#where sora and roxas and up actually fucking talking about things

[dreamsy990]

would u wanna see a kinda shitty ghost roxas au comic i drew a while ago with no intention of sharing. bc i have it

[thetrashthatsmilesback]

So building off the "Sora is now fictional" idea, Roxas is more of a person than Sora is.

Lower your pitchforks and hear me out. This isn't a "Roxas is just Sora but actually interesting" post. I find those fucking annoying as well, and I prefer Roxas to Sora (though you wouldn't be able to tell based on my posts - sue me, the concept of hearts living inside each other and how that would effect the og person is too fascinating to ignore... which actually leads me into the main point of this post)

Roxas fought tooth and nail to be seen as an individual. He carved his identity out of rock while everyone around him acted like a demolition team trying to destroy it at every moment.

Sora willingly gives up his identity. While Roxas is firm in who he is, even in the moments where he doubts his humanity, Sora is a chameleon. From the obvious things such as hiding his darkness to the more subtle way his actual design changes across even individual games. Im going to actually split this up into two parts - Sora loaing his identity to those he interacts with and Sora losing his identity to those within his own heart.

- Sora when it comes to those outside of Sora's heart, Sora is whatever the person at that moment needs. He's the light for Riku, he's a confidante for various Disney characters, he's the unchanging (stable, steady) knight in armor for Kairi, he's the joyful companion to Goofy and Donald, but simultaneously the avenging angel of the side of light towards the nobodies. Sora is what he needs to be at any given moment because his driving force is his loyalty to his friends. Sora doesn't have an identity he clings to outside of his loyalty. It's his strongest unchanging trait. "Sora is light!" Except for when he admits to Riku he struggles with darkness and agrees to be the darkness. Except for when overuse of his drive forms (overuse of reliance on his friends) turns him into a pseudoheartless. Except for when rage over takes him and he transforms infront of everybody into a dark form to attack Xehanort after Kairi dies. Sora is a light for those who need him to be, but Sora himself is not pure light. Which actually brings me to my next section.

People have talked at length about Sora being less intelligent in later games than he was in kh1 and kh2, with the worst being in 3D, but I think to an extent this is also Sora molding himself (on top of flanderization by the writers). Sora is goofy and silly to those who need it. Think about who he acts "dumb" around. Its the newly reformed scientists, or those who need a confidence boost (he allows people to overexplain to him). We see in re:mind that kh3 Sora never once lost his intelligence from the previous games, but he allows others to call him forgetful/silly/behind (which he literally is, his memories are objectively fucked why are they mocking him for memories they never worked to help him restore agh *rips hair out). Sora knows they need someone to lighten things, or to explain to in order to think things through, and so there he is. "I don't computer, so you do that," he says while piloting a ship. He's talking to the newly reformed scientists, he knows that this is their chance to solidify themselves on the side of light, and so he sends them off to do their work without his help.

- for those inside his heart, there's a ton to talk about but I'm going to begin with the bridge I used from the first part. Every light has a balancing darkness. The closer you are to the light, the greater your darkness grows. Darkness is a shadow (which is why Sora losing his shadow when in anti form is not only a cool as fuck animation detail but important in terms of lore) so what does that mean for Sora who housed Ventus's heart of pure light within his own? People have commented that sora's darkness has grown since the first game, and others have pointed out that the hollow in the space of the heart in the Darkseid is obviously related to Sora's capacity to hide others within his own heart, and the fact that Sora's name doesn't only translate to "sky" but can be translated as "void"... thats all relevant but im at work so I'm not going to get too much into that at this moment. instead I'm going to point out that if his heart was holding a heart of pure light (two at one point with kairi), and all hearts except for those which either belong to princesses of light OR which are artificially split from their darkness must have darkness inside of their hearts. Riku shows that this darkness is about balance for light (I'm not getting into the "Riku actually has more light in his heart than Sora" meta arguments, though I do agree that the text is open to that interpretation and I enjoy the theory). If Sora had a heart of pure light within him, then he would have to artificially darken his own heart to keep balance.

It's also further than taking on the pain of Roxas and Xion. We see the way he gives himself up for those in his heart with his actual actions and looks. Sora (and Roxas, God i wish they'd explore more what it means to be the nobody of two hearts rather than one or if roxas is actually Ven's nobody instead of Sora's but Roxas's arc is over sadly) walks with his arms behind his head the way Ventus does. Many people have pointed out that Sora's hair is decidedly a lighter color after the KH2 prologue than at any other point in series (including in official art and posters), leading many to theorize that he actually changed appearance in response to Roxas's blond hair.

