#i love the development of his relationship with sora but ultimately it makes him. kind of the same as kairi

[goldensunset]

riku’s whole series-spanning journey of redemption and trying to become the hero he was supposed to have been is kind of interesting to me. bc he like hardcore beats himself up over what he did but it’s not even the worst thing he did. yeah he gave in to darkness in kh1 but it’s really hard to blame him for all that much imo. not trying to say it was fine but in the grand scheme of things idk. again in the sequence leading up to kh2 he resorts to using the power of darkness to defeat roxas and in kh2 he’s beating himself up for that again. all like oh man i’m not worthy to be sora’s friend i’m not worthy of anything. meanwhile sora has never once this whole time felt resentment for riku and just wants him to come home and really riku you don’t have to beg him for forgiveness. but riku is really trying to forgive himself. bc he’s so hurt by the fact that he ever hurt sora at all. we see it all the way up to kh3 how much regret he feels for what happened all the way back in kh1. he is deeply devoted to sora and it makes him blind to the fact that hey um. you’ve actually like hurt several other people along the way maybe like apologize to them and earn their trust maybe it’s actually your bond with other people you gotta work on. like maybe go talk to roxas actually maybe go communicate clearly with kairi for the first time in years maybe say hey xion sorry for telling you to uhhhhh do that. like

[daylighteclipsed]

Posting my last tag rant because y’all had some great responses to it and I wanna continue this conversation.

Yes! I think it’s safe to say Vanitas has become his own person and has a heart of his own now, maybe. But that initial wanting to rejoin with Ventus is a good example of darkness wanting its light back — and I think this is something the novels touch on, the pain and confusion Vanitas feels when he’s first created/separated from Ventus.

It must be so… strange for the space you once made up in the universe to be filled by someone else. Vanitas can’t return to Ventus. Not only because Vanitas has become his own person but because Sora’s darkness became the new dark half to Ventus’ light half. Vanitas can’t return to his light. At least, not the way he used to. How… distressing. Painful. He has no choice but to develop his own light.

I think you can even compare this to Riku in KH1, his pain and distress at, in his eyes, being replaced by Sora’s new friends and lashing out at Sora when Riku really wants nothing more than to be with Sora again. Riku initially bases his identity heavily on his relationships to Sora and Kairi, and he has to readjust and redefine who he is as things (relationships, roles, people, desires) change.

Yeah, that reminds me of how all the humanoid bodies without hearts — the Nobodies — immediately sought a replacement after their heart was separated from their body. The body needs the heart. It’s incomplete without a heart. It’s the same as light and darkness.

You’re right, I don’t think they ever explain what happens to someone’s light when they become a heartless. I think light and darkness are like energy in that they can’t actually be created or destroyed. If I had to guess… maybe the light goes to the hearts of people the heartless is/was connected to.

Kind of like how when darkness overcomes the world’s light, the light persists in the hearts of children. And also like how Kairi’s heart of light camps out in Sora’s heart when it’s threatened by darkness. And also like how tracing the hearts of the guardians leads Sora to the pieces of Kairi’s heart of light. And also like how Riku’s light, represented by the Keyblade, goes to Sora when darkness is consuming Riku’s heart. Our light lives on in the people who love us.

Sora and Terra are the only examples of heartless getting their lights back, I think, and it seems to be because their lights are hanging out in the hearts of the people who love them. People who miss them as much as their light misses its darkness. So yeah, the light that a heartless once had retreats to the still complete hearts that heartless is connected to. If there are no connections, the light returns to the universe/enters the newest or nearest heart — which is maybe how you explain Ventus’ light connecting with Sora’s newborn heart? Final answer lol.

Sora’s heartless in Coded saying “Hearts to sate my hunger” literally haunts me wtf 😐 fucked up rage form Sora hungering for light, and thus hungering for hearts, because his own light is no longer enough. But the light from these other hearts is always fleeting. He can only hold onto the darkness in every heart he consumes. And losing the light just as soon as he starts to feel it, taste it, only carves a deeper, darker pit inside of him. Makes the hunger worse, the pain that much more unbearable. So he just keeps attacking and consuming, chasing this light he can’t have as his darkness grows stronger 😐

Anti/rage Sora consuming hearts like heartless do, like his own heartless tries to do in Coded, is such a cool concept. But it would wreck Sora. Even if the hearts he consumes are ultimately saved — which in a canon situation, they would absolutely have to be — the second he registers what he’s doing or has done… 😬. The image he has of himself would shatter. It would just go so against who he is expected to be and has tried to be and who he wanted to believe he was.

But it would be really, really cool.

[fanvana]

My super hot take on My Next Life as a Villainess Anime

If you heard of the anime/manga I highly recommend, a romcom how the MC travels to a royal otome game and has to avoid her fate as the main antagonist and along the way collects a harem, a BIG Harem. I’m talking about boys and girls fall in love with her, so if your into that kind of stuff definitely check it out! Mostly gonna be talking about recent episode of season 2 that aired so obviously spoilers ahead!

My hot take is gonna talk about how Gerald gives Caterina that big kiss at the end of episode 4 Season 2! (Side not love the chemistry between Sora and Caterina this episode as well, like I wish they weren’t interrupted/I’m kind of glad they were so they could have more spicy scenes) Speaking of, that. kiss.was. EVERYTHING!

I know there’s a lot of people who think that Caterina and Gerald aren’t good together/don’t have the most chemistry, but I might be the minority here and think they actually would be great together and I love their relationship so much. I REALLY WANT THEM TO END UP TOGETHER.

 Like as far as my rankings go if were talking the 7 main cast, 7. Sofia 6.Keith and it’s not because I don’t like them I just think that Sofia has been more of her brother’s wingman and her chemistry with Caterina is there but to me hasn’t developed as much. And with Keith to me I think that Caterina will always see him as a brother and kind of weird to me for her and Keith to get together because of the way she views him and I know they aren’t really brother and sister I just don’t see their relationship evolving past that. 

5. Mary 4.Maria, Mary just really scares me with her intensity lol and I don’t think she would be a good fit to challenge Caterina or curb her less than desirable traits lol like her eating too much or obliviously being kidnapped for instance. Mary, bless her heart lol, I don’t think she sees Catarina that way (romantically) and although she acknowledges having strong feelings towards her and wanting to stay by her side always I don’t think she will realize that she has a crush until later, and as far as girl coupling for Caterina I do really like Mary for her and love how much Caterina basically simps for her lol but it’s just not as spicy for me.

3. Nicol, Now I only put him this high because I really simp for him lol and I think his adorable and if Caterina doesn’t want him than I do! Also their scenes together are always so fun and hilarious and they have some tension! Nicol is up there with Gerald and Mary for how openly he is with his feelings for Caterina, although still a very private person, he still reminds the other characters that his into the running as well, also it helps a lot that his sister is basically wingman-ing him every chance she gets because otherwise my boy would have been bulldozered by Gerald and Mary, and not to mention Keith lol. It doesn’t hurt too that Caterina finds him attractive as well and gets so flustered around him (I love that) but if she doesn’t evolve past seeing him as just the character from her book series and actually acknowledges her attraction for him, than I see them going far! But as it stands, this is the current ranking. 

2.Alan, 1. Gerald. Now hold up before you blow me up. I one hundred present in season one was an Alan stan and really was not only interested in his development as a character but his developing crush on Caterina. He was my fav and I’m still invested in him and the potential him and Caterina have not only in terms of chemistry and Alan being the only one willing to call Caterina out other than Gerald and Keith. I’m just not invested as much as Gerald and Caterina. Which takes me to my number one, Caterina and Gerald. This might change as the season develops, but I’m not gonna lie to you guys I was losing hope for my man Gerald in season 1 as more and more people got introduced to the harem and it seemed like the writers were gonna entirely disregard the whole thing of them being engaged to each other and Geralds feelings as he was the first person we the audience were introduced and I felt they gave him his episode and moved on. But I always liked his forwardness and respecting Caterina and going at her pace while all these people around you are basically trying to steal your fiancée away from you, I feel like he handled that all well and even if he didn’t he was still very entertaining and likeable to watch. You didn’t feel like his feelings came out of nowhere or that his reactions are entirely unreasonable, or that he got ridiculously mean or too possessive, he just really wants and loves to be around Caterina, and ultimately wants the best for her. The final straw being that someone he didn’t even know was trying to take her away from him so that’s why he kissed her and make it painfully obvious to Caterina that he likes her, I still have a feeling she’s not going to take it seriously, 

Nonetheless, I think this is good progress for the show because normally in these types of anime we get one kiss at the end, and that solidifies to the viewers that that is who the protagonist is gonna end up with and thats on the last episode and no further developments. Until that last episode no relationships really develop and there is no real stakes for the show. Everyone can basically do what they want with the Main character and nothing is taking seriously until the last episode and the writers flip a coin on who the Main character ends up with and it’s usually very unsatisfying, 

Hopefully what this scene signifies is that Caterina can’t be ignorant forever on how people feel about her, that she will actively have to think about her relationships going forward and that will lead to more interactions and flushed out scenes with characters that will actually lead to a satisfying ending, and for that I’m glad the writers did that, plus that kiss was really hot lol.

[a-student-out-of-time]

Connections Review Part 2

This isn’t your average Love Hotel Event, this is an ADVANCED Love Hotel Event

Here we go people, we have returned and now it’s time for the next part of the review of Connections! Last time was quickly reviewing stuff that didn’t warrant its own part and all the time travelling discoveries into the Ultimate Seer Mikako, she is the Ultimate Seer now, not the Ultimate Exorcist, and some interesting visions. And in this part, we cover the stuff that everyone likes to talk about which is Harems! Whether it be Cuddle Puddle, Hotel Akane or Makoto’s currently unnamed Harem. Point is this Blog is a goldmine for Poly relationships and let the looovvveee spread! So, time for some fluffy reviews~

I’ll start with the only established harem at this point in time which is the Cuddle Puddle! Hotel Akane is planned for but still in development and we don’t even know if Makoto will be willing to go for a harem. So, the big major event which happens here is Hajime fixing the issues with Hiyoko’s family. She has serious issues with her grandmother as she forbids her from seeing her parents, and while Hiyoko can’t give a rat’s arse about her mother, she very much cares about her father, and as heir of her clan, Hiyoko has to marry a man of suitable status which Hajime doesn’t fulfil. So, with Izumi summoning Hiyoko back home to have a talk, Hajime joins her in order to try and get the racist boomer to approve of their relationship, and allow Hiyoko to see her parents, or her father to be more precise. This was a welcome relief mission because having fought two serial killers, busted a human trafficking ring and about to fight a cult, just talking to a racist problematic member of one of his girlfriend’s family is a very light mission for Hajime. Plus, because we all don’t like boomers having a boomer being called out for their racist and out of touch ways is catharsis at best. It helps that not all of the Sannoji family is completely terrible as Monoko and Teru, relatives of Hiyoko were more open minded, and agreed with Hiyoko and Hajime’s sentiments and if they weren’t there, I don’t think the meeting with Izumi would have gone well.

Thankfully, Hajime & Hiyoko, with the help of Momoko and Teru, were able to get Izumi to bless their relationship and since Sannoijis marry young, as soon as Hiyoko graduates, or ‘graduates’ because remember Hopes Peak Academy will only remain open for as long as Junko lurks and as soon as she’s defeated, Nikei’s article on why Hope’s Peak Academy is twisted and corrupted will be put up and the school won’t last long, she wants to marry Hajime. This brings up a legal problem with the Cuddle Puddle as Poly relationships are illegal in Japan, in fact I think they’re illegal in a lot of countries. Novoselic which is Sonia’s kingdom its legal, but Sonia can’t ask for everyone to uproot their lives and move there. The temporary solution is for everyone not named Sonia and Gundham to legally change their last name to Hinata, Hajime marries Hiyoko and when Kiyotaka becomes Prime Minister and he legalizes Poly Marriage, marry the other girls then. That’s a long-term solution though.

As for the rest of the Cuddle Puddle, they are bonding well. Gundham got a bit of focus on this Arc and I’m glad for it. The biggest issues with the Cuddle Puddle as it is very Hajime-centric but we don’t see how the girls interact with each other or even Gundham as he’s the other male in the harem as well. Gundham himself doesn’t get many interactions aside from Hajime and Sonia, so seeing him open up to Hibiki about his past and she comforting his worries about Storm is heart-warming. I always knew that Hibiki had a strong liking for Gundham as even back during the Concert Arc when Sonia and Gundham met the Otonokoji twins on their independent mission to find the ‘stalker’ of them, Hibiki took a liking to Gundham’s Chuunibyou nature almost immediately, and given all the growth that Hibiki has gone through since then, she is now in a position to comfort others much like how she was comforted by them. Gundham’s backstory is the usual brand of familial outcast and a devoted mother who gave her life into Gundham that too many people in the Quantum Crew have. Kodaka did say one of the pillars of being a Danganronpa character is having a broken family and it shows.

While the Cuddle Puddle got some development, it won’t be the only harem this blog has so let’s look at the founding of a new one, which is Hotel Akane. It’s an unofficial rule that the protagonists of the Killing Games get their own harems, but Sora doesn’t want a harem as she is content with having a relationship with just Yoruko so she transferred her ‘harem rights’ to Akane, who being one of the horniest members of the cast, is more then happy for that. Akane is seeing Ayame at the moment but they haven’t officially started dating yet, its still in the friendship phase at the moment. This will develop into romance at some point though, but Akane is considerate enough to go things at a gradual pace. Yuki makes his first appearance in this arc as well as he shops at the new supermarket that Akane is working for, and we get to see Sora’s conflict over Yuki. Due to Sora’s purpose in the Killing Game, being created to protect Yuki until Mikado could break him, she is worried as she doesn’t know how much of her affection for Yuki is of her free will or due to the protocols that Mikado programmed into her. Akane reassures her that her love for Yuki is of free will as when Sora broke free from Mikado’s programming shackles, her first act was to protect Yuki from Mikado, and the two did genuinely bond over the course of the Killing Game. As such Akane meeting and potentially getting romantically involved with Yuki is A-OK in Sora’s books. But of course, that’s not the relationship you guys care about. You care about Servant’s Column AKA the relationship between Akane and Nikei. And quite a lot of progress was made there as we get to see how conflicted our poor reporter is. Due to Nikei’s highly disturbing backstory, he is unsure on what his sexual ordination is. The other Voids know where they swing but Nikei despite his best efforts doesn’t know what his type is. This isn’t a situation that is going to be resolved quickly as victims of sexual abuse do struggle with sexual identity and I could see a situation when Nikei winds up being asexual as a result of the whole thing. We know that Nikei has a habit on crushing on anyone who is remotely kind to him, something I relate to on a personal level, and that he’s okay with PDAs, but anything sexual is completely off limits to him as it would give Nikei traumatic flashbacks to his past. Given the strong likelihood of Miaya getting involved next arc, he really needs to speak to her as she could help him with getting to gripes with his past and sexual identity and allow himself to heal. And Nikei does need to learn how to be comfortable with himself before he can be okay with entering a relationship with Akane.

And now for the last harem and the only one without a name and that is Makoto’s harem. Thing is though, this is the harem I’m the most on the fence about. Because…is it going to exist? Cuddle Puddle are a thing, Hotel Akane is going to be a thing, but Makoto hasn’t made any noises about wanting to get into relationships with other girls, he’s may just be content having a relationship with Iroha. Granted he hasn’t even met the other girls who would be part of his harem and he won’t for a while so maybe attitudes change once the other girls become aware of him and he starts talking to them. The big event regarding this is that Makoto Naegi’s Worst Day ever happens during this Arc, which is the highly elaborate chain of events which leads to Makoto entering Hope’s Peak. I won’t talk much about this; it goes like it does in canon and just read it up online if you want details. Iroha wants to help Makoto during this but due to the enormous butterfly effects resulting from it, no interference can be done and it’s probably the only time we allow the Ankle Effect to make its noises. The results shows that the Ankle Effect isn’t an inherently evil force, it just wants history to stay the same. Unfortunately, history is tainted and the world would end if it is prevented so the Quantum Crew do have to meddle. The one thing Iroha CAN do with Makoto on his worst day ever is to comfort him and make his night memorable for all the right reasons. He is going to be a character though who would become more centric to the plot as soon as Junko enters the scene…unless things happen and he gets in sooner. I could see Makoto getting tangled up with dealing with Mikado as he has some association with the Voids now, and I think Makoto will NOT sit ideally if Mikado tries to mess with the Voids. As for Storm…I dunno.

