#sora gets back to neverland and wendy's kid is there.

[sorceressrinoa]

@lockandkeyblade

:3 :3 :3

it's thematic! sora enters at night and riku leaves at dawn!! it also makes the days timeline actually make sense because if time ISN'T fucky, how do they hear about [presumably vexen's death] on day 26 and then sora's side of com doesn't end until nearly a month later

Okay so getting a returning interest in KH means I'm finally catching up on the mobile games and question: when the fuck was someone gonna tell me that Dark Road literally lays out that individual worlds are still reforming during the time when Eraqus and Xehanort are students?

I am frothing at the mouth at the things this game has been confirming that I've been wondering about for years. Yes, Keyblade society has basically been eating itself alive- Scala ad Caelum is near empty even when they're students.

And y'all are gonna let me find out that the worlds are likely still reforming in Sora's time, that time is literally funky between each world due to the differing rates in which they reform, from a goddamn youtube video showcasing cutscenes????

The potential worldbuilding is phenomenal. The potential what ifs are insane. What if LoD and the Keyblade Graveyard had been on completely different time speeds and Vanitas or Ventus had aged differently in comparison to each other? How many years have Sora Riku and Kairi actually been gone? Some worlds take months and some take seconds to rush through and the absolute cognitive dissonance of like, joining an army for the new friend you made who's trying to hide as a girl, for example, spending months gaining the trust of your captain and eventually saving the emperor, just to trot back to Radiant Garden and be told "oh Sora don't be silly you've been gone less than a day"--

This is how I know the fandom is dead on the fanfiction side of things because this is just begging to be experimented with and if it is I am not seeing it.

[nadziejastar]

Pence: Do you guys think we’ll always be together like this?

Olette: I sure hope so.

Hayner: Huh? Where did that come from?

Pence: Oh, well, you know. Just thinking out loud.

Hayner: Well, I doubt we can be together forever. But isn’t that what growing up’s all about? What’s important isn’t how often we see each other, but how often we think about each other. Right?

Pence: Get that off a fortune cookie?

That’s easy. The reason I think KH3 did more damage to Axel/Lea than KH2 is that Axel’s attachment to Roxas was glorified in KH3. It was presented like we were supposed to find it endearing and perfectly healthy. But even in KH2, Axel was presented as dysfunctional and more than a little pitiable. He kidnapped Kairi and wanted to turn Sora into a Heartless again, just to see Roxas. None of this was ever meant to be seen as a healthy display of friendship. It was meant to show that Axel was a broken person, with a few screws loose. Roxas cried (through Sora) while saying goodbye to Hayner’s group. But Axel didn’t get a real goodbye scene until the Final Mix version. And even in that scene, Roxas was calm and at peace. Axel was the one who was broken up. Nomura and the writers knew that Axel’s relationship with Roxas was questionable and unhealthy. They wanted to give him interesting development regarding that.

It’s why I personally didn’t start truly loving his character until the arc that was building up to KH3 (Re:CoM, KH2FM, Days, BBS, Coded, 3D) was created. And I developed a new level of appreciation for him after reading the novels. That’s when he became fully humanized to me. And the reason is simple: his tragic backstory. The fact that a grown man was calling two kids his best friends was supposed to be seen as SAD, not something to celebrate. It was a symptom of his arrested development. After reading the novels, it was even more clear to me that Axel was intended to be seen as a maladjusted person. He lost his childhood and is stuck at 15-year-old in a lot of ways. You know how some people have daddy issues? Well, Axel had “best friend issues”.

Wendy: Listen, Peter. I’ve got something to tell you… I want to go home to London.

Peter Pan: What are you talking about? Why would you want to do that? You’d have to turn into a grown-up. Besides, goin’ on adventures is a lot more fun! If you go back to London, you’ll have to leave the nursery. You’ll grow up and we’ll never see each other again!

Wendy: I know, Peter. But… I still want to go home.

Peter Pan: I came to rescue you! And you don’t care if you ever see me again!

Wendy: No, you don’t understand!

Peter Pan: Suit yourself! And while you’re at it, rescue yourself! I’m leaving.

He was extremely damaged because of what happened to his best friend. It caused him to feel hatred and despair. He was stuck in the past, unable to move on from his childhood. Lea and Isa were just two innocent kids. Then one day they are kidnapped, experimented on, forced to join a death cult, and obey every command of the “Superior” under threat of death. Lea’s best friend was subsequently brainwashed, possessed, and branded with a giant scar of death on his face. His personality became unrecognizable. He changed from an innocent kid into a sociopathic robot incapable of feeling friendship or love. Or at least that was heavily implied to be the case before KH3 turned them into “apprentices” (what a crock).

Axel was a sorrowful person. He cared about Roxas and Xion…but he didn’t actually want to be best friends with them the way he wanted to be with Isa. Lea became best friends with Isa when he was a normal, well-adjusted, happy teenager. Axel became best friends with Roxas and Xion because he was a lonely and emotionally broken adult who couldn’t process the trauma he experienced as a kid. Even as a teen, Lea saw Ventus as a stray puppy. Isa and Lea were inseparable. They hung out all summer and did homework together. They ate ice cream and played frisbee. Normal stuff. They were happy. Axel was always fixated on the past. He doesn’t come on many missions with you in Days. But they made DAMN sure that he came with you to Neverland.

“Are you worried about her, too, Axel?”

The question slipped out before he could stop it.

Axel eyed him in mild surprise. “Of course I am.”

But his voice was still oddly low. Running into Saïx had brought out a different side of him—and that side was a little scary.

