiaoshi is the parallel to com!riku. why? because riku's whole character arc is about him accepting the darkness and learning to balance darkness and light. kh characters even point out how the way riku does it is kinda revolutionary. in a similar vein, I think cheng xiaoshi is the one who learns this lesson in link click. he learns to balance hurt and hope incredibly well; you can see this contrasted with lu guang and shao yuanyuan, who are the other two people who have used the photo diving ability. these two have a hard time letting go and moving forward, hence the timelooping. cheng xiaoshi learns to let past or future be relatively quickly in comparison, to the point where he decides not to timeloop to save lu guang when he thought lu guang was dying.

sora's whole character arc is just beginning, because he's actually the opposite of cheng xiaoshi. sora cannot handle hurt. he hides it, represses it, and plasters on a smile for everyone to see. cheng xiaoshi actually knows how to deal with his own hurt, which is why he knows to take time away from people to sort out his feelings whenever he gets into an argument with lu guang and qiao ling. this is something sora doesn't know how to do yet, because he's been taught to rely on his friends to the point where he can't handle being alone. cheng xiaoshi also hates being alone, but he knows when he actually needs to be.

riku, at the end of chain of memories, is faced with a crossroad and he says he'll walk the middle path between light and dark. he says this specifically to counter DiZ who asks him if the middle road is "the twilight road to nightfall" and riku answers, "no, it's the road to dawn" thus cementing him forever with the association of sunrise as opposed to sunset. and that's how he gets the way to the dawn keyblade. something something com!riku and cheng xiaoshi both exhibiting the ability to grow through balance. darkness and light, hurts and hope, past and future. let it be. :)

post-S2 and post-yingdu, cheng xiaoshi can upgrade his keyblade as he faces new challenges. I think at this point the kingdom key chooses him. I believe S3 is gonna come down to liu xiao vs cheng xiaoshi, so I like the parallel that cheng xiaoshi has the kingdom key (the keyblade for the realm of light) and liu xiao has kingdom key d (the keyblade for the realm of darkness). this is also cheng xiaoshi representing "hope" ("just because you can't see hope doesn't mean it's not there"). just like how the kingdom key eventually finds its way to sora despite having chosen riku before, cheng xiaoshi at this point in the story is also worthy of the kingdom key.

lu guang: oblivion ("passing memories") -> oblivion + way to the dawn -> braveheart

yep he gets the car key keyblade

oblivion is the keyblade representative of sora's memories of riku. what's interesting is the official description of this keyblade:

a keyblade black as darkness. a keyblade that rewards wielders who share its hurt. its powers will draw out your full potential.

additionally, as mentioned, the japanese name for oblivion is actually "passing memories"

now I am a subscriber of the necklace theory so this is gonna be a very biased reading of the oblivion keyblade. I'm not gonna go into the necklace theory here, but essentially, there's two things oblivion represents based on this theory: a (forgotten) promise to protect a precious person, and a keyblade that rewards the user for sharing their hurt.

I don't think lu guang quite learns the second part yet, but it's something he'll eventually learn to do. but the first part? it's definitely him all the way, isn't it? even if cheng xiaoshi (sora) forgot or doesn't remember about the promise that his best friend will always protect him, lu guang (riku) does. and lu guang (riku) fails to uphold this promise spectacularly. so oblivion represents the drive to renew that promise again, even if the object of their affection doesn't remember it. it's called "passing memories" for a reason.

as mentioned, when cheng xiaoshi dies, I think lu guang inherits his way to the dawn keyblade alongside his dive ability. but since he only has the dive ability for 12h and then loses it, he also is only able to dual wield with way to the dawn for 12h.

post-yingdu, lu guang gets to upgrade his keyblade as well. in KH3, riku's way to the dawn actually breaks and he passes it on to repliku, then he gets a new keyblade called braveheart (the one that looks like a car key lmao). braveheart symbolizes how riku finally feels confident in his "strength to protect the stuff that matters" (or if we're going by another translation, "strength to protect his most precious person"). which, you know. is lu guang's whole thing after yingdu arc. for those who are reading this and are not familiar with kh, riku basically spends numerous games trying to redeem himself after the events of KH1, and throughout his journey and even as a little kid, he yearned to have "the strength to protect what matters, like his friends!" (or in another translation, "the strength to protect the person most precious to him"). this then culminates in him sacrificing himself in KH3 so sora can keep going and save everyone else. don't worry, he's still alive. sora's the one who actually "dies" in the end lmao. which is, well. that's the shiguang experience, isn't it?