And that’s all the harem developments, Hajime resolves Hiyoko’s family issues, Gundham exists in the Cuddle Puddle, Sora has Yuki identity problems, Nikei really needs as much hugs as possible and Makoto has an awful day, but he gets to be in line to being the hero of civilization and makes out with Iroha so all is good! At this point I would normally make my rankings but then a certain Motherfucker decided to get more screen time and thus he needs his own part. When we come back, I will discuss the most problematic part of the Arc, which is Maverick Storm. Until then byeeeee! - Review Anon

[panharmonium]

round 3 of in-progress naruto thoughts, featuring me crying tears about pretty much everybody

[spoiler policy disclaimer first, as always: i’m only still in the early stages of shippuden (we just finished the asuma arc).  i literally had zero interest in naruto growing up, so i remain unspoiled for virtually everything that happens past this point.  i would love to stay that way, so please don’t interact with this (tags included, because the notifications now show them to me automatically) with any spoilery commentary, including even general things like “oh i love this show but it gets less good after X point” or “X season is better than Y season” or any general assessments of quality/likability/etc re: future seasons.  Thank you! <3 ]

- well, folks.  i have apparently reached the point in my viewing experience where i am deeply emotionally attached to virtually all of the characters and i care when bad stuff happens to even the most minor of them, because the asuma arc really ripped my heart out and used my feelings as ping-pong balls

- that said - i have to admit, if you’re going to kill a character, that was the way to handle it.  it wasn’t glossed over or dropped like a hot potato; it had a huge arc attached to it and major development for the other characters involved and it came full circle at the end in such a quiet, complete way.  i was hoping from the very beginning that the answer to “who’s the king” was going to be “children” (all i could think about was asuma yelling at kazuma “children aren’t pawns to protect the king!” during the sora arc) and ultimately that ended up being true, and i found that so satisfying.  (painful.  but satisfying.)

- SHIKAMARU.  HERO.  i always loved him, but what an incredible arc he had.  and that episode, “team 10″ - WOW.  wow.  they really kicked it up a notch for that one - that was legitimately beautiful television, not just “good by naruto standards.”  gorgeous animation/composition/editing...this show is in fact capable of magic, when it takes its time.

- grow up, you three.  the shadow of death hangs over us all.  some deaths may be harder to accept than others, but if you can’t get past that, there can be no future!  

^^ this is legitimately my favorite line of the series.  i can’t stop thinking about it.  i love how tsunade is speaking from her own experience, and how she’s not wrong - nobody in this confrontation is wrong, really; shikamaru has his stuff more together than tsunade realizes, and tsunade is just telling the truth, and i just love how this entire line relates so closely to the thematic heart of this arc, which is the sanctity of children and the future they represent.  like...so many characters in this show have seen so much death and tragedy, but we see children/the promise of the future pulling people out of that hole and back into a hopeful place.  it’s literally tsunade’s whole story with naruto.  she’s speaking from the heart, and it’s one of those lines that you can feel resonate across the whole story.

- kakashi, once again, coming to destroy me with his level of devotion to the kids.  not even his own kids, this time.  when he shows up at the end of “team 10″ and offers to take over for asuma and go with shikamaru’s group - i lost my mind.  he’s been keeping an eye on those kids the whole time.  nobody told him about what they were doing; he has no reason to be out at the gates at that time of night - he’s been keeping tabs on them.  he knows exactly what they’re going through.  he knows how they must feel.  he wants to make sure they’re okay.  and when he sees that they’re in an appropriate frame of mind for what they’re planning (aka, not unbalanced by rage or grief or the desire for revenge), he immediately offers himself up as an adult support figure.  he inserts himself into that situation and assumes responsibility for making sure nobody gets hurt.  he puts himself into a position where he can escort them through this experience safely (in more ways than one).  he lets shikamaru take the lead and achieve closure, all while simultaneously monitoring the situation to make sure every choice the group makes is the safest, smartest thing to do.  and then in the battle, he puts himself in between the kids and certain death over and over again - he saves their lives so many times. 

the kids are so grateful to him for doing that.  they respect him so much for it.  they feel supported.  they feel looked after.  they feel validated.  three kids who just lost their adult mentor in such a sudden, violent way - for them to have another grown-up step in and temporarily assume that role, for them to feel a pair of capable, steady hands propping them up before they fall down - that is so important!

kakashi is beautiful to me because he takes every horrible thing that ever happened to him and turns it into an unwavering commitment to help other people navigate the same rocky waters.  everything he does is designed to catch people when they fall, particularly when it comes to children.  he doesn’t have to take that kind of interest in asuma’s team.  none of the other adults are monitoring them like that.  but he understands what they’re dealing with and he knows they could hurt themselves if somebody doesn’t take care of them and so he steps in and assumes that responsibility himself.  and then he does the same thing with team 8′s kids, too, in the next arc, when kurenai is out of commission.  he takes all of his own painful experiences and turns them into ways he can protect other people from stumbling into the same pits he fell into, and i’ll tell you this for damn sure - he’d rather take a deadly hit himself than allow another cohort of children to be wiped off the face of the earth before their time. 

i love that about him.  i love that he turns all of the trouble he’s seen into ways he can be a source of strength for others.  i love that he is always thinking about the kids.  that’s the whole point of this arc: children are king.  kakashi knows that just as well as asuma did, and the way he consistently throws himself in front of the children to keep them safe is my favorite thing about him.

- fucking LOVE that shikamaru turns down the feudal lord’s offer because he wants to stay in the village in case his friends need him.  i feel like this kind of choice is never portrayed as a good thing in media - it’s always shown to be better to get yourself out there, try something new, leave old things behind, take a risk, make a change, as if staying home is somehow the same thing as settling or wasting your potential.  i love how asuma lifts up shikamaru’s decision to stay rooted in his home as a worthy and admirable thing.  the will of fire, indeed.

- the EMOTIONS i felt every time kakashi was helping naruto figure out how to complete the rasengan....when kakashi tells him “i truly believe you are the only shinobi who can surpass the fourth hokage” and then while walking away yamato’s all “you sweet-talked him” and kakashi immediately sets him straight like “no.  no.  i believe he can do it.”  SOBBING.  

- “good old asuma.  he must’ve known you inside and out, huh?”  i’ll be over here crying in the club, folks

- kakashi having conversations with sasuke in his head was Too Much for me ;__;

- we watched a bit past the asuma arc and are now into the part about the gemstone lady but the only thing i have to say about this new arc so far is about jiraiya and honestly i’m going to have to gif it to do it justice.  that scene with him and naruto where naruto falls asleep on him just...struck me down where i sat.  i was actually about ready to cry for real.  my feelings couldn’t take it.  i used to not really care too much about jiraiya in the shonen jump days (and yes, there’s some stupid stuff with him that you have to just look past if you’re going to enjoy things) but i love him so much now and i am finding myself so moved by the way he is rejoining the village and (re)building his connections with the people there, and how much meaning has been brought back into his life by the opportunity to work with naruto in particular, and how like...i mean, this is just my own impression, because i haven’t seen his full backstory yet, but he strikes me as someone who’s been running away for a long time, who had very little hope for the future, someone who experienced some terrible things and gave up, just like tsunade, until he runs into naruto.  and now things have changed for him, and it warms my heart to see it.  i love watching him take naruto on training field trips, and i love the depth of care we see from him towards naruto now - a far cry from the “i don’t like kids” of early shonen jump.  i love seeing him collaborate with kakashi - tag-teaming their teaching and climbing in through the window to check on him in the hospital and teasing him about how silly he looks with a sheet over his nose.  i’ve just become so touched by his progression and by the way the establishment of these relationships with “his” kids and the village as a whole (bonds, connections, all the things that this show can’t shut up about) has almost been a...healing sort of thing for him and has changed his entire outlook on life and given him a new sense of hope/meaning.  

like.  i can’t believe i am out here having jiraiya emotions after how little i cared about him when i first met him, but...here i am.  

[smartzelda]

Hey, so I'm gonna elaborate on this quote by Hashimoto. Turns out every game from bbs to the end of kh3 limit cut has to do with exactly what he says right there about Sora an Riku. Stay with me on this

Yeah, @xionshadow @minwuwhite @salted-coffee-beans @lovingthatgayshit and everyone else, I essayed again. Keep in mind there aren't quotes in this, it's more of a ramble of events and such

BBS: Riku and Sora are together being best friends and have a focus due to the keyblade, light, Terra and Aqua. Kairi is by her self and meets aqua. Yeah Aqua puts a spell on her necklace that ultimately leads her to Riku and Sora, but at this point in time it's unknown to them who the person to protect Kairi would be. Also, evidence is always thrown in here that Aqua doing that is so//*ai cause it leads Kairi to Sora, but really the hope is she leads to the keyblade weilder (yknow, on xehanort's end) who is technically Riku before kh1 events, and Aqua makes no romantic mention. It's just supposed to be someone with a strong enough light to protect her, not HER protector as in love or something or as in Sora or Riku being her prince.

Kh1: Sora and Riku have friendship problems and Riku has some jealousy. At the end they close the door, Riku's sad over realizing bad stuff he did, Sora has flashbacks to him and Riku spending time together and promises to go get him and come back with him so the 3 friends can spend time together. Kairi has only a few moments, including her joint saving Sora as of kh3 knowledge, her wanting to share a paopu too, and just her giving Sora the lucky charm and knowing that he'll return it. There's also Riku trying to find Kairi. Arguably, this game is the most we get of 3 friends, they're a trio, even on Sora's end. Sora goes through the worlds searching for both of his friends. But even then, Kairi isn't there 80% of the game. The friendship end is covered, but besides those moments where Sora has Kairi visions of her talking to him, he doesn't reference her. On the other hand, he meets Riku more than once, and we get to see Riku's fears evolve and his fear of replacement. We get Sora accepting him almost the whole time and Riku siding with darkness. We get moments like the moment where Sora is falling and he literally remembers Riku going "Giving up already? Sora, I thought you were stronger than that" and he believes after that and is able to fly with that pixie dust. He's the only one Sora has those flashbacks of the past with in the game like that. Sora and Riku get a scene with working together on the door while Sora and Kairi get separated and only Sora's work goes into everything, namely that he's gonna go get Riku while Kairi waits (not like she has a choice, but it stands). Even when it's about Sora and Kairi it's about just friendship or Riku. That kh1 scene where they get separated is an attributed so//*ai scene that people see as romantic, but it contains Sora's desire for them all to be friends and to find Riku. On the other hand with Riku, it's about Riku. Riku and Sora close the door? Flashbacks specifically about him and Riku till the last flashback, but even then it's Sora and Riku running together while Kairi's in the back running behind them. Sora and Riku's interactions and what's going on with their friendship are definitely focused on while Kairi is a doll most the game and doesn't get that kind of focus

CoM: About going to find Riku and Mickey. Evidence at the beginning that Sora really wishes to find Riku. He's distracted by Naminé, but whenever he finally gets to see "Riku" it's interraction that causes Sora to think afterwards about his relationship with Riku and what he could've done (more seen in the novel). If that huge analysis is correct, a lot leads to Riku, including parallels, but it's covered up by Kairi. Even when all Sora's memories of Kairi are replaced with Naminé, Sora's not in love with her until she uses the meteor shower scene, which would be a Sora and Riku memory. Before she uses it, Naminé is essentially at Kairi's current level of "I need to save her cause she's my friend". He only forgets Riku because of Naminé's memory meddling detracting from his purpose and making him forget everything he came to do and everyone except her. Kairi is merely mentioned by Naminé and Sora and everyone else. Even afer Sora knows about the Naminé and the repliku truth of him being not exactly Riku, he still does his actions for Naminé cause his heart still feels the impact of the fake memories, and even though Repliku's fake, Sora treats him similarly as Naminé, probably because of what's true in his heart. In the novels, Sora thinks about Kairi momentarily if she's brought up and when he looks at the lucky charm. Even in the lucky charm case, in the novel, it reminds him of Kairi cause she gave it to him, but also his promise to bring Riku back and of all his friends. It's only in Naminé's case with all the meddling that Sora looks at it and thinks of Naminé and his promise to protect her. Kairi isn't present and the game has no development with Sora and her or real reference to their relationship. On Riku's side, the novels have him mostly think about Sora out of the two, only really mentioning Kairi at the beginning when he decides he wants to say sorry to Sora and Kairi and when he meets Naminé. In the novel, for example, Riku goes to destiny islands of his memories and thinks about times with Sora when they rolled around on the sand. There's a focus on how Riku feels about the darkness and how that translates with his fears relating to Sora and his friends. He makes a promise with Naminé that she'll watch over Sora, and he walks the road to dawn for his redemption and to be able to face Sora and everyone.

Days: Similar to BBS, this one has main character focus on a different cast, but again Sora, Riku, and their relationship is still involved. Riku gets involved with Xion. In the novel, he states that he's willing to help her and not lie to her mostly because she's a part of Sora and is similar in personality, while Kairi factors in as appearance familiarity. In the novel, Riku has clear monologues about how he wanted to reign in his darkness before Sora woke up, and before going to fight Roxas how he's prepared to use his darkness to win at all costs, all for Sora. There's Xion and Roxas having memory visions. Xion awakes from one yelling "Sora". Roxas has a bunch of visions including Riku and Riku lines where he confuses Riku with Xion and wakes up yelling "Riku". There's the focus on how Riku gives up his body to win against Roxas and get Sora back. Then he has Mickey promise not to tell Sora what happened to him. Again, Kairi only is involved in mere mention and memories, and while Sora is too, he's more consistently mentioned. Riku also gets his focus on his motivations relating to Sora and shows up. Riku is there amd we are presented what's going on with him and Sora

Kh2: This one has a lot of obvious. One of Sora's main goals and focuses is to find Riku and bring him back. Along the journey, we also have Riku alienating himself from Sora to protect him while also stalking/leading him to make sure he's okay. There's the big reunion scene moment, and at the end Sora and Riku fight multiple battles together. In the RoD they have a heart to heart, and even though Sora's motivation was to bring Riku back so they and Kairi could be together again no matter what, he resolves to stay in the RoD with Riku for eternity instead without fight or protest, even in the novel deciding that if he was stuck here with anyone, he's glad it's Riku. Again, we see their relationship, how they work together, how they feel about each other. As for Kairi, as usual she is barely present. She is mostly left up to the few times she is mentioned and Sora rarely talks about her. Even with the begging scene and his feelings, we can get that it's a product of Naminé's meddling and not anything to do with him actually developing those feelings. Even Kairi herself only resolves to find Sora, and during the reunion scene, we learn their relationship is iffy due to time, change, and no interaction. After the reunion, Kairi's only Sora relationship moments are when they talk to Naminé and Roxas, which has nothing to do with how Sora and Kairi feel about each other, and when Sora returns the lucky charm. Except the lucky charm thing was just symbolic of Sora's promise to bring Riku back and them all be together again. It didn't have much to do with his relationship with Kairi other than she gave it to him and he remembers that when looking at it too. So again, we don't get much or really anything with Kairi and Sora's development, but we get plenty with Riku and Sora and how their motivations and interactions and everything relate to each other and their motivations and relationship

Recoded: Do I even need to say much? Kairi is again only in mention. There's a whole section where data Riku's about to be overtaken by bugs and Sora resolves to go alone, dive into him, and save him. He travels with Riku and they have a lot of moments and we again get to see (even before when Riku's in disguise and just out of it) about how they feel about their relationship and how they must act with the other in their mind. There's even that flashback of a Riku memory where Kairi is there, but Riku instead focuses on the moon and reaches for it, the moon believed to symbolize Sora.

