#sora’s heart IS kind of easy to break. BECAUSE he cares so much

[daylighteclipsed]

@last-flight-of-fancy Don’t leave this in the tags either

You ever think about how the "keep Riku safe" memory almost wakes Sora up but then Ansem SOD showing up to imply Sora's failure on doing that in KH1 is what plunges him back into sleep?

[nobodies-png]

Destiny Trio - Love Languages

Headcanons and analysis on Sora, Kairi and Riku's love languages and the way they show their appreciation.

I started writing a draft with this very same prompt for the orgxiii but my god, i forgot how time consuming it is to write for 14 people all at once without repeating myself too much

so i'm taking a break from that by doing the exact same thing with less characters lmfao

Giving: Acts of Service, Physical Touch

Receiving: Gifts, Quality Time

[Acts of Service]

Sora is a bleeding heart through and through, so it makes sense to me that his first and foremost love language is acts of service - one way or another, he's always doing things for the sake of others, both big and small. Without a doubt, Sora is the type of person who would gladly give you the world and ask for nothing in return.

Because he's willing to help anyone, it's extremely easy to see Sora as gullible, naive and easy to take advantage of. And that might've been true when he was younger! However, those closest to him know about that stubborn streak of his: every day, Sora wakes up and actively chooses kindness over everything else.

This intense mindset is what drives him forward, it's also what makes Sora so reliable. No matter the situation, he'll always be there for those he cares about.

He'll be there if you need someone to help you with chores or to keep you company during sleepless nights, telling you all about his adventures until you fall asleep. He's the one staying behind on the island, looking for that good luck charm Kairi gave you, the one you lost while playing on the beach. The second he hears you're sick, or lonely, or feeling bad in general, he's at your doorstep calling out your name, so that you can tell him how to help. To him, the best feeling is knowing that his loved ones are cared for and safe, that they don't have to worry about anything.

And because he makes friends wherever he goes, it means he has many, many connections. If he can't help you out directly, then chances are he knows someone who absolutely can.

Out of the group, the one who gets carried away the most is Sora. So in this case, acts of service is a double-edged sword - he'll stop at nothing to help others or to do what he believes will soothe their pain, even if it means sacrificing himself for it.

One of my favorite portrayals of Sora is seeing how years of being "the chosen one" affected him while growing up, to the point where he doesn't see any alternatives to martyrdom because he's so used to carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. So whenever he wants to show someone that he cares, he does it through acts of service because - in his eyes - there's nothing else that he can offer other than being helpful and fixing what's wrong. Because he's supposed to being the one to save everything and everyone.

[Physical Touch]

This love language isn't as loaded as the previous one - Sora is just a naturally touchy-feely, clingy person!

He's usually leaning or touching his friends and loved ones in some manner, either by having an arm around their shoulders, holding their hand, linking arms, leaning on them, etc... You name it! Hell, this isn't even limited to people Sora knows or cares about, because he'll also be pretty friendly and casually affectionate with people he just met.

His welcoming aura, paired with the incredible hugs he gives, makes Sora an absolute machine when it comes to getting people to eventually drop their guard, no matter how hesitant they may be towards physical contact. The main example to this is Riku!

Of course, if confronted directly about boundaries and such, Sora would respect them to the best of his ability and make it an habit of asking for permission before doing anything.

Also I lied, there is a bittersweet tone to Sora's affections.

It might not seem like it, since he's extremely casual with physical touch, it means a lot to him. In a way, being able to reach out to people, know they're right there next to him, that he can actually hug them, helps ground Sora.

I imagine he becomes even clingier over the years, a side-effect to constantly losing his best friends and all the people he's befriended in his journeys. One would expect physical touch to be a love language he likes to receive instead of give, but it all ties back to Sora's inability to let himself be cared for.

Perhaps he re-contextualizes it as him letting others know that he'll always be there, that they're the ones who can reach out for him and he'll actually be there - as opposed to him needing their presence to feel whole and calm. Who knows!

Giving: Gifts, Words of Affirmation

Receiving: Acts of Service, Quality Time

[Gifts]

Kairi is also very openly affectionate with her loved ones, but she shows how much she cares about them through gifts.

Typically, she tries to get small, cute and useful things to her friends - perhaps erasers shaped like fun animals, hair clips to keep the hair out of your face or some scrunchies, sometimes it's things she knows you've been eyeing for awhile. Sometimes it's matching lunchboxes! Kairi is extremely attentive to her surroundings and those around her, so her gifts tend to come in at just the right moment. Like Sora, she likes to make the lives of her loved ones a bit easier and more colorful.

Her love for lucky charms and trinkets is known by almost everyone on the islands, but contrary to popular belief, Kairi only makes them for very special occasions - they're very meaningful gifts for her, after all! In her words, if she were to give everyone she knows one, they would lose all their magic.

Like the ones she gives to Sora, these charms are meant to represent a promise between her and her loved ones - that you'll come back safe and sound to her, that you'll never forget her. Because Kairi is used to being the one left behind, these charms are a way for her to be with all the people she has to say goodbye to, even if its just a very small part of her.

It also goes without saying that Kairi always gives the best gifts during any event that requires them, like Secret Santas, special holidays, birthdays and so on. Even if you don't know what type of gift you'd like, she'll figure it out. It's almost scary!

I also like to think that she's quite good at arts and crafts (and that's why Naminé is so artistic) as well as writing, so she'd include very heartfelt notes with her gifts.

[Words of Affirmation]

In KH2, we see that Kairi was very eager to start protecting Sora and Riku in return instead of staying by the sidelines, the culmination of all those themes about being left behind over and over - so I like to think that words of affirmation is Kairi's secondary love language because it's more of a skill she's had to develop over the years.

She was rarely allowed the chance to do anything for herself, but she knows that people will listen to her words, if that makes sense?

Like, let's be honest: as close as the Destiny Trio might be, growing up with two boys who will constantly fight for your attention is kind of tiring - the amount of mediating Kairi has had to do from a young age is amazing. So that awareness, paired with the fact that she was adopted by the mayor of the islands, made Kairi very aware of the effect her words would have on people, whether she liked it or not.

She's always been kind and considerate, but her words tend to be a little sweeter because of this whole thing. Whenever she sees someone in need of a listening ear, she'll be very gentle, allowing the other party to steer the conversation to whatever they're comfortable discussing with her.

Her advice is always solid, but it might feel a little distant to some, like she's specifically choosing to say the safest things for your situation.

This is something she outgrows as she becomes older, the current Kairi doesn't have to suppress her own stubbornness anymore, after all - she calls it how she sees it, and might tease you from time to time, but she always make sure that you feel heard, seen and cared for, passionately talking about how much you inspire her.

And this is also where her letters come into play! It's way easier for her to put thoughts and feelings into a letters or notes, because she does get flustered over rambling and gushing so much about her loved ones.

Giving: Acts of Service, Quality Time

Receiving: Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch

[Acts of Service]

Riku is a stark contrast to Sora and Kairi, he struggles with being as openly affectionate - both verbally and physically - as them, which leaves him with two love languages that don't necessarily focus on either of those two things.

He shares acts of service with Sora, but Riku helps those he cares about specifically to repay all the kindness and patience he's been shown. And in this aspect, he's more similar to Kairi - instead of grand gestures, both prefer to do little things to make others happy.

In fact, Riku doubles down on this. He's proud to know others rely on him, whenever someone might approach to ask him for help, but he greatly prefers helping from the shadows (less embarrassing and less chances to get flustered that way). He'll wake up early to make breakfast or make whatever necessary preparations for the day, just so that you can take a few extra minutes in bed. If you need to run errands, he's most likely taken care of half of them already so that you only have half of the work left.

To differentiate him more from Sora: Sora is on your doorstep the second he finds out you're sick, but Riku is most likely the reason you never got sick in the first place because he's probably been fussing about you wearing enough layers.

One thing I love to headcanon about Riku is that he's great at everything and anything - as long as he's doing it for someone else. He'll put in the extra effort if needed, but really he'll only succeed if his motivation is helping someone he cares about. And because he makes sure that no one sees his failures (if possible), it makes Riku come across as this perfect guy, which is most likely what fueled his rivalry with Sora when they were kids.

[Quality Time]

Because of the chaotic life he's led, Riku appreciates the quiet moments even more.

Whenever he feels restless, or whenever he sees his loved ones stressed and in need of a break, Riku won't hesitate to pull them away from their responsibilities into an impromptu date. You will hang out with him and you will relax or so help him.

Like every person native to Destiny Islands, his first instinct is to seek the nearest body of water (if the ocean isn't that easy to get to). An empty beach, river or lakeside on a sunny day is the perfect way to relax - whether you want to swim around, walk along the shore, or just dip your feet into the water and talk until the sun sets.

He's never been one for large crowds or huge outings with dozens of friends, so one-on-one time is perfect for someone like Riku. If you ever need someone to just sit with you in absolute silence, you can count on Riku to be there for you. If you need that to be a daily or weekly occurrence, he'll set up seven alarms to make sure he's never late.

You'll get to see Riku's most vulnerable side, when he trusts you enough to show that he genuinely wants to be closer to you - even if all you two do is talk about groceries, what you'd like to do next week or to show you the funny shit Kairi and Sora text him when half-asleep. He'll stumble over his words at times, apologize for the smallest of things that you never even noticed or thought were an issue, like getting a little sassy and regretting it instantly because what if you weren't as close as he thought you were, etc.

All in all, under all those layers of nonchalance and effortless perfection, Riku is one huge mess, but he trusts you enough to know that. And he'd be over the moon to know you also trusted him enough to lower your guard around him.

[vannahfanfics]

Ocean Melody

Category: Mild Romantic Fluff

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts

Characters: Sora, Kairi

Additional Tags: Soulmate AU

Hey, everyone! Here’s today’s SoKai story for @sokaiweek​, this time based on the AU prompt— and since soulmate AUs are my favorite, of course, that’s what I decided to do! <3

A song— Kairi had heard it in her soul ever since she was old enough to recognize it as song. Everyone was born with a song in their hearts, and that song linked them to their soulmate; every pair was unique, possessing their own melody that linked them in love and eternity. Every morning, Kairi would stand upon the beach below her house with her feet in the surf, humming the tune of her melody in the hopes that the wind would carry it across the ocean to the person she was meant to love— and every day, that melody went unanswered. So she waited, all alone in her house near the sea, for the day her solo would finally become a duet. 

Many days, she found herself staring out her window down at the beach like this. She wasn’t sure why, but the sea called to her like another melody, the gentle ebb and flow of the waves a song that tried to entice her to its endless blue. A cup of tea long since cold rested in her hand as she gazed unblinkingly through the glass, watching the sand dunes ruffle in the salty breeze and the sea foam spray with each crash of the waves. 

“Kairi?” 

Kairi jumped as Selphie suddenly spoke. The cup rattled against the saucer in her hand, spilling cold tea all over the counter, her hands, and her front. Kairi cursed under her breath and hurriedly set the dishes in the sink, then grabbed a dish towel to mop up the brown liquid. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much she could do about the brown spots dotting the front of her pink-and-white sundress. She would just have to attempt to wash them out later. 

“Sorry,” she apologized, dabbing at the wet spots on her front while she turned to her friend, who was sitting at her kitchen table with an amused look. “I got lost in thought… What were you saying?” 

“I was talking about Tidus!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. “How lucky can he get? I mean, how many people’s soulmates are pop stars? He heard his soulmate song on the radio, and whadaya know, his soulmate is that up-and-coming popstar, Yuna. I would kill for it to be that easy for me!” Selphie complained, pushing her fist into her cheek once she finished venting. Kairi chuckled, walking over to join her friend in the wooden chair. She picked up one of the petit fours sitting in the middle of the table and brought it to her mouth to take a small bite of the rich, sweet cake before answering. 

“I’m sure you’ll find your soulmate soon, Selphie. It happens every day.” 

“Yeah, well, I wish it would happen to-day,” her friend sniffed disdainfully, and Kairi chuckled again. She certainly shared Selphie’s sentiments, but it was amusing how enthusiastically her friend was willing to complain about it. She continued to munch on the petit fours while her friend lamented her loveless woes, but all the while, her heart yearned to gaze upon the ocean. She knew not why it called her so; sometimes, she wondered if the ocean was her soulmate, with how much she stared at it. 

Of course, that would be silly. Nonetheless, she was drawn to it, day after day after day. 

It was the next morning when Kairi found out why. 

She just stood there gaping, still holding the long hem of her sundress bunched up in one hand in preparation to step into the swirling surf. The wind ruffled her hair, the fabric of her dress, her short auburn hair— and the few spikes of dry brown hair of the man who lay face-up on the beach, half-in and half-out of the water with seaweed still clinging to the drenched fabric of his sailor’s uniform. It took Kairi a few precious seconds to realize that it was in fact a person lying there, and when she did, she scrambled across the sand with a startled gasp. She fell on her knees beside him, hands fluttering over his chest, and she was relieved to find both a steady heartbeat and a pattern of breathing. 

“Oh, I am so glad you’re not drowned,” Kairi sighed with a smile, though he was totally unconscious and couldn’t hear her. She reached up to place her hand on his clammy cheek, and though it was pale and cold and wet with seawater, she still fancied the softness of his skin. He just continued to sleep on, serene aside from the way his hair and clothes clung to his body. “Where did you come from?” she murmured. 

And why did the sea bring you to me?

Kairi managed to haul him up to her house, though she dragged in half the beach with her. She brushed as much of the sand from his back as she could before she lowered him onto the couch, then tore across the house gathering every blanket she could. Once she had cocooned him up nice and warm, she called the nearby doctor. While she waited, she swept all the sand back out of the house, though she was certain she would find grains of it for years to come. That was okay; each one would be a strange little reminder of the strange man on the beach, the strange call of destiny. 

The doctor assured him that he only had a mild fever, and with proper care, it should break by the morning. Kairi dutifully remained by his side through the highs and lows, whispering to him through his shaking and sweating fits and dozing in the sparse hours he slept peacefully. By the time the dawn broke, her eyes were droopy and laced with exhaustion and her hair a bit frazzled, but he’d been fever-free for four hours. 

Just a quick nap, she told herself while her eyes drifted shut. She descended into the gray-black haze of sleep. In the void, she heard the tune of her soulmate song, the gentle chiming of piano keys that always lulled her into a sense of peace. 

“Where… Where am I?” 

She jolted awake to see him staring tiredly up at the ceiling, blue eyes hazy with post-fever confusion. The sun was spilling brightly into the room now; her quick nap had actually been a few hours. She hurriedly leaned forward to pat the blankets over his chest, pulling his muddled gaze to her. She couldn’t help but blush at the way his eyes brightened just a little. 

“You’re all right. You’re on Destiny Islands. You washed up on the beach and have been very sick for the past day,” she explained, laying the back of her hand on his forehead to check his temperature. He blinked blearily at her, taking a few minutes to process what she’d just told him. 

“You… You saved me?” he rasped. Kairi nodded, then got up to grab a cold glass of water for him from the kitchen. She coaxed him to drink, and he greedily sucked down a total of three glasses before he finally collapsed back against the throw pillow with a sigh. “Thank you… My name is Sora.” 

“I’m Kairi. Do you need anything, Sora? Would you like more water, or…?” Her voice faltered as he smiled sweetly at her, and her heart thumped against her ribcage. 

“No… If you’d sit and talk with me a while, that would be good enough.” 

So they sat and talked for a while. Sora told her that he was a sailor traveling the world to explore different sights and cultures with his friends. They had run afoul of a thunderstorm, and in trying to save the ship from floundering, he’d been thrown overboard. He managed to cling to a barrel, but he’d lost consciousness within the shallows— thankfully, the sea had been merciful and brought him ashore. 

As his strength returned, he told her so many things about what he’d seen in his travels— snowy mountain peaks that pierced the sky, deserts that stretched to the horizon, jungles with a thousand creatures and torrential rains— and the people. He loved talking about all the amazing people he’d come across. He spoke of a shaman who’d performed ritual dances, of a princess who hunted with hawks, of a circus performer who did death-defying stunts with fire, of a world-renowned artist who painted the most gorgeous landscapes. Kairi hung onto his every word, drinking in all the things he’d experienced like it could make up for the fact that all she’d ever been was this sleepy house on the sea.

“Your life sounds so amazing, Sora,” she sighed, relaxing into the coffee table once he’d finished telling his latest story. He was sitting up now, the blankets loosely wrapped around him and a warm mug of tea in his hands. 

“Yeah, I’d consider myself pretty lucky,” he nodded and then sipped at his tea. “But to be honest, I think it’s just to make up for the one thing I’m missing.” 

“Missing?” she echoed, and he gave her a sheepish look. 

“My soulmate, you know? I’m sure you’ve felt it too… Like there’s a void in your soul that you can never fill.” Oh, Kairi had felt it. She felt it every day when she sang to the sea, begging the winds to carry her melody across the oceans to her special someone. She nodded sagely, but she didn’t realize she’d started crying until the tears dripped down onto her face. “Ah, sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Sora chuckled apologetically and reached out to gently thumb them away. She found herself leaning a little into the caresses, savoring the calloused pad of his finger. 

“It’s all right…” she murmured once he sat back. “I guess it’s just because I don’t have something to fill the void.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah… I just sit here waiting. It’s kind of depressing, now that I realize it,” she said with an embarrassed look. How pathetic could she be? Just waiting day after day instead of doing something amazing like Sora. 

Frowning, Sora set the mug down and took her hands. He rubbed gentle circles over her palms as he looked into her eyes. 

“I don’t think it’s depressing at all. Everybody deals with it differently. I think that makes you a really strong person, to have faith day after day that your soulmate will come to you.” He said it with such a serious and passionate look that it was so easy to believe him, or maybe it was just that Kairi didn’t want to face the reality that it was just a sad way to live. She leaned in, too distraught to consider how close their faces were, to whimper, “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he smiled sweetly, and he discarded one of her hands to reach up and pet her cheek. Her heart thumped in her chest again. Oh, this wasn’t good. This was getting dangerous, having feelings for a man she just met and who probably wasn’t her soulmate— but why did it feel so right? 

“In fact…” he said, his smile suddenly taking on a hint of cheekiness, “I think that day will come sooner than you think.” Kairi’s eyes widened, having the strange feeling that his words were more than just reassurance. She blushed as he leaned a little closer, close enough for their noses to brush. “You sing in your sleep, you know,” he revealed, and Kairi’s nerves sang as his breath ghosted over her face. 

And then he started humming, and Kairi felt like the world stopped around her, because that was her song, the song she’d sung to the waves every day of her life, and Sora was caressing her cheek, and it was her song.

She started crying again, and Sora laughed quietly, tilting his head to nose at the junction of her jaw and face. She couldn’t help but laugh, too, laugh at the silliness of crying with joy but she couldn’t help it. 

“I’m a pretty bad soulmate,” he joked, “because all I seem to be able to do is make you cry.” 

“Yeah,” she giggled while she tried to wipe her tears away but more dripped down from her eyes to replace them. “What’s up with that?” 

“Sorry,” he laughed and leaned in to press his forehead against hers. Surely it was the sea that brought him, she thought, as she gazed into the oceanic blues of his eyes. That was why the sea had called her so. And he tasted like the sea, too, when he leaned in to kiss her, like salt and ocean breeze and endless possibilities. He held her like the most precious treasure as he kissed her once, twice, three times, and then he pulled away to smile, and then he was kissing her again because he couldn’t get enough. Kairi couldn’t get enough of him either, savoring the feeling of his slightly chapped lips moving over her own. It was perfect, everything she’d dreamed of, and for the first time in her life she finally felt whole. 

After that, she and Sora went down to the sea together, hand-in-hand. Kairi didn’t sing to the waves that day. She didn’t have to now; her heart sung to Sora’s, and Sora’s to hers, and it was a harmony that only they could hear and know.

Enjoy this oneshot? Feel free to peruse my Table of Contents!

[dutchforstrangers]

I need you. Both. - A Taiorato Friendship one shot

Characters: Yamato Ishida/Matt Ishida, Taichi Yagami/Tai Kamiya, Sora Takenouchi Genre: Friendship, comfort Rating: K+ Words: 1500+

Summary: Losing a special someone will never be easy. Fortunately, we all have friends with shoulders to lean and cry on. Even when you don’t say a word, they just know they are needed.

More below, under read more! Enjoy.

A/N (feel free to not read it): For some unknown reason I found myself suddenly rewatching Digimon Kizuna (the english dub unfortunately, because I can’t find a properly version of the original with english sub - anyone who knows where to find it?) and I started wondering: what would Taichi and Yamato have done directly after losing Agumon and Gabumon? What would they say to each other? And how did they find out about Sora, who went through the same happenings on her own probably without letting anyone know... Well, here is my take on that!

Update on 27th of August 2021: So originally I wrote Sora and Yamato broken up (see fanfiction.net for the original one-shot), but after coming to terms with canon and Sorato during the past couple of months and this Kizuna meta I recently wrote, it didn’t feel right anymore. So I fixed it, Sora and Yamato are dating, but on a break (as I can totally see that happening with their personalities). 

Just to be clear, one last time: this is a Taiorato friendship! Which means all these dynamics are from a platonic point of view, even the Sorato parts.  Also fixed some typos :)

xxxxx

A cool breeze. Quiet after the storm. And the stabbing feeling of a loss.

He tried to fight his tears, burying his true feelings. In his one hand was the Digivice, petrified. He looked down on it, trembling, realizing what just had happened. With his other hand he brushed over the Digivice, then held his other hand preventing it from trembling too much. He needed to be strong. For himself, for the others. For Gabumon.

Gabumon.

Where would he be now? Yamato wondered. That thought freed the flow of tears he was failing to hide behind his eyelids. He wanted to scream. Shout. But what was the use? It wouldn’t bring his partner back. So he just stood there. Crying.

Mourning. The thoughts kept trying to fill the pit he felt in his stomach. As the crying died down because of those deep thoughts, he simply stared, following the flickering lights with his eyes. It being the only movement in front of him.

Movement. Life.

What was life? He knew for example life was not limited to earth only. There was a whole digital realm existing in between this world where he came from and the network where Gabumon had his roots. Was there even more? How far could he go? Space? Maybe space was where he should aim for. As far away as possible from here, from where he stood now. From the spot where his partner vanished.

“Yamato.”