to hammer this home, here's the english dialogue from mickey mouse himself in KH3:

I think it's because you've finally found inside you that special strength to protect what matters. sometimes you care so much for somebody that other feelings disappear. and then, there's no room for fear or doubt.

that's YE6 lu guang in a nutshell, imo.

bonus points: both lu guang and riku have found ways to "cheat death" in their latest attempt to save cheng xiaoshi/sora (lu guang with the timelooping and attempting to create a new death node; riku with using dreams to get to quadratum, because sleep and death are basically two sides of the same coin in kh).

qiao ling: oathkeeper ("promise charm") -> oathkeeper + destiny's embrace

oathkeeper is representative of sora's memories of kairi. let's take a look at the description of oathkeeper:

a keyblade radiant with light. a keyblade that will guard you from many hurts. its powers help accelerate your growth.

imo where riku represents "adventure" to sora, kairi represents "home." this comes with a multitude of other stuff: safety, belonging, and so on. in KH1, kairi is the first to notice that riku has changed, and she tells sora that she hopes sora doesn't change.

qiao ling has a similar attitude to cheng xiaoshi. she tells xu shanshan that she loves cheng xiaoshi's sincerity/naivete and it makes her want to protect him. it's a trait of his that she doesn't want to change in him, even if it's something that makes her look out for him more. she's there for cheng xiaoshi when his parents weren't, guarding his hurts and keeping him company. although it's in the form of "rent" (because they know cheng xiaoshi doesn't want to feel pitied), the qiao family helped cheng xiaoshi have a semblance of "home" and helped him keep the time photo studio. qiao ling is his friend and landlady; qiao ling is home. the oathkeeper's keychain is literally a wayfinder made of thalassa shells. again, for those reading this that are not into kh: wayfinders in kh are lucky charms that provide luck to travelers. there's some symbolism involved because it's reminiscent of the paopu fruit, which I don't wanna go into here, but essentially, wayfinders/paopu are like these objects that symbolize the desire to always be together with the other person or to always be a part of each other's lives, even when they're apart.

sora has two guiding lights: riku and kairi. similarly, cheng xiaoshi sees both lu guang and qiao ling as the light in his life.

kairi and qiao ling also share a similar struggle of not wanting to be left out of the loop with what their two best friends are doing, and doing what they can to be useful in some way.

li tianxi: destiny's embrace (kairi's keyblade)

this is the keyblade kairi actually uses in battle! it looks cute, right? it also has the paopu fruit as a keychain, which I want to believe in this case symbolizes li tianxi's bond with li tianchen (I don't think sharing the paopu fruit has to be romantic, it can also be platonic imo).

there isn't much for me to say, as sadly, we don't see kairi fight as much as the others, so this keyblade doesn't get the spotlight enough. but I suppose that also fits li tianxi, to an extent. I don't think li tianxi was ever meant to be a fighter or to play mind games with others.

aqua also gets access to this keyblade after she meets kairi, when kairi gives her flowers. so if you want, you can think of this as a parallel to li tianxi bonding with qiao ling.

li tianchen: ends of the earth -> two become one

oh boy, okay this is one of my favorite picks. li tianchen is a great parallel to terra imo. guy who tries to act like a responsible big brother but struggles with all the Wrongness inside and around him, and is eventually isolated from everyone, making him vulnerable to people who want to exploit and take advantage and manipulate his vulnerabilities, eventually leading to his corruption arc. guy who was failed by all the adults in his life, and clings to the first person that treats him like he's valuable. so yeah, he gets terra's keyblade.