Dream Drop Distance: Again, need I say anything? This game is about them relationship wise. They think about each other, they believe in each other and have talks with other characters about how they're always connected. There's a whole scene about how their hearts are in tune. In the novel, Riku has a monologue about how light and darkness they compliment each other. We get to see sorta how they feel about the other and trust each other. We again get Riku's motivation to protect Sora and his evolution to finding out that their rivalry is not darkness, but what pushed them to be stronger together and still does. There's so much of them and their relationship. On the other hand, Kairi shows up 4 times in the whole game, only 3 referring to Sora. She isn't even really mentioned. 1 of those 3 is a flashback to Kairi flying through him in kh1, another is just Kairi appearing behind Sora with all the rest of the guardians of light, and a 3rd is just Sora's dream with Riku and Kairi walking away from him. There is really nothing with Kairi and her relationship with anyone here

0.2: There's not much, but even with Riku and Kairi standing there, the only mention between them and Sora is basically how Sora's rubbed off on Riku and how Riku's more like Sora, then Riku talking about how he wants to be more like Sora. So again, more of their relationship focus

Kh3: During Sora's journey section, there is like no mention of Kairi, but he thinks about Riku and mentions Riku and talks to Riku on the gummiphone. We see them meet in the tower and Riku reassures him that he can do it. We see this little of their relationship and the little development. There's the RoD thing where Sora arguably uses the power of waking to get to Riku without having KKD and the gayblade. There's these looks they give where they understand each other without speaking. Even with the paopu scene, it starts out with Sora focusing on Riku. This is also the first point we see Sora trying to do a relationship fix with Kairi. Sora sheilding Kairi doesn't amount to or develop anything. But we get Riku's sacrifice, where by now he's realized that he loves Sora and he tells Sora he believes in him as he goes to sacrifice. It has a bigger focus than Sora's shield of Kairi and is more dramatic. Riku tries to prove to Sora that he is strong on his own. There's Riku comforting Sora and them being the only one left. There's the deliberation of animation in Riku reaching out to Sora and dropping it, only to get up, tell Sora he believes in him and sacrifice. In the Riku keyblade graveyard battle, we get moments of Sora swooping in to protect Riku and them going to fight together, where as in the rest Sora popped in to help or like in Mickey's case where he just gets captured. We get to see their teamwork once again. There's Riku's reaction of being angry after Kairi being "killed" only after Sora gets smad. Riku's heart is the first to reach Sora in kingdom hearts, and Riku supports his end decision and believes in him. All the Sora with Kairi stuff is mention, him fixing his relationship with her, or him going to bring him back and have all his friends safe. I didn't even recognize the evidence of Riku being the light and saving Riku first, even the section of saving Riku having more cutscenes and Sora talk/analysis than the rest of the scenes Sora saves his friends

Remind: All of the Sora and Kairi stuff again is just Sora trying to find her and have all his friends safe and fix his relationship with her. This one is more about Kairi and Sora's relationship, and even then there's a focus on Sora and Riku's relationship. There's still a bunch of the same things as base kh3, but we get more moments of Riku saying to trust or believe in Sora, there's Riku recognizing Sora there when Sora hits him with light when no one else does, even softly saying Sora's name aloud. There's their heartstations side by side and Sora being able to connect to him from inside kingdom hearts. There's another shot when Sora gets Kairi's last heart piece where Riku's heart is the brightest and again reaches Sora first. We still get their relationship and how they feel about each other despite this section not being directly about them, just like bbs, days, and 0.2.

Limit cut: We get big focus here. We see Riku sad over Sora. We learn that he is at least a key to saving him. Riku's dreaming about looking for Sora exactly where he is. We learn Riku is gonna be important. On Kairi's side, she's mentioned again and relegates herself to doll status for a whole year. She can see the final world, but neither she nor the scientists looking in her heart or anyone else looking found Sora or something related, while Riku's dreams hold the or a key and possibly a clue. Also, Yozora, the kh3 Riku lookalike (described by even Sora, Donald, and Goofy) looking for Sora who may just be Sora, but may also refer to him looking for the nameless star who may be his Sora (it's kinda hard to know for now).

In every game, consistently, Sora and Riku's relationship and development is a focus, even if it's not the center or the most important thing

Thanks for dealing with my essay ramble

[yo-namine]

Okay, time to talk to myself about Re:Mind and Limit Cut Episode. 

Spoilers galore under the cut!

I'm just gonna start off by talking about how the DLC handled my biggest gripe with base KH3, which was obviously how Kairi was written in the last few hours of the game. Like I said in my other post, Re:Mind doesn't totally fix those problems, but... Well, here's what we get:

Kairi's "murder" is reframed a bit in the DLC. Base KH3 presents it as Xehanort killing her just to provoke Sora et al. into "clashing" with him to make the final key. In Re:Mind, we learn that Xehanort was actually stowing Kairi away (by "crystallizing" her, which... means she wasn't dead? But Sora still takes all the steps Chirithy gives him that are specifically for restoring a heart from death, and it works, so...?) as a fail-safe of sorts in case he needed another Light. Xemnas foreshadows this a bit when he says that Kingdom Hearts needs the Princesses of Heart in case the whole 13 Clashes of Light and Darkness thing doesn't work out. And for what it's worth, I do think this is a little better for Kairi as a character just because it shows that she was "killed" due to something unique and special about her, rather than what she was to Sora. She's still being used, and she's still sapped of her agency, but presumably no other character could have worked in that role against Xehanort, so... that's something, I suppose.

During the Xemnas/Saix/Xion fight, there's an added scene where all the Lights get to take a shot at Xemnas, and Kairi actually broke that motherfucker's guard and made him stumble when no one else could... And then she got captured, bloop, but at least this time it was because she was actually fighting and simply got bested. I can appreciate that. I liked seeing her shield Axel from Xion's attack, too.

And of course, she does get the chance to take on Xehanort later. She has a nice battle set-up (a sort of warp dash ability similar to Riku's and Roxas's, shotlock, reflect, and a GORGEOUS link attack with Sora), and it's a little cathartic to play as her taking Xehanort down. However, I don't think she ever learns that Xehanort took her as a safety measure for his plan or why she was the one chosen for this in the first place. She doesn't speak to Xehanort at all, which makes her big battle with him at the end feel rather... impersonal? And never mind him "killing" her in KH3; Xehanort's ultimately responsible for her losing her family when she was four years old, as well as the destruction of her home world. I'm not saying Kairi and Xehanort needed to have some long overwrought conversation or anything, but there definitely should've been some dialogue between them.

Kairi's actually involved in Naminé's restoration after all!!!!!!!! I remember the Ultimania's explanation of Naminé's return leaving a bad taste in my mouth because it seemed like they framed Kairi's death as ultimately a good thing, because hey, at least her murder freed Naminé from her heart. But that's not what actually happened; instead, Kairi and Sora go to Radiant Garden at the end of the game, and she lets him use the keyblade to release Naminé's heart from hers. And honestly, that scene right there? That was probably my favorite part of this entire DLC. The fact that Kairi really did play a part in restoring her Nobody is a much better payoff to her earlier lines in the game about wanting Naminé to have her own experiences. She wanted to give Naminé her life back, and rather than that being something wrenched from Kairi against her will, it was something she did for Naminé of her own volition.  I just. 😭

/tl;dr thoughts on kairi

As for everything else in Re:Mind:

I loved the background moments with Sora and Kairi in the ending cinematic. Each one is framed so that you can't see their faces, so they all feel like you're looking in on something secret. The "Behind the Curtain" trophy name is pretty fitting (and just downright cute, lol). And like I said above, I loved the scene where Kairi and Sora restore Naminé's heart. You just see him pull the keyblade away from her chest, and then she cradles Naminé's heart in her hands and fjsldfjskd. I teared up at that. It was just such a sweet and gentle little moment. Sora and Kairi taking Chirithy to Ven (and Sora even giving them a little push, lol) was really sweet, too. I loved their body language while they watched Ven run off, how you see them turn toward each other just slightly.

I also like how Sora and Kairi's relationship evolved from "Even if we're apart, our hearts are always connected" to "Heart connections are nice and all, but I'd much rather actually be with you."

Demyx and Riku interacting was something I never knew I needed. Riku's like "PLEASE be careful with that vessel, it's very important--" and Demyx is just "Bro, I got this," and hoists it over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Sora and Roxas actually talk to each other! I liked the scene where Sora's Station of Awakening starts to peel away to reveal Roxas's, and you get little glimpses of Roxas's memories. And it turns out that Sora actually did release Roxas's heart from his, and it wasn't just Xemnas kicking Xion into his chest that did the trick, lmao. I like that change.

Xemnas mentions that the original Organization doesn't remember Xion, but they do have records of her. That's a nice little tidbit to have for my Day 4 AU. 👀

Saix says the Guardians must be desperate if they're getting a Princess of Heart involved in the war, and Axel's like "Nah, she's our trump card." Aw. I also thought it was interesting how Saix purposefully uses Axel and Roxas's names to try to trigger Xion's memory of them.

I had to watch the recusant's sigil bit like four times before I understood what the hell was happening, lmao. The sigil represents the Sea Salt Trio's actual connection to one another that they had to "reclaim" from Xemnas, which... okay, but why was that needed? The thing I always liked about this trio is that they're the only one that we see develop fully from the beginning to the end of their relationship. They were always the most believable (canon) trio to me because of that, so throwing in this whole "The sigil binds us together!" thing just seems kind of stupid and unnecessary. They're friendship is good enough as-is. You don't have to add in this nonsense to represent their bond; their relationship development itself already did that. But whatever, they still had a really cool combo attack.

Scala ad Caelum is expanded on! I really enjoyed exploring it and solving the little puzzles to put Kairi's heart back together.

I LOVED THE GUARDIANS VS. NORT REPLICAS BATTLE SO MUCH I HAVE TO YELL ABOUT IT. I ACTUALLY DIED THE FIRST TIME BUT I DIDN'T CARE THAT I HAD TO REPLAY IT BECAUSE I WAS HAVING SO MUCH FUN. THE TAG TEAM ATTACKS!!!!! AQUA, XION, AND MICKEY'S COUNTER-ATTACK!!!!!! EVERYONE ACTUALLY WORKING TOGETHER!!!!!!!! IT’S ALL I EVER WANTED!!!!!!!! 

There are so many cute dialogue exchanges during the Guardians vs. replicas sequence, too! Ven and Roxas compliment each other, Aqua scolds Axel for talking too much (twice, I think? Axel fusses at her the second time, lmao), Terra says something to Riku that I couldn't quite catch, and Riku's like "All thanks to you!" It's just so cute and charming, and it really made the Guardians finally feel like a team.

Mickey Mouse straight-up Boromir-ing his way through the Nort replicas was... I think I loved that? Yeah, no, I loved that. I was laughing through half of it because I kept getting knocked back, but it was a great sequence (visually and gameplay-wise).

Connecting all the keyholes was very satisfying, and was just a beautiful visual altogether.

Sora and Kairi's reunion was adorable. And then Sora sees Goatanort enter the scene, and he just looks at Kairi and is like, "You ready, B?" and Kairi's like, "FUCK yeah, I'm taking his trachea through his kneecaps!!!!!" Okay, not really, lmao. Actually, Kairi's surprised when Sora asks her that, like she didn't expect him to let her help, or maybe she felt like she wouldn't even be able to, but she says she's ready anyway. Kairi’s under-confidence in her fighting skills is a little more apparent in the DLC. Like she says "I can do this" right before the final battle, but it comes off as her trying to reassure herself. She even has a counterattack where her battle quote is "Please work!" and I don't remember hearing her say that in the base game. Girl knows how outclassed she is compared to most of the other Guardians (and Xehanort), but she fights like hell anyway. Attagirl. 🎉

And as for Limit Cut:

Aww, I love that Terra calls Riku "a great leader."

Cheers to David Gallagher for saying "Are you sure about this?" with the exact same inflection as the John Cena meme.

Riku's a master now, right? When will he get some spiffy keyblade armor???????

Okay. Riku is having dreams about looking for Sora. Sora is dead (?), and "the edges of sleep and death touch." Kairi has been asleep for the past year so that the Radiant Garden team can study her heart in effort to find Sora. Nomura? Nomura? Nomura. You cannot fuck this up, man. You can do this. You can write the Destiny Trio working together again. You can write a full story in which Kairi has an active role. You can write her and Riku interacting. You can do it. I believe in you.

The data battles are so hardddddd. I wound up just watching all the LC cutscenes on youtube, lmfao. But I do want to try to beat at least some of these bosses. Tragically, Riku is TRAPPED IN MERLIN'S HOUSE, so you can't leave to grind or anything. Boo.

I don't really care about Yozora. I think we got a confirmation from Sora that Nameless Star is Stella (?), and that's cute for her I guess, but I genuinely don't care, lmao. But I definitely understand the compulsion to include beloved characters from old cancelled projects in your newer ones, so I hope Nomura has fun with that. ...That sounded sarcastic, lol, but I meant it. I hope he gets to do something cool and creative with this recycled cast. It just might not be a story I'll end up following, is all.

Data greeting is SO much fun. I sank a couple of hours into that the other night just creating scenes and playing with effects. The controls are really easy to use, and it's even fun to just explore environments like Radiant Garden and Scala ad Caelum without messing with photos at all. I hope we can unlock more character outfits and poses in the future, but I can definitely enjoy it as is for now.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this DLC. True, about half of Re:Mind is a rehash of the Keyblade Graveyard scenes with some extra content here and there, but it's sort of justified story-wise since we're in a timeloop. I enjoyed the extra Kairi scenes and the interactions between the Guardians the most. Limit Cut is mainly just bonus bosses, but like I said, I do want to actually beat those once I can figure out a strategy for them. And I'm obviously having way too much fun with Data Greeting, lmao, so yeah. Not a bad update.

[lovelyjasmari]

Kingdom Hearts OC Week 2019 ~ Day 1

I’ve really been looking forward to this! Let’s kick things off with my primary KH OC, Kalai! @khoc-week

Kalai/Alixka  

Born in Radiant Garden twelve years before the events of BBS, Kalai is the result of a forbidden romance between Dilan and an aristocratic niece of Ansem the Wise. She is not aware of her true paternity and does not become aware until much later. When she is eleven years old,  she is sent to live in the castle of her great uncle and his apprentices. Her new life is reasonably happy but a few years later, Dilan is sadly compelled to send Kalai away once Xehanort’s experiments of the heart become too dangerous and he begins tempting her to join in on them. 

She then lives with Kairi and her grandmother for some time before Radiant Garden falls to darkness and she’s separated from them. Kalai is then transported to Traverse Town and befriends other refugees from Radiant Garden.But things turn for the worse again when she is ambushed by Heartless, being transported to The World That Never Was and becoming the Organization Nobody Alixka.

As a member of Organization XIII, Alixka Is known as The Maiden of Tempests and the senior members are all very protective of her, especially Xaldin. But as time goes on, she begins to question the true nature of Nobodies and if they truly can feel and have hearts. Her questions are shared with Marluxia and eventually they become romantically involved along with Larxene. Together they form a coup to overthrow Xemnas and unlock the truth of their existence and her eventual demise sends Xaldin into a furious downward spiral.

But she doesn’t get to enjoy humanity for too long because she is soon kidnapped to become part of the Thirteen Seekers of Darkness. Fortunately her time with the Seekers is brief and her reserve status enables her to make an escape thanks in part to Vexen. 

After the war and after recompletion, Kalai joins the Royal Guard and is eventually reunited with Lauriam and Elrena. But during another Heartless raid, Kalai is injured and her weapon shatters, but then becomes a keyblade! As a result, Kalai decides to join her two keyblade wielding lovers to Land of Departure where they meet up with Lauriam’s old friend Ventus as well as Kairi who is now training under Aqua. The five of them set out to find Strelitzia and Sora and have many fun adventures together visiting different worlds, killing heartless and protecting the new Princesses of Heart. 

Personality wise, before the Organization, Kalai is a very shy girl. Shy, insecure and with a deep fear of rejection. The result of an abusive upbringing in the home of her stepfather. As she ages she opens up more and begins exhibiting a more outgoing personality. In many ways she is like her father; determined, temperamental and stubborn at times. 

As Alixka, she is coquettish and headstrong with many of her less likeable traits (bad temper, recklessness, overconfidence, etc.) accelerated though she is kind where it matters. She also hates being seen as weak and only shows vulnerability to Marluxia and sometimes Xaldin. With Marluxia in particular she becomes easily flustered and very “tsundere”, something he takes great amusement in. 

Post Organization, Kalai’s personality is a perfect mix of being demure and ladylike but still fearless and ready to yeet anyone or anything that threatens those she cares about. A fighting spirit with a deep sense of purpose, she wants only to be happy and strong enough to protect those she loves. 