Even at the times when Roxas gives into the idea that he himself is not an individual, or implies that he and sora truly are one ("I know he'll do it, because he's me,") there's still the fight within him that he *is* a person with a distinct personality and way of being.

Sora doesnt have a distinct way of existing. Sora is what others require at that moment. This almost ties into the whole "Sora went to the realm of fiction" thing. "Sora the Concept" has become an ideal of whatever those around him invision him being at that moment while "Sora the Person" has slowly dissipated behind layers of acting.

So yeah, Roxas is more of a person than Sora is. Sora has become a concept, the idealized version of himself that others came up with, and which he molded himself to fit, losing his personhood in the process.

Sorry if this is incomprehensible. I'm at work and didn't take my meds 🤙

[firestorm09890]

more disorganized organization xiii warrior cats thoughts

Vexen medicine cat would be really funny. Zexion medicine cat apprentice is the next logical step which I think recreates the early Jaypaw Leafpool dynamic which is even funnier because Jayfeather was the first character I was ever obsessed with

also completely erases any competition for Saïx though. so. congrats Zexion you get to live

wait I just realized none of these bastards are canonically specialized for healing. the closest would be Vexen (knows how the body works) and Zexion (highest magic stat and only true caster, and cure/cura/curaga are spells)

back to Saïx, even though I think the "Luna Diviner" title is lame as fuck and doesn't represent Saïx very well, when you consider the line in kh2 where he asks Sora if he can hear the euphoria of the hearts gathered in kingdom hearts + the part of that one short story where Saïx asks Axel if he can hear the world's screams and Axel goes "what the hell are you talking about", I think he probably CAN actually hear that shit. which means he's definitely one of those cats constantly being plagued by visions of dead ancestors

that's the medicine cat's job though and generally cats who can hear that stuff from early on end up going into the medicine cat role but look at Saix he is NOT about to be a fucking medicine cat. middle manager assigning missions is basically the same as deputy assigning patrols, he's the deputy I've decided

actually... Vexen doesn't seem like a very spiritual guy... maybe it's like Mothwing and her apprentices, where he only does healing and Zexion handles all the prophecy omen StarClan stuff as well. He would be into that

I think Roxas being an apprentice to Axel sounds about right but idk about Xion... could be a situation where her mentor is Saix and he's being absolutely shitty about it but if the Chain of Memories crew is still alive in this setting I think. maybe. he should not be the one mentoring her.

Vexen can't do it though if he's the medicine cat and Xion's going to be a warrior

wait would this au have Vexen be Xion's biological father

then who's the mother

the worldbuilding of this group is in shambles

I have backstory for Zexion (abandoned kit found on the edge of territory) and no one else

okay that's not true I have one for Xemnas

Xemnas is the leader. he started out as a loner and then joined the clan and either charisma'd his way to being leader or there was a violent coup, which would imply... a number of things

like they'd definitely be put in their place after a coup if there were any other clans around

why is the group so small? why are they exclusively growing the group by recruiting outsiders when warrior cats almost all hate doing that? if we start with an established group where Ansem the Wise is theoretically the leader and Xemnas takes over after they collectively beat Ansem's ass, what happened to the entire rest of the clan? also where are the women

Lauriam/Marluxia and Elrena/Larxene's deal is somewhat similar to Jay's Wing/Jayfeather, Dove's Wing/Dovewing, and Lion's Roar/Lionblaze, but instead of reincarnations they're time travelers. I don't think they get magic powers as a result because they didn't get any more special powers than the other org members in canon

I'll come up with warrior names for all of them I promise

[reverieofreveria]

I already rambled about this in the comments of my last reblog but I cannot stop thinking about Goof Troop/The Goofy Movies in Kingdom Hearts.

Like obviously it would make absolutely no sense because the only thing more illogical than bumbling-single-dad-from-the-suburbs Goofy being a royal guard in an honest to god monarchy lead by Michael fucking Mouse that absolutely did not exist in Goof Troop or the Goofy Movies, is worst-dad-ever-for-like-two-decades-running and basically-just-an-extended-joke-about-scummy-car-salesmen Pete being a comic relief henchman for actually scary and iconic (well, in her source material at least) classic disney villain Maleficent. The only way this would make literally any sense is if they pulled a Timeless River (which would have unfathomable implications on the timeline that would only marginally make it make more sense and probably wouldn't be nearly as charming the second time around) or just straight up made it a parallel universe (which I wouldn't like because I need Kingdom Hearts Goofy specifically to have a son and I need that son to specifically be Max).