POST-S2 THOUGH I think he should upgrade to two become one, which is the keyblade sora gets after he merges with roxas. this is mostly because I think he's the most likely out of all the link click characters to repeatedly invoke his anti form. have you checked the lyrics of prometheus? li tianchen is very angry and emotional and just wants to see the world burn after li tianxi's death.

for those who are not familiar with kh, anti form represents the darkness in sora. you cannot control when it happens, as it's something that is triggered when you overuse your other drive forms in KH2. two become one circumvents this mechanic in that it's the keyblade that lets you trigger only anti and final form and not any of the other drive forms. of course, in my mind, li tianchen probably uses anti form a lot.

this is what anti sora looks like:

it might also be interesting to explore the idea that li tianchen gaining two become one symbolizes how he no longer sees himself as part of a pair with li tianxi, since li tianxi is now gone. a sort of parallel to him leaving his phone behind at the park during S2E12. li tianxi and li tianchen are forever separated now, just as sora and roxas cannot co-exist at the same time.

xia fei: wayward wind

xia fei is special because he gets the ventus picture and not the keyblade picture. okay, this is mostly because the wiki doesn't have a better picture of wayward wind, but also I wanted to point something out with this pose.

the way ventus handles a keyblade is unique because he holds it backhanded. idk, I feel like xia fei would do the same with his keyblade. he doesn't have an ability like everyone else, he's not playing mind games. atm he's more of a pawn than a player in this chess game.

I also think there's something similar to the way xia fei and ventus are perceived versus how they really are. xia fei is a very two-faced person, imo, and he's seen as "just some guy" but he isn't actually like, completely innocent. although it's not shown much in yingdu, there are hints that xia fei is both sincere in wanting genuine friendship, but is also not necessarily completely honest as a person.

and I mean, is there a character more two-faced than ventus(/vanitas)? we see ventus as this boy of pure light, but watch out! he's got darkness inside him too, and there's more to him than meets the eye.

but for the moment, wayward wind is about bbs!ventus living a somewhat sheltered life and then learning more about the world outside and the darkness inside (or... outside?) himself as he goes on his journey. I'm interested to see where xia fei's character goes in S3.

vein: flame liberator or eternal flame

these are both lea/axel's weapons. I'll be honest, I just chose these for the color scheme and because axel's charkams are super cool and I think vein should get the most cool-looking weapon.

I see both vein and axel/lea as like... pretty straightforward people who might be seen as "villains" (at least in the beginning games for axel) that work for some sinister person. wild and unrestrained in battle, always seems to be testing you, but would genuinely enjoy having hotpot with you afterwards.

liu xiao: no name/the gazing eye + kingdom key d

this is a no brainer. of course liu xiao gets no name/the gazing eye. like, what else was his keyblade gonna be? any kh/link click fan can answer this in a heartbeat (heh).

idk how to explain this succinctly to non-kh fans who might be reading this. so, basically, the events of the kingdom hearts games have been set into motion by this guy called the master of masters. no name is a keyblade he forged with one of his eyes, and this gets passed around to a bunch of people. the eye lets him observe what would happen so he could foresee the future and write it in his book of prophecies. master of masters has kind of a mastermind-y vibe. no name eventually gets passed to one of the main villains of the game, xehanort, who also tries to play the long game and manipulate the plot for his own whims, and is kind of a mastermind-y person himself.

so yeah. liu xiao gets the eye keyblade that lets him foresee the future. of course he does. also I think no name would look SICK with his gothy outfits.

but because the point of no name is to get passed around so he can make observations, liu xiao needs another keyblade that he can actually wield. I propose kingdom key d for two reasons. one, it's the keyblade of the realm of darkness, which is the foil to the kingdom key that cheng xiaoshi (sora) wields, as it is the keyblade of the realm of light. second, kingdom key d is king mickey's keyblade. idk, I know liu xiao likens himself to be the bishop but I think with all the cult vibes from his pv, he might as well see himself as "king"

also I think this fits liu xiao's mindset. in kingdom hearts, "light" and "darkness" are morally neutral imo. too much light is just as bad as too much darkness. connection versus isolation; they both serve a purpose (this is why sora is going through the arc he's going through right now; "the closer you get to the light, the greater your shadow becomes"). liu xiao likens himself as someone who makes friends with people in the dark ("those lost in the darkness are my friends") but I don't think he sees himself as like, evil or whatever. we still don't know much about liu xiao so I can't really say anything about his motivations, but it'd be interesting if he has any master of masters or xehanort stuff going on (I remember going through bbs for the first time and thinking, woah, the phrase "tyranny of light" is kinda neat).