And she’s terrified of Dreameaters.

Kalai will be the main focus of my prompts this week but I also have one or two prepared with my other oc’s. So I’ll do brief introductions for them as well. 

More babies under the cut!

Iris and Adelen (Image created with this doll maker here)

Iris (right with auburn hair) and Adelen (left with sandy brown hair) are two of Kalai’s sisters, though they have different fathers they share the same mother. They return in Kalai’s life soon after her recompletion post KH3 with the hopes of reconciling with her and begin apprenticeships of their own. Though Kalai is wary of them at first, they eventually become very close, as close as any sisters can be. 

Despite their noble background, both girls are very kind and unspoiled. Iris is the more quiet and reserved of the two with a deep love of learning. She loves to pass her time studying or helping in the lab with Even and Ienzo. Adelen on the other hand is more adventurous and extroverted. She cannot sit still for long and is always following behind Kalai wherever she goes. They quickly win the hearts of all in the castle as well as those in the Capital. As nieces of the Sage King, Kalai, Iris and Adelen are colloquially known as “The Jewels of Radiant Garden”. 

Iris in particular quickly develops romantic feelings for Ienzo and vice versa. Kalai encourages their relationship and she and Adelen go to great lengths to further the budding romance between the two young scholars, often with adorably comedic results.

Ilysia (Image made with this maker here)

The daughter of Keyblade Warriors, Ilysia was born in Scala ad Caelum and has been raised from the cradle to become a Keyblade Master and consort to the warrior prince Eraqus. She meets her intended when she is five and he is six when they are betrothed and bequeathed the ability to use the keyblade in the future. From then on they grow up together and become very close, training and learning more about the light of Kingdom Hearts in which they are both sworn to protect. Ten years later they meet a newcomer from another world,  Xehanort. 

Ilysia is quite a hot tempted young lady with a great hate of losing. Oddly enough, if one manages to best her in any way, Ilysia will take that as a sign that they are a worthy opponent and will gain respect for them. This is initially how she and Xehanort becomes friends. After her marriage to Eraqus however, they begin to drift apart due to their conflicting views on light and darkness. Over time she and Eraqus become the keepers of Land of Departure and take an orphaned youth into their care, Terra. 

Though they did not always see eye to eye, this did not diminish the care Ilysia had for her friend and when word comes that Xehanort may be trapped in the Realm of Darkness, she and her husband do not hesitate to go and find him. Unfortunately, this rescue attempt is what ultimately seals her fate. 

Anila 

Orphaned at the age of 9, Anila is taken in by a member of the Key Council that assists with the governance of Scala and becomes a companion to the young Ilysia during their training. Though a little older, they soon become fast friends. As a child she is outgoing and rambunctious and that only increases as she ages. Despite not being of royal blood, Anila is truly a warrior at heart, a formidable fighter as wild and free spirited as the wind itself. Her name actually means “daughter of the wind”. 

Though not as hot headed as Ilysia, she is always down for adventure. Anila is the type of girl crazy enough to do something like jumping from one cable car to the next in midair.. She also has a deep interest in the world outside of Scala and her interest is only made stronger with the arrival of Xehanort. They have a particularly strong friendship and they are always challenging each other in different ways. It’s implied she may have feelings for him when they are younger but her pride would never allow her to admit it and eventually she grows out of her feelings. Xehanort on the other hand, well…. *shrugs*

Soon after acquiring the title of Master and after Ilysia’s wedding, Anila gets her chance to explore the many worlds when she sets out on her own quest to seek knowledge similar to the one Xehanort took. Eventually she befriends a group of young adventures and joins them, becoming very close to one in particular; a lancer by the name of Tarian. They marry, settle down in Radiant Garden and eventually have a son, Dilan. That’s right, she’s Kalai’s grandmother!  They meet for the first time post KH3 when Anila is already an elderly woman and she could not be prouder of the fact that her granddaughter is carrying on her keyblade legacy. She lives in a small province outside The Capital of Light but visits the castle often and spends much of her time teaching Kalai tricks with her weapon (age has not dulled her ability) and telling her stories of her youth in a world long gone of white windmills and cable cars gliding across the sea. 

[nadziejastar]

Part two of my idea on how X could’ve been implemented better. Have it only be mentioned in the reports and possibly by Saix and Axel. And even then make it a minor thing. Make Isa and Lea the forefront and X in the background. Like she was just another test subject. Nothing fancy like cannon. Keep her role vauge at best. Also 50 bucks that X, Isa and Lea’s relationship is gonna have no development or anything of the sorts. It’s just gonna be stated, like Riku and Kairi friendship in KH3

Yes, exactly! I don’t know how it got to the point where the story got so butchered that they decided to make Lea and Isa apprentices instead of just making Skuld another victim along with them. There was so much more potential with them all being part of the experiments. If she was a lab rat, they would have far more reason to care about her so much, since they would personally be able to understand her pain. I would have had NO problem with another test subject being involved with their backstory and them reuniting later and becoming friends with her. It would have made perfect sense. 

I wouldn’t have cared if KH4 involved them looking for her, either. But you have to show the audience something to make us care, and it has to be believable. Not just TELL us. Oh, they’re super close because they spoke to her a few times in the shadows. I also agree completely that they’re probably just going to write it where Skuld is their best friend and it’s just gonna be stated as fact, like Riku and Kairi, lol. That’s what KH3 made it seem like. But it didn’t have to be that way.

When we did manage our way inside, we spoke with her. That was all the comfort two children like us could offer. But Lea had other ideas. He was determined to free her. We slipped into the castle that day knowing only that we wanted, with all our hearts, to save her. But we did not find her inside on that day or the next, or any of our subsequent visits. Had she been moved? Had we simply imagined her?

I completely agree that her role should have been vague at best. My biggest problem is that Lea and Isa became apprentices, and their goal the whole time in Organization XIII was to find information on this girl. I’m sorry but that’s waaay too much of a stretch. Even in canon, it seems like Lea and Isa only spoke to her in the shadows and in hushed whispers. They never even saw what she looked like. You know, they could have even kept this idea and still made it work. It might have even been more touching that way.

My only solace was the time I spent talking with the two boys who would visit from time to time. One day, a man came to take me from the prison. I could not see him for the darkness, save that he wore an eyepatch. Even now, years on, I feel no closer to understanding who or what I am. May my heart be my guiding key.

Maybe she was in a cell close to Lea and Isa, and they all spoke in hushed whispers when the apprentices weren’t around. They may not have ever seen her, but she would be special to them because they all mutually comforted each other. It would be realistic and believable for them to have an attachment to her in that case. Then she disappeared, and they never knew what happened to her. That is fine. Nothing too drastic. Doesn’t take the spotlight off of Lea and Isa. Doesn’t forcefully try to make her their BFF.

The experiments caused the test subject's heart to collapse, including those of the most stalwart. How fragile our hearts are! My treatment produced no signs of recovery. I confined those who had completely lost their hearts beneath the castle. Some time later, I went below and was greeted by the strangest sight. Creatures that seemed born of darkness...What are they? Are they truly sentient beings? Could they be the shadows of those who lost their hearts in my experiments?

Even all the way back when I first played vanilla KH2, after reading all the secret reports, I thought that Axel was probably one of the test subjects from the experiments. That’s how perfectly it fit every single aspect of his character, and how a decent guy like him wound up in Organization XIII. It explained his hatred of Zexion and Vexen, his bleak outlook on having a next life, and his unusual relationship with Roxas. Axel lost his childhood and loved being around Roxas because he was like Sora---purehearted and innocent. That’s how I’ve always viewed Axel. Days and BBS just convinced me of it beyond a shadow of a doubt. 

The shadows that crawl beneath the castle...Are they the people who lost their hearts, or incarnations of darkness? Or something entirely beyond my imagination? All my knowledge has provided no answer. One thing I am sure of is that they are entirely devoid of emotion. 

Even aaaall the way back in the original CoM when he was first introduced, I think Axel was written with the idea in mind that he was a former test subject. He was always a test subject, IMO. During the experiments, Xehanort lost a lot of subjects. I think that was what they were trying to parallel in Days, when half the organization members got wiped out and Axel’s survival was in question.

Perhaps further study will unlock the mysteries of the heart. Fortunately, there is no shortage of test samples. They are multiplying underground even as I write this report. They still need a name. Those who lack hearts... I will call them the Heartless.

I don’t think it was a coincidence that Axel mentioned the organization’s mission to “unlock the mysteries of the heart” while talking about people turning into Heartless and the strength of Sora’s heart. Xehanort wanted to unlock the heart’s mysteries by studying the Heartless in the basement. Axel seemed like he was speaking from personal experience when he mentioned people turning into Heartless and losing their minds and feelings, which he probably witnessed firsthand. There’s no way he’d be involved willingly with that shit, even if he was an apprentice. 

The Heartless appear in groups, and are multiplying rapidly. I've provided them both living and nonliving samples. They've responded only to the living. They seem to multiply after absorbing something from the living creatures. Their prey vanishes without a trace. I believe the Heartless are taking hearts. They are born from those who've lost their hearts, and thrive on hearts seized from others. The hearts taken by the Heartless become Heartless themselves.

This girl could be someone they assumed got turned into a Heartless and they’d never see again. Xehanort was providing both living and nonliving samples to the Heartless. So, I’m assuming that meant dead people and living people. The dead people would be useless to the apprentices, so it’s easy to understand why they’d be used to study the Heartless. The living samples provided to the Heartless must not have been seen as very valuable if he was risking them like that. Or, it might have been some kind of punishment for disobedience. 

One by one, the Dusks went over the gate and the walls surrounding the mansion. A great number of them were wounded and faded away on the barrier.

No matter when I see the Dusks–to see those guys, Nobodies like me–destroyed, it doesn’t feel good.

Makes me think about how someday I’ll be erased in the same way.

Axel had a HUGE, deeply ingrained fear of disappearing. They could have connected Subject X’s disappearance with that. In the novel, Xigbar called Saïx a “kid without a heart”. He also seemed to view Axel as a kid.

Axel’s attention was on the bridge where Xaldin had fallen. Unlike when a Heartless fell, the Nobodies of the organization turned to darkness and evaporated into nothing. The sight was like watching his own future unfold. It rattled him.

He spoke like he had a lot of experience with Lea having outbursts while the experiments were going on, which he saw as “tantrums”. Lea seemed to be a more naturally bold and fearless person. Isa was probably a more timid and submissive kid, like Ienzo. 

Zexion As he shares something like a master-servant or teacher-student relationship with Xemnas, like Saix, he is a character with strong connections. While he was the superior in that regard, perhaps that was ultimately his downfall. It is likely that if Marluxia and Axel had not betrayed him in Castle Oblivion, he would have played a central role within the Organization. –Nomura

Saïx wanted Zexion gotten rid of because he was his biggest rival for being Xemnas’s lapdog. The experiments were focused on getting a person to renounce their sense of self. People like Lea, who have a strong will, would need to be dealt with in some way. I can see him having “tantrums” over it.

Saïx’s response was icy. “That’s no concern of yours.”

“What about Axel?” he pressed.

Hearing that name, Saïx narrowed his eyes faintly, not even enough for Roxas to notice. He wasn’t attuned to such subtle changes.

“Who knows,” Saïx finally said. “Perhaps he is among the lost.”

It seemed like Isa ALSO had a huge fear of people disappearing.

“None of your concern.”

Xion had expected as much. Saïx never answered her questions.

Then Xigbar poked his face between them. “As cold to Poppet as always, aren’t you—Saïx.” Saïx pointedly ignored him.

Xigbar is always coming to talk to me. He talks to me a lot more than Saïx, so I like him.

“They’re saying Roxas fainted or something, and he’s still out like a light,” Xigbar supplied.

“Huh?” Xion started. Roxas was unconscious…?

“You worried?” Xion nodded at Xigbar. “Heh heh, you’re so cute, Poppet. I can take you to see him after.”

Xigbar started teasing him when Xion was worrying about Roxas.

Maybe she had been sent away somewhere on a long-term mission, like Axel at Castle Oblivion. But…asking about Axel seemed to put Saïx in such a foul mood, Roxas couldn’t bring himself to inquire after Xion.

And when Roxas asked Saïx about Axel, it put him in a really foul mood.

“Humph… all those in the way were rounded up and sent there, that’s all.”

Saïx is probably telling the truth. Those other members of the Organization were in Saïx’s way… no, in our way. But, I wonder why I can’t help being sarcastic about it.

“Don’t tell me I was one of those?” He said it with a grin, but the hint of a frown tugged at the scar between Saïx’s brows.

Looks like he didn’t appreciate that joke.

“You made it back in one piece, didn’t you?”

Were you worried I wouldn’t? Axel almost said, but he didn’t want to deal with putting him in an even fouler mood. Disgust and rage seemed to linger closest to the surface of Saïx’s memories.

It sounded like Axel was making a joke referencing a specific incident from their past. Saïx got the reference and was NOT amused by the joke. It put him in a foul mood. Based on the way he spoke, I think Axel was referring to a time when Isa was very worried about Lea, who might have been eliminated. That basement might have been where people who were “in the way” were sent and Isa was terrified he’d never see Lea again. Braig probably had a lot of fun while that was going on. This is why Axel didn’t want to ask if Saïx was worried about him while he was gone.

With no other choice, Axel opened his mouth. “If you’ve got troubles, you tell them to your friends… right? Roxas.”

And I don’t think Lea was the only one who got sent to that basement.

“I’m simply caught up in it. If there’s something, please don’t hide it from me, tell me.” Axel got up off the shelf and put his hand on Saïx’s shoulder from behind, peering into that face.

When Saïx was in a bad mood over Xion being a failure, it seemed to be deliberately similar to when Xion couldn’t use her Keyblade and she thought she’d be turned into a Dusk for being useless.

“What’s wrong, Xion?” It was Axel who had noticed, peering into Xion’s face.

“Soon… the other members are going to find out that I can’t use the Keyblade, aren’t they…” said Xion, head down.

“We told you, it will be okay,” said Roxas, peering into her face too this time.

After Saïx rejected Axel, he was thinking how much things had changed between them compared to the old days. Axel was a bit more blunt about it in the manga, but the concept was the same. Saïx was so hard on Xion because she reminds him of how HE used to be dubbed as the useless “failure”. 

So, I think both Lea and Isa got sent into that basement and they had to survive against Heartless. Isa was probably terrified that he’d be turned into a Heartless, and Lea worked twice as hard so they’d both survive, like Roxas did when Xion lost her Keyblade. They probably assumed that Subject X had been sent into that basement before she disappeared and were traumatized by it. If they found out that she actually didn’t, I could see them trying to find her. I would have been completely fine with that. It would have given them both a new goal for the future without feeling contrived.