He stood straight at attention upon hearing his name. It sounded vague and far away, though he knew it was close by. He turned around, letting his blue eyes meeting the brown ones now in front of him. He watched his companion scan the surroundings. His friend looked sad to him.

“No Gabumon?”

Yamato swallowed and shook his head, biting his lip to once again fight his feelings. The trembling made his Digivice almost fall out of his hand. He squeezed it tight and with that holding onto everything he knew. Not ready to fully let go yet.

Usually Yamato was the one far more calm and collected. Though this time, for once, it seemed like the guy who tracked him down was better at keeping his cool.

Taichi.

It was just Taichi, no yellow dinosaur following him. Yamato figured out Taichi must’ve gone through the same fate as him. Yamato wanted to be there for him, but he felt his feet stuck in his place. His legs were heavy, as was his heart. Any movement, except from trembling, seemed impossible. So he stood there, questionably looking for answers which he knew his friend neither had.

xxxxx

Yamato.

He just stood there, looking at him as if he had all the answers he wanted to hear. But he had to disappoint. He had one answer: both Agumon and Gabumon had vanished. With that their Digivices had turn into cold stone. Taichi figured out Yamato already knew that.

It had been one hour since it happened and he had been mourning since. But what Taichi knew too was that moping around wasn’t going to make things better. Besides, it wasn’t what Agumon would have wanted him to do, moping around.

Agumon.

Instead he had taken out his phone, the ring of light on the back vanished just like Agumon had. He was glad to see the phone still worked, though it looked like it was a little faded. Maybe he was seeing things. He had quickly updated the others in their group chat by sending them a picture of his petrified Digivice, then closed the chat. He did not want pity from his friends, from his sister, from the others. They did not understand.

In all probability, there was one other person who would come close to understand him. So Taichi tracked Yamato down through his GPS. As he found out his whereabouts, he silenced his phone and made his way to him. Without haste, because he knew Yamato wasn’t going far or fast for that matter, not even with that motorcycle of his. After all, he was mourning too, just like Taichi.

His feelings had been right as there was no sign of Gabumon. The only visible sign was the stone in Yamato’s hand. The same stone Taichi was carrying with him, in both his pocket and heart. Yamato looked completely lost in his feelings, emptiness overwhelming him.

Yamato turned his back again to him. Taichi’s hands balled into fists, at once feeling the urge to fight him just like the old days. Breathing in deep, that feelings quickly faded, replacing it with a sudden feeling of concern. He glanced to the blond, slowly walking towards him.

“I know how you feel,” Taichi said now standing beside Yamato, staring into the same direction. “It’ll be fine eventually. I promise.”

A careful smile appeared on Yamato’s face, making Taichi smile a little as well. It was a careful smile, but it was genuine, the feeling of concern growing bigger. Taichi placed a hand on the blonde’s shoulder closest to him before gently pulling Yamato to him.  

An embrace.

Back in the days the physical contact between the two of them were mostly fights with fists, but right now, Taichi knew it wasn’t the kind of touch he needed. What they both needed. Comfort, Yamato needed his friend, a shoulder to lean on.

“I know,” Yamato mumbled as he untangled himself out of Tachi’s grip after a little while. “It still stings though.”

Taichi nodded, completely understanding him, all the while grabbing the phone out of his pocket and switching it on to check the messages out of habit. He quickly scrolled through the messages in the group chat, but decided not to answer and leave them be for now. He looked through his private messages. 

One message from his worrying mother. A missed call from a bragging classmate. Another message from…

Taichi gasped. After a brief moment he placed his hand back on Yamato’s shoulder, making him turn to face Taichi. He held the screen to Yamato.

“We need to go. There’s someone who needs us.”

xxxxx

She had been standing near the window for what felt like days, the rain falling for hours and hours. And hours more. The tears on her face joined the crying sky, but there were no tears left. She sighed, swallowing the lump in her throat.

She turned around, briefly looking at her desk filled with both clothing and flower designs. It was loaded with things she loved, but it was empty to her all the same. Then her eyes trailed further down the room to an empty pillow in the corner, one that belonged to someone very dear to her. To someone who sadly wasn’t here anymore.

Piyomon.

The name lingered in her thoughts, making Sora want to cry, but nothing came. She felt empty, like the pillow, lonely and hollow. At the same time she was thankful. Thankful for the time she could have spent with her partner.

Would she still be here if Sora had chosen to keep fighting? Would it have made a difference? Sora wondered, feeling a sting in her heart. It had to happen eventually, so why not now... Because she knew she had to grow up, especially after that message they received from Koushiro about the glowing ring, counting down the time of her partnership. Little did she know that Taichi went through the same thing at the same time.  

Somehow it was hard to imagine him growing up. Into a man. To her, he had always been her childhood friend, the one making her feel strong, young and aware. She remembered the echoing sound of the whistle earlier today, immediately connecting the sound to him. By then she knew, even after they grew apart and had barely talked to each other during the past couple of weeks or even months, he was arriving at the same place where she already was at that time. 

Partnerless.

“Honey, there’s someone for you.” Sora heard her mother from the other side of the bedroom door, snapping her out of her thoughts. She walked towards the door, sliding it open and stepping into the hallway. Her head turned ninety degrees and her eyes grew wider.

Taichi.

There he was, with his back leaning against the frame of the door, her brown haired friend, as if he knew she was thinking about him. His arms folded across the chest, his head diagonally directed to the ground. Further outside she saw the silhouette of a certain blond boy she knew all too well.

Yamato.

After Taichi had sent a picture of his petrified Digivice in their group chat, she had sent him a reply through a private message. For Sora it was important that he knew and felt he wasn’t alone. But seeing Yamato standing there, leaning against the rail of the gallery, his blue eyes ice cold, she knew that Taichi already knew he wasn’t the only one.

As wasn’t she.

A few steps. Taichi looked up as Sora walked past him. Without looking she brushed over his arm and hand for reassurance, but her focus was on Yamato. It had been a little while since she saw him last. They maintained a steady relationship in the past, but with their busy lives and studies they decided to take a little break to take things slow. Very slow, distancing from each other to focus on their own paths first. 

Of course she missed him, and she still cared for him. A lot. And he needed her, she could feel. She knew he did. Standing fully in front of him, she placed her hand on one of his shoulders, finally making him look her straight in the eyes. She smiled her most genuine but soft smile, then carefully hugged him around the neck, placing a small peck on his cheek. She felt his heartbeat slightly increase, so she held on to him until his heart calmed down again.

As she let go and stepped back, Yamato flashed her a painful smile. Sora had to swallow seeing him like that, shifting her gaze to the ground. The touch of a hand on her shoulder brought her attention back up. She had thought she had no tears left, but that one touch did the trick.

Sora swiftly turned around, throwing her arms around the waiste of the owner of the hand on her shoulder. She felt Taichi pulling her even closer as she heavily cried, wetting his shirt. But she knew he didn’t care, because in that moment all he cared for was her. And Yamato.

Stupid.

And they just stood there, the two of them. Until suddenly she felt a warmth behind her, another body becoming part of their embrace. And she knew that whenever she was sad or lonely or in need of a hug, they were there within a heartbeat. 

“I need you,” she mumbled into Taichi’s shirt.

“Both.”

[ahiddenpath]

If you could give Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori their own crests, what would they be?

This is a really tough one!  I do love that they “inherited” crests; the whole “these kids gets mentors” was so cute?  A great way to bring back the older kids in a meaningful way.  I personally think the 02 crew “had it together” in ways the original crew... kind of didn’t, lol!  But they did have a lot of benefits (ability to go home, Koushiro as an advisor, mentors, two members who already knew what was going on, etc).

I also really love the observation that Adventure emphasized individual development (finding and earning and internalizing their crest traits, evolution is triggered by understanding yourself) and 02 emphasized team development (jogress/evolution triggered by strong bonds between teammates, inheriting wisdom from the ones who came before).  So...  I guess I hate to mess with that?  But I do also see the appeal of giving them their own traits...

THIS GOT INCREDIBLY LONG, but it’s a really cool post, I think!  So please read on beneath the cut!

Daisuke

Honestly, I think miracles works pretty well?  I’ve heard people say that Daisuke just...  Does whatever he wants/follows his gut, and it tends to work out; ie he’s more “lucky” than “an effective leader.”  

Personally, I...  Truly admire Daisuke’s faith and optimism and just...  Just raw belief in everyone?  I have anxiety, so sometimes my brain loves to tell me that a thing I’ve done a million times with no problems will somehow explode in my face.  Can you imagine just...  Choosing to always believe, and acting like everything will be okay?  I don’t mean “sticking your head in the sand and going LALALA THIS IS FINE,” I mean taking action without hesitation, even when things are scary.

Like, yeah, maybe that’s not always valid IRL- you need to plan and be realistic and accept and reevaluate when your plan isn’t working- although I’d argue that Daisuke learned to do that over the course of the series (I remember him saying the team should rest at some point, and everyone was surprised that he didn’t want to press on, except Ken).

But I also maintain that Daisuke’s ability to believe in himself, his team, and just a general “things will be okay” is what creates success that almost seems... miraculous!

Also, I think he is suuuch a great meld of courage and friendship, because he pushes on when things are scary (courage) and is able to do so because he believes in everyone (friendship).

So, I’m thinking something like faith/confidence/trust.  And having listed some similar-ish words...

I’m going with trust.  

What incredible things you can do, when you believe in yourself, your team, and the future.

Miyako

I’ve seen other people assign her the crest of “passion,” which I think is great!  

I think the thing about Miyako is that she’s, like...  Always on, always 150%, so dynamic and vibrant and just... her cup overflows with energy and... Miyako-ness.  

It’s clear to see how she relates to her “purity” side.  It took me a long time to understand what I think the crest of purity means, thanks to a lot of... ickiness around the word “pure” in western tradition, which is also why I am loathe to throw the word “innocence” into my definition.  Basically, I think the crest of purity means that Mimi and Miyako don’t dissemble/hide how they really feel.  You’re always getting their raw, honest truth.  And, because Mimi in particular is spoiled, she can come off as childish- which is where people like to throw in the word “innocent.”  

[The general selfishness of children is related to them not knowing yet that they aren’t the center of the world- psychologically; Freud would call it “being ruled by the id.”  It’s just a developmental stage, and doesn’t really indicate actual selfishness.  You know how Winnie the Pooh is a sweetheart, but can make things miserable for other people by just assuming he can help himself to everything?]

But Mimi also displays a child’s heart in terms of being kind and sweet and sensitive and wanting to help... and then swinging back towards the id at the drop of a dime, lol!

Like Mimi, Miyako is very comfortable giving her opinion and drawing attention to herself, and she doesn’t seem to be holding herself back...  But we do eventually see that things can weigh on her, and that she’s sometimes putting up a front when her energy actually isn’t at 150%.

I think the “love” part is a bit harder to pin down, but then...  The word “love” is incredibly vague, and means a million different things to different people, which is why I kind of hate discussing the crest of love!  I like to think of it as “the crest of compassion” to focus discussions; sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it.  

It’s kind of funny to think of Miyako with the crest of love compared to Sora.  Sora tends to show love by watching over people, being kind and supportive and brave even when she’s struggling and hiding the signs of her struggle/dismissing her own struggles, doing things for others, often without even letting people know she did anything.

In comparison, Miyako shows compassion by being present for people she loves, telling them bluntly when they need to shape up (which, frankly, a lot of Digimon characters really need.  We need waaaaaay less staring into each other’s faces and never answering concerned questions and waaaaaaay more *slap* GET IT TOGETHER!  God, ilu Miyako), and being honest and open about how much she cares for them.

So yeah, passion!  

Iori

One of my favorite Chosen, this sweet good boy that I lovelovelovelove!

So one thing about Iori is that, while I can write big honkin’ analysis of how Daisuke and Miyako show their inherited crests...  Um, I think Iori is his own thing.  Like, I don’t... super get honesty and knowledge off of him.  I mean, the honesty thing, sure.  His Grandpa taught him not to lie, we had a whole ep based on that alone.  As for knowledge, yes, he wants to know the truth and get to the bottom of things.  

But...  Neither crest ever felt like a slam dunk for him?  Even though it’s easy to see how “honesty” and “knowledge” coalesce into “a desire for truth,” which is further illustrated in his career as a (presumably upright and truth-seeking) lawyer.  Like, it’s right there in front of your face, Hidden!

BUT LEMME PULL UP A CHAIR, CAPTAIN AMERICA STYLE, AND HASH WITH YOU.

The thing that, to me, stands out about Iori most is that he’s grounded and centered.  Have you seen that post recently that explains how Daisuke tried, just one time, to treat Iori like a little kid (he says, “shut up, little brat”)?  And Iori- who is about three years younger than Daisuke, and much more withdrawn- politely but firmly replies, “Please don’t talk to me like that.”  

AND YOU KNOW WHAT?  DAISUKE APOLOGIZES AND NEEEEVER TALKS DOWN TO IORI AGAIN.

Iori is like...  He’s like eight, my dudes!  Rolling with a bunch of eleven-ish year olds!  He’s personal friends with Miyako, a twelve year old, before Adventure 02 even opens!  And we don’t often see him being doted on and protected like Takeru and Hikari were in the same situation.

YOU WANNA KNOW WHY?  The simple answer is that he’s mature, but I wanna say that he’s grounded, the ultimate earth sign type (I think Digmon is a pretty clear metaphor).  He doesn’t get flustered or swayed.  He knows where he is, where he stands, what he must do.  On the one hand, this makes him mature beyond his years, reliable, able to stand up for himself and be an equal team mate among kids who are older than him.

The downside is that “that which cannot bend must break.”  I’m sure you’ve read a zillion metas about how Iori sees in black-and-white originally and has trouble changing his world views and learning to forgive...  But he does all of those things, maturing further into possibly just... just...  Can you even imagine him as an adult?!  HE’S TOO POWERFUL.

So, if he were an Adventure character, I’d say that his crest is integrity, and he has to go through his adventure to learn what that really means for him- to develop from stubborn, black-and-white thinking to true integrity.

THANKS FOR THE ASK!

[mytwitterisdogtoast1]

Kingdom Hearts 3 broke my heart.

I am a fan of Kingdom Hearts. i've been here through the first game and even though I grew up without the money to play every game I stuck with the series as best I could. In fact I've bought multiple copies of games on multiple systems and beat a couple of the games not just once but 3 or more times. Here is a list of the things I've done involving this series.

1: I bought KH1/2/COM on more than one system such as ps2,3, and 4. 2: I've played and beaten on the hardest difficulty on each main installment (except critical mode of 3) 3: I have 100% KH1 which might not seem like a big deal but it is the only game I have 100% ever. Got all the trophies and so on. 4: I stuck with the story and even recently before 3 came out played and beat most of the games. (except DDD since it wasn't my kind of deal since I don't like the flowmotion part of the combat.)

You could say I'm a fan of the games and have done what I can to in general keep up with the series as well as have enjoyed the series.

But then 3 came out and I was just not happy with it. After waiting for so long and playing the game and screaming and ranting about certain plot points that just don't make sense to me (KH is notoriously hard to keep up with plot wise and I am just not the brightest person in the world when it comes to shit. Like I really need some things explained outright for me and to some degree do not mind spoilers for some things) I swore off KH the entirety from now on cause it was just that bad of a game for me. It wasn't a horrible game but the direction they started taking it in was just so far removed from what the original 2 games in the numerical series were that this was just NOT Kingdom Hearts at all. Sure you can say it is a love letter to the biggest of fans but I can say that a letter to regular fans was something it needed to do more than cater to such a rabid fanbase compared to a regular fanbase. I thought this was unfair and then bought Memory of Melody. That is now the worst game in the series to me. So I dived into what people thought and looked at a ton of youtubers who played the game and saw what they thought. I looked at reviews of non youtubers and read what they thought and the game has made the fanbase more divided than anything I'd ever seen from a fanbase. So I replayed the game with the intent to write down all I felt on the game to give it a fair review. Like I said I'm a filthy casual and I can give stuff a large break when it comes to media and have a large understanding of what that thing is meant to be. Sometimes a product is meant to be a certain way and we have to enjoy it for what it is and I can try and do that. I mean I love the WWE and Yugioh and anyone who is a part of those fanbases knows in their hearts (kek hearts) how bad those things can be at times. So I played the game and wrote down all the thoughts I had on it and Some might be easy to explain while others are in general probably at least fair on how I feel about it.

Kingdom Hearts is a series not meant for the new comer. It knows what it wants to be and does that thing. It isn't here to make everyone happy and that is just absolutely fine in general. I've been a fan and it makes me happy that the game is one long story that I can appreciate and make call backs to in stuff. I remember being so rewarded when I looked at my then best friend who skipped over chain of memories (I had to emulate it but I think it was fair of me to do so since I bought the game 3 times since now that I have the money to do so) and said he knew what happened because he saw the cutscene of Sora reaching the top and Namine betraying him by putting him into a pod. I laughed at him cause he was a fool who knew nothing of how the story went cause he foolishly just thought he didn't NEED to play the game. This made me more invested into the series than he was. I stuck with the series reading up articles and even watching videos on the series for stuff I missed out on since again i couldn't afford everything. They were building a story over a decade long and at the end it just didn't do it for me. It's not that the story wasn't the end of the series in general. Heck gotta make dat' money Y'all but in general this was the end of a saga for Xehanort and it just didn't cut it. But maybe I'm not starting at the right spot to give my feelings on it. Maybe I'm coming fresh off a game play and feeling a rant building for multiple reasons. So let me start with the positives before I bury the list under a pile of problems for me.

So I'll be putting things in order of good, mixed, bad. They will be somewhat fair and if they have an answer you have my sincerest apologies but remember I'm slightly the "dumb" and would in general like to just get simple straight answers. Something simple and clean if you would. On that note

1: The starting song is a god damned banger - Face my fears is up there with sanctuary which is better than Simple and clean. To be fair though simple and clean was made in like a flight and pretty much is nonsensical to the game in general. However it is a good song. How could it not be with one of japans best pop artists? Have you heard sakura drops? Colors? Traveling? Apples and cinnamon? Fuck man this song is just really good. 2: The game looks great - Sure the game might not look like ps2 graphics anymore but this isn't a bad thing it just is a different thing. The only time I thought it looked bad was during the pirates area where they had to make real people. Sometimes it is better to have a different art theme and even if something is just ok at best during it it can still be over all great. Everyone looked good during it. It just in general looked like a new version of KH entirely. 3: You can power up keyblades - One of the best parts of the game is powering up keyblades. Now sure mickey saying "we should have powered up our keyblades" is a stupid line in general when they are magic items and not fully meant to break form normal stuff but i think the ability to latch onto a key and make that sucker your main key is a great idea. Finally I can power up keys like sweet memories or the kingdom key and go through the cutscenes with the keyblade never changing and it look like it's meant to be there. 4: The whole getting treasure for sinking ships - Even if in general people might not like the ship combat the idea of being a pirate and stealing treasure from a ship when you sink one of the large ones is one of the best thematical ideas in the game. You can just sail the ocean and just pirate ship for loot if you wanted to and since you get xp during it and get your ship to be better it just is a great idea in its entirety. 5: Rikus keyblade - That is one of the better keyblades. I'm not gonna lie but the final fantasy cloud based keyblades where they are more realistic have been one of my favorite designs and I am sad i can't throw it on sora. I like the idea of an actual blade instead of a blunt weapon in the game since it just feels cooler sometimes. Riku getting a keyblade that not only looks more like a sword but is also still a key for a more modern car is one of the cooler things they have ever put in. 6: The call back to union cross players - This was a little lover note to people who played the game. They grabbed a ton of names and threw them in as you threw hundreds of keyblades at the giant heartless storm mob thing. I think it is great and even if I didn't play one of the names that pops up is my actual name so I find that pretty cool whenever I see it.

And that is it. Those are the best parts of KH3 to me. Everything else is either a mixed bag or just not good. I'm sure you can tell which one has more in it. As for the stuff that is in the middle of both good and bad let me make it clear that some stuff that is bad will probably be talked about in the bad section because it needs its own commentary.

1: All the party members - I always was a little sad having to remove one of the characters in my party to add the one new person they wanted to add in and was always sad at that limitation but with 3 you can now have ALL THE MEMBERS. This is great because now I have access to all of my forms with donal...... Oh right, they're not in the game anymore. 2: Nice to one and done an area - Back in the day when I first played the original first game I never went back cause I beat the level and thought it was extra stuff. When I got older and playued through 2 I was a little impatient and just didn't want to keep going back. Now as I am older and wiser and more patient I just do the thing cause it's a part of the game and deal. Thankfully it is all in one trip which is good CAUSE I DON'T WANNA FUCKING PLAY THESE LEVELS EVER AGAIN. 3: I'm gonna say it and people are gonna question me (probably not I'm not a large content creator thus people probably don't care about my opinion so strange of you to be here reading this) but I fucking hate winnie the pooh. I don't like him as a person and I'm just not a fan of his entire world. I only like Eeyore and not cause "gosh that's how I feel" Eeyore is the fucking man. He never lets his bad mood get him down and he powers through even when life is shit. Good for him man. Love that guy. Such a trooper. I just don't like pooh but the levels. God Kingdom Hearts mini games are just mostly not fun in general so not having to play so many mini games in poohs level is fantastic. EXCEPT EVERY WORLD HAS A DAMNED MINI GAME IN IT. 4: Speaking of mini games the ship combat is fine. - It's just, fine. 5: I had so much money - I don't remember playing any other game having so much money. I remember caring and investing and even trying to get money to spend on stuff in some points and in here it just.... I never spent it until i got bored and started using food. I didn't use food until the last world and beyond cause I wanted to finish the game faster. I mean the change of pace having money is nice but there was nothing really to do with it. Maybe I should have bought Hayner, Pence and Olette a ton of pretzels with it. 6: Playing as any other keyblade wielder - Man this was one of those great moments that I was excited to do. Having played as many other characters during other games was always nice and refreshing and being able to do so here was great. It got me excited to play as Mickey again since I got to use him a few times in KH2 or to be able to use Ventus or Aqua again cause they were gonna be saved and be able to fight in the upcoming battle. That is you know. If they are used in the game more than one time each. 7: Giant heartless battle - One of the best moments in the game was the "goofy just died" moment. Not because The goof man "died" but because you got to solo fight a crowd of enemies and in this game it was so cool to have that call back. The shit icing on that beautiful cake was having to use the train to win. Like it just felt like I was making no progress and I can't on my own fight the enemies and no matter how hard you try you can never stop the enemies ever. 8: The what if scenario - The group dying was pretty cool and was a great what if but would have been better if they didn't come back to the past and have Ventus run up and think it was Terra again. It was cool for the lingering will to step in and help but even then the whole situation was so stupid that it could have been written better. What if instead of doing the whole scenario it was a mind fuckery to sora to put him down mentally like they had been trying to entire game. What if it showed him losing and that it was possible? Instead we got this long winded scenario where people didn't learn from their first mistake and tried to go run up to Terra when in that moment Aqua when Ven tried going should have grabbed his shoulder and said "you know it's not him so let's just get ready to fight"

Those are the mixed bag moments I was commenting on. Some things are fine and aren't really an issue except the are a part of a bigger problem in itself which makes them a mixed bag. The last part's I'll be writing about are pretty much a giant rant or asking questions to things. There are problematic points I'll be making as well. So now let's look at the bad stuff in KH3. However, before I get into it, I want to also write down the not as bad stuff as well as some of the really big stuff so I'll make sure to point out when it is a gripe that isn't the worst thing in the world compared to it actually being not good.