also I just really want cheng xiaoshi and liu xiao to both have similar keyblades

wang qing: stormfall

this is aqua's keyblade!! wang qing strikes me as someone who is responsible and wishes to do good by her mentors, which is aqua's whole thing. we didn't really see much of wang qing in yingdu arc, so there isn't much more I can say. but I like the idea of her being someone who's like aqua.

shao yuanyuan: master's defender

okay this is my second favorite pick after li tianchen. master's defender is originally master eraqus's keyblade, passed down to aqua. actually, it was originally from brain then passed down to ephemer then eventually gets to eraqus, but I'm not brushed up on mobile games lore atm, so I'm not confident in drawing similarities from there.

to me, the most interesting thing is what aqua does with this keyblade. so in bbs, eraqus dies and ventus is in a coma. aqua places ventus in the land of departure and transforms the whole place into castle oblivion to keep him safe. castle oblivion is a labyrinth for everyone else who enters it, and many major plot points happen there that causes a lot of pain for other characters, but aqua is the only one who can traverse it to find ventus. ventus's body sleeps there for years until the events of KH3, where he is then reawakened once more.

we don't know much about shao yuanyuan, but I think she holds a similar role in link click. she's time traveling to find a way to undo cheng weimin's death, but she doesn't have someone like lu guang to help her navigate the timelines. so I think she might be reckless with her time traveling, and might be causing a lot of unintended butterfly effects. after all, she left in 2008 and cheng xiaoshi is an adult now. has she still not found a way to save cheng weimin in all this time?

anyway, aqua's only intention was to protect ventus, but creating castle oblivion led to a lot of things like the death of nobodies, sora getting gaslit and then losing his memories, riku's angst journey, basically the entirety of com and 358/2 days. aqua doesn't really get to see ventus again until many years later, because she herself eventually falls to darkness shortly after creating castle oblivion.

I think shao yuanyuan is a little bit like that with cheng xiaoshi. she only wanted to save cheng weimin, but got lost in her time travel that eventually so much time has passed and she never got to see cheng xiaoshi grow up. maybe she still thinks of cheng xiaoshi as the little boy she left behind, the little boy she'll eventually come back to once she sets things right. after all, she's a time traveler, so she can just rewind back to the past, right?

ventus eventually heals on his own in sora's heart, much like how cheng xiaoshi eventually learns how to live without his parents. but both of them will forever be waiting for aqua/shao yuanyuan to come back to them.

-

whew, okay, that was a long essay and idk if anyone ever reached the end, but if you did, hey, thanks for reading! this means you probably love kh and link click as much as I do, in which case, high five my friend!! you have good taste!! I see you also like strongly themed convoluted stories with lots of heart!!

[monstrous-flower]

hi doll hiii !!!!!

probably super dumb . but i took a gander at Dobuno Awaz community page earlier today and found a boatload of nifty art pertaining to hiz songz !!!! thought i could maybe share them with you . since i don't really have who to show them to . ahaha !!!!

thiz iz probably the cutest one . in my opinion !!! itz toto n popo !!! aren't they just cutie piez !!! X33

therez also theze onez of rana [n yuki] that are really cool . in my opinion !!! i honestly hope they get more songz sometime in the future cuz "Our Choices" . "Ah, This Is So Stupid" and "Emotions Are Out Of Stock" are all such bangerz ......

thiz sick drawing of toto by Geronika [they illustrated a lot of songz for Dobuno Awa . and even sang in "A Cold Town" – im such a huge fan of their art and their singing voice iz so melancholic and emotional too !!!!]

and also some super cute celebratory art from the cast of You will never forget me !!!! honestly . from the way itoguchi iz hiding behind popo . they remind me a little bit more of belle than they already did haha !!!

i dunno . pretty stupid – im rather tired . so im sorry for not coming to you with anything better to talk about

you can delete thiz ask n stuff itz totally cool ; just remember that i think you're really rad n thatz the main reazon why i feel so comfortable sharing all thiz with you – you've never made fun of me n my interestz before so ive automatically assumed it would be okay to bother u with thiz stuff – im deeply sorry if im overstaying my welcome !!!!