[thegeminisage]

okay last scene before we FINALLY get back to gameplay:

am glad enough to see replica riku (henceforth known as repliku) again but i don’t understand what it is he wants to do or why he’s here. i’m glad riku’s being nice to him though because i think deep down riku is very kind and caring and when he’s nice to people it’s him getting to be his best self

don’t understand why he wouldn’t have told sora and kairi, though

mixed feelings about this paopu thing!

under one hand: absolutely sora and kairi invented romance and they deserve this!!! seeing those drawings from the cave from KH1 THAT HAPPENED BACK IN 2002 was like...an emotional moment i’ve been waiting for for 17 years

under the other, they’re still playing it with an air of plausible deniability (“i just want to be in your life no matter what, that’s all” = “this doesn’t have to be as serious as you think it is”) so like...what’s the point in NOT including riku? he’s sitting RIGHT THERE?? 

i mean, the actual romance in these games is way way downplayed in favor of extolling the power of friendship, but sora, riku, and kairi have hardly had ANY time at all together, and most of that was when they were talking business - there wasn’t time for character-developing interaction

like...it’s not necessarily that the part of me who is still 13 years old and fervently shipping fictional video game characters jumped out but the thing is kairi has only had four scenes in the entire 40 hours of my gameplay and in 2 of them she was only with axel (though granted, we did get to read a little of her letter to sora) while in the other 2 she was part of a big group and the focus really wasn’t on her. for all they talked up her and axel being keyblade wielders now we haven’t seen ANY of their journey or development

so like it feels unfair to riku to leave him out of one of the only truly emotional moments we’ve had so far and also unfair to kairi that some of HER only moments with sora are delegated to romance and how he’s gonna keep her safe and blah blah blah. the most development we got from kairi thus far are her musings on namine, which is great, i’m very into that, but they didn’t get as much time or attention as sora’s musings on roxas. i would have liked kairi to address her own helplessness and how she’s different now that she can defend herself and defend her loved ones (ie sora, who has literally died for her) but truly honestly she had more interaction with sora & riku in kh1 and she spent 2/3 of that game in a coma

actually this is part of my problem with ensemble casts in general - like, ok, in mcu, i loved the individual movies, but when they all got together, there was just no time to focus on anybody or their interpersonal relationships. at most people got a handful of lines with one another. it’s part of why i ultimately decided cap3 sucked and it wasn’t fair that after cap2 barnes & rogers got no alone time & never would & i was DITCHING. aqua’s return was understated, aqua and ven’s reunion was understated, aqua and all those little kids she met in birth by sleep who grew up to be heroes in part because of HER only got to speak a little with one another...like, i’m complaining that there are SO MANY long cutscenes with no time for gameplay to let you absorb them, but even with all that extra time this game can’t seem to pace out a reasonable arc with a satisfying conclusion. riku and mickey just decided to save aqua and ven and so they did. kairi and axel decided they wanted to wield keyblades and so now they do. but nobody worked for it. we had lots of INCREDIBLE content in the form of disney worlds but if none of it had any bearing on or foreshadowing to the main plot it’s ultimately just FILLER. yeah, that’s the kh formula, but i feel the balance was off in this one

compare to kh1 & kh2 for example: in those games sora talked about kairi and riku respectively NONSTOP even in the filler worlds...we got a PALPABLE sense of how much he missed them and when he saw them again the emotional payoff was INTENSE

but in kh3, while all these moments are wonderful - riku and sora rescuing aqua, aqua and ven squaring off against evil haley joel, aqua seeing ven again, aqua recognizing sora riku and kairi, sora and kairi sharing a paopu fruit - they’re all also feeling a little rushed, which makes them feel a little empty. i’m enjoying them, i’m glad we’re getting them, i’m excited about them, but i’m not FEELING them in my heart the way. i feel like i cheated and skipped to the end of the game without any of the buildup, but there just WASN’T any buildup

like, in 0.2 aqua thought about terra and ven NONSTOP to the point of HALLUCINATING them she missed them so badly. the reunion between aqua and ven should have been just as emotional as the one between sora and riku in kh2 but i guess there just wasn’t time because they seemed glad to see each other but not like it had been over a decade since and nearly cost them both their lives. evil haley joel showed up to wreck everybody’s day but we only saw him ONE time prior to this. i could go on but i won’t my ps4 literally shut itself off to save power bc i spent too long writing this

anyway my point is: if this is part of why people have mixed feelings about kh3, i totally understand :/

[askthedespairkids]

3rd Year Anniversary Bonus 79-C Report Cards

//I do have more stuff planned for this year’s anniversary but it’s gonna take more time to finish so I figured I would make this post in place just for fun. It’s nice to have these sort of things, I think since there are just so many OCs on the blog

//It will get updated as new OCs join or important information is uncovered.

Amaterasu Hokama - Ultimate Thief

Gender: Female

Height: 5′ 11″

Birthday: April 20th

Likes: Shiny Things

Dislikes: Security Guards

Current Status: Alive

Amaterasu’s family was evicted from their home when she was young, her parents “homeschooling” her in order for her to avoid bullying. When her family were struggling for food, she would steal from stores in order for them to keep surviving. As she grew up, she found her love for the thrill of a heist growing. She would go on larger heists in rich homes and museums, but rather than keeping anything for herself, she would return it the next day. Like it was a simple game for her. Eventually, word got out about a girl that could potentially steal from anywhere she wanted to. An underground team of thieves then decided to recruit her in order to get help for their heists. At first she helped out to get some money for her family, but once they had enough money to get a home and had a stable income, Amaterasu reported all of the people in that team to the authorities. She was also sent to a juvenile center but managed to escape after a week. Though she is rarely ever seen, there are always reports of “an girl that acts like a wolf wandering around the city”.

Doi Kurohiko - Ultimate Romance Expert

Gender: Male

Height: 5′10″

Birthday: November 14th

Likes: Roses

Dislikes: Creepy People

Current Status: Alive

With a handsome face, and a talent like his, Doi is often mistaken as a player at first glance, however his actual personality is the complete opposite. He has awful luck when talking to women, which he calls “his heart’s curse” which causes unfortunate events to happen such as falling down stairs, ripping his pants, and many other occurrences. Despite his failures, he tries to remain optimistic even if he isn’t the most strong willed. His talent isn’t for show either- if you want to fix your relationship, Doi is the one to ask. With a tendency to go off on rants when nervous and a weakness for women, Doi is the walking Ultimate Contradiction.

Junpei Yokozawa - Ultimate Blogger

Gender: Male

Height: 5′2″

Birthday: April 16th

Likes: Co-op Games

Dislikes: Horror Movies

Current Status: Alive

The blogger of several semi-popular blogs that cover a variety of topics such as fandoms, political views, and even gossip, Junpei Yokozawa may be a blogger, but he’s a damn good one. Overshadowed by the rest of family having flashy talents, he’s never seen himself as being worth much in the world of Ultimates. However, his ability to manipulate internet culture is second-to-none despite his lack of presence in real life.

Karma Graves - Ultimate Secret Agent

Gender: Was thought to be intersex by certain staff, and female by peers and other staff. It has come to attention that Karma Graves is a parasitic twin with both male and female organs. Karma Graves says they identify simply as "Karma", and used they/them pronouns. 

Height: 5'3"

Birthday: January 18th

Likes: Ukulele

Dislikes: The dark

Current Status: Alive

For the first 13 years of their life, Karma Graves was kept locked in a small basement by their biological father and were heavily abused. This caused some damage to their overall mental health and stability. Their only source of knowledge on the outside world was through movies from the 90s, resulting in Karma preferring to dress as colourful as possible, use the occasional 90's slang, and develop nostalgia for a generation they were never a part of. Karma was eventually rescued by a secret, organized agency which took them under their wing and trained them as one of their own. Though not being in training for very long, they showed natural skill and talent. They trained at the Canadian branch, but had short training sessions in Japan. The agency wasn't always the most moralistic and good, yet Karma dedicated their life to it. Karma had been invited to Hope's Peak Academy, but their superiors said they wold not be attending. This changed and Karma was sent to Hope's Peak after helping a prisoner of the agency, who they allegedly had a relationship with, escape.  The prisoner was killed on sight. Karma tends to have violent tendencies and manic episodes, but their loyalty and love for their friends is overpowering.

Kobo Okanaya - Ultimate Tour Guide

Gender: Male

Height: 6′2″

Birthday: June 14th

Likes: Boxing

Dislikes: Fish

Other Affiliations: Starlight Tour Company

Current Status: Alive

Kobo became a tour guide while he was growing up in a deprived area of a port town. He was saved by the manager of a tour guide company during a street fight and to return the favour, he learned the craft of being a tour guide. At first, his rough personality made it hard for him to interact with tourists though over time, through teaching he adapted a “Work Personality” which utilises his non-rough appearance, even changing his mannerisms to seem like a more appealing tour guide. His knowledge of Japan’s streets and landmarks were noticed by Hope’s Peak after their scout had caught wind of a teen tour guide being able to put others to shame. Though despite his work personality, Kobo is always ready to get into a fight.

Maemi Watanabe - Ultimate Harem Mangaka

Gender: Female

Height: 5′6″

Birthday: July 8th

Likes: Cherry Blossoms

Dislikes: Being called a Fujoshi

Other Affiliations: HeartBeat Publishing

Current Status: Alive

Calm and level-headed, Maemi does not seem like the type to produce such critically acclaimed harem series. Always wishing to be a writer, but being unable to write long stories with one single couple, Maemi began writing harem manga as a way to let her creative muse run wild. She is the leader type and has a strong attitude which helps her keep control of situations where people may succumb to stress which helped her during ...-Missing Data-...She can also feel out of place in her class since she feels her backstory is not as tragic as the other members of her class. Her only true struggle being her bad luck with men. Suppressing tropes, and wishing to make harem manga more beloved by the public, her headstrong attitude is admired by all mangaka across all genres.

Mami Asano - Ultimate Living Doll

Gender: Female

Height: 5′6″

Birthday May 6th

Likes: Bugs

Dislikes: Chaos

Current Status: Alive

Mami Asano was a regular child, albeit living in luxury, up until the age of 6. It was then that her parents began having her undergo multitudes of surgeries done by underground doctors who would be willing to operate such procedures that would be traumatizing and illegal to do to a child. Mami's surgeries continued until her parents had felt she reached the epitome of artificial beauty: a living doll. Mami was trained to be obedient, submissive, and docile - never questioning her parents or making a decision for herself. She was homeschooled and taught things such as classical literature and music, dance, a number of instruments, high class manners, and other things. She is graceful and elegant. Mami was given severe restrictions on what she could eat, say, and do. She attended frequent public and private events - appearing at art shows or attending formal dances and galas. If she wasn't participating in the event like a regular attendant, she was on display either sitting or standing in a glass case perfectly still, or behind a rope in a large faux "dollhouse", going about and interacting with the environment while others watched, and even gave commands so as to "play" with her. Mami was invited to Hope's Peak and was reluctantly given permission to attend by her parents who believed that her attendance was one of the highest honours

Rina Kirishima - Ultimate Taxidermist 

Gender: Female 

Height: 5′1″ 

Birthday: August 1st 

Likes: All kinds of tea 

Dislikes: Her loved ones in distress 

Current Status: Alive

Introduced to the craft of taxidermy by her grandmother, Rina demonstrated a real talent for it. Unfortunately, her talent and meek demeanour caused her to be bullied in middle school and this shattered her self-worth. Believing she was unworthy to be called by her real name, Rina began referring to herself with the acronym “RAM”, standing for “Rina’s Another Mistake” - “Another Mistake” being the nickname given to her by her bullies. With the help of Sakura Oogami at Hope’s Peak Academy, Rina was finally able to grow a love for herself. Not nearly as shy as she was, Rina consistently does her best to spread kindness to everyone she meets. Her loving heart is always open, and she’s not afraid to give out hugs and the occasional nose kiss. She shows a strong will when confronted with a problem, but will try to solve it with as much thoughtfulness as possible. Hardly will she get extremely angry, but a surefire way to make her mad is to threaten the wellbeing of her loved ones. She also takes her pinky-promises rather seriously, and would appreciate them not be broken.

Ryuu Nagata - Ultimate Lucky Student

Gender: Male

Height: 5′8″

Birthday: February 14th

Likes: Katsudon

Dislikes: Grapes

Current Status: Alive

The twin of Sora Nagata and the 79th class’ Ultimate Lucky student. Unlike other lucky students, Ryuu’s luck doesn’t affect him, but rather the people around him. The earliest sign of this was after he was born, his parents had won the lottery which took place the same week, though at the time they had no idea Ryuu was responsible. Originally a meek and shy boy, Ryuu has grown to become the leader of Future Foundation’s 2nd base, albeit not being confident in his abilities as the leader quite yet. 

Sadao Irunami - Ultimate Hypnotist

Gender: Male

Height: 5′6″

Birthday: May 23rd

Likes: Pendulums

Dislikes: Blackouts

Other Affiliations: The Irunami Circus

Current Status: Resurrected

A playful prankster who was a former member of a travelling circus, Sadao learned all he knew from the ringmaster of the circus, his grandfather. He has an impulsive and child-like nature which many can find troublesome though he manages to have his moments of showing off his calculating and selfless side when he wishes to help his friends. When he was young, he no longer wished to be part of the circus and he ran away and became a street performer in Tokyo until Hope’s Peak Academy took notice and asked him to join 79-C.

Saori Kibe - Ultimate Paranormal Investigator

Gender: Female

Height: 5′ 11″

Birthday: June 13

Likes: Conspiracies, the paranormal, and scene aesthetic

Dislikes: Non-believers

Current Status: Alive

Saori genuinely believes she was abducted by aliens and tested on as a toddler. Whether or not this actually happened is unknown. She believes this is why she’s able to interact with the paranormal how she does - and has since been seeking out all the paranormal things she can, helping people with their paranormal problems along the way. She would even travel to different countries and continents. Saori was let into Hope’s Peak as the Ultimate Paranormal Investigator. Saori is a trans girl preferring she/her pronouns, despite her school records saying her dead name and pronouns.

Sly ??? - Ultimate Assassin

Gender: Male

Height: 6’1”

Birthday: July 9th

Likes: Pancakes, Training, Naps

Dislikes: People questioning his abilities

Other Affiliations: ??? Assassin Agency

Current Status: Alive

Having lost both his father and mother, Sly has become the leader of the worlds biggest assassin agency at the age of 18. He has been killing since the young age of 4, making him an extremely experienced fighter. After losing his mother he threw himself into the family business quickly becoming one the top assassins in the business. He wears her dog tag around his neck at all times, which was given to him as a gift from his childhood friend and partner Maki Harukawa. It’s said that his eyes turn from their natural grey to a deep black when filled with rage earning him the name “The Demon Killer” across the Underworld.

Tomoe Hachi - Ultimate Illustionist

Gender: ??? (Goes by They/Them pronouns) 

Height: 5’8” 

Birthday: September 1st 

Likes: Konpeito 

Dislikes: Coffee 

Current Status: Alive 

Tomoe keeps their personal life a mystery. However, they have told people that they’ve simply practiced magic tricks and illusions since they were 4, and may have forgone eating or sleeping for it. They like to keep their mask and magician attire on to hide their physical appearance, except for their hair, which is black, curly and messy. They say that the mysterious aura helps them with their illusions.

Toson Shinko - Ultimate Horror Movie Director

Gender: Male

Height: 6′0″

Birthday: August 30th

Likes: Suspense

Dislikes: Unnecessary Gore

Other Affiliations: Shinko Movie Productions

Current Status: Deceased (As of The Big Bang Arc)

An award winning and genre changing director with a surplus of modern classics, Toson is the most influential director of modern times, even though his reasoning for becoming a director was not in any way inspirational. His father, Shouji Shinko, was a failed horror movie director, and not wishing to be associated with his failures, Toson decided he would create his own horror movies and make a name for himself, separate from his father. Arrogant about his achievements, Toson can be off-putting to people who aren’t used to his blunt words and rude mannerisms, however deep down he can’t stand being around conventionally attractive people as he falls in love easily, nor can he sit by when his friends are hurting.

Tsukiko Ishikawa - Ultimate Thanatologist

Gender: Female

Height: 5′4″

Birthday: August 15th

Likes: Body Farms

Dislikes: Processed Cheese

Current Status: Alive (Thinks of herself as undead)

As a thanatologist, Tsukiko is an expert in all things death: decomposition, rituals, funerals, etc. Similarly, she dresses appropriately in dark clothing. However, in sharp contrast, she's easily one of the most upbeat, cheerful one could meet. While she can come across as weird and creepy, she's really a nice girl. However, her most eccentric quality may be the fact that she believes she's already dead: she suffers from Cotard's Delusion, believing herself to be a walking corpse, even when others point out the inconsistencies in that fact.

Yuuki Kurosaki - Ultimate ??? (Claims of Ultimate Explorer and Ultimate Theorist)

Gender: Male

Height: 6′0″

Birthday: July 1st

Likes: Scrapbooks

Dislikes: Arrows

Current Status: Alive

Travelling from continent to continent, Yuuki Kurosaki is always searching for his next adventure. With credits for discovering hidden temples across the globe and recovering treasure, Yuuki is known among treasure hunters and explorers alike. He loves and values family over everything else, especially admiring his brother Taro. Though he also fears creating bonds with people after...-Data Missing-...occurred, though after he,...-Data Missing-... and two others...-Data Missing-... His personality became more unpredictable. 

[themattress]

Was at a bookstore and...

I would like to make a formal apology to Tomoco Kanemaki. It turns out that her authorized fanfiction is NOT, in fact, the most cringe-inducing Kingdom Hearts material ever published.