1: Nitpick/The social media is dumb - Look I'm not much of a social media person and I know todays kids and teens are all about that jazz and such but man this part of the game is pretty dumb. I am in no way too old to "get hip with it grandpa" and think social media is a bad thing. Times and things change but WHY IS THIS A THING? Sora and friends are out saving the world and probably do not know about current phones since they are so busy. They would be like really old people trying to catch up with todays world and just in general should not have time enough to do it. Sure giving a phone is fine which whatever they can just add in ways to contact which again makes the phone fine but social media is dumb. What platform are they on? Who is following them? What world is this being sent to in general? Does anyone really care?

2: Nitpick/Why 7 VS 13? - I think the number is just really off. Ok look the original organization 13 was fine. Having 14 members in it wasn't a big deal and sure fighting them seperately and not all in one game made me a little sad until final mix came out but at least i got to fight Marluxia in all his pretty boy glory. The point I make is they just seem to have stuck with the 13 which is fine I guess? It just seemed like it was more or less there for no real reason. Sure we would have to fight every single Xehanort around such as Ansem, Xemnas, Terranort, Xigbar who works with old man Xehanort, Young Xehanort, Old man Xehanort. If you also in general wanted him to have each good guy fight a bad guy we would need one for each single keyblade wielder to come out. So let's say Kairi and Axel were just gonna join in so we can have for whatever reason Xion and Roxas just pop out to fight people. We would have need for a total of 7 enemies to fight. Let's just use these guys here as people for people to fight. We can have terranort fight someone before he comes back as lingering will to fight and get his body back. We can have Kairi fight Xion until she defects in general and fights another person with her. We can have axel fight Xemnas so he can get revenge and then have him lose and Roxas can come out. So on and so forth until we have just enough for each person to be matched with another person. You wouldn't need to stretch and find whatever you can and just fill the numbers. You could have at that point just filled it with villains you knew you wanted on your team. Not just bring back generic dudes who don't even need to be here. I'll get more into that in a moment but the numbers just seem off and could have been anything not 7 v 13 but like I said. Nitpick.

3: The plot of Sora flying around this time is a little weak. - So Sora lost his powers and needs to get them back. So he fucks off for a bit until he can regain the powers. Wouldn't it be better if he also trained with Kairi and Axel? What about just going into the realm of darkness to help the others get Aqua? What if instead of just going back and forth to each Disney world like he normally did he in general just.....trained. See the point of the other games was "close the keyholes of the world so heartless stop getting in. Stop those nobodies from opening Kindom Hearts." Kind like saving the world is a great motivation to have compared to "fuck off until you are good or something". It's one of the biggest issues in general. Now if he was told something more substantial than "you need the power of waking" than it would have made the grind through much better. Add in a new plot element for him to need to travel to lands in general so he can earn the power of waking. Send him to places to get that shit instead of "get stronger". You think I can't just do that shit with story? Shit's boring man lemme do stuff.

4: You cannot turn off attractions - That is without playing critical mode. Man Attractions are in general one of the worst parts of the game. Sure I find it hilarious when I'm fighting an important boss (such as Xemnas) and I last hit him with a merry go round but in general they just suck. They aren't fun and they slow the games combat down with a cinematic. Sure they can be "avoided" and I "don't have to use them" but they exist in the game. They are the creators vision and he wants you to use them. If they didn't want it to be a huge part of the games combat system they wouldn't add it in and the fact that it shows up so often just kinda proves they want you to use the thing. Combat in here is very floaty if you haven't noticed and a more grounded approach is sometimes best. This is what the attractions do since they still try and attack you thus getting closer to the attraction in the first place. It's really a jarring object. Telling me not to use it while having the chance to actually accidentally press the button is frustrating. It's the smaller version of telling someone don't be mad when they are mad or try not to be depressed. It's hard to avoid and the answer isn't just "don't do it." Especially when the game puts in abilities to make them more prominent such as extending the time on them. Another point on this is that if the developer wanted them to be optional they wouldn't sometimes be mandatory or even show up during boss fights. Either this was an added on horse shit thing where Disney was like "add attractions or we're done" or Nomura just was like "i recently went to disney land and you gotta put this in it's dope". Joke aside it is one of the worst parts of the game since I can't turn them off and it is hard to get around them. Let me turn them off fully or let them be used as an ability where you can add them in if you want it. Customization should be more of a thing than a gimmick you keep getting. Also they show up so often and I believe in every enemy spawn group. Multiple times even if you miss it the first time. Having so much prominence placed onto this one mechanic just shows they went in hard on it and sure if it was just the rock titan or just the horde of heartless at the end or maybe even rare I wouldn't find it much of a problem but it is EVERY FREAKING COMBAT. I hit that button on accident more times than I wanted to that in general I was trying to use a spell but I missed it by seconds or something and the carnival ride started up and I just said "god dammit" and had to end it dealing a burst of damage since you can't just stop it, it has to go full swing. Also only in critical mode is kind of bullshit. Add it to every mode in the game and it'll be less of an issue.

5: Nitpick/Sora is an idiot - Look I don't mean the whole "he's so stupid now he just is always happy or has dumb dialogue" I mean the idiot tried to touch fire and instead of water magic which he now has and I spammed on the fire balls he walked up to a freaking inferno of flames and just tried to see if it was hot by touching it with his bare hands. Shit Sora you dumb fuck Goofy had a better idea than the mage and the main character and he's not always the brightest. Fuck you.

6: There is too much stuff in this game - Way too many mechanics and most of them are on forever. You have so much you can do such as the shotlock, Flowmotion, Carnival rides, Extra forms, Summoning the fat cat dream pokemon, so many mini games,  just so much shit and I'm sure I forgot something. Now look I can let go of the whole "cat" thing because it is a summon and those are normal but in general it just feels like the entire game was overloaded with everything from every other game EXCEPT for cards and if we don't have cards for character upgrades or something it feels like a waste. (that's a joke) The point is that there is too much stuff and it's all filler and fluff and we can just have a nice game without 10,000 things to learn in the first section of the game.

7: Nitpick/ I think the selfies are just dumb - I've taken a total of maybe 5 selfies. All of which are to show a single person in that specific moment. Selfies don't really do much in the world we play in for KH3 and I just think it is in general a dumb game mechanic. However it is not required to do so it's not a big deal to have in. Just another nitpick.

8: Food and cooking - Look, this is not monster hunter. This is not another game where food is an important detail and sure I don't mind the addition of it if you really wanna put it in but it does make the game easier when used. In that direction fine making a game easier isn't a bad thing, however, constantly telling me now is a good time to find ingredients for little chef is annoying every time. I could figure it out if I really wanted it but in general since it is an optional mechanic to which I can just buy the parts for it and even the food at a kupo shop than what is the point in adding in the game play mechanics for it? The mini games are dumb and take too long to do for such a small mini game. Crack and egg get soup. Nothing else but crack an egg. So than the game is too short for a mechanic I'm supposed to do often? Why not add in a larger game so that I can help him create the object one time to see if he likes it and then when he adds it on I can order the object from him. Don't add it into the kupo store if I you want me to make it and don't make me make it be so tedious if you want me to make it. Also why is sora cooking at all? It's Remys passion not mine. He's even shown to run a packed restaurant all on his own at the end of the game in the credits scene.

9: More customization please - Here's a major issue I have with the game. There is less customization compared to other games. This is strange as in general it seems to be the same. The problem is this. I have to use flowmotion in the game. It is not an option because in certain levels it is a legitimate requirement to use for moving elsas castle. It is required in a couple other places as well but the point still stands. I need to have them equipped in order to make progress. The fact that in KH2 I could turn off big moves from team members but cannot now takes the agency away from me from making my fighting style more what I want to do. This means in order for me to really enjoy the game I have to really accept mechanics I was not a fan of in DDD. Maybe having an option for character customization such as turning off forms, and what special attacks you wanna do would be nice instead of giving everything under the sun. Do I want to be a fast mobile fighter? Than make that a character level abiliy choice instead of just making me have it from the start and also making it mandatory for levels. Allow me to remove the big moves with my team and stop making them always on since I never liked them. Sure I can ignore them but it comes down to the same thing as the attractions. Sometimes you cannot avoid hitting the wrong thing. This also goes into the whole magic sucking ass in this game. Every spell is offensive and thus it just feels like it is the same. Wanna do a little small thing with some damage? Wanna do massive damage comparatively? It just feels like they wanted to simplify the whole having a summon, having a spell, having 2 items on or something along those lines. This stops you from having more options on your character and just stream lines you in to a generic build. I didn't use ice once past the first time finding out its pretty much a fire ball. I used cure, fire, water, thunder. Thunder for crowds, fire for damage, water for crowds also because I just stopped caring and cura cause I heal all my damage cause DONALD NEVER HEALS YOU. WE'RE 4000 GAMES IN MAKE DONALD HEAL BETTER. This again comes back to the limits. Let me turn them off since I do not like them. If they worked as magic they would be better cause the magic sucks ass in the game. I mostly after a while stopped doing any real care in magic and just used healing. This also comes back to the original abilities in second form that you can unlock via smacking them with your keyblade. They would be nice since the magic in the game again sucks ass so having something to use magic bar that is not cure would be a nice touch.

10: For a guy who lost his powers I sure have a ton of abilities right away - Remember when in the beginning of each game you lost all your powers and had to slowly unlock everything and it would come to you not just willy nilly? Man those were the days. Could earn powers for reasons. I'm not helpless in the game if I can run up mountains or sky scrapers. If I can glide with the shotlock from one spot to another. I'm too strong if anything at the start and it just makes you feel like the game is padding time before the small amount of story at the end that matters. This could have literally been with the final chapter prologue and it would have worked fine. But no, we didn't get that. That leads into us just spending time until something happens. The story has its own issues (which I will touch up on near the end) and it has some really bad pacing issues. There is bad pacing, and then there is bad writing because of bad pacing. Why not put some shit in the middle. Show I'm getting better instead of just having me just do everything all at once.  That's not really an issue if they space parts of it in or let me play as the other characters while sora is fucking off for power. Imagine if they added in more parts with Riku while Sora quests for strength. Imagine us going through the land of darkness instead of just Disney world after Disney world. Imagine what we could have had had it not just been all the Disney stuff then the finale all at once. It wasn't bad pacing for the end to pick up, it was bad pacing for there to be nothing in the middle. This is where the final fantasy characters could have been nice. Adding in the end of the Cloud and Sephiroth stuff so we can fight for more power there. Having us talk with Leon and the gang while they battle with some heartless just in the area and needing help. This would have made better pacing since it would have cut the monotony of the Disney grind. There are times when you just sit there waiting for stuff to happen as you run through world after world waiting for plot in general to just move forward. This does not mean it is bad pacing, this just means there is nothing important going on and leads to the story just falling short of being gripping and engaging. I again bring up the final fantasy characters because let's face it, if they did exist it would give something in general more time to flesh out. There is nothing to do but repeated disney movies that either play out like normal or that you play no real part in since it is after the story in the whole movie. Sure it was great to see what happened with boo and the monsters but Randall just is there and I'm sure he was gone at the end of the first movie. In fact after using my Disney plus account (#notsponsored) to just hit the end of the movie it shows him in a trailer getting beat with a shovel. He probably got back but still.

11: The combat is too "floaty" - I'm in the sky like fucking constantly man. Like all the time. Which is a bad thing since the fucking god damned level creation is now just a tall hallway. See I say tallway (patent pending) beause the level of the game is still pretty small but now it just also goes up a long way. I know this because there are so many flashing walls that there should be seizure warnings in the beginning of the game. It doesn't stop either since in general you have to climb high and doing so brings you ledges and if you have to hit people flying then you are gonna fall. Sure we can use magic but magic runs out and is complete ass. Now look this isn't just me saying it can happen since it does right in the hercules area. The first area where they could have been testing thing and probably did which means someone dealt with this shit and said it was fine enough to pass. That's just bad game mechanics right there. If you want me to be floaty in combat that do not put ledges I can fall down in your game. I do not want to climb all the way back to the top just to get into more fights I might fall down because of. Maybe make the parts I'm on bigger platforms. It just seems they want us to use the attractions because you can't fall off the safe attractions. Another thing is that it isn't just combat that is "floaty" but your movement is also a little too fast. Making larger areas and then making us speed up into a sprint is fine but having me stop right next to a save spot inches too short of touching it only for me to Vroom Vroom right over it because of how fast and far I move is god damned infuriating. It also continues combat wise as an issue in that once you get the ability to knock people up you start going into air combat and smacking them away and you can do that so much since in general the areas you fight in are so large that you can knock a single heartless out of the spawning area enough that you have to run back to fight it.

12: Proud mode is a fucking joke - I think I died a total of one time in proud mode which is probably more than others. See the difficulty has been said to be really easy on this games play through and I'm inclined to believe them. Here is the thing. I know critical mode now exists. I just don't like it. See critical mode was doable in 2 since it was just again harder stuff but in this it is no longer you playing KH3. It is you playing Dark Souls which if I wanted to play that kind of game I'd pop in my copy of bloodborne or turn on my copy of dakr souls 2 which in general I'm not a huge fan of so I stopped playing those games. Difficulty in a game is fine but there is going from hard to fuck why am I playing dark souls? No I'm not the kind of guy who says anything hard is dark souls because I grew up in the era of gaming where games had one difficulty and you had to learn to "get gud" or deal with never winning. Even if I was never good at games I didn't shy away from things being difficult. There is however an exception that the game changes so drastically that there is no happy medium between pants shittingly hard or baby mode. The other thing is that in general DLC should not dictate if a game is good on its own. DLC is meant to enhance the fucking experience and should not make me want to have to buy something (this was free) to get a god damned happy experience out of something that cost me top dollar to begin with. If I need your DLC to have fun or enjoy the story than you clearly missed the damned mark. DLC is extra boss battles. It is final mix of the game when it comes out. It turns your vanilla play through into more than what it once was. It adds aesthetics to the game not makes the game difficult and if it does it doesn't make the game different to such a degree that I'd rather fucking play a game that was created to be that difficult because their combat system is hand crafted for said difficulty. Secondly on that list of being too easy who the fuck thought kupo coins was a good idea. I literally just stopped giving a shit since I could use my now always full magic bar since magic is ass to heal when I needed it and to just run away with my big fucking area during battles and not take damage until I could go in and do slappies for a while before running away and gauging if I need to heal and then if I died come back to life. With all the power moves and free attractions each combat I could have beaten proud mode without gimping myself by trying to not use attractions. The forms didn't help with that either because I would just second form and have a brand new powerful thing to do since it was right there. Not only that but rage form is a full heal and why am I heartless sora again? Either way rage form into run away fast because I run like I'm form kenya with all the movement abilities and then with kupo coin and magic makes the difficulty in here easier than "just don't use it". Mostly because it is implemented in the game and they want you to use it. Telling someone not to use the thing is again stupid because if they didn't want me to use it they would remove the feature. This is no longer a kids game. I'm over 10 years older than I once was and I'm a big boy and want to not be treated like a child. Sure they could be putting it in for kids but why not just have it in easy mode since kids will either do easy mode or know they want that extra challenge.

13: Many of the fights and heartless are just not that good compared to earlier games - So firstly the giant horde of heartless was cool one time. Each time you fight it it gets more and more boring and feels like a cop out on trying to make a good battle and a "oh man this is such a cool idea lets use it alot more than we need to". For a game that was in development for 6 years you think they would have more varied enemies and fights and by that I mean more better heartless. Also some of the heartless are just kinda eh in general. Not only that but the places we visit feel like the heartless are kinda thrown in there and they just made way less enemies than normal. Maybe that is me forgetting if other games did the same thing but I can remember many places having more unique enemies that made more sense. Like why is the monkey heartless here? This is not the time to return to monke or some shit like that and it makes 0 sense when I have to fight it in more than one area. How about the lady heartless with the umbrella. Doesn't fit in every single place it shows up and just feels like it is there. Sometimes they do a nice job putting in certain heartless such as the reindeer which I thought was a nice touch but i don't remember them interacting at all with the reindeer from frozen. I also in general remember each heartless having a newer form such as the fat heartless eventually turned into fire breathers and then eventually into shield dudes. They do not make a reappearance but the fat ones show up all over the place and it would be nice to fight things that are great for the area. Some just also have eh designs and the game just feels poorly made because of it. Some bosses are just boring as well. In fact off the top of my head I can't really remember one I like but I sure as shit can remember the one I hated most which happens to be the airship section where you board a machine gun heartless to fight that sky bird thing in the pirates section. I even found the robots in general tedious because they were hard to beat without the use of the robot suits and felt like another tacked on gimmick to use to make combat more easy. Had they been a single section and not everywhere in the store it would have been cooler but instead we had many fights to do with robots who almost always wrecked my shit. In fact it ruined combat a little for me in general and made the section of toy story a little less good. See most of these issues I have with the places are the grand scale of things and having to go back and forth with them with having really unmemorable heartless for the most part and just not finding the game to be that great with some of the more important parts. Enemies help to flesh the game out to be cooler and as much as I love the generic heartless the worlds make the heartless cooler by making them change to be better suited for the world they are in. Having extra enemies like nobodies and unversed without having much of a reason to have them there other than "you remember this right?" seems like a waste of design chances. Some just either were frustrating tank sponges and the others were just not good. The other issue is some bosses appeared numerous times and just didn't feel impressive when fighting them since they just keep coming back. The giant heartless who I saw in hercules mode coming back on the bridge where you first meet Baymax makes the scene not great since it is a simple color swap at most and it is the same thing again. A lot of the bosses in general just feel ok at best too design wise. I can look back at many of the designs and just name really enjoyable ones who are better than the ones we got here. Honestly the designs are just so much of a let down I don't even wanna revisit the stages which is good because the game just isnt that much fun. One of the more unfun parts of enemies is also the shield stuff they have sometimes which is just more ways to give them extra health. Why not just in general just give them more health since it is just a way to beef them up? Not only are they now mostly damage sponges but the fact that some turn into shielded damage sponges just makes me less happy to fight things. The worst version of unfun boss happens to be the lich at the end when you need to rescue everyone from it. The thing is that it not only takes forever and makes you have to fight it numerous times but it also has the ability to make you unlock from it and in such large areas that becomes tedious to deal with lengthening the entire fight from the already long fight it is.

14: Quick speed round of things I don't like that are just not as good as earlier games - Magic sucks in this game. It's all relatively the same since it is all offensive. Aero was in general the same as thunder since it is aoe with a secondary effect. Water, Fire, Ice are all the same as they shoot a ball of the element that homing devices onto an enemy and when not in general locked on fucks off wherever. I miss the older spells and how they worked and felt more unique in 2 while also having more than just offense. Maybe introduce more spells to the next main entry based on the spells of every other game? I'm just not a fan of some of these worlds as they are all new. I haven't had a chance to catch most of the new movies (even thought I have disney plus which is great you should totally buy it #stillnotsponsored) I just don't like some of the places and the mini games in the don't help. Slight inconvenience but making me have to press x as I load new levels is kinda dumb. Maximus should be a party member. Give me him instead of eugene. Why do I need the flowmotion to progress? Hooray WATER LEVELS MY FAVORITE. Crabs. Watch me beat davy jones in a 4 on 1 battle.Darkubes are dumb. Jesus christ Jiminy shut up I'm trying to grind in the best place for the end game. Oh look it's an organization member maybe I can figh....nah they gone now. THERE ARE SO MANY CUTSCENES.

15: 2 final things before the story issues - Playing as other characters, keyblade forms. One of the biggest gripes I had in this was each time I used a new keyblade i wanted to fight with it and not transform into a new form because I do not like the new forms. They do nothing for me and since they kind of all are ok at best that it just kinda feels meh to me to use them. I pretty much used the kingdom key because second form was fine and stayed a keyblade. If anything I would rather have a new style of fighting like second form in general like the original forms are in KH2. I like valor and wisdom form and as cool of a call back as it was for the 2 first keyblades to be given to you I don't like the final ability to be used which makes me less inclined to find a weapon I do like. Which leads into my second final gripe. I was really excited to play as multiple keyblade wielders. Playing as mickey in 2 was super fucking cool and I miss that. Playing as Aqua and Riku in this made me hope for eventual fights at the end where it was each person fought someone else and you would get an ability to play through a final area for extra boss fights as any character for extra gameplay. I was excited to see what Axel and Kairi could do since in general they finally had moments to shine. You could make them fight and even if they did win just have them lose via cutscene and bring back Roxas and have Xion turn to your side. So many issues I have with that because it goes into another issue of.......