He wasn’t interested in Roxas romantically. He wasn’t even really obsessed with him. He was a lonely, miserable person, with a best friend-shaped void in his heart. And he was desperate to fill it. He really couldn’t relate to either Roxas or Xion on an adult level. He never expressed his deeper feelings to them. Axel’s relationship with Roxas was a lot more nuanced and realistic than it is made out to be. It had many shades of gray. This is the event that led to Axel calling Roxas and Xion his best friends. Saïx brought out a side of Axel that Roxas found scary.

“You wanna know?” Roxas quietly waited for the answer.

“It’s because you two are my best friends.”

Axel had said before that he didn’t have a best friend, Roxas remembered. But now it’s us…?

“Got it memorized?” A smile played at the corners of Axel’s mouth. “The three of us, we’re inseparable. You’re my best friends.”

Then he’s all smiles. Even Roxas was confused about why he was calling them his “best friends” at that moment. Roxas really didn’t understand Axel and couldn’t tell what he was thinking most of the time. He never shared anything about his past with them. I always found it fascinating that Axel murdered a bunch of people in Castle Oblivion, then came home and hung out with Roxas and Xion. They never saw that dark side of him. Ever. They never knew that Axel was best friends with Saïx as kids. Axel’s talk of being super-duper bestest friends with them was his attempt to cope with the pain of Isa getting Norted. I don’t think the fandom really appreciated this, though. Most people seem to have taken it for granted that he really became genuine best friends with Roxas and Xion, that he wanted nothing more in life than to be with them, and didn’t care about Saïx. But that wasn’t the case at all.

Roxas: I hope we always have each other.

Xion: Yeah…

Axel: What’s gotten into you?

Roxas: I just…want these days to last forever. Hanging out, the ice cream, the sunsets…

Axel: Nothing lasts forever, man. Least of all for a bunch of Nobodies. But you know, we’ll still have each other…even if things change and we can’t do this anymore.

Roxas: Yeah?

Axel: As long as we remember each other, we’ll never be apart. Got it memorized?

Roxas: Ha ha, wow, Axel. That sounded ridiculous.

Axel: What? I thought it was pretty deep.

His words to Roxas and Xion were so similar to Hayner’s because their time together was supposed to be impermanent. Things inevitably change. They don’t need to hang out with each other every day for their time to be meaningful. It’s more important that they’d always remember each other.

Axel suddenly broke his silence. “Well, even if things change, we’ll never be apart—”

“—As long as we remember one another,” Xion finished. “Right?”

Axel’s encouragement from ages ago echoed in Roxas’s head.

“Don’t worry, Axel. We’ve got it memorized.” Xion grinned at him.

“Just checking.” Looking at the sunset rather than her, Axel munched his ice cream.

When given the choice to leave with Roxas and Xion or stay, he would have stayed. That’s why he said this to them yet again. What Axel really needed was to heal from his past and be with someone who it was more appropriate for him to spend every day with. He needed to “grow up”, but Roxas and Xion first needed to help him heal and remember how to believe in order for him to do that. He also needed to get his best friend back. That was non-negotiable.

Peter Pan: Are you sure you won’t change your mind?

Wendy: Peter, I’m sorry. But I really want to go home.

Peter Pan: I was afraid of that… Everyone grows up—and grown-ups always forget. First you’ll forget what it feels like to be young, and then you’ll forget about me.

Wendy: How can you say such a thing, Peter? I’ll never, ever forget you.

Peter Pan: Sure, that’s what you think now. But when you try to remember me, the memories will be gone. You’ll forget—little by little, one memory at a time. Once you’re grown up, there won’t be a single memory left.

Sora: Don’t say that. Memories—even important ones—don’t come back to us whenever we want them to. But that doesn’t mean the memories are gone. It’s more like…like they’re sleeping. So when the right thing comes along and wakes the memory up, we can remember it. The memories engraved in our hearts never go away. I’m sure of it.

Lea had a dream of Roxas before he woke up. He was sitting on the clock tower eating ice cream, acting perfectly happy. Just like he always did in Days. “Best friends forever”. But…he’d been lying not only to Roxas, but also to himself. He wasn’t happy during those days spent on the clock tower. He doesn’t even like the taste of sea-salt ice cream anymore. His smile always belied his true feelings. It was to mask the pain that he was running away from.

Silence fell over the room. He paused in his munching to stare hard at Riku, then finally asked, “What is Sora to you?”

The question caught Riku off guard. He groped for words. On the sofa opposite him, Naminé spoke up instead. 

“Sora and Riku are best friends.”

Axel’s eyes crinkled as he remembered his own best friend—the only friend he’d ever had, in fact.

“If your best friend goes away, you’re sad, and if you get to be with them, you’re happy,” Naminé added. “Isn’t that how it is, Axel?”

“…That’s about the size of it.” Axel nodded and sat down on the remaining empty sofa, staring at the sea-salt ice cream he held.

“So you are capable of sincerity,” said Riku.

Axel only shrugged at the jab and finished his ice cream pop.

His sleeping memories of Isa awakened after he went to Castle Oblivion. He knew deep down that he was using his relationship with Roxas as a crutch to stay in Neverland and to not grow up. In KH3D, he knew that unless he dealt with Isa, he’d never move on. So, that’s why I think KH3 had a much more damaging effect on Lea’s character than KH2. By making him just as fixated on Roxas as he was in KH2, and making him totally unconcerned with Isa, you keep Lea in Neverland. He doesn’t grow up or mature. He stays an emotionally stunted man, unable to move beyond the age of 15. His arc was rendered totally pointless. It sent such a juvenile message and ruined his character for me. He was totally dumbed down as a character. I can see why you feel the way you do, especially when Axel/Roxas is the most popular Lea/Axel ship. I feel the way you do about him in KH3. I just don’t think he was supposed to turn out this way.