That dubious honor actually goes to this piece of shit:

If the cover didn’t clue you in, it’s from a cheap, unofficial publishing firm called Boss Fight Books that specializes in having fans of certain video games writing books about said game. The book on KH2 is written by Alexa Ray Corriea, who is the most stereotypical dumbass, trashy KH fangirl / KHInsider member you could possibly find. The contents of the book are:

Six Days Later: An Exercise in Futility with a Boy Named Roxas - She tries justifying the notorious prologue of the game, but in the worst possible way: by focusing on the character of Roxas himself and his existential angst, which was one of the biggest complaints about the prologue to begin with! I know this is a matter of opinion, but you would think she’d attempt a better defense more on the lines of this video, something that people seldom think about. 

Nobodies and Somebodies - Oh, joy. The typical fangirl romanticization of Nobodies and their angsty plight, and the Draco in Leather Pants treatment toward Organization XIII. Ugh.

Riku and Redemption, Or, What Doesn't Kill You - Her Riku fangirlism explodes in this chapter, to the point of breaking the book’s rules. She’s supposed to just talk about KH2 specifically, and yet in order to talk up Riku’s redemption arc, she has to talk about several other games since, if you’re just going by KH2, the bulk of Riku’s redemption is completely off-screen and he only shows up in person to finish it in the final world & battle of the game. Sora is the main character of the game, and yet he doesn’t get a chapter focused on him! 

Gone Girl - And here’s the fangirl misogyny masquerading as feminism! Alexa is clearly part of the KHInsider cult that is always tearing down the “hated bland love-interest” Kairi in order to prop up the “safer and relatable” (read: angsty and socially withdrawn) Namine despite them objectively being the same characterization-wise through both hypocrisy and sheer dishonesty: she lies by omission or just flat-out lies in order to make her points work.

Examples: Omitting Kairi choosing to enter the dark portal, the fact that canonly she got away from Axel on her own (she lies and claims Saix just took her from Axel ala the non-canon novel and manga), and that she jumped off a balcony to save Sora from the Heartless before getting her Keyblade in order to claim she never shows bravery or initiative. Credits Namine for saving Kairi but not Kairi for reuniting and later saving Sora and Riku. Blatantly lies by saying Namine had agency and “flexed her powers freely” in CoM, completely omitting that she was a slave to Marluxia until the very end. Says it’s sexist for Kairi to be there to speak words of emotional comfort and gratification to Sora like “you’re home”, but praises Namine for giving words of emotional comfort and gratification to Roxas. Says it’s sexist for Kairi and Namine to keep “changing hands” of different keepers, but that it’s offset for Namine by her “having agency” in defying DiZ to help Roxas and saving Kairi (while, again, omitting all of Kairi’s acts of agency.)  And claiming that Namine is the kind of girl Kairi wishes she was when canonly it’s the opposite: Namine is a mousy, weak-willed servant at first and ends up channeling Kairi as she grows and develops.  Also, she brings up Aqua, who is not in KH2.

Bad Romances and Rad Bromances - Related to the previous chapter, this is the inevitable yaoi fangirl chapter that gushes over Sora/Riku and Axel/Roxas. Kairi and Sora/Kairi are shit on with more lies and omissions (ignoring that Sora knew Kairi was safe and didn’t know if Riku was, ignoring that he did frequently fret about Kairi once he knew she was captured, disingenuously underplaying the emotion between Sora and Kairi’s own reunion, and again ignoring that Kairi single-handedly made that reunion happen AND saved the boys’ lives at the end of the game solely because she and Sora are so close.) The Axel/Roxas part is no better, as she glorifies and romanticizes Axel’s actions over Roxas in the game even though canonly it’s disturbing, unhealthy, and ultimately tragic, and ignoring Roxas’ feelings entirely. 

And she also thinks there was a Sora/Kairi/Riku love triangle when, LOL, no, there wasn’t.

Long Live the King - An analysis on...King Mickey? Look, I love Mickey too, but I’m at a loss as to why he gets a chapter while Sora, Donald and Goofy (who deserve a chapter if not just to point out how their names are spammed in that exact order throughout the game) don’t. 

A Kid's Game? - Trying to use the dark stuff and tough gameplay to defend the game from being labeled a “kids’ game”...except that this book was written and published recently. This isn’t the early days when there was only one KH game, people have understood that the KH series attracts fans of all ages for YEARS now. Look at all of the hype among adults for KH3 coming out! That she actually seems to think that the “kids’ game” label is something that’s thrown around at the series anymore gives me so much secondhand embarrassment. 

What the Hell is Kingdom Hearts Anyway? - Oh, wow. She actually tries to make sense of Nomura’s convoluted bullshit in this chapter. And it’s every bit as pretentious as it sounds.

Coda - This last one is possibly the most stupefying and rage-inducing of them all. It’s the coda, the final chapter of her book, and what does she use it for? More cringey, unabashed Riku fangirling! In fact, she decides to claim that Riku, not Sora, is the REAL main protagonist of the KH series...not just as an opinion, mind you, but as a FACT, saying that he’s much more “relatable” (again: code for angsty) than Sora. Sora is casually dismissed and objectified as just some unachievable ideal who is only interesting through his relationship with Riku. So yes, in a book about Kingdom Hearts II, she wraps it up by singing the praises of a character who really only shows up in the final level of the game, propping him up at the expense of the actual main character you spend the game playing as. What a load of tripe.

Fuck this book and fuck Alexa Ray Corriea, I want her to rot in the Realm of Darkness.

[kimmysfandomblog]

Makoto and Hajime, since it's the week ? :D

Thank you, Chloe~ Sorry I took so long to reply!

I’m really sad the week’s at an end TTvTT It was honestly a rewarding experience, and I’m really pleased with how it turned out (so far... I know some people still with WIPs or said they were wanting to join, but didn’t have time to start, and I hope they submit it later rather than give up!)

Anyways, on with the ask!

From here:  A MORE DETAILED CHARACTER MEME!

Makoto Naegi:

What I like about them

How he had been in the first game was really endearing! Yeah, there wasn’t a whole lot of confidence in himself, but he was still one to try to be optimistic and see the best in people. He’s truly kind and pretty selfless, although a bit of a goof as well XD I think that he was alright of a protagonist! And even in DR3, he had good moments. I liked how he was able to piece together what had been going on using Kirigiri’s clues, and his suspicion of Mitarai as well (from what I remember, that was his own way of connecting the dots?) And while I’m not sure I’ll ever be satisfied with the ending of any conflict, Naegi in DR3 could think fast. He sets up traps for Munakata and made it impossible for him to escape while the wristband was on. I thought that part was clever (even if the following conversation didn’t convince me much)

What I dislike about them

Ehhh, after DR3, my opinion of him lowered. A lot. He ended DR3 played off as the hero when he really, really didn’t do much. And honestly, he couldn’t. The writers wrote that he couldn’t run. That’s a good idea on paper, maybe, but not in execution. Especially considering how he is the protagonist. He ends up relying a lot on Asahina to save him from situations, and even when he does come across situations where he is supposed to be good at, talking to people, it comes off a lot less realistic… kind of forced. I’m wondering if that is a fault on the animation studio’s end, or whoever wrote the final script. Not to mention, when it comes to the very end, Togami giveshima whole squad to get to Mitarai, endangering them all… for Makoto to leave it to Hinata and company in the end lol. And then he gets to be the figurehead of Future Foundation for supposedly defeating the Remnants of Despair… yeah, that doesn’t sit well with me at all XD

Favorite moment:

It’s hard to choose! I think, though, I was most hyped when he showed up as a silhouette in the Investigation part of SDR2 Chapter 6? Him avoiding his execution was really cool, too, though!!! Oh yeah, and my Hi/Naegi heart fangirls over that one scene where they nod at each other XD

Least favorite moment

Mostly DR3 moments, lol. Especially the last episode! Like I said, Naegi was made to be the hero after failing to get there to Mitarai. He just hardly does that much in the grand scheme of things. In DR1, even if he leaned a little heavy on Kirigiri, it is him who was targeted a lot by the mastermind, and him who broke everyone’s despair away. In DR3, he kind of does it with Munakata, and then no one else. Just the way the game was designed made it so that he hardly knew most of the victims, and he was split away from even Kirigiri, who really did most of the work for him.

As for a non-DR3 moment… the bathhouse scene lol. The fan-service scene is really out of character. My first time with DR1 was with the anime, so such a scene was skipped, thankfully.

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

I want to see how he gathered up the remnants, and all the things he had to do while watching DR2′s killing game. I’m really curious about how he confronted Kamukura specifically, and why it is he had no clue this Hajime Hinata wasn’t Izuru Kamukura. I mean, sure, Remnants of Despair may have changed themselves drastically, but Hajime was even more so, and it was not necessarily changes due to Despair. Also, meet up with Komaru please???? Interactions with Hinata???? His parents were just forgotten????

An interesting AU for this character

I’m so bad at this because all I’ll ever come up with is a fantasy AU XD He’d be the gardener or something that somehow is able to save the princess from a raid by an enemy kingdom and they somehow gather up morale and he ends up leading the rebellion and saves the day without having ever lifted his sword. Something like that XD

A crossover

…. The only thing besides Danganronpa that I care about is Kingdom Hearts ^^;;; He’d be Ventus in my crossover, rather than Sora!

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

I like Nae///giri and Hin//aegi both!!! Nae///giri is something that develops rather well in DR1, and Hin///aegi is just such a warming and soft ship to me! Like, I just feel like they’d complement each other pretty well? They have a ton in common, and could teach each other different things.

Other ships?

Nae///zono! It’s a ship that I don’t talk a lot about, but I really liked his relationship with Maizono a lot. I truly miss her :( I really want to know what their relationship was like in the pre-DR1 year that they were in the same class together. 

BROTP

Pretty much all of the survivors of DR1, and Sayaka, and of course his sister! Also Hinata!!! I feel like they could really help each other!

NOTP

Well, I don’t really have one that really irks me, honestly? I’m not the most comfortable with Kom///aegi and Nae///gami all the time, though. Kom////aegi tends to be weirdly balanced, where Komaeda overpraises Naegi, but may till manipulate him and have some kind of power that way. It’s not my favorite interaction. As for Nae///gami, It’s also got that imbalance issue. In either case, if you portray it in a way that they are or become equals (without any messed up stuff happening mind you) then I’m really okay with them.

An assortment of headcanons!

Makoto does eventually find his parents, however even though they are physically unharmed, they are catatonic. They don’t respond to much of anything anymore, and it’s a mystery how they were able to live by the time Future Foundation got to them

Makoto holds grudges for very few people. They are not always bad people, but while outwardly he tries to be optimistic, inside, he’s wishing he was anywhere but near those people, or talking about those people.

Makoto and Sayaka, during their year in Hope’s Peak, grew very close, but never brought up dating each other. They were attracted to each other before they knew each other, and while they still are romantically attracted by the end of the year, it’s different, a little more sure, now that they do know each other. The apocalypse comes, and it never feels like a good time to brig it up anyways.

Makoto doesn’t realise he is the target of romantic attraction for quite a few people. Within the school year, he takes it as people just being naturally shy or standoffish. After the killing game, he assumes it is because of his supposed title of Ultimate Hope that he never actually called himself. (The exception to this is Kirigiri... he’s gotten to know her well enough to get that they like each other).

Hajime Hinata

What I like about them

Hinata was, and remains, DR’s best protagonist. He has development throughout DR, and I was really rooting with him slowly. He’s really funny in how blunt he is, and that sarcastic nature of his is great. But, probably most importantly to me, is that he is ever so relatable. He’s actually really sweet and caring, and he’s not one to resort to violence first. If there is something he thinks he can do for a friend, he’ll try to do it. And he’s imperfect.... He doesn’t have any talent whatsoever, he’s insecure about himself, he pushes people away and tries to run away and find easier solutions. Those are good things. It makes him feel more real.

What I dislike about them

Hinata’s a really good character... but well, the ending of DR2, I feel like he could have snapped out on his own. Nanami being there... I would like to believe that the one that was talking to him in that mindscape was not the real Nanami, not even really the AI Nanami. She’s a figment of his imagination that represents the gentle side of courage. Still, I wish that it wasn’t her exactly, or it was more clear that this was Hinata convincing himself that he doesn’t need to run away from hard choices.

I also gotta say that while I am entertained by post-canon Hinata’s potential... he lacks a lot of what I liked in Hinata in the first place. He’s now too perfect, even more so than Izuru who’s fault is the inability to empathize. I guess if he was shown to struggle at least a bit between feeling and not, not always being able to consciously use a talent, but in other situation it happens consciously, or really showing any kind of repercussion than being so clearly rewarded for having taken part in the Hope Cultivation Plan instead of chosing to be himself, I’d feel more satisfied. I also just am not a fan of how much they center Nanami in the end of DR3. At DR2′s ending, it was clearer to me that his decision was also for the sake of everyone else. Now that they are all awake, it’s almost like it���s all for her sake now. Like, how Mitarai should join them because it is what Nanami would have wanted... that’s just weird.

Favourite moment

I complained about Nanami’s part in the very end of SDR2, but honestly, besides her, I genuinely loved to see Hinata and his transformation! I don’t mean just in his “Awakened” form, but more like how broken he had been by the knowledge that he��was the one who destroyed  himself, in just about the worst ways possible, and the consequences of which had driven the world mad and eventually came to destroy the lives of people he had been calling friends, and then how he’d come to accept that, yes, this was his responsibility, no one else’s, and he was going to live with it, move forward, and through as much sheer willpower as possible, survive as himself. Hinata’s truly grown a lot from how he had been in the beginning.

Least favourite moment

I’ve already discussed this kind of, but that confrontation with Mitarai at the end was so weak. What a let down it had been. Like, yeah, DR3 was a mess for a long while before, but you could at least somewhat enjoy it were it not for such a weak ending. Hinata saves the day by offering Mitarai to become a figitive alongside other people who have caused the end of the world, and then after saving the world from the lamest threat ever, he takes the blame for the event and lets Naegi be the hero he never was (in this situation at least... seriously SC, stop treating Naegi as the hero when you didn’t even let him do much in this part of the series)

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

Oh, like I’ve said before, that struggle of acceptance of being Izuru kamukura at the same time as being Hinata! Like honestly, he shouldn’t be completely rewarded for choosing talent over everything else- that goes against what his story tells. If talent is not the most important thing about Hinata, then why is it the way he solves everything in the end, pretty much?

We also really needed some more background on Hinata: There are a lot of speculations that Hinata’s parents may be abusive or Neglectful for letting Hinata take a part in the HCP. Is that really how it had been? And how did he come across HPA? What was it like growing up talentless in a world that idolizes talent? Just some basic backstory of things that pushed him into the belief that Talent meant more than his own sense of Self.

And we get a hint of it, but what really happened while Hinata was in the HCP? Like, what was he doing for the months between Episode 3 and him going into the pod?

And on an aside, I want to know what he did to wake the others up? I am 99% certain that Komaeda’s case was completely unique... Komaeda always makes things harder, and AI Kamukura really had to dig deep and go to extremes to wake Komaeda up. I think that AI Kamukura would have had to do less drastic things to wake the others up. How did Hinata choose the design for AI Kamukura anyways? Was this something he worked together on with Alter Ego?

An interesting AU for this character

I suppose one AU I’m curious about is what would happen if he did not lose his memories and emotions in the HCP? Like, he’d find it hard to emote, but at the same time, he still felt empathy, if that makes sense? I wonder if Junko would still be able to use him, if e’d actually end up joining class 77, or whatever else could change.

A crossover

Kingdom Hearts Just kidding XD So actually, I read a fic that I really loved a lot, and it was a TWEWY crossover! Hinata took place of Neku, Komaeda took place of Joshua, Nanami took place of Shiki, and the Kuzuryuus took place of Beat and Rhyme. It was awesome!

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

I’m a really die-hard Koma//Hina///Nami shipper! I mean, for me, it’s more like HinaKomaNami (so centered around Komaeda instead). I feel like I talk way too much about how great I think it is, though, lol. I’ll try to make this shorter? I feel like all of them can provide support to each other in different ways! I like the idea that they still have conflict among themselves, but work together to come to a certain point of understanding. I guess I’ve always liked poly ships more, though. I’m not completely sure why that is, lol.

Other ships?