16: Everyone but Sora is fucking worthless - I have seen Dragonball GT and the main main main main main issue I have with that show is no one matters except Goku. See in other series characters could fight and kill or do something against the not main villain and be worth a damn but when GT happened everyone kinda just. Became worthless. No one could win a fight except Goku especially near the end when they had him fight 7 dragons. Sora does the same here when he has to be involved the final boss rush in the game. I'd have liked to see other characters stand out but even then he is the only one who can fight Xehanort when Mickey failed to do anything. It was all sora. Even waking Aqua was all sora. The only time someone did something was when Aqua fought Vanitas and still got her shit kicked in at the end during the cinematic and at that point he just didn't wanna fight 3 people. This is a shame because as I already said it would have been cooler to have those characters fight people and it matter. Let's break down the people who would be on our side Riku Kairi Axel Roxas Terra Ven Aqua Xion Sora Mickey Thats a total of 10 different people to play as. That would have made the final boss fights unique and super cool. You say that would have taken so much time and I say "Cool" but it would have been cooler to fight as these different characters. If they put in 2 extra just do them all. It is the most let down of let downs in gameplay mechanics. Who could they have fought in the game? Let's look at the villains Xigbar Marluxia Terranort Young Xehanort Xemnas Ansem Larxene Luxord Older Xehanort Evil Clone Riku Vanitas Saix Xion There are 12 total people to fight that are not the original Xehanort and each one could be fought with someone totally different. If Xion fights twice but wasn't really trying the first time she can be fine for the second battle. Let's give everyone a person to fight. Let's get the easy ones out of the way. Remember the ones who we fight first don't matter as much because each person not Older Xehanort do not matter even if they are him in other forms. Terra as the lingering will is gonna fight Terranort and get his body back. Riku can fight Ansem who tries to use his darkness and their past against him. Kairi can fight Xion who is noticed to not even be trying and then kairi can be captured to still do the ending they planned for. Xion who now defects can join and fight Larxene Axel can fight Xemnas and lose leaving him almost die while Roxas can jump out and fight him instead Ventus can finally defeat Vanitas Aqua can fight and defeat Xigbar who she has some history with Sora can fight and defeat Luxord so he can give him the card he was going to give. This fight can be more simple than the others and Sora can have to fight against the other Riku Mickey can fight Marluxia Before losing his fight with Xemnas Axel can fight and beat Saix We get to the final battle and while Sora who ran off to find Kairi he has to get through Younger Xehanort to get to the older one.

Look at that clean battle line up. Throw them in the correct order and you can have fights with so many people and even do the stuff needed for it to make the story go smoothly. Everyone gets to be unique and have their day in the sun. The final fight would be sora and gang fighting Xehanort and since the end game would be choose who fights who you can literally have over 120 different fights total if you leave out Donald and Goofy from the sora versions of fights. Heck allow us to fight the final boss final main form and we can in general have even more as we fight him with each character.

17: What is the difference between a heart and a soul? - This is a simple question because they keep saying we don't need the bodies cause we still have their hearts and I'm just having troubles figuring out if the story writers know the damn difference between a heart which is a physical thing or a concept of the soul which is the metaphysical thing. You know like what makes you you.

18: Why doesn't Axel have 2 keyblades? - Like I like that he holds it the way he does, it's very him very unique and all that but if Roxas can have 2 and he gets one from Xion who is no longer a part of him because she is right there than why can't Axel who is specifically a dual wielder of weapons get 2 of them? I mean give the main a sword that is like a Chinese Dao sword combo. It literally is a blade that turns into 2 blades. Like don't even tell me that shit is unable to happen cause Ventus fucking gets that strange keyblade because it is unique to his style so if that is how it works and they all have based on their personality he should have two. Especially since it would be a great call back to my favorite Axel line in the entire series. "Two!?"

19: Clone Riku should not be a boss - Remember when we beat the shit out of Riku as Sora and then Riku clone and then Riku beat Riku clones ass? He's not a challenge. "He was given more darkness powers" Nice, cool cop out there. Fuck you.

20: Why kill everyone just to set up a story line when you could just do it better - So this one is a little subjective. Need sora to meet Chirithy or whatever its name is and maybe set up remind dlc or whatever but in the end you could have just broke his spirit from his body and put him in the other world by making Xehanort who tried taking him over show him everyone dying and it causing Sora to blank out and travel there as a spirit or some shit. It could have worked just as fine allowing the rest of everyone else to go fight the enemies at the end giving sora time to eventually wake up and join in while Donald and Goofy protect him. Then when he wakes up Luxord who could have said "I'll handle the boy when he wakes up could have just did what he wanted to do with the card then. It's just a dumb moment and we could have instead of dumb gameplay where we have to put ourselves back together and have to save everyone and re watch a stupid ass cutscene just watched a cutscene and went back while everyone handled what they needed to.

So before I get into the final 4 parts to get into I hope that you know I was trying to be really fair with a bunch of these and not just looking for things to gripe about. When I didn't understand things I made myself look up to make sure I understood and didn't just bitch about it for the sake of bitching. These last 4 things are kind of in general I beleive super fair.

1: The battles stop as you talk with each person - Nothing kills a fight sequence like starting it, defeating a single enemy in it, talking with a full blown conversation to them, then as they die restart with another fight scene to do it with every single person in the fight. WHY WOULD MARLUXIA AND LARXENE ALLOW LUXORD TO GIVE HIM A CARD? Why would they stop fighting? Why would Ansem, Xemnas, and Young Xehanort watch as one of the others fell and talked? Why would any sane fucking person do that? It makes 0 sense and ruins that boss rush.

2: I know you need to set up another game but fuck you - You literally made the happiest of endings where everything is the best for everyone ever and I MEAN EVERYONE except for Sora and Kairi. Fucking fuck you man. I'm not even mad that that was the ending but when everyone comes up fucking peaches and cream I tend to question the product even if they need to set up story. They can do it better, do what you did at the end of 2 and send a message in a bottle and say "there are still other worlds out there that need us, just not in this universe" or some shit like that. Shit if in general they can have emotions in games than have sora have to jump into the game. You already said my microwave can feel love so than if he can be in that rex universe than he can just go in after he has a nice break with all of his friends.

3: No - Xehanort was not a good guy the entire time. He literally murdered people and stole a childs body and ripped the emotions out of another child and made them not whole. He got a child so angry he murdered his new sorta dad. He pretty much was the whole reason anything bad happened and he was "misguided and wanted to good but did bad to do so". Then in the end he's forgiven and everything is fucking fine? Then he turns into a good guy and goes into the big heart in the sky. This is the kind of writing that literally kills off stories for at least me. Not everyone needs a second chance and sometimes people are just evil. We need stories that have people die at the end sometimes. I know it is fantasy and it can be all rainbows and butterflies but dear god Steven Universe was literally "no you" and that was the end of the entire fucking series. This is the same thing. It might not be "no you" but fuck this ending. This was a story that was supposed to end a 17 year long story and the end of this single part literally spits in the face of people who played it by saying "hey guys, he wasn't bad, he is sorry now". That is complete and utter horse shit. I don't mind that this is not the end of the series. I don't care because if I stuck around this long I would do the same if the story had a satisfying ending. Fuck man in the new game he's even evil then unless that is just how Kairi remembers him but let's face it. The gang would have told her what happened and this is just horse shit in general. This is a fucking stupid story and I literally am fine with alternate realities since time travel and other dumb stuff has been the main name of the game the entire fucking time but let's face it. This is one of the worst ideas for an ending for a villain. The buold up is fucking massive and the payout is just sad.

4: NO - Fucking xigbar. I don't even know how to put this into words how much of a let down it is for Xigbar, Fucking XIGBAR to be the next main enemy. (or at least it looks that way). Fucking we could have had Luxord. We could have had Marluxia. We could have had Demyx. We could have had fucking I don't know Vexen. We could have had fucking anyone but we get Xigbar. You could have slapped any other character onto his scenes and gotten the same amount of out of nowhere shit to explain him being next but it is fucking xigbar. Fucking unreal.

So yeah. That's my massive wrap up on KH3 and I personally do not know where I stand from here. Maybe if the next game doesn't play like shit in 400 years when Nomura gets off his ass and lets us have kingdom hearts 3.76 tie in to 4 which is oddly enough a main title and not a second part of 3 I'll see how it plays. Until then I think I'm gonna sit hereand never touch 3 again and never finish Melody of Memory.

[medea10]

My Review of Rent-A-Girlfriend

How did I get into this anime? Let’s just say due to a few websites I frequent around decided to be little whore-ish, I became curious by this particular title. Let’s just say they were mentioning this one at least every other day prior to the premier. So out of natural curiosity and knowing nothing of what I’m getting into, I decided to add another Friday anime to my watch list. I guess Fridays are my busy day for watching anime!

Kazuya Kinoshita is a 20 year old college student. Life seems to be going well for him until his girlfriend decides to dump him.

Not even 30 seconds into this anime and this sad-sack gets dumped!

SERIOUSLY! 18 SECONDS! NEW FRIGGIN’ RECORD!!!

So after Kazuya gets dumped, he ends up on a website and before you know it, he’s made arrangements to go on a date with a rented girlfriend! Yes, these are very much a thing. You can go to a website and pay a woman to go on a date with you. Apparently, Japan has a lot of these services and it does get a little ewwie with it so I’m gonna move on with the synopsis.

The girl he ends up going out with is named Chizuru Ichinose. The first date seemed to be going well, but Kazuya felt off by this girl. He just thought Chizuru was just playing with her clients hearts, plus he’s still a little heart-broken from his previous girlfriend, so he gives her a bad review. So when they go on their second date, Chizuru’s cutesy, sweet act is replaced with someone who is tempermental and sassy.

Just then, Kazuya gets word his grandmother collapsed!

I know it’s weird in the synopsis, but just go with it!

With word of his grandmother in the hospital, Kazuya ends up taking Chizuru to the hospital with him. Turns out Kazuya’s family jumped to the obvious conclusion that this girl is his girlfriend and they went nuts. Mostly at the fact that their son actually got a cute girlfriend! Add another layer of WTF to this cake, Chizuru’s grandmother is in this exact, same hospital as Kazuya’s grandmother. And both ladies are over the moon that these two are dating (even though that’s far from the truth). Chizuru hasn’t even told her family that she’s working at Rent-a-Waifu! Well, let’s just break things off and let the family down easy.

Oh, look! They both go to the same university. Oh look! They’re also next door neighbors. I smell shenanigans!

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: At this moment, the only one streaming this series is Crunchyroll. A few weeks into the premier, Crunchyroll started airing a dub. As for the sub, this is my first time really listening to the main lead’s seiyuu, Shun Horie. But the rest of the cast has a nice mixture of memorable voices like Aoi Yuuki, Rie Takahashi, Sora Amamiya, Gakuto Kajiwara…oh fuck!

DAMMIT ASTA, STOP HAUNTING MY EAR-DRUMS!

As for the dub, Crunchyroll is currently publishing an episode once a week. The dub is just okay in my opinion, really nothing to write home about. The only thing I can say is that Aleks Le did a fairly-decent job voicing Kazuya. After voicing Zenitsu last year, he’s got a knack for voicing wimpy twats. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Kazuya is played by Shun Horie

*Chizuru is played by Sora Amamiya (known for Toka on Tokyo Ghoul, Aqua on Konosuba, Miia on Monster Musume, Akame on Akame ga Kill, Elizabeth on Seven Deadly Sins, and Yachiyo on Magia Record)

*Mami is played by Aoi Yuuki (known for Iris on Pokemon BW, Madoka on Madoka Magica, Kayo on ERASED, Yuuki on SAO II, Tatsumaki on One Punch Man, Tamaki on Fire Force, and Kinako on Inazuma Eleven GO)

*Ruka is played by Nao Touyama (known for Chitoge on Nisekoi, Koga on Bunny Girl Senpai, Nii on Blue Exorcist, Akira on Kono Oto Tomare, Momo onAi Tenchi Muyo

ENGLISH CAST: *Kazuya is played by Aleks Le (known for Zenitsu on Demon Slayer and Ake on Shield Hero)

*Chizuru is played by Lizzie Freeman (known for Cardinal on SAO: Alicization, Iwanaga on In/Spectre, Trish on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Pt. 5, and Felicia on Magia Record)

*Mami is played by Laura Stahl (known for Ray on The Promised Neverland)

*Ruka is played by Sarah Williams (known for Sayaka on Madoka Magica, Felix on Re:Zero, Nonon on Kill la Kill, Mirai on Boruto, Lisbeth on SAO, and Puck on Berserk 2016)

DISLIKED CHARACTER: And now, a poem…

Roses are red Mami’s a cunt…

That’s the poem.

SHIPPING: I can honestly say I didn’t expect the Rent-a-Girlfriend and the Ex-Bitch to meet each other in the second episode. Even after going on a few dates with Chizuru, Kazuya still finds himself “beating his meat” to the thought of his ex, Mami. Only for the girls to beat your meat to change places just a few episodes later!

Oh yes, it’s that kind of series! Kazuya jacks off quite a bit.

Kazuya x Chizuru: At times it feels like Kazuya is really falling for Chizuru for who she really is and not the façade she puts up as a rental girlfriend. But I guess the number of awkward setups and situations these two have been thrown in throughout the series can do that to Kazuya. I mean, how else do you expect Kazuya jacking it off to Chizuru when he’s trying to think of his ex?! Yeah, he’s lied to his family, Chizuru’s grandmother, and all of his friends about this relationship and this relationship is as fake as a three-dollar bill. But there are a few genuine moments that show these two care for each other. Kazuya was ballsy enough to jump off a moving boat to save Chizuru when she fell overboard. And Kazuya felt concerned when Chizuru was thinking about leaving the rental girlfriend profession. Though that could be Kazuya being a pathetic sack of shit and wanting to continue this farce relationship and paying a girl for some attention! It’s so hard to say something kind about Kazuya wanting this relationship to work. But for what it’s worth, I like the farce ship better than the next thing I’m going to speak about.

Kazuya x Mami: I don’t like this bitch and I hate this ship. From the get-go you go in hating this succubus. And when we see her again in episode 2, bitches be bitches! Getting drunk in a public setting and making fun of Kazuya not being man enough for her (in the sexual sense). Then, we get Mami trying to go home with Kazuya when Chizuru is gone. But we don’t stop there, she’s trying at every opportunity to make Kazuya drop everything and fall in love with her again. She’s the one that dumped him, but can’t stand seeing Kazuya with anyone else (no matter the awkward circumstances). It’s clear that Mami has severe jealousy issues. I mean, Chizuru is prettier and nicer than Mami. Meanwhile, Mami is a manipulative scum-wad with the charm of a poisonous snake.

Kazuya x Ruka: Ruka was a rental girlfriend from a different agency and was on a double date with Kazuya, Chizuru, and Kazuya’s idiot friend that sounds like Asta. But due to several misunderstandings between Kazuya and Ruka, turns out Kazuya is the only man to get her heart rate up. So Ruka cuts ties with the idiot friend who hired her and has set sights on Kazuya. And she will fight for her man no matter what. She’s even ballsy enough to interrupt Kazuya’s family celebration of New Years by coming in like an asteroid to fuck things up. At this point in the series, Kazuya’s grandmother is dead-set on him marrying Chizuru. Any other girl is shit compared to her! But Ruka will continue to do her thing. Even applying to the same job that Kazuya works at!

Kazuya x Sumi! You expect me to say something about this? They had one bleeping date! And she’s barely seen outside of the opening and ending themes. If there’s more interactions in season two, holla back at me because this ain’t happening. Although, I’ll support the fuck out of this ship over Kazuya x Mami!

BIG SIMPIN’: So being an older millennial (or X-ennial as I’m currently classified under), I am not hip to the lingo of these youngins. Because of Kazuya, the internet uproared by calling him a phrase known as a “simp”. Well, I don’t want to seem like some out-of-touch boomer. So I’m just going to look up this “simp” term and see if this is legitimate. Let’s see what the Slang-tionary says.

“Simp is a slang insult for men who are seen as too attentive and submissive to women, especially out of a failed hope of winning some entitled sexual attention or activity from them.”

Okay. I think it’s time for the rap interlude of this review.

I don't know what you heard about him But a bitch will get every dollar out of him No cherry-poppin’ as you can see That he’s a motherfucking S-I-M-P

ENDING: Being a rental girlfriend isn’t something Chizuru wants to do, but this gives her practice in what she really wants to do, which is become an actor. And as of recently, Chizuru has been thinking about quitting the rental girlfriend agency. So what would happen if Chizuru quit being a rental girlfriend? That’s a question for another day and another season!

So only a few people have learned about Kazuya and Chizuru’s relationship being the most complicated farce in anime history. Halfway into the series with Ruka’s introduction, she caught on about Chizuru being a rental girlfriend. And because of that incident, Kazuya decided to come clean to his idiot friend, Shun. When Shun hired Ruka to be his rental girlfriend, dude was on top of the world. But when Ruka exposed what he did in front of Kazuya, Shun got severely depressed. Kazuya decides to pay for Chizuru to take Shun out on a date. That’s when Shun finds out that Kazuya hired Chizuru after Mami dumped him.

You know what? I have to spring this up! How long did you think Kazuya was going to hide the rental girlfriend thing to his friends? He’s friends with a bunch of stinkin’ virgins. Lonely, stinkin’ virgins! Plus, if Chizuru is rated #1 on a Google search for top rental girlfriends (as it was established in episode 10), I’m surprised no one else caught on, including the grandmothers. Kazuya’s grandmother is constantly playing on her smart phone. Shun is on the internet all the time. I’m surprised there isn’t an annoying pop-up ad in Japanese Google that would flash at them at any point saying, “Meet legal Japanese chicks in your area” redirecting them to the rental girlfriend website. Followed by giving you a gnarly computer virus!

Well, we’re 10 episodes in a 12 episode series. Why not finally introduce the fourth girl that we’ve been seeing in the opening and ending themes all season?! Chizuru asked Kazuya for a favor to go out with the new rental girlfriend at the agency to help boost her confidence. Enter, Sumi! The best way to describe this silent, moe-blob is a less busty version of Mikuru Asahina. Kazuya and Sumi’s date went over somewhat okay. Kazuya saved Sumi from a bunch of thugs. And while Sumi was silent throughout the entire date, she managed to squeak out a thank you at the end. So not a bad date, right?

Unfortunately, during the date, Mami saw them and trailed them. And it went down just as you would imagine! Mami confronts Kazuya, Kazuya comes up with some bullshit lie to Mami, Sumi is still silent, and Mami is up to no good after she leaves.

Because Mami learned Sumi’s full name, she went to the internet to find a profile or something on a social network. That’s when Mami learned that not only Sumi was a rental girlfriend, but Chizuru as well. It’s not so bad that Shun knows about Chizuru, but if Mami finds out, game over. Game over, Kazuya! So what happens next?

Mami catfished Chizuru by calling her out for a date using the rental girlfriend website! Then they go to the karaoke bar Kazuya works at for their “date”.

GAME OVER KAZUYA! GAME OVER! You lost all 5 lives. Please return to world 1 and may God have mercy on your simpin’ ass!

Kazuya watched their date from a distance (and this time he didn’t get caught eavesdropping like the last time he followed Chizuru). And after a cute mention of the singers to the opening and ending theme to the series, Mami and Chizuru end their date with an exchanging of words. All this proved is that Mami is still a jealous bitch with a dead look in her eyes and Chizuru likes Kazuya. We think! Either Chizuru meant what she said to Mami or she’s a really good actress. When Chizuru came back to the apartment complex, Kazuya met her outside and thanked her for what she said to Mami followed by a confession.

Ah yes, a confession of love! As the credits roll, we see flashbacks of the past 12 episodes and end the series on a cute note and a possible opening to an OVA and we can end from…

Oh wait, there’s more!

Kazuya says he wants Chizuru to continue being his rental girlfriend. Because he knows she’s planning on quitting the rental girlfriend business! So he smooths that over! Both played this off with a wary poker face, but behind closed doors, they are sweating bullets.

OH, and season two has been green-lit. Fabulous!

This anime was addicting to watch. I don’t know if it was as addicting as Uzaki-chan. Then again, I picked to watch Rent-a-Girlfriend over Uzaki-chan. But this was an addicting train-wreck! Watching this dumbass try to fool his family and friends that he really was able to get a cute girlfriend for a full year! How the hell could anyone fall for that mess? People still watched this dumpster fire of a relationship right, so why bitch about the stupidity of Simpy McSimperson over here? I am glad we’re getting a second season because we really didn’t get a chance to see much of Sumi. I know she’s no contender when you put her next to the great Chizuru, but good golly, give this girl some screentime aside from the one episode she got. They made her seem like she was going to be a big player in this anime, but only getting a bit role. I also want to see if Mami is going to redeem herself from the cunt we saw since 18 seconds into the series. I seriously doubt it, but it just gives me more reason to cuss at the computer, calling her every horrible name in the book. And as for Ruka…there’s nothing to say. She’s just gonna be second best no matter what the fuck happens.

As addicting as this anime was, I can’t ignore how many times I had to facepalm at every, stupid action done by Kazuya. I mean, several times per episode, butt-for-brains does something stupid that makes us say, “Dude, WTF” or “Bruh”. Lying to your family, lying to your friends, giving a bad review to your rental girlfriend for giving you great service, jacking it to your ex when you’re clearly hot for Chizuru, following a guy around because he spends the day with Chizuru, and it just goes on and on! You want to root for this twerp in hopes he gets the girl of his dreams in the end, but at the same time, you’re like, “This guy is a total dink.”

Oh, let’s see what season two has to offer…whenever that comes.

In the meantime, if you’d like to check out Rent-A-Girlfriend, Crunchyroll has all 12 episodes available in both sub and dub.

[silver-rings-and-rabbits]

Open Heart: Second Year

I don’t think I’m saying anything that hasn’t already been said before but this is bugging me like crazy. I don’t use Tumblr very often but I don’t know anyone else who plays Choices, so here I am (I guess spoiler alert for those who haven’t played Open Heart).

Open Heart book 1 is one of my favourite books, possibly even my most favourite. I genuinely couldn’t decide between Bryce, Raf and Ethan. I switch between the male and female MC and I’ve been able to give them different personalities. The book had strong writing and a coherent plot with probably three main storylines: Patient X, Panacea Labs, and Mrs Martinez, which all tied together beautifully at the end. Even all our patients came back in the last chapter.

And then Open Heart: Second Year. Where to start.

Obviously Ethan is our boss, mentor and colleague so he will have a vital role in the story, but why push the other LIs aside? Why can’t Bryce romancers steal a few minutes in the hospital corridors where Bryce gives you a flirty wink and a pat on the butt? Why can’t Jackie romancers sneak into her room every so often?

And let’s get started on Rafael. First of all....what the fuck?