Overstaying your welcome? Most certainly NOT, I'm so glad you feel comfortable enough to TALK TO ME! Please don't see it as me being annoyed by you ever, I promise I wouldn't be reaching out to you if I didn't care about you or speaking with you! If I don't reply right away usually it's because I'm usually distracted/etc <3 It's never you! ALL THESE ARTS ARE SOO COOL THOUGH. I absolutely adore the art style of Dobuno Awaz because generally speaking it gives off a weirdly flash game / nostalgic feeling to me I can't explain it. I HAVEN'T HAD A CHANCE TO FULLY CHECK OUT ANY WIKI PAGES (I do recall going on one of them but I currently forgot which) NOW I JUST FEEL INCLINED TO LOOK MYSELF. I think visuals that aren't there in music videos (Such as pictures or other hidden gems on the wiki pages) IS BRILLIANT. AGHHH Spooky I'm so glad you showed me them all. Seriously I am!

I am biased but I still really love this creature from the feature Please DON'T APOLOGIZE THOUGH SERIOUSLY!! If you ever want to ramble to me about ANY of these songs, Or the artworks, Or anything, You know I'll be here waiting for the inbox! Get some rest soon!!! ilysm /p :D I'M SO HAPPY YOU SHARE THINGS WITH ME. I'd encourage everyone to do this

[hopefulbagelboi]

Designing a showreel

Also includes a reflection at the bottom!

One glaring issue I knew I was going to have with this showreel was, well, I don't have any material for it. Eh, that's not strictly true, I have made animations during my three years at uni but none of them I liked or thought much of, and the grades they had received proved that they were not that great. I didn't want to advertise myself using some of my worst work and, feeling confident at the time, I wanted to make brand new animations with my new skills and sudden passion for the project.

Since I could animate anything I wanted I planned on using characters from games that I enjoy and just putting them in funny situations. There would be some of my original characters such as 'watercolour cats' and various bio-mechanical monsters.

The general plot of the showreel was going to flow from one scene to another with the watercolour cats being the visual bridge between scenes, since the collection of game characters doing funny things wouldn't typically fit together well in one flowing scene so this way the cats act as a bridge, as if they're travelling across the world and seeing lots of strange people.

Plot timeline:

Watercolour cats are sat by a river, they begin to travel and hop across buildings in the rain, leaving golden footprints as they go. They look down and see a pokemon battle between game characters Ghetsis and Black. Ghetsis is a horrible person as always and decides to cheat the battle by casting a cursed spell like the evil wizard man he is. Inspired by these two posts:

(^ Not my art btw)

Moving on from that the cats would travel through the clouds to another destination where they would spot a nest of bio-mechanical creatures, even some robot sky whales, and observe them for a little while before ending up on a strange planet with a large factory on it. They'll see an astronaut exploring with their speedy robot dog. When the cats move on they encounter several pokemon villains having trouble with their respective legendaries. Maybe I'll throw some dragons in their too.

I did want the title to have a strange creature using a human as a horse and the human shoots a laser from their mouth which engraves the title on the screen (this was inspired by an old anime scene which I saw whilst listening to music but I can't seem to find it). The ending of my showreel was going to have a 3D animated dragon burn my contact details into stone, because dragons are cool.

So what happened?

Anyway, since I clearly didn't do all that stuff because I can't draw or animate well, I decided to do the heinous act of scraping some of my old animation work together an editing it all to some music (I picked the pokemon sword 'boutique' theme because by watching my showreel you're technically shopping around for my abilities'). I had so little work to show that I had to did up old COLLEGE projects and shove those on the timeline too, further showing off my lack of skill.

Reflection.

After three years at uni and thousands of pounds later the one thing I learned whilst here was that animation is not for me :) and I will not be going into the industry looking for an animation job. Editing and sound design, perhaps, but not animation of any kind. Hence why my showreel didn't really matter to me, I will not be using it nor needing it. I enjoy animating in small bits, doing tiny personal animation projects that don't take themselves too seriously, not big commercial animations that whole teams have to work on.

At this point I'm rather sick of animation and education in general. What could I do better? Take a break from education for a few years and maybe come back to animation and drawing once I've taken time to practice my skills whilst not under pressure. I burnt out after second year and clearly I'm not bouncing back, hence the mess that has been my third year work, so time to step away from all of this and maybe take a new career direction.

My showreel can be seen below, which also gives away my identity but oh well. As you can see it's not that great but I want to put this course to bed once and for all and I have no passion or will power to refine my work any further.