Koma///Hina will always be my favorite Hinata ship. There is so much complexity to their relationship because of how they met, and because Hinata did like Komaeda, at the very least in a platonic manner. Hinata wanted to trust Komaeda as a friend. The relationship they had in the beginning made it that much harder for Hinata to accept the Komaeda post CH1′s trial... and I do believe that Komaeda’s FTEs could be taken as canon. They were written in such a way that they make sense to happen in canon. And people are always calling it abusive or unhealthy when honestly, it’s not. Komaeda had a reason to act as he did. Was it right? No, but the clues are there that he has difficulty understanding things the way other people do, and his traumatic experiences simply reinforced such thinking.

Hin////aegi and Hinat///sumi are tied for the second Hinata pairings I care a lot about. Hin////aegi, as I’ve said before, just makes me feel really warm inside... it’s a comfort ship. Hin////atsumi I really love a lot because of just how similar him and Natsumi are! Though Hinata keeps to himself much more than Natsumi and doesn’t try to publically antagonize people, Natsumi and him both sare that admiration for people with talent, and instead of accepting themselves as talentless, try their best to be more. They see the system they are in and accept it, but decide they wanted to be on the better side of it. inata in DR3 was only ever allowed to act like how he did in DR2 with Natsumi... he saw her as equal. All of the other students who had given up the desperation to be better, he really did picture them as not worth his time for not understanding how he felt. He was less upfront about it than Natsumi, who openly admits her disdain for those who blindly follow the rules of the Status Quo. Like, these two bring out the truth in each other... and I just simply loved their interactions in Episode 3. Really, it was because of Natsumi and her relationship with Hinata that DR3 had at least one enjoyable episode that I can call my favorite.

BROTP

Hinataxeveryone he knows, pretty much XD Hinata is just such a sweet and loving guy, and he gets along well with most people given time. I love his interactions with his classmates because he can at least be blunt about how weird they are while still entertaining what they do or say. To pick a few that I’d list high, him, Nanami, and Komaeda are still my favorite OT3. Nanami is like his quite cheerleader and Komaeda is the one who pushes him out of his comfort zone a lot. I also really loved his interactions with Fuyuhiko and Kazuichi- They make such a funny trio! All the survivors do, really (but Akane and Sonia don’t get to talk to him quite as much, I think?) Also, I obviously BrOTP him with Naegi and Natsumi! Above reasons for shipping them romantically apply to frienship as well. And for not-survivors, Ibuki and the Ultimate Imposter!!!

NOTP

I’ve sid it previously when talking about kamu///Koma, but I’m also not fond of Hina///Nami. At the very least, I can’t ship these two toggether without Komaeda. Nanami is his courage, but also just as much his escape. DR3 really proved that- she could tell him all about how useless talent really was, and he’d hold on to it and repeat after her simply wishing it was true, but in his mind, he still staunchly rejects what she says because everything else in the world is telling him otherwise. AI Nanami, meanwhile, is better, as in she at least has flaws, but they aren’t obvious to him. She’s pretty much always nice or teasing to him. And then, of course, the ending where she turns up again.... why was she allowed to be his escape? A healthy relationship does not mean constant positive reinforcement... it means actually listening to the problems. You can’t fix every problem by saying that it will get better.

Other ships: I’m not really fond of Hina///miki, but it’s not like I would shirk from it if I saw it. Mikan acts innocent and sweet, but she is willing to hurt  people to et them t stay with her, and willing to hurt herself for the attention. Hinata in her FTEs and island Mode kind of just... accepts it all. Teruteru and Hinata... no thanks, either. Teruteru literally drugs Hinata, even if it was maybe some kind of joke. He was kind of condescending as well in their interactions, so it was just not my cup of tea.

An assortment of headcanons!

Hinata has trouble sleeping sometimes because the memories he has as Izuru, and as the Hajime before the project, and as the Hajime Hinata during the simulation all feel as different as they do as himself. His memories often mix together into uncomfortable messes. He begins logging them to sort himself out sometimes.

Hinata actually does enjoy riding in boas: there are occasional patter changes that aren’t so easily calculated in his head, and especially so i he closes hi seyes. I f he is feeling particularly apathetic and bored, he’ll lock himself in his cabin and try to lose himself to it until he’s able to work with everyone again.

He doesn’t actually like taking lead of the class. He only takes over when needed to show face that he is the leader of Ultimate Despair, or in desperate situations. Otherwise, he tries to make things as equal as possible, splitting up the group in teams in charge of different things (like gathering info on other remnants that linger the world, coming up with confrontations plans, making technology to keep the group safe and capture assailants, finding a way to rehabilize, or in worse-case scenarios, put down remnants.

The change in eye color is not actually real. The red eyes of kamukura and the black hair are merely visuals to us, the player, that something about Hajime is different. Red eyes are a sign of power, black for despair, white for hope. That beautiful heterochromia he has in Hope Arc is more of a sign that he has accepted his past as Ultimate Despair, but holds himself with confidence and will make decisions based on what he, as Hajime Hinata, deems is right.

[blueeyeswhitegarden]

Arc V Anniversary Day 3

I honestly wasn't sure what to say for this question until I noticed that it said characters instead of just a single minor character. So I decided to talk a few minor characters, most of which I'm surprised that I ended up liking that much, instead of just one.

Shuzo can be the loud and goofy comedy relief father, but he can also pull off being serious, which I think can be a good way of handling a comedy relief character in general. They're supposed to be funny and entertaining, but if they can be serious without being jarring or out of character, then that tends to make them more memorable and less one-note in my opinion. One of his best moments for me was how he helped reached out to Yuya after his first duel with Reiji. He understood how Yuya felt after seeing Reiji Pendulum summon with his own cards, but stopped him from just running away by understanding that it's okay that he isn't the only Pendulum user anymore. I may talk about this duel some more at some point, either later this month or if I have the time to make another top five/ten Arc V list just for fun, because it is so darn good, but in terms of Shuzo himself, I liked how it showed how he can be an effective and caring teacher for the Yuya, Yuzu and the rest of the You Show gang.

Of course, I also love how much he genuinely cares for his daughter Yuzu. Even when she was off learning about Fusion summoning, it did bother him how she wasn't even showing up at his school and was worried that they were drifting apart. His reaction to Yuzu seemingly being captured by Academia at the end of the Battle Royale is so heartbreaking and touching. There is a reason why he is widely considered among fans to be the best father figure in the franchise. I especially loved that he was the one who ultimately remembered Yuzu after the dimensions reset. As much as I do love Yuya and Yuzu's relationship, I was glad that they didn't forget how much Shuzo cared for his daughter and his happiness at seeing Yuzu again in the finale was so heartwarming.

Tsukikage was definitely an unexpected favorite minor character. I thought that he wouldn't last through the Battle Royale and then I figured he was just going to be canon fodder when he joined the Lancers. Not only did he last longer than I ever could have expected, but he also turned out to be pretty likable. He was loyal to the cause, willing to do whatever it could to help Reiji, was surprisingly more useful than I thought he would with providing information about the underground facility and was a big supporter for Reira, which helped with his development as well. Being loyal and honorable is pretty typical traits for a ninja, but I think it was genuine enough to make Tsukikage more sincere instead of a one-note character. His message to Yuya about how he wouldn't follow Reiji if he didn't care about the Lancers was a pretty small but key moment. It showed how Tsukikage had his own moral code and helped Yuya to realize that Reiji wasn't uncaring about the others like he initially thought. That was probably a big reason as to why Yuya started calling Reiji by his first name and said that he trusted Reiji at the end of the Synchro arc.

Another good moment for Tsukikage was when he confronted Sora. He wanted to avenge his brother and assumed that Sora was still an enemy, but once Sora apologized and asked for Yuzu to be taken care of first, he was willing to set the manner aside for the time being. It showed that he had his own honor, but knew that the mission came first and he did eventually team up with Sora, which was pretty cool. It was sad when Tsukikage did end up being carded, but true to form, he left a message in the hopes that it would help his allies. Considering I thought he was just going to be canon fodder, Tsukikage turned out a lot more likable than I would have expected at first.

Masumi was pretty cool right from the start. She had a tough, assertive kind of personality, her deck was cool and losing to her led Yuzu to learn how to Fusion summon. She even had a surprisingly nice friendship with Yaiba and Hokuto and that was shown quite nicely during their match against Shun. Not to mention her rematch with Yuzu was terrific and easily one of the highlights of the first season. I can definitely see why she quickly became a fan favorite character. Admittedly, I don't think it bothered me when she wasn't chosen among the Lancers as much as it did with other fans. I can understand why people wanted that and I wouldn't have been against it, but I thought that most of the other characters had stronger character and/or story driven reasons for joining the Lancers than Masumi would have had. It would have been nice if she got a better sense of closure before the group left for Synchro at least, but she was still pretty cool and it's not surprising that she's still popular among fans.

Ayu is probably my favorite out of the You Show little kids trio. She has a sweet and bubbly personality with a deck that matches her perfectly. I still remember being surprised that she wasn't Yuzu's little sister. They honestly looked like they could be related, mainly due to the hair, and knowing how the series turned out, it's kind of funny in retrospect. Part of the reason I decided to mention her here was because I recently rewatched her duel with Reira and I forgot how much I liked that episode. It was a great introduction to Reira, but it also did a nice job showcasing Ayu's personality and all things considered, she did a pretty good job against Reira. It was especially sweet how sad she was that she lost afterwards, but then all of her friends wanted to cheer her up. It's a small moment, but it showed how close the You Show group was with each other and how they wanted to support each other as well.

If I had to choose a favorite from this list, it would probably be Shuzo, but there are a lot of cool characters in the Arc V cast, even among the minor characters.

[a-student-out-of-time]

Twisted Sister Aftermath Review Part 1

Hai hidey do everyone, it’s your friendly neighbourhood Review Anon here! Another Arc has come and past us and as such it’s time to review it! Hopefully I don’t end up with 5k worth of words here and have three megaton submissions here (and from now on I am not going back to using asks, why the heck I used asks beforehand is beyond me) Speaking of, I have a question, do you want me to go back and review previous arcs? Probably won’t do this until we have any kind of break or hiatus so to not break flow? But that’s enough time being wasted, we have the Twisted Sister Aftermath Arc here, and this review isn’t going anywhere so let’s get right into it!

Relationships and Reflections

So, when we last left off, Hajime passed out from inhaling too much smoke while saving Tsurugi from the bomb explosion and as it turned out he has been asleep for a good 8 hours! Its Monday but despite that the school is shut, which is understandable given that we had criminals running around and a serial killer attacking the school the previous day, Hope’s Peak seems to be more sensible than my previous school which didn’t shut down even when one of the main buildings got flooded (long story there). But the good news is that nearly all the criminals were captured by the QC and the police and are back where they belong. The bad news is that 3 criminals are still at large. 2 of them are petty criminals that have nothing to be concerned but there is one criminal who IS a big concern. You have 3 guesses who that person is and the first 2 don’t count. Yep, its Maverick Storm alright.

So, time for a bit of a confession here, Maverick as a character…isn’t all new to me. For some of you old timers here there was a blog called ‘Despair Kids’ which started out as Class 78 asking questions and then it evolved into an AU with lots of OCs, so many that it got too overwhelming and I lost interest in it. But there were a few I generally liked, and Kyoji’s and Maverick’s characters really stood out to me. When I started to read the enormous backlog of this blog, (I wish the best of luck to all newcomers and try to not binge it, even if you are a fast reader), and Umeko showed up during the Practical Exams arc, I got a sense of Deja vu, as I recalled hearing that character’s name before. But I didn’t think much at the time, not helped by the fact that Umeko was a pretty minor character in the Despair Kids, even when Maverick was on his self-imposed challenge to kill all of his class, Umeko evaded him by just dimension travelling to another universe, so her character didn’t have much impact. But as soon as I heard Kyoji and Maverick mentioned I thought ‘Oh…OH IT’S THE SAME PERSON WHO MADE THOSE CHARACTERS!’. And as mentioned, I really liked those OCs anyway so that as well as using Another characters really got me invested into this blog. And with all that said, let me reassure you guys that Maverick is a bastard with a capital B. The stuff he gets up to in Despair Kids, where he was a member of Despair, but secretly plotted to overthrow Junko, even the other Mods/Role-players were disgusted by it. Now Maverick is probably going to be going through some changes as the Mod’s OCs in this blog aren’t the same as the characters from the Despair Kids. To give some examples Kyoji’s backstory doesn’t mention Mikan, Kyoji isn’t into Mikan, he’s more into Miaya, Maverick got jailed etc. So, I won’t be surprised when Storm starts pulling shit, probably not as bad as Despair Kids as he isn’t under Junko’s thumb here…but hard to tell at the moment. But yeah, you have been warned, I consider Maverick a villain as bad as Junko and Mikado, and you will soon see why.

But enough about a character who hasn’t officially shown up yet, let’s focus on a reformed villain and that is the new and improved Kanade! I feel mixed upon this new Kanade as part of me wants to love her as in this state she is so sweet and innocent, which is what people probably thought of Kanade when they first saw her in SDAR2, and I did at first, my thoughts about Kanade at the time were ‘It’s almost as if Hiyoko and Mikan are siblings, let’s hope Kanade doesn’t go crazy like Mikan did’ and that statement aged like milk. When Kanade became suspiciously smart and helpful during the Class Trials I was kinda sus because normally with the Trial Point Getters there is normally some logic to why said character is good in the Trails, like Koroko being a Psychologist can analysis people’s feelings and deduce who the culprit, and Syobai’s background means he has to use his brain quite a bit, but Kanade is supposed to be a Guitarist in a Pop band, she shouldn’t be this good. But my theory was she was lying about her talent, because that’s nothing new in Danganronpa, but ho boy was that a mistake. But at the same time as much as I want to hug this new Kanade, I’m also hyper conscious that the mindwipe might not be a permeant solution as well Junko got mindwiped in the OG timeline and we all know how well THAT ended. Then again, the relapse didn’t fully occur until Yasuke decided to kill Ryoko so as long as nobody tries to strangle Kanade, we should be good. It also means that Hibiki gets the little sister that she thought she had back, and you can tell this a new stage of development for her. Hibiki has grown as a person since back in July but while that part of her character development has finished, a new part starts as she tries and rebuild a proper healthy relationship with Kanade because Hibiki wasn’t completely innocent in the reason why Kanade became a monster. Granted, a lot of it was Kanade being twisted to begin with but had Hibiki been kinder and not been a total bitch to her, I don’t think Kanade would have gone fully down the deep end as it seems her psychopathic behaviour is more of a nurture rather than nature thing. Something I believe will be explored a bit more once Junko enters the scene because well…Kanade is basically Junko on easy mode. The real deal will be a lot harder to handle. And naturally Kyoji has offered to take care of her…I don’t know why Kyoji has turned into the guardian of reformed little girls, but it’s a welcome surprise to be sure. I just hope Kanade doesn’t get wrapped up in Storm’s schemes because given that Kyoji is his arch-enemy…

We can make sure Kanade is a good girl now but there’s still the small issue that she escaped from jail and the police are looking for her so one needs to fake her death. This is a joint operation by Kyoji and Nikei as Kyoji cloned some of Kanade’s body parts and left them near where a bomb went off to give the impression that Kanade got killed during the Prison Break, and judging from Tsurugi’s reaction, it seems to have worked. Speaking of Tsurugi, he is resting and due to his injuries is desk bound for a couple of weeks and receiving care from Mikan. Mikan caring for Tsurugi helps in two ways, as firstly being the Ultimate Nurse, she would be qualified to help make sure nothing serious happens to Tsurugi and Tsurugi doesn’t know that Mikan is part of the Quantum Crew and working with Kasugano, so it means someone is near Tsurugi who can relay information to Kasugano and co. That’s two girls with ties to Kasugano that Tsurugi has interacted with and he doesn’t suspect a thing. Okay to be fair with Akane when he first met her, she was an independent force and wasn’t working for Kasugano at that point but my point still stands. Not much to talk about our police boy here aside from Mod confirming that Tsurugi x Kouhei is going to be a thing in this blog. To be fair everyone could see the sexual tension between those two and that’s why people felt funny when Kanade mocked their relationship as they wanted to ship the two but it meant siding with a demonic guitar child. But said demonic guitar child is no more so no need to worry about shipping! And as for Nikei, he is writing up an article detailing Kanade’s demise as to throw the media off Kanade’s scent and then it’s just waiting for all the media hype around Kanade to die down and once that happens, she can be transferred to one of the many care facilities that Kyoji knows. How many does he know at this point? And while we are on the subject of Newsie here, it’s time to discuss a growing friendship, and possible relationship that is developing between him and Akane.