I love a little bit of angst so I wasn’t initially too mad when Sora was introduced (actually I think it made me want Rafael more, because apparently I only like men I can’t have...and I’ve gone off Ethan because he would be too easy). But there was none. Sora appeared in chapter 2, where it’s described as ‘stings a little to watch’, but doesn’t appear again until the baseball game in chapter 8 where they cheer for Edenbrook a couple of times. The only kind of ‘angst’ Rafael romancers got was dancing with Raf at the music festival where Sora is briefly mentioned and MC closes their eyes and listens to Raf’s heartbeat (which was a sweet moment, to be fair). Are you seriously telling me that none of their friends acknowledged that he and MC used to date? That they wouldn’t have asked if MC was OK at least once? That they would have invited Rafael over to the apartment without giving MC a heads up? And when PB was asked about this they gave some crap about making things realistic and exploring the mature themes of a medical drama. If Open Heart were realistic, MC would have been fired halfway through book 1 (one of the dialogue options with Ethan in book 1 chapter 6 actually leads him to say ‘consider yourself lucky you’re even getting a next time’) but NO, we get ‘realism’ by losing a beloved love interest and character that people have grown invested in and spent money on, and then completely waste the opportunity for drama.

And then there’s chapter 10.

And going back to realism, they couldn’t think of anything else apart from vengeance and terrorism? Not, I don’t know, just a highly infectious patient which is probably more likely to happen within a hospital?

I do think that chapter 11 is one of the strongest chapters of Second Year, and the book has got stronger since then. But knowing that it might have ended with the death of Rafael leaves a VERY bitter taste. I’m very glad they rewrote it...but what on earth was the thought process behind that?!? Going back to realism again, if they wanted drama and emotions, why not have Kyra die of surgical complications? At least we’d have been somewhat prepared for that as she was introduced as being a cancer patient, and there would have been more angst (especially for Bryce romancers) as he would have had the guilt of not being able to save her when he promised MC he would, even if it was out of his hands. But sure, have Rafael caught in an assassination attempt, that makes sense. And it still doesn’t really excuse Sora, I mean, imagine the pain if he was still an LI and he and MC were saying their last goodbyes in that room??

I was happy with the rewrite to chapter 11 and the kiss between Raf and MC in chapter 12 was beautiful. And PB have actually made something of an effort to include Raf in the rest of the story; I was half-expecting to not see him again until the obligatory 30-diamond scene in the last chapter.

Chapter 12 was so emotional and it was so clear that each character and LI was struggling with the events. And the end of chapter 12 and the beginning of chapter 13 made it very clear that MC was terrified of returning to work. MC has butterflies in their stomach as they walk in to Edenbrook and then...nothing. That was that. As if they just needed to face their fear and they’d be alright again. Now I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure PTSD isn’t as simple as that? It would go far deeper than ‘Oh, I’m alright, just taking it one day at a time’. And the narration specified that MC was uncomfortable at the idea of going back into the diagnostics room where the attack happened, but chapter 14 we’re back in there without batting an eyelid.

Someone (I don’t know who...if you’re reading this let me know!!) pointed out that Danny and Bobby could have been mentioned at the gala...there could have been some kind of ‘in memory’ and donors could have been guilt tripped by MC. But no, not a peep. I keep thinking that we could have had Baz, Zaid and Inez (I miss her) catching up with MC and asking how they’re doing and how worried they were. If you’re going to the gala with Raf there could have been a highly emotional scene between them about what happened in the room. Raf alludes to it in a line of dialogue but there was potential for so much more.

And how about the fact that a group of doctors cured the incurable OVERNIGHT and it worked without proper testing? NO ONE has mentioned that since! Surely there would be papers being published and deeper research being conducted now that lives aren’t on the line? We had a whole chapter about how a research grant would save the hospital but now...nothing?! Ed Farrugia hasn’t been mentioned since chapter 12. No one in the team is talking about how it was June’s idea to convince him to switch to Edenbrook. Surely that would be a huge elephant in the room? Wouldn’t she at least say something like ‘I never wanted this to happen, we went too far’? Something?!

The fact that there has been no follow-up to the attack suggests to me that it was purely for shock value. They just wanted drama and didn’t care about keeping it grounded. And assuming that Rafael died in the original, that’s more upsetting. I can’t believe that he was the least profitable character in the history of Choices ever. And even if he was, was it because no one bought his diamond scenes, or because he didn’t have diamond scenes to buy? I romanced Bryce in my first playthrough, but I remember choosing to assist on his surgery without even thinking about it, I didn’t even look at the diamonds it would cost. So a beloved character would have been killed, and it would have brought nothing to the story.

Furthermore, Sora would never have been explained. Rafael almost explained in chapters 2 and 12 but both times MC cut them off. If Rafael was originally going to die in chapter 11, Rafael romancers would never have got that explanation, unless they were to hear it from Sora themselves afterwards (doubtful). And it’s highly unlikely it actually will be explained. PB will probably say ‘it’s up to you what happened!’ like they’re doing us a favour by creating our own headcanon, but to me that’s just lazy writing; they wanted to write off Rafael and they didn’t care how they did it.

If Second Year hadn’t opened with a funeral scene we might never have been clued into what was going to happen and demanded a rewrite.

Aside from that, there’s Esme. She’s introduced as breaking Dr Thorne’s hand and then has to diagnose and treat him in chapter 10. Depending on your choices, he gets surgery and thanks Esme for saving his life and apologises for the bar incident. Otherwise she doesn’t run further tests and he messes up a surgery which eventually forces him to resign. And then Esme gets her plotline with Levi. If Dr Thorne wasn’t her main plotline, what was the point in introducing him? It’s another storyline that had huge potential--sexual harassment in the workplace, for example--but had little to no payoff and fell off the radar. If PB wanted to introduce MC and Esme the night before they both started working then MC could have just literally walked into Esme and either apologised, asked if she was OK, or told her to watch where she was going, and that would have affected how she greeted you in the hospital the next day. But no, we get this storyline hinted at which is then written off and replaced. Maybe it was a rewrite, I just don’t see why it would have been.

Like I said before, the main storylines of book 1 all tied together in the end, but the storylines we’ve had in book 2 have just felt like completely separate events, just a bunch of stuff that happens and is quickly forgotten. I think the balance of the LIs has been better since chapter 11; even when the gang went to Vegas, Raf romancers got a quick phone call with him. As a Raf romancer, I appreciated that, and it only goes to show how PB could accommodate for all LIs whilst having Ethan integral as our boss (see before, bonus scenes for Jackie romancers sneaking into each others rooms, bonus scenes for Bryce romancers having flirty interactions in the corridors). 

There is such a difference in dialogue if you’re playing Ethan’s romance route or not. I had him stay behind in chapter 11 and I thought it came across as a sweet conversation between a mentor and his protégée. But the other LIs don’t have anything close to that level of detail. Ethan romancers get pretty close to being official in chapter 17 but I’ve heard Jackie and Bryce didn’t get that. And Raf romancers didn’t even get caught sneaking back into the gala. I’m still holding out hope that book 2 will end with all LIs saying ‘I love you’ and being official with MC, but the inequality makes me sad.

I might have had some more to say, but this post has been longer than I intended and I don’t remember what that might have been. I really wanted to like Open Heart: Second Year. Book 1 will always be a favourite, but book 2? It’s like going from the classic era of The Simpsons where Homer was a lazy dumbass but genuinely loved his family, to the modern era of The Simpsons where nothing makes sense and Homer is a straight-up jerk. I just hope that, if we get book 3, they would have learned from their mistakes and Open Heart can be saved. It doesn’t deserve this.

Well, that’s my two cents. Sorry for the long post. If you got this far, thanks for reading.

[holyangemon]

Episode 22 - The Saddest Episode of Adventure? (Not Clickbait)

Oh boy is there so much to unpack in episode 22. This episode is a lot. If you’d like to witness someone scream about just how much of a lot episode 22 is, then welcome. I have some screaming to do. 

(this is literally just a recap of the entire episode and I’m pretty terrible at analysis so this probably makes no sense but hey, I have spirit)

I don’t even know where to start there’s just so much going on here. Okay, from the beginning. Taichi gets back to the digital world and finds Tokomon passed out from hunger with Takeru’s discarded digivice and crest. Obviously some shit went down, and Tokomon is nice enough to explain.

Through this, we find out that Taichi and Agumon have been missing for at least a month and a half, which is where Tokomon’s flash back explanation starts, and that the kids stayed in the desert looking for Taichi for this month and a half. We see the group arguing over what they should do next. Sora wants to keep looking, Yamato thinks it’s hopeless, Koushiro wants to find Gennai, Mimi wants to go home, and Joe doesn’t actually say what he wants. (In the next episode it’s revealed he went to look for food before being led astray by PicoDevimon, but in the context of this episode he just kind of goes). But anyway, important thing to point out here is:

the saddest images I’ve ever seen in my life. Takeru is sitting off by himself, which may make sense while they’re having big kid talk and he stays warm next to the fire, but he also sleeps by himself while the rest of them are all huddled together. Also to note is that Takeru and Yamato are on the complete opposite ends. Here we can see how disconnected Takeru is from the rest of the kids, including his brother. This’ll be important later, but let’s put a pin in it for now.

Here is where the group falls apart, with Sora heading off on her own first. She lets Tokomon know that her and Piyomon are off to look for Taichi, to try to keep Takeru from crying if she doesn’t tell him.

(A month and a half in this desert, by the way). Koushiro heads off first, followed by Joe, and finally Mimi, leaving the brothers and their Digimon as the only ones left together. Once it’s just them, they finally leave the desert. We also learn that during this time they haven’t encountered any new enemies. Takeru wants to go back into the desert and look for Taichi.

But as we already know, Yamato has given up. You can’t blame him either, how long are they expected to just wait in a desert? Of course, Takeru cries, and Yamato instantly apologizes, and says that Taichi and Agumon are probably doing fine somewhere.

I’m telling you, this is some heavy shit. Yamato agrees, and says they’ll see them again someday. If he really means that, or is just saying that to keep Takeru happy is another matter, and probably something Yamato is conflicted on himself. Regardless, they continue on, and come across an amusement park. Yamato thinks to himself that it looks safe, and they explore the deserted park. And here is where things take a turn.

We see Takeru holding back tears before saying that he’ll be okay, and will wait.

He asks Yamato to come back quickly, as Yamato has decided to go check things out in the infamous swan boat, planning to only be gone for two to three hours. Now, it’s easy to judge Yamato a bit for leaving Takeru alone in the first place, he could have taken Takeru with him, but Yamato needing some time alone to think things over without upsetting Takeru would make sense. I wouldn’t  judge him for that, can relate, but it’s unfortunate how it ultimately turns out. In any case, Takeru insists that Yamato come back quickly, and waves him off with a smile. Once Yamato is out of sight though . . . 

And my heart breaks again. This boy is too good at hiding his feelings when it’s something that deeply hurts him. But that’s a long rant for another day. For now, unfortunately, Yamato does not end up coming back. Takeru waits until nightfall, and refuses to eat, before eventually falling asleep on a bench next to the wharf Yamato set off from.

Please my heart can only shatter so many times. Takeru continues to wait on the wharf, wondering why his brother won’t come back. He said he was just going to take a look around. He said he’d be back soon! 

Takeru reaches his limit and breaks down. But unfortunately, it’s not over yet. A certain bat shaped Digimon decides that this small sweet boy isn’t broken enough yet. He approaches them, pretends to have good intentions, thanks them for being involved in defeating Etemon, and offers to go look for Yamato. No good intentions can be found in PicoDevimon, and he comes back to spout some dirty dirty lies.

“Yamato said that he doesn’t want to see your face anymore. He said that he really, really, really hates you. He doesn’t want to be your brother anymore.”

“Oh, Yamato also said this. He really hates you for being a crybaby.”

This is too much for Takeru, and he runs off in tears.

Tokomon of course tries to tell Takeru that Yamato would never say anything like that. But Takeru is in no state to listen right now.

I’m not even halfway through the episode oh god. Tokomon runs off to confront PicoDevimon about being a lying little bitch, but he of course denies it, since Tokomon has no proof. Tokomon is pissed, and hits PicoDevimon with his baby bubbles. Unfortunately, Takeru chooses this moment to arrive on the scene, and he’s an anti-fight boy.

PicoDevimon sees his chance to cause a rift between the two, and says not to blame Tokomon, he was jealous that him and Takeru had been getting along. Tokomon scoffs at this, causing Takeru to get mad at Tokomon’s attitude, and tells him to apologize to PicoDevimon. Tokomon refuses, they argue, and Tokomon claims that he’ll leave if Takeru keeps trying to force him to apologize. So, Takeru tells him to go ahead and leave.

Tokomon gives Takeru the chance to change his mind, but Takeru is hurt, extremely hurt, and is taking it out on Tokomon.

And this is where the flashback ends, and we’re back to Taichi. Taichi is worried about Yamato, he knows that Yamato would never willingly abandon his little brother, but finding Takeru comes first. Meanwhile, Takeru is spending a very depressing time in the amusement park with PicoDevimon. PicoDevimon is trying to get Takeru to forget about Tokomon using the rides, but it’s not working out for him.

Yeah, Takeru’s not in the mood for fun. PicoDevimon asks if Takeru is worried about Tokomon. At first, Takeru says who cares, but follows it up with wondering if Tokomon is okay by himself . . . . but he really doesn’t care about him at all. PicoDevimon sees through the tsundere act, knows he needs a new plan, and heads off to regroup, leaving Takeru alone.

He deals with this by sleeping (relatable), and this is where Taichi finds him. The first thing Takeru says to Taichi is “Taichi! You’re alive!” and it’s just really heartbreaking that these kids had to seriously consider the fact that Taichi could be dead. They don’t dwell on it much in the show, but it’s pretty dang dark.

A rare non-Yamato related hug from Takeru. Taichi apologizes for making Takeru worried. Takeru notices that Tokomon is back, and ruins the happy mood by asking Tokomon if he realizes he was wrong now. Tokomon angrily replies that he did nothing wrong, which is true. And the arguing starts again. 

They really are kids. Imagine Angemon having this argument. This time, Taichi is here to break it up and tells them this isn’t the time to fight since they should go look for Yamato and other others. But Takeru doesn’t want to. Everyone left him. First Sora.

Can you here those screams in the distance? That’s me. Takeru has taken PicoDevimon’s words about how Yamato, and has applied them to everyone else too. Why?

Because he had already had those types of thoughts himself. PicoDevimon was voicing his worst suspicions. Whether they did it intentionally or not, we can clearly see that there was some excluding of Takeru going on. We don’t get to see what happens during this month and a half, so unfortunately the why is unknown. Maybe because their conversations are more serious in general and they don’t want to deal with Takeru crying. If he was crying often, maybe some resentment/annoyance was growing. Or maybe Takeru himself was distancing himself. However it happened, negative feelings were brewing, and being a kid sensitive to separation, everyone leaving would enhance those negative thoughts. PicoDevimon’s lie has grown from Yamato hates me, to everyone hates me. And that makes my heart hurt.

Taichi tries to counter this by saying that there was no way Yamato could ever hate him (which is true, but mention the others too Taichi!). And here’s where Takeru says something veeery interesting.

(episode 3, directed at Taichi)

It’s like they say, kids are more perceptive that they’re given credit for. Takeru isn’t exactly wrong about this, but he goes a bit overboard, and connects it with Yamato being against searching for Taichi when Takeru wanted to, and then adds an extra reason for why Yamato hates him.

Taichi is not equipped to deal with this. Takeru’s thoughts are really spiraling at this point, all centered around how everyone hates him and why. Let’s not consider him potentially thinking that his dad and brother left because they hate him. It’s a good thing Yamato isn’t here to see this, because Takeru claims he wants to be Taichi’s little brother instead.

That’s an understatement, Taichi. Taichi is currently the only person Takeru has who he doesn’t think hates him, so of course he’s going to latch onto him. Taichi is essentially the fun friend and Yamato is the strict brother. It doesn’t help that since the brothers don’t get to spend a lot of time together, there’s some awkwardness in their relationship, mostly from Yamato. There’s some awkwardness from Yamato just in general. He completely adores Takeru, but isn’t always great at showing that in ways Takeru can understand.

We don’t get to see the in-between of this conversation, but Taichi is able to calm Takeru down and coax him into agreeing to at least hearing what Yamato has to say in person. Things are going well, but of course liar mc-lying bat shows back up with a bunch of memory erasing mushrooms. Like he hasn’t caused enough damage. PicoDevimon tries to start an argument with Tokomon, but Agumon interrupts to ask about Yamato. PicoDevimon doubles down on his claims, because he sucks, and Taichi asks to be taken to where Yamato is.

PicoDevimon agrees, but offers them some of his sketchy mushrooms to eat before they head off. He’s just the worst. Everyone is hungry, apparently hungry enough for some sketch mushrooms, but Agumon needs a convenient bathroom break where a mysterious voice that sounds a lot like Sora warns him that the mushrooms erase memories. So convenient!

Thank god Takeru tried to eat the mushroom whole without biting into it. Phew. When Agumon reveals with the mushrooms do, Takeru finally gets suspicious. (Why no one is suspicious about PicoDevimon from his name alone I’ll never know. Shouldn’t the whole Devimon part set off some alarm bells?)

Panicked and with his cover blown, PicoDevimon admits to everything being a lie.

It sure is buddy. Takeru apologizes to Tokomon right away for treating him so horribly, but of course Tokomon tells him not to worry about it and isn’t angry at all. It’s like Takeru said in episode 12, fighting between friends is okay, because you’ll make up soon. But fighting between adults . . . 

With the partners friends again, Taichi gives Takeru his digivice and crest back. Thanks to the reveal with PicoDevimon was lying, Takeru has restored some hope that maybe everyone doesn’t hate him after all.

This is enough for the Crest of Hope to regain its light (what a tease considering it won’t be properly activated for 30 more episodes). And here we see a first for Takeru. He actually wants to fight.

This is the same boy who initially wanted to try to talk it out with Devimon first, so this is a big shift for him. PicoDevimon 100% deserves it, but it’s sad to see how he’s losing his innocence. But it means the return of Patamon! Hurray! Making his battle debut, since this marks the first time Patamon is in a proper battle on his own (the Elecmon battle was half a fight that turned into tug of war).

. . . it could be better. Patamon really gets slammed all over the place. It’s surprisingly violent. But with Takeru cheering him on, Patamon is able to ultimately win (unfortunately PicoDevimon doesn’t die, we’re stuck with this asshole for awhile). 

Takeru once again apologizes for what’s happened, but Patamon is a pure precious bean so everything’s okay.

Takeru also says he needs to apologize to Yamato later too, though if Yamato knew the full details of what happened here he’d freak as much as I have. The episode ends with Taichi explaining that the distortions in the Digital World are affecting the real world, and that they’ll need everyone’s strengths to fix it before they can go home.

And with that weight on Takeru’s shoulders, the episode finally ends.

Phew, that’s a rough one. There are so many insights into Takeru’s character here, but I don’t want to get too much into all that until the rewatch is finished and I can look at the whole package. 

Does anyone else internally scream when they think about this episode? Or am I just losing my mind? Let me know.

[atomic-taco-muffin]

The Lost Princess Chapter 64

Warnings: I actually don’t know this time

Rating: SFW

A woman sat in a tower in a dark realm while humming a song. (same song from the beginning of this story) She looked outside the window and saw the waves crash on the beach. 

“Don’t worry, (Y/N). You’ll see me soon,” she said. 

~~~~

You, Vanitas, Rumi, the twins, Sora, Donald and Goofy met at Yen Sid's Mysterious Tower. You all stood at attention as the former Keyblade Master sat in his tall chair.

“In order to defeat Xehanort, there are allies we must gather, acting now to rouse them from their slumber. We have discussed this before, Sora,” Yen Sid said. They all nodded. “Your Mark of Mastery exam was conducted in the hopes you would acquire the power to wake them. However, the darkness nearly took control of you, and your grasp of your new abilities leaves much to be desired.”

Sora looked sad and You, Vanitas, Rumi, the twins, Donald and Goofy shared concerned faces.

“Furthermore, Xehanort nearly made you, (Y/N), and Vanitas his vessel, and in the process stripped you of most of the power you had gained by then. I suspect you have already noticed this, correct? But first, you must regain all the strength you have lost. Perhaps it is foolish to expect a complete recovery, but it is absolutely vital you perfect one power--the power of waking, which you failed to master during your exam. There's someone who lost his strength and found it again, a true hero to whom you ought to pay a visit,” Yen Sid said. Sora perked up and struck various bodybuilding poses, to Donald's less- than-amusement. You and the girls giggled while Vanitas chuckled. “Perhaps he can point you in the right direction.”

“Got it,” Sora saluted. Yen Sid nodded. 

“Master Yen Sid...” Donald said. 

“You can count on us to take care of Sora!” Goofy said. 

“I would have it no other way. I put Sora in your hands. Girls, take care of them. Including you, Vanitas,” Yen Sid said. 

“You got it!” you said. 

“Oh come on! We can take care of ourselves!” Sora said.

“No you can’t,” Roxy said. 

“Well whatever!” Donald said. He turned to look at Sora. “And don't forget, we'll keep an eye on you.” he held out his hand. 

“Oh, this is gonna be lots of fun!” Goofy said as he joined with his own hand.

“It’s not a vacation!” Yui said as she put her own hand in. You, Rumi, Roxy, Vanitas, and Sora completed the handshake. 

“Let's go!” Rumi said. You all stood at attention toward Yen Sid.

“Count on us!” you all said. Yen Sid nodded and you all headed towards the Gummi Ship.

“Hey, Vani. Ready to see your sister in action?” you said. 

“I think you’re ready to see me in action,” Vanitas said. Later, you all flew in the Gummi Ship, seemingly going nowhere. You, Donald, Roxy, Vanitas, and Sora crossed your arms impatiently. Sora whined as Donald glared at him.

“How're we supposed to get there now?” Sora asked. 

“What? I thought you knew!” Roxy said.

“Looks like all the old highways are closed. Didn't Master Yen Sid say that Sora should trust the guidance his heart gives?” Rumi said. 

“C'mon, Sora. Which way?” Donald said.

“Ummm...” 

“Hey, would you get serious?” Vanitas asked.

“Gimme a break, I'm trying. These things take time!” You, the twins, Vanitas, and Donald sighed. 

“Well, since we've already been before, why don't you try picturing out friends like we're there?” Goofy asked. Sora stood up and walked behind his chair.

“Hmmm...” he said as he made a bicep pose, mimicking Hercules.

“What the hell are you doing?” you asked. Sora ignored you and continued making the pose.

“Well?” Yui asked.

“Sorry, I got nothin'. What did you expect?” Donald fell back into his chair, exasperated while you, Vanitas, and the girls sighed. 

“‘May your heart be your guiding key,’” Goofy said.

“Huh? What's that?” you asked.

“Master Yen Sid always said that, right before we went off on any of our real important adventures.” 

“Really?” Sora asked. You turned to look at Donald. 

“Ring a bell?” you asked. 

“Uh-uh...” Donald said. 

“Maybe I just imagined it,” Goofy said as he scratched his head.

“You imagine a lot of things,” Vanitas said. 

“‘May my heart be my guiding key,’” Sora said. He got an idea and ran back to his chair. “I've got it!” 

He summoned the Keyblade and aimed it forward. The tip glowed brightly and a portal opened ahead of the ship.

“It’s a gate!” you and the others said. Sora sat in his chair.

“All right! Olympus Coliseum, here we come!” he said. He grabbed the controls and the ship sped off into space through the portal. You, Sora, Donald, Goofy, Vanitas, Rumi, and the twins landed on Olympus in a small cave.

“Huh? Uh...” Sora said as he looked around. But there was no one around.

“No fanfare?” you asked. You mocked playing a trumpet. Donald listened for one, but shook his head.

“Un-uh...” he said as Goofy and the others looked around. 

“Nope, looks like we missed the Coliseum,” Goofy said. Sora continued looking around.

“Sora, YOU opened the gate!” Roxy said. Sora scratched his head bashfully.

“I was a little off again. Sorry! We'll find him. But we need to go!” he said as he started walking. You ran up to Sora and followed him.

“Up the mountain?” Yui asked. 

“Yeah. ‘Up’ is the usual direction,” you said. 

“Well, never hurts to have your head in the clouds,” Goofy said. 

“Yeah!” Sora said. Vanitas snorted. You and Sora smirked and made a tough fist. Goofy and the girls giggled and Donald and Vanitas gave a sigh. You and Sora continued walking with Goofy, Vanitas, and the girls following behind.

“Hey. We're leaving!” you said. Donald opened his eyes and jumped with a shout, running up to catch you all. Soon, you all reached a clearing with a few trees.

“I think we might be goin' in circles,” Goofy said as you and Sora thought.

“Sora...” you, Donald, Vanitas, and the twins said judgmentally.

“Did I make a turn at the wrong rock?” Sora asked as he walked closer to the edge and called out. “Hey, Hercules! Where are youuu?”

“What’s that going to do?” Rumi asked. 

“I don’t know. I thought that it might work.” A wisp of smoke landed near you all and out of the cloud appeared...

“All right. I know I dotted my I's, crossed my T's, zeroed the hero. So what gives? Who could possibly be trying to give me a migraine by yodeling that yutz's name?” Hades said. 

“Really? Hades?” you asked and Hades sighed. 

“Oh, it's just you. Oy vey. Don’t know who those people behind you are though,” he said. 

“It's just us? Even for you that's cold,” Sora said. 

“Don't forget...I can always TURN UP THE HEAT!”

“Wait. If Hades is here, then where's this Hercules person?” Rumi asked. Hades whirled toward Rumi, startling her. She yelped and hid behind Roxy.

“What is everyone's infatuation with that dolt?!” he said. The blue flame on his head bursted into a large red one, turning his skin red as well. He glared at Rumi for a moment before cooling himself down, becoming blue again.

“You know what? Never mind. Never mind. I'm cool. I'm good. Because...Wonderboy'll be outta my hair soon enough,” he said. You and the others summoned your weapons. 

“So you're up to no good again! Why am I not surprised?” you said. 

“Of course he is,” Goofy said.

“You bet!” Donald said. 

“Whoa, easy--what is this, Sparta? Kind of on a schedule. Don't have time to toss around the old fire and brimstone. The whole cosmos is basically waiting for me to, you know, conquer it!” Hades said. He walked away and you all dispelled your weapons.

“Poor Hades. He thinks he can actually pull it off this time,” Sora said. 

“Where are my Titans? Show me your power!” Hades called. The sky turned dark and the ground shook. An enormous shadow loomed over you and the others and Donald hid behind Sora while you clung to Vanitas and Roxy before a blast of icy wind came over the mountain. Above, lava flowed from a nearby precipice.

“Ahh! Love the breeze,” Hades said. The wind gained speed and shedded its icy qualities. You and the others struggled to hold on but were swept up and off the mountain. Hades looked over his handiwork.

“Ahh. That sent 'em sailing,” he said and suddenly paused. “Sailing right to where I left...Eh, no biggie.” He gazed upward at the Titans.

“Nice work, boys! So, back to the whole cosmic coup thing?” he said.

~Le Time Skip~

In the city of Thebes, Hercules wiped his hands together, having done some heavy lifting, when upon hearing the sound of screams, he turned, seeing You, Sora, Donald, Vanitas, Rumi, the twins, and Goofy flying towards him. His eyes widen and he jumped into the air, catching you, Rumi, Sora and Goofy in both arms. He landed on one knee and stood.

“See? Found him,” Sora said. 

“Yeah, guess this counts!” Rumi said. Hercules chuckled.

“Hey! Get us down!” Vanitas yelled. Herc turned to see Donald, Vanitas, and the twins caught on the fangs of a lion statue.

“Just a second!” Donald yelled and crossed his arms with a glare. Herc walked over and helped them down. 

“You guys are here! Sora, Donald, Goofy! You literally dropped in. Gotta say, I'm impressed,” he said.

“Thanks!” Yui said. 

“Liked the catch,” Goofy said. 

“Yeah, thanks Herc. But...what's going on?” you said. You looked around at the burning city, smoke plumed billowing into the sky. Several cracked stone buildings surround you all. Hercules sighed.

“Take a guess. Starts with an H,” Herc said. 

“Ah, I get the picture. Actually, we bumped into the H-ster on the way here,” Roxy said. 

“Uh-huh,” Donald nodded.

“He said something' about conquering the whole cosmos,” Yui said. 

“All of it, huh? Nice of him to show a little self-restraint. Well, whatever he's planning, I'll send him running back across the Styx.” Herc and Sora striked a pose, you, Vanitas, and the girls giggling. 

“That's our Herc!” Sora said. You all walked through the city toward a gigantic statue of the famous hero himself.

“So Sora, (Y/N), is there a reason you guys are visiting? I'm guessing it's not just for the cheese and olives,” Herc said. 

“Oh yeah!” you and Sora said. 

“It sounds like somebody forgot,” Rumi said. 

“That's Sora and (Y/N) for you,” Donald said. 

“Why am I not surprised?” Vanitas asked. You and Sora crossed your arms. 

“We just...took our time remembering. Herc, I came here so I could ask you something,” Sora said. 

“Ask ME?” Herc asked. 

“Yeah. Do you remember the last time we were together? You were feeling down and out. How'd you get your strength back--when you jumped in and saved Meg?”

“Hmm...that's tough. All I know is that she was in trouble. Suddenly, I wanted to save her with all my heart, but...it's not like I could tell you how.” Sora looked down.

“Oh man,” he said. 

“What's wrong?” Herc asked. 

“All my strength is gone from me too. That's why I need you--because I was hoping you might have a solution, or something.” 

“I'm sorry, Sora.” You, Donald, Vanitas, and the girls saw a shower of meteors over Herc's shoulder, but on closer look, they're actually...

“Heartless!” you all said. Most of the Heartless landed, while one struck the statue of Hercules on the foot, causing the enormous statue to topple over. You all took out your weapons.

“Let's talk later!” Herc said. 

“Right...once we've dealt with these guys,” you said. 

~Time Skip To Where We Meet Xigbar~

Facing no response, you and the others frowned before hearing footsteps. A large figure walked out of the cloud of dust, the hero himself coming into view. Hercules dusted off his armor and you all exclaimed joyfully. Herc brushed his chin with a sigh of relief.

“You scared us!” Sora said.

“It's nothing. That's what these are for,” Herc said. Herc flexed his biceps. Goofy chuckled and he and Donald mimicked Herc. You all heard a portal open and a familiar, though unwanted, face stepped through, peering at them through his yellow eye.

“Oh, wow! Very nice, full marks,” he said clapping.

“Uncle Xigbar!” the twins and Rumi said.

“You...” Vanitas growled.

“Go away!” Donald said.

“No Organization!” Goofy said.

“All this altruism is giving me the warm and fuzzies. So then, does having a heart of light come with an extremely good insurance policy?” Xigbar said.

“Just say what you mean,” you said.

“Oh, but I did though. No good will ever come from putting other people first.”

“I was able to save Meg's life because I was ready to risk my own,” Herc said.

“Because you've got friends in high places, you mean. Tricks like that don't fly for your average joe.” Hercules was speechless.

“What do you know? You weren't even there! If you were, you'd admire Herc's courage,” Yui said.

“I don't admire one guy leaping into danger if it means someone else might have to jump in to save him. You're all just lining up to lose out. Dooming others to take the fall with ya. Oh, and you can spare me the usual party line. Yes, hearts are powerful when they're connected. But if you put too much of that power in one place, some of those hearts might end up breaking.” He pointed toward you and the others. “Still, that doesn't mean you should change. Accept the power you're given. Find the hearts joined to yours.”

“Why would we ever take advice from YOU?” Vanitas asked.

“As if! You don't have any choice but to follow this sweet little trail of bread crumbs. And at the end, you'll finally realize what destiny has in store for you. In fact, your reward might be right around the corner. You're so close!” Suddenly, you felt something squeeze in your chest and you fell to the ground.

“(Y/N)!” your friends exclaimed. 

“Oh, I forgot. We put something inside of your heart. What it is still remains a mystery to me,” Xigbar said. He walked away, laughing to himself, and vanished. By the time he was gone, the squeezing in your chest ceased. 

“Are you okay?” Rumi asked. 

“I-I think so,” you said. Vanitas and Roxy helped you up and you tumbled into Roxy’s arms.

“Woah! I gotcha!” she said. 

“What happened?” Sora asked.

“I-I don’t know. But we know that the Organization did something to me,” you said. 

“We should keep going. We still need to protect the people,” Herc said.

“Right!” you and the others said. 

To be continued...

[zigtheeortega]

“look up the sun it's just a cloud away”

pairing: rafael x mc

word count: 1,946

song inspiration: get it over with - rihanna

tags: @bloodxbound​ ; @messofakind​ ; @dadrianraines​ ; @zadiechoi​

author’s note: chapter 2 wrecked me! i thought the ethan angst was a lot, but this raf angst has so much potential so i had to write about it. i know a lot of people think raf is acting ooc, and people are shitting on sora, so i thought i’d write angst but with no animosity between the three of them. i genuinely think raf is gonna be torn. anyways, hope this does raf justice! title inspired by the rihanna lyric. also sry if this is messy since its like 24 hours post raf-erasure!

She stared at the green bomber jacket in her hands, fighting the tension in her throat. The subway shook slightly, masking the trembling of her hands. She dug her fingernails into the fabric to steady herself.

The brakes screeched, and she stood up, feeling dazed. She ambled out onto the pavement, taking in the familiar surroundings.

She had just gotten used to taking the subway to Raf’s house after work, savoring the short hours they spent together between shifts and the long, lazy Saturdays in bed.

The rushed, clumsy intimacy was what connected them in the first place. A soft kiss here, a sweet remark there. And when they had the time, utilizing every second to memorize each other’s bodies. 

She’d been through hell with Rafael. She almost lost him. She’d been selfishly fooling around with other people, even her boss, keeping it as no-strings-attached as she could.

But the minute that she’d laid eyes on him in the stretcher, bloodied and battered from risking his life to rescue others, she completely and fully committed to him.

Everything had been so easy after she’d beaten the case against her. Life was a steady routine of balancing work, studying, spending time with her roommates, and being with Raf.

They worked together like a well-oiled machine, not being too clingy, but stealing moments with each other and cherishing their days off.

When Sora got back in contact with him, however, a wrench was thrown in, and Raf wasn’t the same anymore.

She had been trudging through the slushy snow, reminiscing, so she hadn’t noticed her teeth clacking from the cold. She’d barely managed to get herself dressed, much less remembered to bundle up.

She slipped on Rafael’s jacket, his scent wafting up as she zipped it up to her neck. She was so close to breaking, but the hardest was yet to come.

He was so excited to have Sora back. When his grandmother told them Sora had moved back for good, his face lit up like she’d never seen before. She pushed away her gut feeling, not willing to put her instinct at a higher priority than Raf’s happiness.

So when they started spending time together without her, she knew what was coming. She tried to make time for him, but she had so much to do to prepare for her switch from intern to the Diagnostics Team.

Maybe that’s when it all fell through the cracks, she thought to herself, hugging her arms around her waist, ice sloshing on her sneakers.

She thought she’d fully committed to him, but her job got in the way as usual, and she lost him. She had no one to blame but herself. Sora stepped in when she couldn’t.

She didn’t feel any anger or jealousy towards Sora, because she knew that they had something that her and Raf could never have.

How could she compete with someone that had known him practically all his life? Someone that watched him grow, and grew alongside him?

She was his first girlfriend, his first kiss, his first love. No matter what memories they made together, she could never take away from that.

She turned the corner onto his street, spotting his house towards the end. Her heart raced, dread and hope fusing together in her stomach.

She couldn’t get over the look in his eyes the first time he saw Sora. She tried to pretend like it wasn’t there, but his eyes twinkled in a way they never had when he looked at her.

She couldn’t blame him. They’d been together for a couple of months, but Sora and him had years of history.

The pain in her chest grew as she stumbled down the icy sidewalk, closer and closer to his porch.

She had invested so much of herself in him, but it wasn’t enough. Maybe things weren’t as easy as she thought.

She couldn’t blame him for going with the easier option. She just wished she had that possibility for herself.

She could crawl back to Bryce after cutting off their hookups, but it wouldn’t feel right.

She could try it on with Ethan again, but she couldn’t handle the rejection.

She knew Jackie was interested, but they’d become such good friends she couldn’t jeopardize that.

She was alone.

She pushed through his rusty metal gate and lumbered through the icy muddy grass to his aged wooden porch. The smell of roasting meat and spices floated through the air, making her stomach growl.

It reminded her of the time Rafael invited her to his unofficial family reunion, and she tried making a traditional dish, which she failed miserably at, so she had to settle for Sienna’s cupcakes.

She felt so warm, so complete when she was surrounded by the Aveiro’s. She felt at home.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she opened up the screen door and rapped her knuckles on the door a couple of times.

She breathed deeply to calm her pulse, watching the puffs of air manifest and disappear in front of her. 

The door creaked open, and there Sora stood, wearing a large graphic tee that had the Superman logo on the front.

The shirt she’d gotten for him after he’d gotten out of the hospital. An inside joke between them.

The hem of the shirt hung at the mid-point of her thighs, no shorts in sight. Sora looked winded, her face flushed, eyes wild, and she could tell that they’d been… busy.

“Hi, Spencer! Sorry it took me a second to answer the door,” she breathed, her face red, a sheen of sweat on her forehead.

“No, it’s okay. I’m the one that should be apologizing. I should’ve asked first,” she said, and her eyes flitted to the hallway behind her, seeing Rafael emerge in sweatpants that hung low on his hips.

“Hey, Spencer. It’s good to see you,” he smiled, his face nothing but friendly and inviting.

He had no idea just how much he’d hurt her. And she would never tell him. Even if she couldn’t be what he needed, she wanted to be in his life in any capacity.

“Hey, Raf,” she said, waving awkwardly as he draped his arm around Sora’s shoulders. “I was just dropping your jacket off.”

She realized she still had it on, and hastily stripped it off, clumsily folding it and offering it to him. “Sorry, I forgot I was wearing it.”

Goosebumps raised under the thin fabric of her jacket, and her teeth chattered. “You wanna stay for lunch? It’ll be done soon,” Sora asked, gesturing towards the kitchen. “We’re definitely gonna have leftovers.”

“No, no thank you. I just wanted to drop this off. I have a shift tonight,” she lied. It was her day off. One of the first in weeks. She’d been taking every shift she could because she couldn’t bear a Saturday without Rafael.

Raf stepped out onto the porch towards her. “Could you watch the stove? I’ll be inside in a few minutes.”

She got the message, and hastily headed inside, pushing the front door almost closed to give them some privacy.

“Are you okay, really? You look exhausted,” he searched her eyes, his brows furrowed in concern.

“I’m definitely tired, but I’m okay,” she smiled, knowing the purple rings under her eyes corroborated her story.

“I’m sorry I haven’t reached out in a while. I didn’t know if you needed space,” he said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “It’d be selfish of me to think we could all get along perfectly right away.”

“I honestly don’t feel awkward around you two anymore. It was weird at first knowing we’ve both been with you, but I’m okay now. Really,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm.

He shivered, his skin covered in goosebumps. “I’m sorry I ever put you in that position, Spencer.”

“Raf, as long as you’re happy, I’m happy.” Her throat burned with the weight of those words, but she pushed the feelings of loss away, determined to be strong for him.

“You’re so sweet and understanding. I never deserved you,” he said under his breath, the corner of his mouth upturned.

“I never deserved you,” she mirrored his words, her heart twinging in her chest.

“You know, I think I always liked this better on you,” he said, unfurling the fabric and draping it over her shoulders. “Plus you’re freezing. You need to take better care of yourself.” He rubbed his hands against her arms to warm her up.

He looked into her eyes, and she saw a spark of something in his deep brown irises. Maybe it was love, or adoration, or compassion, but whatever it was, gave Spencer a sense of security. 

Raf might not be in love with me, she thought. But he has love for me, and that’s all that matters.

Her muscle memory kicked in, and before she knew it, she’d leaned in to press a soft kiss on his lips. She felt his body stiffen, but he didn’t pull back.

He squeezed her arms softly, and melted into the kiss.

It was over before she knew it.

“Spencer… I…” he trailed off, obviously struggling with his words. “I’ve known her all my life… She’s so familiar to me,” he shook his head.

“It’s okay. I know you love her,” she nodded, touching his cheek softly.

“You’re not upset?”

“Of course not. She makes you happy, and I’d never get in the way of that,” she said confidently, completely betraying the emotions swirling through her head.

“I really couldn’t ask for a better best friend,” he grinned, kissing her cheek. “Whenever you’re up to it, I’d love for all three of us to hang out.”

Her heart panged in her chest. “I’d love that.” She felt tears prick her eyes.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked cautiously, his smile faltering.

“Yeah, of course I am. You’ve been way too nice about it anyways. I kind of wish you’d have been mean to me or something so I’d have a reason to be mad at you. It’s easier to hate an ex than love them you know?” she laughed, and it sounded off.

“Spencer…” He reached out to her, running his fingers along her knuckles. “I can’t just turn off these feelings for her… or for you. I still love you… and her. I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. Neither of you are better than the other… I just –”

He cut off, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how to say it right. I don’t want to say the wrong thing and push you away.”

The tears clouded her vision, and she wiped them quickly with the back of her hand, trying to plaster a determined look on her face. “No, I get it.”

“Please don’t cry,” he pleaded, looking tormented. “You deserve an explanation, but I can’t explain it.”

“It’s okay. I know what you’re trying to say, and I know you’d never intentionally hurt me.” She leaned in to kiss his cheek, and he wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her in a warm, comforting hug.

She pulled away and headed towards the stairs, waving. “I’ll see you around.” She turned back.  “You’ll always be my Superman though, right?”

“As long as you’re my Lois,” he whispered, just low enough for the two of them to hear.

----

[ladyanatui]

Feb. 11: Favorite Chosen Children friendship

This is a tough one because most of my favorite friendships are also my favorite romantic ships, so I’m picking a trio of friends (who make up two ships I really enjoy) I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while.

Taichi, Yamato & Koushiro

I talked about Taichi and Koushiro in one of my earlier posts, so I don’t want to dwell on it too much, but I do want to talk about this trio’s dynamics because it is on fucking point.

I’ve been wanting to throw together a blog post about this because it’s a Thing, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Well, now’s as good a time as any...

The Freudian Trio

According to TVTropes.com’s post:

[T]he Freudian Trio consists of three characters: one who acts emotionally and instinctively [(the McCoy/the Id)], one who acts with cold, passionless logic [(the Spock/the Superego)] and one who reconciles the two conflicting ideals [(the Kirk/the Ego)].

When looking at Taichi, Yamato, and Koushiro through this lens, it’s not difficult to see which character is which. Yamato, the bearer of the Crest of Friendship, is the id, the emotional one, the heart, while Koushiro, the bearer of the Crest of Knowledge, is the superego, the logical one, the brain. Taichi, obviously, is the leader, the ego, the one to keep these two conflicting ideas in check and make the final decisions.

This is one of the most common team tropes (obviously, Star Trek is well-known for this) because it creates a really cool dynamic between the characters, and Digimon portrays this so freaking well.

One of the things Taichi has to learn as the leader of the Chosen Children is how to be a leader. He doesn’t have the skills required for it, and he often makes stupid mistakes because of it.

Okay, to be fair, he’s eleven, but still.

In the beginning, one of Taichi’s problems is that he doesn’t listen to anyone. Sure, nobody but Yamato really fights him on this, but it takes him a while to learn that, in order to be a good leader, he has to trust in his team. In fact, I’d say it isn’t until fighting Etemon, until SkullGreymon, that he realizes just how much he still has to learn to deserve the position of leader. It’s only then that he really starts to listen to the other characters.