I had my suspicions for some time by their interactions but it was Akane’s and Nikei’s interactions in this Arc which solidified my viewpoint on their relationship. And that is Akane is more or less a foil to Mikado. Think about it for a second. They weren’t founding members of Void, they both grew up in hellish orphanages, got out of said orphanages thanks to Utsuro, ended up meeting the man himself at some point and inherited his Divine Luck at various points, though Mikado only succeeded in a Bad Ending. But at the same time, they both have different motives for going after Utsuro, Akane wanted to thank him for what he’s done for her and when she did successfully meet him, dutifully served under him, even when Junko came and corrupted them both. And while Utsuro had his crippling trust issues and constantly worried if Akane would betray him at some point, the fact that he gave Akane Divine Luck after she took mortal damage protecting the other survivors from Monokuma, showed that at some level he did care for her. Mikado desired the Divine Luck for his own personal benefit, burned down several orphanages to trigger another encounter and upon meeting with Koroko, hatched a horrible plan to ‘revive’ Utsuro, then Mikado would kill him and steal the Divine Luck for himself. Only reason it backfired was firstly because Mikado (both real and AI) didn’t realise Utsuro gave the Divine Luck to Akane, who was then later used to create Sora, and secondly Syobai betrayed him by siding with the Kisurugi Foundation. Their clashing roles can be no better illustrated then with their relationship with Void’s leader, Nikei. We don’t know how Nikei reacted to Mikado initially because it’s still a lot of unknown factors until the Onmake mode comes out canonically, but while wary at first because of how extreme Mikado’s plan was, was probably willing to trust him. And then as Mikado undermined him and usurped the role of leader from Nikei, that relationship quickly soured and a rotting despairing sense of hatred and revenge grew within Nikei, eroding away his humanity (from reading LINUQ’s blog, where he goes into detail regarding the various characters from SDAR2, he states that Nikei used to be a lot more warm-hearted before Mikado came along, but his hatred for the wizard made him much crueller) And it got to the point where the lines between Nikei and Mikado got blurry, and I’ll say that Nikei ended up being no different from Mikado in the end. And thus, he died a broken hateful mess. Now as for Akane, she and Nikei got off on a bad note; she kicked Nikei in the stomach, he responded by almost blowing Akane’s brains out, fun stuff like that. But once the misunderstanding and proof that Akane was good arose, a friendship of sorts started to develop between the two. The first signs we saw of this is *sigh* Oncoming Storm Arc. Among the hot pile of shit that Arc was, one of the VERY, VERY few good parts about it, was that when some Anons unintendedly hit a trigger phrase for Akane, which was mentioning older men, she went into a panic attack and out of all the people who could have comforted Akane during this moment, it was Nikei who did so. And now in this arc, we are seeing that Nikei is a bit more open with Akane then he is with other non-Void members of the Quantum Crew. He’s not taken the news that he snapped back to his old self during the Massacre timeline well, and bemoans that it shows he hasn’t changed, but Akane reassures him he has and that the timeline can serve as a lesson to improve oneself from and mentions she had trust issues initially but thanks to Utsuro, she is very much a people person now. And of course, we get the cute wholesome scene of those two cuddling each other, can someone please make fanart of these two cuddling, we need it. Mikado brought the worst out of Nikei and eventually led to his death, whereas Akane brings out the best in Nikei and would possibly help him into living a full refreshing life. Sora is more or less the third wheel in this relationship.

Annnnddd…I have talked for way too long. That’s part 1 of the review where I talk about relationships regarding all the characters but when we come back its when the plot comes back in when Class 77-B gets debriefed on the truth and a shocking new discovering on Time Travel is revealed. Stay tuned as we won’t be away for long! - Review Anon

[yoonohnct]

I Never Thought It Would End Like This

Mark x Reader

Wordcount: 2,698

Contains: Angst, cheating

Requested by anon:

hi !! can i request a scenario where the reader & mark are both idols (both from sm) and mark is cheating on you with a girl from your group, and you start catching on, that he’s cheating, you end things with him, and leave the company, and you can pick the ending !!!!!

“I don’t think I can make our date tomorrow (y/n),” Mark said, avoiding eye contact with you.

Again? This was the third date in a row he had cancelled.

“Practice again?” You sighed.

“Yea… I just feel like I haven’t been doing my best on stage lately, I want to practice as much as possible.  I’m sorry,” he responded, still not making eye-contact.

He had been like this for weeks.  Avoiding you, seeming distant, not joking around like he usually would…  It was a miracle he had actually agreed to meet you for lunch.  You had tried asking him about it once before, but he had gotten defensive, claiming that he was just focusing on practicing a lot more lately and was stressed.  Not wanting to fight with him, you had dropped the subject.

Mark was your first love, and you were his.  Both moving to Seoul from Vancouver to train at SM, you had a close connection from the first time you met.  Being together felt like being home.  It had taken a few years for the two of you to develop romantic feelings for each other, and months to confess.  But once it happened, you couldn’t imagine not being in a relationship with Mark.  The two of you were peas in a pod; you liked the same music, movies, and food, and you laughed at all the same things.  It was well known around SM that the two of you were an item.

You had debuted as the lead vocalist of a girl group shortly after NCT’s first subunit debuted, and both finally being in idol groups had put stress on your relationship.  Busier schedules, more distance, and stricter rules had changed the dynamic.  But no matter what, the two of you had always been on the same page, and worked through your problems together.  At least until recently.

“Mark, you know if you’re going through something you can talk to me, right?  I want to help you,” you almost pleaded.

You needed him to explain what was going on. All kinds of thoughts had been running through your mind.  Was Mark overworked?  Had his managers told him to cool things with you for the sake of his career?  Was there someone else?  Thoughts like that had been driving you crazy - especially the last one.  You hated thinking Mark could be capable of something like that, but his uncharacteristic behaviour lately was driving you to think the worst.

“I’m fine (y/n), really.  I just… I just need some space I guess,” he solemnly replied.  “I need to go practice, but I’ll see you later, okay?” He said, finally looking at you, a forced smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.  He stood up, grabbing your hand and pulling you up with him to give you a hug.

“I love you Mark,” you whispered into his ear.

He pulled back, looking you directly in the eyes.

“I love you too (y/n).  Only you.”

***

“Oh my god, May, just tell us who he is?!”

“Who who is?” You questioned, walking in on your group members grilling your leader, May.  You had just arrived at your group’s rehearsal for the upcoming K-pop festival.

“The guy May likes!  You know she’s been giddy lately, right?  And messaging someone all the time?  But she STILL won’t tell us who he is!” Your maknae and female rapper-extraordinaire Sora whined.

“Just give it up May, we already know there’s someone,” your fourth member and main dancer, Minyoung prodded.

“Yeaaaaaaa, come on!” You whined, joining in on the interrogation, causing the others to laugh.

May looked at you for a brief moment, eyes blank.  You narrowed your eyes at her in confusion before she quickly looked away.

“I just want to see how things go for a while before I expose him to you crazy ladies,” she laughed.  “Now, let’s start practicing.”

You were the lead vocal, and having recent troubles hitting your high-notes, you needed to focus on practice.  But May’s glance from earlier kept playing through your mind.  Why did she look like it was you specifically who she didn’t want to tell about her boyfriend?  Come to think of it, she had been acting a bit strange for the past few weeks…  About the same time that Mark had started distancing himself from you…

No.  There was no way they would betray you like that, right?  They couldn’t.   Your boyfriend and your leader, the two people you had leaned on the most during your time in Korea.  To be fair, the timing was definitely worth questioning.  But the more you thought about their behaviour, the more you began to let your thoughts run wild…  You didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but maybe it was worth investigating…

Practice ended, and Sora and Minyoung headed back to the dorm.

“Where are you going (y/n)?” May questioned, addressing you directly for the first time since practice had began.

“I’m pretty hungry, so I might go get something to eat.”  In reality, you were going to visit Mark.  You knew he practiced around the same time everyday,  and it just so happened that your practice had ended right around that time.  You weren’t sure why you lied about going to see Mark, but something inside of you told you to hide it from May.  It was probably just your stupid suspicions getting to you.

“Sounds good.  I feel like going shopping, so I’ll just catch up with you guys later, okay?”  May filled you in.  “I’ll bring dinner back for all of us,” she said before grabbing her bag and leaving.

You hung around the practice room for a while longer, deciding to practice your high notes a few more times before going to visit Mark.  It was really just a sad attempt to give yourself time to think about how you would approach the topic of May with Mark, but with every passing minute, you realized that no amount of time would be enough to think of what to say.  You would just have to ask him flat out, and deal with him hating you for a while when he told you that you couldn’t be more wrong.  You had had arguments before, but you always got past it.  You just needed to hear him tell you that your suspicions had no validity.

Grabbing your bag, you headed to the floor below, and to the room where you knew Mark would be practicing.  You paced outside for a few minutes, worried about what you would say when you saw him.  He was either cheating, or more likely, wasn’t and you would be THAT girlfriend that thinks the worst.  At least the latter was better than cheating.  It would be something you could work past.  Mark never stayed angry at you for long, and really, could he blame you for being suspicious with the way he had been acting?  Deciding it was best to just bite the bullet and get it over with, you swung the door open.

You never expected to see what was on the other side of the door.

Mark and May scrambled to pull themselves together as you stood there, silently watching.  Your mouth was agape from shock.  They had been making out.  Mark’s shirt was on the ground a few feet away from them.  His hands were up May’s shirt, gripping her waist.  Her hands were tangled in his hair.  Tears began to stream down your face almost immediately at the sight of two people you loved, two people you trusted, betraying you.  You had your suspicions, but you never truly believed that they were true.

Not knowing what to do, not having any comprehensive words to say,  you began running.  You weren’t sure where, but it didn’t matter as long as it was far away from that practice room.  

***

Breaking: (Y/N) leaves group.  Remaining members to perform as 3 at K-pop Festival.

Update: (Y/N) to leave SM Entertainment following departure from group?

Latest:  Other agencies already looking to sign (Y/N). Departure from SM still not confirmed.

You sighed as you scrolled through the headlines.

The last two weeks had been an absolute whirlwind.  That evening after catching Mark and May together, you had ended up crying in your manager’s office.  Without needing to think twice, you had told him that you wanted to leave your group.  He tried for what seemed like hours to convince you to change your mind, but you wouldn’t budge.  Having your own leader betray you was too much.  She was supposed to support you, guide you, be there for you when you needed a shoulder to cry on or motivation to practice harder.  But no.   She had been fooling around with your boyfriend for weeks.  

It was a hasty decision - one you definitely struggled with at times, but ultimately, you knew it was the best option.  The alternative would be staying in the group, hating May, and the atmosphere always being tense.  You couldn’t do that to Sora and Minyoung.  You felt ashamed for abandoning them, but they understood your decision, knowing how hard it would be for you to be around May.  It was an issue between you, May and Mark, and your members shouldn’t have to suffer anymore than they already had with you leaving.  As for the fans, there were some who had voiced their hatred towards you on social media, but there were also some who left messages of support, stating that they would follow whatever you chose to do with your career.  You expected fans to be angry, but it meant a lot to you that some were still showing you their support.

And yes, with your departure from the group came talks about you leaving SM.  You couldn’t bear the thought of having to see Mark and May at work or at SM Family concerts, and you especially couldn’t imagine having to practice in the room where you had caught them.  You were lucky to be a popular idol, with many fans and the talent to support you.  It was true there were other agencies looking to recruit you already, it was just a matter of settling your contract with SM and choosing where to go next.  It would be a difficult transition, but you needed to do it for yourself.

You had spoken with May one last time at the meeting where your manager informed the members that you would be leaving.  She tried apologizing, but you told her not to bother.  She had betrayed you and that was something you would never recover from.  It was obvious she felt terrible, which you appreciated on some level.  But you couldn’t pretend nothing had happened.  You hoped that would be the last time you saw her.

There was only one loose end left to tie up before you could focus on moving on - Mark.

After a day of meetings regarding your departure from SM, you texted Mark. For the past few weeks, you had been avoiding his messages, but you knew you had to see him one last time before you could truly move on.  He agreed to meet you at NCT’s dorm while the other members were practicing so you could talk in private.

“So you’re really leaving the company?”  Mark asked as the two of you sat down.

“I can’t stick around after what happened.  We all just need to move on and the best way to do that is if I’m not there,” you reasoned, more for your own sake than Mark’s.

A moment of silence passed by before he spoke again.

“What if I don’t want you to go?”  He suddenly questioned, taking your hands in his.  You quickly retracted your hands.

“Isn’t it better for you if I go?  Then you and May can be together guilt-free,”  you hissed.

“I ended it with her.  We should have never even started anything, but it just happened and I hate myself for it,” Mark said, once again avoiding eye contact.  You knew now that he was doing it out of shame.  “(Y/n), I still love you.  It was a mistake, a huge mistake.  But I need you.  Come on, it’s been us against the world since day one,” he begged, beginning to tear up.

“If you think I would ever believe a word out of your mouth, you’re wrong.  How do you expect me to believe you still love me after you cheated?” You countered, incredulous at his attempt to win you back.  The truth was you still loved him too, and a part of you wanted to take him back.  Despite what he did, you couldn’t just suddenly stop loving him.  Your heart wanted him, but you knew in your head it would be a mistake to take back a cheater.

“I was so so stupid (y/n).  May came on to me one day and I just…  I caved.  I put lust before love.  But (y/n)…  Just…  Just please don’t leave,” Mark pleaded, his tears now streaming down his face.

“I’ll never be able to trust you again Mark.  How can I be with someone I don’t trust?”  You blinked quickly, trying to suppress the tears you could feel forming.  No matter how badly he had hurt you, you still hated to see him hurting too.

Mark stood there, silently crying.  Once again he was avoiding eye contact.  You knew that like May, he was ashamed and that he felt terrible for what had happened.  He wasn’t a bad person, he just made a stupid mistake.  But it was a mistake that you wouldn’t be able to forgive and forget.  He had made his voice, and you had made yours.

“You know Mark, I wasn’t naive enough to think that we would be together forever, but I never thought it would end like this,” you shook your head at him, ashamed on his behalf.

“But I love you, and I know you must still love me.  We can make this work if we try.  I’ll do anything,” Mark managed to get out between his sniffles.

“You don’t love me.  You know how I know?  Because you don’t betray the people you love,” you responded, your voice now flat and emotionless.  You felt numb.  Over the last few weeks, you had been dreading confronting Mark.  You had come to Mark for closure, not expecting him to try and patch things up.  But you had to stand your ground and move on.  Being with Mark would never be the same as it was before.  You would just be jealous, angry, and suspicious all the time.  The love you felt for him would never be the same as before, and you would never be able to get past what he had done.

“I think it’s just best if we all try and move on.  Goodbye Mark.”

“(Y/n), please don’t go!  We can-”  His words were cut off as you shut the door to the dorm, pausing on the other side to lean against it for a moment and clear your head, leaving Mark alone on the other side.  You knew he wouldn’t follow you.  It was clear that you didn’t want him to be apart of your life anymore, and he wouldn’t force his way to your forgiveness.

You began walking, leaving the building and making your way to the hotel room where you had been staying since you had moved out of your own dorm.  Putting on a playlist of breakup songs, you made your way to the bathroom to take off your makeup and get ready for bed.

You lay your head on your pillow, reflecting on your conversation with Mark.  Thinking about it again and again just made you wish the day was over.  You just wanted to sleep and forget the last few weeks, even if it was only for a few hours.  It was still hard to wrap your head around what Mark and May had done to you, but they did, and that was that.  You closed your eyes and began to drift to sleep.  Maybe when you woke up tomorrow, things would be better.

Thank you for requesting~  A story for my little bro Markers.  I honestly can’t imagine him being the type of guy who would cheat, but I wrote it anyways haha.  I usually don’t write angst so this could be completely terrible LOL.  I hope it’s okay though, and if not, I apologize.  Thank you to anyone who reads it, and please let me know what you think :)  Also requests are open so feel free to leave something in my ask~~  Love you guyssssss