Yamato continually teaches Taichi that it’s important to slow down and make sure your team is keeping pace. He reminds him that you need to take care of your team, your nakama. He reminds him that it’s important to take a moment to breathe, to grieve for lost loved ones. He reminds him that the world isn’t black and white; it’s complex and filled with shades of gray--and all kinds of colors too. He reminds him that he needs to care about the people too, not just whether they win or lose. When they fight, it’s often because Taichi forgets these things (also because of Takeru, but I’ve already written about that).

Meanwhile, Koushiro teaches Taichi that he cannot rush into everything blindly without thinking things through. He reminds him that science and logic and knowledge can be powerful tools to help them, but they must be used responsibly. He reminds him that you have to think before you act and to consider all options and outcomes before making a decision. He reminds him that hard choices often have hard consequences, and often, those consequences are unavoidable.

And when Taichi finally starts listening to his team, Yamato and Koushiro become the two most important people to him and his closest friends (plus Sora). They are the characters he relies on the most to help him weigh the importance of doing what’s right (emotions) versus doing what should be done (logic), though he still often relies on his own instincts--because a good leader listens not only to his team but to himself as well.

Digimon often relies on these sort of character tropes.

02 focuses primarily on Odd Couples, where Daisuke and Ken are the Red Oni and Blue Oni respectively.

While Daisuke is passionate, easy-going, enthusiastic, and more than willing to break conventions when he sees fit, Ken is intellectual, introverted, serene, in control of his emotions, and more likely to adhere to authority. This is even more obvious when you look at the fact that Daisuke’s hair is a cinnamony maroon (red) and Ken’s black hair is colored blue, as is common in anime. But probably my favorite part is in Diablomon Strikes Back (pictured in GIF), where they wear each other’s color. They complement each other, and it’s a symbol to signify how perfectly in sync they are.

In Tamers, the main trio of Takato, Ruki, and Jianliang are color-coded.

In the Chromatic Arrangement trope, the main colors are red, blue, and green (or sometimes yellow), and Tamers uses this perfectly. Red (Takato) is typically the leader and main character. Blue (Ruki/Rika) is the uptight, intelligent one. And green (Jianliang/Henry) is the gentle, laid-back one. And their colors are signified not by their clothing but by the color of their D-Power and sometimes their Digimon partner. Guilmon and all its evolutions are red, Terriermon and all its evolutions are green, but Renamon’s accept color is violet/purple instead of blue, though it may be important to note that when it comes to flowers, all violet/purple flowers are called blue.

I’m sure I could break this down with the other series as well, but I’m less familiar with them, and this post was supposed to focus on Taichi, Yamato, and Koushiro’s friendship, so yeah...oops?

[aliceslantern]

Until We Meet Again, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, chapter 3

The last thing Ienzo expects is to fall in love during the war. Unfortunately, impulses are much harder to fight when one is human. But then Demyx disappears under mysterious circumstances... and leaves Ienzo in a wholly unexpected and indelicate situation. But how to deal with such a thing when he can barely deal with being human?

Chapter summary:  The truth comes out, and Ienzo makes a decision.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

The weeks passed too slowly and too quickly in a breath. Ienzo felt himself getting heavier, his stomach becoming more visible in the rare moments he let the illusion fall. With each day that passed, the dread increased, and every time he saw someone else’s face he thought about how he should sit them down, tell them what was going to happen. Easy to get swept up in the petty drama of day-to-day life, of the heightened stakes of the sleeping girl in the lab and how he might help Sora. Even so, he tried to eat well, to get enough sleep. He found it hard to connect himself with the baby, even though he could quite literally feel them inside of him. My child , he thought. Mine. No, couldn’t be. Before this he couldn’t reliably take care of himself. He couldn’t do this.

He wondered what the situation would be like if Demyx were here.

Their liaison had only lasted a few days, it was true, but that time had changed everything. The rarity of being able to be around someone who he could let see him had been intoxicating. Demyx was so much… more than he’d ever thought. If he weren’t alone… he thought he might’ve been able to bear up against this.

On his own one week in the seventh month of this pregnancy, he walked past the orphanage, wondered if it would be worth going inside. He could see some children playing in the street, on the lawn, looking tired, a bit dirty. He wished he could help them, but with the collapse of the monarchy went all power he could ever exert, and all of the resources. He should talk to Ansem about this, the restoration committee, see what could be done--

The weeks passed much, much too quickly--Ienzo lied to Aerith, said he had talked to one of his “friends”, that he knew what he wanted to do. It was just one more thing to add to his layers and layers of guilt. He would try to go to her, when he labored. He set aside a bag of some sort, with medical supplies, clean towels if that was not feasible. Prepared a quiet room for himself if need be. Adoption was the only logical choice. He would have to do his best to improve the situation externally. He hoped the child would someday understand--he simply wasn’t good enough for them.

One morning about eight and a half months into this whole endeavor, he woke with a sharp cramp, one that made him gasp for breath, but it passed quickly. He hoped it was just practice, but sporadically through the day he felt them coming, slowly, in waves. The pain felt like a strange kind of repentance. I deserve this , he thought, with every little pang. I deserve this. To not even have the nerve to talk to anybody about this--but yet he did not want to be a burden, did not want to let them all down--

“You haven’t been yourself lately,” Even remarked that afternoon. Ienzo was feeling breathless, the baby compressing his lungs, and he was trying not to audibly pant. According to his readings, this was all normal. Someone at his phase in pregnancy should probably not be working hours as long--especially in early labor--but he didn’t know what else to do with himself other than drown in guilt and fear and self-loathing.

The contractions were getting closer together; he checked his watch. He really should get to that safe space before it all began in earnest, before he began to labor actively. “I’ve been tired,” he said flatly. “And I’ve had a lot on my mind.” The illusion was getting harder to maintain as the pain worsened, and he hoped it would not flicker.

“Like what?”

Ienzo cocked his head. “Since when do you care?”

Even seemed taken aback by this. He stammered a little. “I know much of this… hasn’t been easy, and we’ve so… little time to parse the past--I wish to…” He exhaled. “I wish to move forward, to make up for mistakes, but we…” A pause. “I’ve so much to make up to you, Ienzo.”

He felt his heart flutter. “Even, I do not wish to go into it now.”

Even took a breath. “I understand if… you do not wish to make true amends. If it were me--”

A sudden searing agony shot through him, sharper and harder than the previous contractions, and he stifled a cry, feeling the shimmer as the illusion began to break down in earnest. He felt something wet between his legs, wet and trickling, and he had to grip the counter, his other hand shooting to his stomach almost instinctively. He didn’t recover quickly enough to pass it off--when he tried to form another illusion, another pang startled him.

“Ienzo?” Then, seeing the puddle of amniotic fluid under him, the small but still obvious swell under his lab coat, “ Ienzo ?”

“No--this isn’t--” The pain peaked, and he struggled to maintain balance. “You weren’t supposed to--”

He felt Even reach forward to prod at the bump, as though checking this weren’t some kind of prank. “You’re truly--you’re really--” Ienzo had never seen him that pale. “How long have you known --”

The pain eased, and Ienzo was able to regain some breath. “A few… a few months…”

“Months? Months ?” He sputtered. “Child, why didn’t you-- say something?” A flush rose in his cheeks. “How close together are the contractions?”

“What?” He was dizzy.

“The contractions. How close together are they? How long has this been happening?”

“Since… since early this morning… about twelve hours or so?” He felt weak. “You’re not… angry?”

“I’m angry that you jeopardized your health so. If you’ve been in labor for twelve hours --you truly--why didn’t you tell me, Ienzo?” More exasperated than anything. “I could’ve helped you handle this situation--was I supposed to wait until the child was falling down your pant leg?”

“Like you handled Ansem, you mean?” Ienzo spat, before another contraction gripped him.

There was just stunned silence. “We should get you down to the med bay,” he said quietly. “You’re clearly starting to transition.”

Ienzo felt tears in his eyes. He let Even guide him down those long, long hallways, pausing now and again as the contractions burned through him. He helped him out of his clothes, into a robe, onto the clean bed that was used more often to treat the injuries sustained during the castle’s renovations. Even gave him an injection that helped him bear up against the pain. This settled, he was faced with the reality of his situation coming out.

And he felt… relieved. He hadn’t expected the pain to be so all-consuming, to make him so… unable to function.

“When did you even have time to… do that ?” Even asked. “And with whom? Who put you in this situation? I assume you haven’t told them either.”

“It’s not for lack of trying with him.” He swallowed. “I was… I tried to be careful , Even, I used--”

“I don’t need to know the sordid details. I believe you.”

More tears pricked in his eyes. “I didn’t have many symptoms. It took far too long for me to put it together… and by then… it was too late to… do what I would’ve wanted originally. This human body feels so alien…” The contractions were more of a dull, ominous rumbling now, but he still had to wait until it was over to speak. “This child… Even, I can’t… I can’t raise them.”

“What do you want, Ienzo?”

Ienzo considered. He thought about the way the child had felt when it moved in him. There was a disconnect… but not a hatred. Of wanting to do better, be better enough to love them. Perhaps if he did not hate himself so much he would consider… “It would be different if… its father were here, I think…”

“Yes… and who is that? I should send Aeleus or Dilan to have a word --”

He took a deep breath. But he might as well confess totally--Even wouldn’t hurt him when he was vulnerable like this. "Demyx."

Yet more shocked silence. "But I--but-- why , Ienzo, even if you are not used to hormones--"

"I had felt… a pull towards him before," he admitted. "One I denied and denied… and when we met again, my heart was pulled into so many places that I… just got tired of fighting. But there's been radio silence. I don't even know if he's okay."

Even scowled. "Like he didn't drop you the moment it wasn't convenient for him."

"I don't think it was that. Truly. There was something in his eyes…" Then, it suddenly and stupidly occurring to him-- "Even, when Xehanort died you lost that bit of his heart. What if that happened to Demyx, and that's why--"

He sighed. "It took days though, Ienzo, before I truly lost my dark powers. And we know Lea can still use them. It's possible that he couldn't get to you. But not probable."

Another contraction hit him, so hard and harsh despite painkillers he cried out.

"Let me check you again," Even said. "You might be… almost there."

"I can't do this," he moaned, feeling like he might just break--not from the pain, but the guilt and loathing and fear about this child. They deserved so much better.

"You can. You have to, Ienzo. We'll get through this together."

"I can't trust you, Even." The tears were hot on his face. "You--you lied all those years--"

He pulled on gloves. "I know. I will spend the rest of my life regretting that moment. You're at ten centimeters, Ienzo. If you feel like you need to push, you can."

He felt the strangest pressure in his abdomen, like Even said, a need. He examined this instinct for a moment.  "Why'd you do it?"

"Because it was lie to you or fight Xehanort and become one of his subjects as well and I was not going to have him make you into one of his tools."

Ienzo laughed. "He did that anyway." A pain pummelled him.

"Go on, Ienzo. You'll get through this."

He pushed. It was absolutely shattering, and he felt weak, trembling all over. They're coming, he thought dazedly.

"Good, Ienzo, keep at it. Just keep going."

A minute or so later, he rode the next contraction, feeling the child pulling through him. So odd, so strange… he was dizzy, struggling to remember to breathe.

"Not much more. You're almost there. You're doing so well. "

Ienzo sobbed. He couldn't turn back now. He had no choice but to go with it, the ripping breaking pain on each contraction, until--

"One more push should do it."

He used the rest of his strength--he felt something being tugged from him, the pain abruptly easing, a gasp that was not his own--

"A girl, Ienzo, you've got a little girl--"

And then a baby was being pressed to his breast. "Oh…" He kissed her before he could stop himself, marveling at the dark blonde hair that was definitely Demyx's.

"The placenta, Ienzo."

"...Right." And then it was over. The cord was trimmed down, clamped off, and Even tried to take her from him. "What are you--"

"I need to measure her."

"Even--" He breathed the realization. "No," he said softly.

"What?"

"I…" A deep certainty, one long felt. "I want her."

He held the squalling newborn. "Are you… sure?"

The tears ran thick and fast. "Yes."

A long pause, his expression unreadable. "Alright, Ienzo. Alright. Let me… take her, for a moment. You rest." Even disappeared to the corner of the room. Ienzo sagged against the mattress, exhausted, the reality of his postpartum body weighing heavily. I've given birth, he thought. I had a baby. A baby he suddenly--irrationally--craved with his whole being.

Even brought her back to him, wrapped in a towel. "Three point six kilos," he said. "Seems perfectly healthy." He eased her into his arms. "Ienzo--"

"I know."

"Are you sure about this?"

He exhaled and looked at his baby. "What am I to do," he said. " Look at her, I can't--"

Even sighed. Smiled. "Quite." He leaned over to squeeze his shoulder. "There's nothing--ready for her. I wish you’d have told me--”

“I did too,” he said softly. “I had myself convinced I could do this on my own, that I could… give her up, I don’t know why…” He trailed off. “I’m so used to being on my own.”

“But you aren’t,” Even said. “Regardless of what happens. I won’t let you down again.”

Ienzo grasped one of his daughter’s tiny fists. He’d made this, this living thing . She smacked her lips a little bit. He felt more tears on his face.

“We’ll get through this,” Even repeated.

---

Ienzo could not look away from the baby. She’d slept most of the afternoon, and Even insisted he did too. He was feeling more pain now, sharp aches in his hips and uterus. Even was able to find some cloth diapers, brought some small blankets.

“We’re going to have to tell the others something,” Even said to him. “Especially if you… want to keep her.”

“Is it very impractical of me?” Ienzo murmured.

He chuckled a little. “Impractical, of course. But you take after your father in that regard. Bringing an orphaned child here out of the blue. We managed with you. We’ll manage with her.”

“I can never be good enough, all I’ve done--”

“You hush. Perhaps… in a roundabout way this is how you prove yourself. Helping build a better world she can grow up in.”

“Yes… that is… apt.”

Even took her gently from him. “You need rest.”

“Alright. I’ll try.”

He slept heavily and deeply until he heard her cry, jolting him to awareness, his breasts aching. He touched one, wincing. “Milk must’ve come in,” he muttered.

Even was half draped across the other bed, also asleep, his daughter--Ienzo’s daughter--squalling in the makeshift bassinet. He climbed out of bed and took a few hobbling steps towards her.

“We’ll learn to do this together, I suppose,” he said to her. He crossed back over to the bed and pulled aside one half of the top of his robe. The baby seemed to struggle for a moment before she was able to latch on, and Ienzo shuddered a little at the odd sensation. “It’s you and me now.” He ran his hand along her small warm skull. Her hair seemed to have a little curl--had she gotten that from Demyx?

It seemed to be hitting him harder now. He was a father . This was his child. It gave him the strangest feeling of warmth.

“I’ll do better,” Ienzo said softly. He burped her and set her back down. “I just need some rest.”

He was strong enough the next morning to bathe, to eat and limp weakly around the room. The baby slept and slept and slept, which Even assured him was normal for a newborn. “Birth is rather traumatic, putting it lightly,” he said. He paused, brushing his finger across the baby’s cheek. “Ansem has been asking about our whereabouts.”

A pang of anxiety skittered down his spine. “I’m sure he has--it’s unusual we’re gone this long--”

His eyes softened. “Would you be willing to tell him now?”

He exhaled.

“He has to find out eventually. Time will make it harder,” Even said. “You might be able to hide a pregnancy with your magic, Ienzo, but I doubt even you can hide a child for long.”

He took a sharp breath. “Alright.”

Even squeezed his shoulder and called him. Ienzo’s heart beat thickly the whole time they waited for him. All the while the child slept, snuffling and gurgling now and again. After what seemed like ages, the door opened. “Is everything alright,” Ansem asked hoarsely. “When you said Ienzo was down here I--” His eyes fell onto the child. His expression became hard to read. There was a long moment of just silence. Ansem came closer to them, puzzled. “Is this a child you… found?”

Ienzo admitted it to his jacket pocket. “No.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. “But you didn’t… look …”

“An illusion.” He felt yet more tears rushing into his eyes, cursing his hormones. “I… only found out about three months ago, and then… I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone. It’s so… shameful to have gotten myself in that situation. I knew you’d be disappointed in me--after all I put you through--”

Ansem came closer to him. There was something foggy and far away in his eyes, nostalgic, almost. He brushed his hand along the baby’s head. “How could I be disappointed in a face like that?” he asked softly. “You could’ve said something sooner, Ienzo.”

“I told him the very same,” Even said, with a huff.

“Given me time to come to terms with the fact that I am a grandfather. May I?” He held out his arms.

Ienzo blinked. Not at all what he’d been expecting. “You want to… hold her?”

“Of course I do.” He smiled.

“You’re not mad?”

He took the child gently. “Why would I be mad?”

“This is one more mistake in a very long series.” He bit his lip. “I was careful, and then I didn’t even know--”

“Perhaps she was meant to be,” Ansem said. “She was waiting for you.”

“Why me, of all the people?”

“Give you something you needed,” he said. “A chance to live instead of survive. You’re more than your work, Ienzo.”

“But I’ve done so many awful things--what could I have to give her? Possibly?”

“Your willingness to change,” Ansem said. “To do good--to be selfless.”

“I don’t feel very selfless,” he admitted. “I couldn’t even find the nerve to tell anyone about her until--yesterday."

"And you only did that, I suspect, because your cover had been blown," Even said, with a sniff. "Do you know how badly it could've gone if you tried to deliver her yourself?"

Ansem went pale, hearing this. “What were you afraid of? Judgement?”

It became clear. “I was afraid you’d all convince me I could do this. I was afraid you… wouldn’t be angry.”

“Why?” Even asked.

He dropped his eyes. “Because I wanted to, deep down. I don’t… I took this very same thing from so many people. How does that make me worthy to raise a child?”

“But you love her?” Ansem asked.

He swallowed, feeling a lump in his throat. “Yes.”

“Love and a willingness  to do better… is all one needs to begin. Yes?”

A thick, sticky relief washed through him, and the tears broke free. “Okay.”

[black-quadrant]

I have been bestowed a joshriku gift fic, so it’s only natural I share the wealth.

warning: raunchy, raunchy porn. enjoy.

He's used to waking up in strange places. The life he chose chasing around a boy and a girl. High hopes and dreams both fabricated and desperate. It's not a lifestyle that allows for the creature comfort of familiarity. Still, here he is, sprawled out on his side, legs spread haphazardly and an arm flung over the side of an impossibly large couch. It's darker here than he imagined it would be. He shifted, rolling to his back as he stared up at the ceiling and his eyes adjusted. He never woke up slow and easy. He was asleep, or he was wide awake. The results of too much trauma? Probably. The fluorescent glow of lights shone like a halo behind black silhouettes of furniture. A dart board, rimmed in red, bright pink of tacky wall hanging words scrawled in cursive. Somewhere behind him, presumably the bar, was the warmth of low LEDs.

Dead God's Pad...what? What era had this guy even walked out of? Or died in he supposed. It was posh, and smelled too expensive for his taste. But it was a place to rest, one that was presumably safe, and with how exhausted he was from being thrown here out of a key portal he didn't know existed, he didn't really care. Why was he so tired though? Like a heavy weight that pressed in from all sides and clung---

"You're a noisy sleeper." The voice spoke from his left, a dark sunken spot nestled in the shadows. Joshua.

"How long was I out?"

"Does it mater," the blonde replied, the rustle of clothes and creak of a chair as he sat forward chin in hands as they rested on his knees. "Time is a loosely fitted construct here. It's not going to get you where you need any faster by counting the minutes. Or days," He added after a pause.

Riku didn't bother to sit up, this was as much of attention as Riku was going to get, the participation in a simple, quiet conversation. "You're quieter than usual." He pried, though he didn't really expect an answer. And for a moment, there was none. It made the room seem uncomfortably silent. This deep underground there wasn't the faint hustle and bustle of the streets. Just the low hum of electricity that made his ears ring.

Joshua sighed, and out of corner of his eye, if he tilted his head just a bit to the side, he could see the exhaustion in Joshua's face. It was something he covered up so well normally, and in all honesty if Riku wasn't so familiar with the look of long suffering torment, he wouldn't have even known it. "You're not the only one who sleeps restlessly."

"You don't sleep at all. Do you?" Riku asked, finally sitting up. Joshua had earned that much in this rare display of honesty.

"Not during game weeks, no. Not really ever, actually. I don't need to anyways. Sleeping is something to do when I'm suffering an incredible bout of boredom."

"So instead you stay awake and watch strange guys in their sleep?" He didn't sound miffed about it, there was no point in being angry. Joshua just laughed anyways, a sound that felt like the practice of social cues, not a genuine emotion.

"Oh Riku. You're not so strange to me. I know your kind. I hate it actually."

A thick brow of silver lifted curiously. Well that was an unexpected thing to hear from Joshua. "You're going to have to explain that to me more because I don't know where you're going saying something like that."

Joshua got up and made his way over to the couch to sit next to Riku, an arm sliding along the back of the couch so he could face Riku. He was surprised to actually see a genuine display of irritation on the tiny god's face. "I hate it because you remind me of many things I don't like about myself. I'm old enough now, Riku, that I've grown out of feeling things that were pointless for me to feel. You think that you hide your emotions so well, but I think you wear them on your sleeve. Sora doesn't see it because *he* is the one hiding behind a mask. You know that just as much as I do. That optimism is welded in place to cover up the ache in his heart. He's had as much trauma as the rest of us. But your silence speaks for itself what's going on. I suppose I'm no better than your friend. It's only in the comfort of isolation that I allow myself to slip into what you wear every day."

Riku sat through it all with patient silence. "Are you happy?" He finally asked, the question softly hung in the quiet room.

"That's a loaded question that I could bounce right back of you but we're not in grade school anymore so I'll be mature about it." The blonde leaned in close enough that Riku could almost smell his breath, the faint waft on dinner's noodles and the sharp undertone of alcohol. He tilted his head as if to tell a secret and when he spoke his voice was clear and soft. "Happiness here is as complicated as time. It's better to just not ask those kinds of questions because dwelling on how to answer them is unproductive at best, and depressing at the worst." Riku could feel the warmth of his pale skin, and the heat of those unnaturally purple eyes. It dawned on him then what the static in the room was, the tension wound like a cord about to break, the skin crawling buzz that left him feverish even when his stomach dropped. He was shocked at how easy it was to come to a conclusion on how to act. He wasn't a stranger to any of this, but he was sitting in the presence *of* a stranger. Even as his mouth opened to speak he was surprised by the words that fell out, thick and heavy, voice roughened by late hours and a dry tongue.

"Do you want to fuck?" So casual. Just like that. It seemed like the only conclusion to the conversation. The pretense of Joshua's presence to begin with was a telltale sign. Had they both wanted this from the beginning? Was it even a matter of wanting it or was it just an involuntary act, like the blink of an eye or the rise and fall of a breath?

Joshua didn't answer but just like that he was climbing up onto Riku's lap and his mouth was on Riku and his hands were in his hair and it was all so sloppy it was as if it had never happened before. But there was an undertone of confidence, a roughness to his touch that contradicted. If he was going all in, he was going all in. Riku's hands slid down to grab at the blonde's ass, cupping each cheek with a strong grip as fingernails dug into the thick jean fabric. Neither of them made a sound except the heavy breath, almost deafening to Riku's ears. And he was right, noodles and soy, tart champagne, the sweetness of tender meat. He wondered briefly what the walls of his own spit tasted like as Joshua licked at them. His tongue scraped at the roof of Riku's mouth grazed over his teeth. Joshua kissed like he was trying to eat Riku alive and Riku fought to slow it down, everything about his motions deliberate and deep. Joshua was clinging to Riku's hair as Riku was already slipping up the blonde's shirt, roving over thin soft skin until he could span his hand across his chest, pinching a plump nipple beneath his fingers until it pebbled with his touch and Joshua keened against his lips.

They broke only to suck at what breath they could, Joshua scrambling to slip buttons from holes just as quickly as Riku was pressing into the couch so he could get both hands between them and tear at a button, the zip of a fly, and a grip of his pants.

"You're going to let me fuck you?" Riku asked, voice curt and softly demanding.

"No you idiot, I'm just tearing my clothes off to rub my cock on you until I blow a load on your chest." Joshua replied, shirt falling to the floor.

The surprised laugh Riku slipped forth was sucked down by Joshua's tongue, fingers back in his hair with a sharp tug. It was a blur of frantic motion after that, Riku shifting Joshua enough to shimmy his pants down until they hung off a leg. With how soft Joshua's skin was, he was surprised to feel the course down of hair on his legs, pale as his blonde hair. It was a reminder of his age, and a relief, not that Riku minded how Joshua chose to take form. He was a god, and older than Riku wanted to guess at.

With Joshua's pants free, Riku could finally touch and probe, fingers exploring along the crack of his ass until they nuzzled against the puckered hole that twitched at the attention. It was almost too easy, even dry, to slide just the barest tip of a finger in, testing the stretch of muscle. And he was right, this sort of thing was no stranger to Joshua. The thought was a turn on, a surge of blood to his cock that ground up against Joshua's lithe little body. He groaned into the blonde's mouth and muzzled his way down his neck, breathing the mess of hair aside to suck at the underside of Joshua's chin, right at the juncture of his throat. And Joshua was nearly silent the whole time, a jarring silence broken only by his breath and soft noises. Riku liked the way his voice fell deeper with the sounds, the wetness to his throaty noises. "L-lift up a second," he muttered, using the freed space between them to swiftly pull his belt aside and fumble buttons and zippers away so he could pull his cock out from the constraining fabric. Joshua hovered above him watching intently, lazily stroking his own dick until it hardened, fingers expertly dragging up and down the shaft, pulling precum from the head with the squeeze of foreskin. It was impressive really, curved like the devil and tapered down at the base. Riku stared hungrily, his cock jumping in his lap, heavier and thicker than Joshua's. Silver hair shifted as Riku appraised the blonde, finally settling on purple hues. He felt awkward all of a sudden, mouth quirking into a boyish smile. "I uh...how stretched are you? Are you going to be able to fit me?" He asked, hands reaching out to grab at Joshua's rear again, spreading both cheeks and then letting them bounce free.

"Not dry you won't." He retorted as he slid down to his knees until he was wedged between Riku and the coffee table. Predicting the action Riku's hands slid to Joshua's head, guiding them as the blonde pulled hair aside with one hand, gripped the base of Riku's cock with the other, and lips slid over the head of Riku's cock. Soft, warm, practiced. His head hit the back of the couch with a gasp as Joshua pulled him into his mouth, tongue flattened against the underside, flicking as much as he was able to against the ridge of a vein. It was sloppy, a means to get Riku as wet as possible. His head bobbed up and down with ease and Riku had to force himself not to grip at Joshua's hair and just fuck that obnoxious little mouth until he came, hips bucking. Joshua didn't stop until Riku was coated, spit soaking into his jeans. He climbed back up into Riku's lap and by now he was frantic. His hands probed and spread across pale skin until he had Joshua spread.

"Wait." Riku slid a finger in his mouth, wet the calloused digit and settled it back to where it was only this time it sunk in with ease. "Holy shit you're gonna take me easier than I thought." He growled, swirling around before slipping free, still spreading him open as he pushed the head of his dick against his hole. Little thrusts to wedge it in as Joshua cursed and moaned above him.

"I'm not loose!"

"Don't be a baby, you're hot."

"And you have a thick head so do me a favor and wedge it in because it fucking aches."

Riku rolled his eyes against Joshua's chest, a hand pressed rough into the blonde's bony hip to push him down. It ached for him too, Joshua's skin was hot enough to burn, and the pressure was almost painful, the head popping through the first two rings of muscle. The sound Joshua guttered out was clearly uncomfortable but once he'd pushed through he was able to sink in with ease and they both released a shaky sigh of relief.

Joshua was so tiny, like Sora, except instead of brawny muscle and curves of baby fat that never quite left, Joshua was sharp bones, light as a bird. He was easy to scoop up, Riku was strong, and Joshua would never say how good it felt to be wrapped up in stiff muscles that squeezed him a little too tight to lift him up. He drove Joshua back down, and there was nothing slow or careful about it. There was no foreplay, no cat and mouse. No *passion*. Riku could barely pull him all that far off his cock before bucking his hips up into wet heat. It almost stung it was so hot, yet it was so good Riku's stomach felt like it was pressing down into his intestines, sitting like a burning rock above the pubic mound where silver curls of hair tangled wet with spit and the precum that dripped down Joshua's cock.

"I wanna come, hold still," Joshua muttered, not that Riku could do much about it anyway, the tiny blonde's hands pressed flat against his shoulder, pushing Riku back into the couch until he was sunk into the cushions. Joshua shimmied down on his cock until he was seated balls deep.

"Shit!" He threw his head back until he was nearly smothered in the cushions and Joshua *rode* him. His hips ground down, weight falling enough onto Riku so that his cock dragged against Riku's chest. That's when he got noisy, keening and whimpering in rhythm as he bounced his ass off Riku's dick, slapping against his balls which clenched with every beat against them. Like a girl, he thought. Joshua is fucking me like a girl would, cock scraping for friction on his chest. If he was a girl, her clit would be sliding over him, tickled against those wet little curls of silver. He'd done it before, felt the little nub swell and pulse when they came.

When Joshua did come, he wailed, went nearly stiff in Riku's grip, body convulsing once, twice, a few more. Riku was panting against his shoulder, doing his best to hold still as Joshua's cock, no doubt sensitive to the touch, spasmed between them, hot threads of come dripping across Riku's chest and over his shirt. He couldn't feel that much really, but his teeshirt was thin and stretched tight over him, enough to feel that throb.

Once Joshua's breath had settled to quivering he spoke, words mumbled. "You can move, I don't mind if you come in me."

It was all Riku needed. "Fuck," was all he could spit out as his hips pumped up with renewed fervor. The pressure built until it hurt, until his thrusts became frantic and then just as suddenly they slowed and Joshua moaned as sweet as sugar as Riku hissed, gasped, the head of his cock hovered sensitive at the entrance. Those two muscles clung to him, sucked at the fat mound of flooded veins and stiff sponge. Joshua didn't make Riku pull out until he was soft enough to slide free and Joshua could fall to his side. Riku couldn't figure out how the blonde wasn't panting like he was. Maybe it was a god thing.

"We'll find a portal back for you tomorrow. Top of one oh four."

Riku let out a genuine laugh. "Really? That's all you have to say after that?"

"What did you expect? We fucked. You and I both know there were no strings attached. You fuck good and you have an amazing cock. One I could get used to. But I'm not. Because you don't belong here and I don't need you here."

The words didn't hurt. He was right, after all. With a groan he got to his feet and stretched, wiped futilely at the jizz on his pants before tucking his limp dick away. "Yeah. You're right." He paused, "thanks for the distraction." And his smirk landed on Joshua's own twisted little smile.

"Yeah, it'll do."

[thenameisjem]

Missing Ache

Summary: Vanitas’ memories and experiences as a Part of Ventus and as his own Person.

As he faded away, he felt awfully at peace with himself. Nothingness embraced him like a thick blanket. He always thought that, even in death, he would still be connected to the world somehow. But now, as he was floating here, in the endless nothingness, he realized how mundane his existence had really been.

How his goal, to create a world for himself had been worthless from the start. And as he drifted deeper and deeper into non-existence, he thought about the life he had had.

He had been with his brother, Ventus for an awfully long time, yet it compared to nothing to what his previous life had been. He had been there from the very beginning. He was the Darkness that had birthed the light and that would extinguish it too – or so he had thought.

In truth, his birth had been the moment that his Master had ripped him out of Ventus’ heart and given him shape and a name. He was only a part of a greater whole. It still felt like it had always been him – or maybe that had just been a dream, and illusion created to keep himself busy in his Prison of Light.

Life had both been a curse and a blessing. For the first time, he was able to experience the world with his own eyes, could feel the earth beneath him griddle with his own two feet and smell the fresh air around him. The first thing he had truly felt, however, was the Pain that came with being ripped apart by his Master’s Keyblade. It had been terribly anguishing, feeling incomplete, feeling scared and feeling powerless. Wanting to return to where he came from, but at the same time wanting to escape.

He knew his purpose from the Moment he was created. Vanitas was the name he was given. Quite a fitting name, for an Empty Vessel such as himself.

Even now, in death, he could feel his Master’s clutches ever so tightly around his “Heart”, wishing to recall him back into life. Vanitas wanted to call upon his Unversed as he felt the grip tighten and loosen. He was slipping. Peacefully slipping away. And for some reason, this scared him even more than being alone.

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His Master had made him fight his own creation. The first time he had been forced to struck down his own, he had collapsed from the Pain it had caused his Heart. His Master was not a kind person. He wished for Vanitas to become stronger and stronger ever still, no matter the cost.

And Vanitas had accepted that this was his new purpose. He had been created for this.

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How much time had passed in the Realm of Light? Had people already forgotten his existence? No – if that were true Vanitas himself would not be here, drifting through the endless abyss of nothingness. It was so lonely here. How badly he wished to could call upon his creation now.

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He wondered if it could have been different, had he not been following his Master’s wishes from the start. If he had ended up with Ventus instead – would he too have fought alongside those Guardians? The mere thought of it made his Heart convulse with disgust. It went against his whole nature, his instinct. He was Darkness. He was Loneliness. Even in a place like this, he wouldn’t forget.

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He drifted in and out of a dreamless sleep. Days or maybe years must have passed since he was felled. In this new Prison of Nothingness, Vanitas felt as if his own Identity was starting to slip away. Or had it ever even been there? His memories became hazier with each agonizing breath he took.

He had been the Darkness that lived in Ventus’ heart. And now he could feel himself return to that very heart that had held him for such a long time. He wasn’t scared, and perhaps that’s what truly frightened him.

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He remembers lying beneath the Stars, watching them fall, as they died off – one by one they fell. He had been so excited. Ephemer and Skuld had promised to watch the stars fall with Them tonight on that hillside.

The exhilaration of the previous battle made him restless as he laid there, next to his brother, tightly in his grip. He could feel the cool grass against his tip. Ventus’ grip around his hilt tightened ever so slightly. Vanitas could feel how nervous his brother was.

The last few months had not been easy on them – always fighting more Monsters and collecting their Lux as more and more Keyblade-Wielders vanished from existence.

Vanitas hummed gently around his brothers’ hand. Ventus had earned this night for them. He had no reason to be nervous. The young boy looked at his Keyblade and smiled fondly.

“This is the first time that someone invited me… I can’t help but feel nervous.” Vanitas hummed in annoyance as Ventus let out a huff. “I know… they’re our friends now, right? So why do I feel so on edge right now?” A few silent moments passed and Ventus gently placed his hand against his Blade.

“Lonely no more, huh? So… what will happen to you then?” To that, Vanitas had no answer… He wanted to stay here, with Ventus and Skuld and Ephemer and all the other Union Leaders… but at the same time he knew that he could not exist with them here.

His excitement slowly died, as another star, another world, fell from the sky.

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His Masters’ foot connected with his Body. He gasped in pain and clutched his stomach. Above him roared the laughter of his creator.

“Get up, BOY! Take the Keyblade!”. Another sharp kick was delivered to his sides and Vanitas couldn’t help but curl up in Pain. Everything about this felt so natural, so familiar.

He forced his Body to move, forced his Fear down and shaped it into one of his creatures. The Unversed jumped from him in an instant and retrieved the fallen Keyblade, to bring it back to him. The young Flood was met with the sharp end of the Blade, as Vanitas crushed his creation.

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“Hey. You. I was wondering about something…”

Hm? What is it that you are thinking of?

“You are a part of me, right?”

Yes, that is so.

“So… do you feel what I feel then?”

I suppose you could put it that way…It’s a little bit more difficult than that…

“How so? Aren’t we the same?”

…It’s a little bit more difficult then that.

“…hm?”

Well. I am here, in your heart. I can hear your thoughts and you can hear mine. I can feel your loneliness, but not your happiness. I am not the same as you, as I did not come from you.

“How can that be…? Do you mean … It can’t possibly be…!”

…

“…”

Do you hate me for what I am? “How could I hate you when I know that you are hurting?”

…

“Do you wish that you could leave?”

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Vanitas smiled as he watched his creations fight among themselves.

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He could feel how his Brother’s heart became weaker. The Monster above him bellowed with a terrible growl, ready to strike again with its terrible claws.

Its grimace sent shivers of fear down their spine. He felt so scared, watching as Ventus helplessly fell to the ground. Something inside him stirred. “WhO cOuLd EvEr LoVe YoU?”, the voice of the Monster rumbled above them.

“YoU aRe DeStInEd To Be AlOnE!” Before it could strike again, Vanitas plunged a Keyblade through the Beast’s body, watching with satisfaction as it crumbled to the ground.

With a startle he noticed the glimmering object in their hands. He really hoped that Ventus would forgive him for striking down their Mother like that.

And with that, he retreated into the newly summoned Keyblade.

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His Master wanted him and his Brother to forge some kind of χ-Blade. Light and Darkness in equal shares, the perfect opportunity for them both to exist, and at the same time exist as one. Would this quench the everlasting loneliness in his chest, he wondered?

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He knew he had to take action! He couldn’t let himself or Ventus succumb to this Fate. The Keyblade War was close, he could feel it in his Heart.

The Prison of Light around him did little to dim his nervousness and even though his Brother fought hard to grow stronger, Vanitas still knew that it wasn’t enough.

They had fought side by side, each basking in the other’s company. From time to time, when the situation was dire and Vanitas felt as if they were cornered, he would take control over his brother’s actions, striking monster’s left and right. It didn’t matter to him if these monsters were shaped to look human.

- But still it would not suffice for the War to come. Their bond had deepened with each lonesome adventure and Vanitas savored each and every moment of his non-existence.

He had to do something! He could not let it end like this. So that night, he took control of his Brother’s body once more to fulfill his Plan.

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His second life had been much more different from his first one. For the first time he could feel himself slipping away from his brother’s light. He had a new purpose in his Masters’ ranks. He no longer needed Ventus in order to feel the void.

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Time had passed. He had been erased from existence and then been beckoned back into it. Ventus. This time for sure they would stay together! He would make sure of it.

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“I’m the piece of Ventus that as taken away. And you’re the piece Ventus needed to be whole again. So…why shouldn’t you and I look exactly the same?”

Vanitas finally understood, why his second life had been so different. He was no longer a person or even a part of a person. He wasn’t like Ventus or Sora. Had he ever really been anything at all? He was nothing more than the fleeting emotions that he created – that he no longer cared about. No longer felt anything about.

Ventus had cast him aside as soon as he had found a family. Vanitas was no longer needed.

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“Because I am Darkness.”

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. “But I didn’t ask for this. To be sifted apart, nice and neat. We should be free to choose. Not just Light, not just Darkness. We decide what we are.” The decision had never been his own…

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Drifting here, in the never-ending abyss, he felt lonely again. How he longed to be at his brother’s side. To feel needed. To protect his brother if the opportunity arrived. To slay anyone who would dare to break their connection. And suddenly, he could feel himself take a familiar form. One that he had not taken in a long time.

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When he regained consciousness, he found himself, immobile, in the realm of Darkness, waiting for his Brother to find him. The rough cold ground did nothing against his cold rugged body. He hummed peacefully.

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“What is a Keyblade doing in a place like this?” Ventus’ voice cut through Vanitas’ sleep. He felt himself stir impatiently, as he felt the familiar hand around him. And just like that, the connection was whole again.

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Missing Ache.

[calmdowncaleb]

Task #006 - Love Alphabet

A   :   AFFECTION.   how does your muse show affection?

Caleb is a very cuddly boy. If he likes someone he will hang on them, hold their hand, give kisses (it doesn’t matter if they are in a relationship or not), and lots of cuddles. Some may call him clingy. He just sees is as very lovey and cuddly.

B   :   BOUQUET.   does your muse like flowers? which ones are their favourite?

No, Caleb doesn’t like flowers. He has always thought it was a strange thing to give flowers. You have to take care of them and they die anyway. He would rather give something lasting to someone he cares for.

C   :   CHOCOLATE.   does your muse like chocolate? which one is their favourite?

Caleb likes chocolate in things. He won’t eat a chocolate bar plain. But chocolate milk is one of his favourite drinks. His favourite thing snack with chocolate in it are Choco Pies. Think of a Moon Pie or a Wagon Wheel but fluffier.

D   :   DATE.   what is your muse’s ideal date? where / who with / etc?

Caleb is a very simple boy and his idea date is going to the arcade with someone. Competing in games, winning prizes for each other, before eating pizza and fires. He doesn’t like traditional dates such as fancy dinners or going to the movies. Dinner dates have too much pressure to be good and too much time to have awkward silences--which Caleb is very good at. Movie dates are very impersonal. 

E   :   EMBRACE.   does your muse like hugs? what are their hugs like?

Caleb may be small but he is great a giving hugs. Most of the time, he rocks with the other person during hugs. Also most of the time, since he’s rather short, it’s his head resting on the other person’s shoulder. 

F   :   FLIRT.   is your muse good at flirting? how do they flirt?

Caleb is the most awkward flirt if he is actively trying to flirt. He tends to make bad jokes and laugh too loudly. When he’s flirting without realizing it, which he does a lot of the time without even realize it, he just acts cute. No trying to get the person, just being himself. Which is cute.

G   :   GIFT.   is your muse good at gift - giving or do they struggle to get it right?

Caleb struggles a little bit at giving gifts. He tends to spend more money than he needs to, buying multiple things, hoping one of them will be right. Then he ends up giving the person a Christmas morning’s worth of presents.

H   :   HEART.   is your muse quick or slow to give their heart away?

He is rather trusting in others, letting anyone who bats their eyelashes at him into his heart only to have it stomped on in the end .Thank you, Abra. 

I    :   I LOVE YOU.   does your muse find ‘i love you’ easy or hard to say?

Those words are very hard for him to say. He has only said it to two people outside of his family. And one of them was Minseok, his best friend from back in Korea, who might as well be his brother. The only other person he said it to way Teddy. There have been other people he loves, he just can’t bring himself to say the words for some reason.

J   :   JEALOUSY.   does your muse get jealous in a relationship?

Yes. Caleb Kim is a little green eyed monster. Go look at the ski trip if you need an example. 

K   :   KISS.   is your muse a good kisser? why / why not?

He could use a little practice. Caleb is an awkward boy and during the first kiss with someone that can come through. Think of the first kiss you ever had. Yeah, Caleb kind of relives that with the first kiss with someone knew.

L   :   LOVE.   who does your muse love?

His mom. His brother. Reluctantly, his sister. Not his dad. His grandma. Minnie. Axel. Kenzie. Teddy. Isak. All in different ways, mind you.  

M   :   MOONLIGHT.   what is your muse’s ideal date? where / who with / etc?

This is the same question as “DATE”

N   :   NAUGHTY.   what is your muse like in bed?

He’s kind of a different person in bed. He enjoys sex in somewhat unorthodox places. He’s a power bottom. He’ll take what he wants but doesn’t talk much. Kink isn’t really his thing, although he really likes his hair being pulled.

O   :   ODE.   does your muse have a way with words?

No. Not at all. Not in English or Korean. He’s a mess when it comes to words.

P   :   PARTNER.   what does your muse look for in a partner? looks / personality?

Someone who likes him. A heartbeat. Caleb doesn’t have a type and he doesn’t look for anything in particular. Every relationship he had been in, it just kind of happened. A connection was formed and then boom, dating.

Q   :   QUESTION.   would your muse ask the big question or expect their partner to?

Caleb would be nervous, but he would still be the one to ask the question. Probably a few months later than his partner wants, but if he’s asking he wants to be sure.

R   :   ROMANCE.   is your muse a romantic or a cynic?

He’s somewhere in between. A lot of the things he does are for selfish reasons, but he tries very hard to make the people he dates happy. His own ego just gets in the way...a lot so he comes off as a lot more cynic than he is.

S   :   SWEETHEART.   did your muse have a childhood sweetheart?

Not in the slightest. His longest relationship was eight months. It was when he was 14 and it was completely awful.

T   :   TRUE LOVE.   does your muse believe in true love?

Yes. He believes that everybody has their one true love--a soulmate if you will--somewhere in the world waiting for them.

U   :   UNREQUITED.   has your muse had their heart broken?

Yes, a few times. His break up with Abra was ugly, but he was still very upset afterwards because he really did love her. The throuple with Kenzie and Teddy left him super heartbroken. He’s still working on mending it.

V   :   VALENTINE.   how does your muse feel about valentine’s day?

Caleb loves Valentine's Day...because in South Korea, it’s when men receive chocolates from women who like them. (One month later, the men give women chocolate on White Day, and one month after that is Black Day when singles celebrate their singleness together.) Growing up, every year, he got a box of choco pies from his mom.

W  :   WEDDING.   would your muse get married? why / why not?

Defiantly some day, once he finds the right person. Caleb just wants to be happy and loved.

X   :   XOXO.   does your muse use / like pet names?

Unintentionally, but not really. Most of the time ins honorifics--terms used to show respect to people who are close to him but older. Noona - what he calls Kenzie, Sora, and Minnie literally just means big sister. Hyung - what he calls Ian and Axel is simply big brother. Teddy (Daddy) and Abra (Kadabra) are the only two exceptions to the nickname rule.

Y   :   YOURS.   does your muse get protective easily?

He’s more the protected than the protector. 

Z   :   ZZZ.   how many people has your muse slept with?

3. Kenzie, Teddy, and Kai.