But if we ignore literally all of that we are left with the absolute best, most juiciest fodder for a KH world I can think of and I need it to happen so badly.

Obviously I need Sora and Max to meet but I can't decide which way would be funniest. Does Sora have no idea his friend of at least three years has an, at minimum, college aged son? Even better does Donald somehow not know this about his longtime colleague (and in this scenario does maybe Sora know but not Donald)? Or are they both fully aware and actively talk about how Goofy can't go two seconds without talking about his (fully grown) precious little boy that has literally never been mentioned in canon.

Also, how far are we going with this? Are we going to go off of Goof Troop canon? A Goofy Movie canon? Both? Are we including an Extremely Goofy Movie?

What's Petes's Family up to? They're not in the movies but they sure are in the KH world that exists in my head. Are Pete and Peg still together? (Wikis will tell you they're divorced but I don't think it's ever stated.) If they split was Petes's descent into villainy the final nail in their marriage's coffin?

What's P.J.'s relationship to his dad and what he does? I doubt he'd like it but there's a good chance he'd somehow get roped into playing a sort of henchman's henchman for his dad like the world's worst unpaid internship.

What about Pistol? She'd be around twelve or thirteen by the second movie and while I think she'd make an excellent slapstick focused henchwoman at any age tween-/early teenagehood definitely rivals preschool age (the only life stage we ever see her at in canon) for maximum annoying-little-shit energy.

Continuing with the first movie, I know most fans hated the rhythm games in Atlantica but I feel it might just be excused if you get to go onstage with Powerline.

You fucking know Sora is going to earn Bobby's trust and respect by enthusiastically participating in the dumbest shit imaginable, causing Bobby to, with the utmost gravitas, hand a can of spray cheese which then turns into a keychain. The Keyblade is called "Cheddar Whizzy" and if we're doing forms like in KH3 one of them will spray/shoot cheese (I'm imagining a Hunny Blasters kind of situation) that makes enemies get stuck together/to the floor.

Are Max and his friends able to fight Heartless and the like? You can damage enemies using your skateboard in KH so maybe something like that, or maybe they all have unique improvised weapons, or maybe we just say fuck it, hand those guys a keyblade, who cares.

How about we include the second movie just for fun? Sora at the College X-Games. Hell, Roxas at the College X-Games! Does this take place in a game where they're old enough for college or did they just lie about their age or did no one even bother asking? Who knows.

I want there to be a stupidly hard minigame where Beret girl makes you recite slam poetry.

The game's Kingdom Hearts villain realises there's no traditional fairy tale villain to be found here and has to team up with a fucking college frat. I don't know if it'd be funnier for them to be exasperated by this or for them to treat this with the same gravitas as they would a teamup with like Ursula or something (I think it mostly depends on how much leadership Bradley gets in this scenario).

I need there to be a bossfight against Tank.

I need to see Donald Duck cast Firaga on Bradley Uppercrust III.

[isan0rt]

I keep Xehanort posting on account of how Dark Road made him so extra fascinating and I keep turning him over in my brain like a rotisserie chicken but today I'm thinking about how DDD and KH3 for Young Xehanort really was like, Kingdom Hearts: Re:Traumatization; Distorted Cognition.

(Side bar I really do think, for him, those games happen in that year between his two meetings with Master of Masters. It's the most obvious explanation for his radicalization, and like. I know he's often referred to as Young Master Xehanort but I think that's as in, he's the young version of Master Xehanort, but he's not actually a Master himself yet. If he was, he wouldn't be condescendingly talking down to Xigbar in Re:Coded about how he will get No Name; he would already have been granted it. He's still on his world tour, and will take the test after all this.)

Really though from the first world he appears in, shit is fucked for him. This dude is like 19, only four years out from watching all but one of his classmates get murdered, and now he's going through This Shit while on his 'stew alone in your own feelings with no emotional support' study abroad.

The first world he appears in is Traverse Town where the fucking Reaper's Game is going on. Four dead teenagers who all really want to live, two boys and two girls, and the younger girl, the little blonde, the baby sister is visibly younger than the others, and her older brother loves her so much and wants to save her so badly but he can't, can he? They're already dead. Xehanort's there watching these four split up from each other and having to manipulate them but it doesn't matter, they're all already dead.

Prankster's Paradise. It's fine, this is just a dream, and besides, Pinocchio is just a doll. His feelings aren't real (no matter what you feel coming from him) and they don't matter.

The Grid. Just programs, and for that matter just copies of programs. Their feelings aren't real (don't worry about what you're perceiving) and they don't matter.

Quasimodo is an outsider, lonely and isolated, and he'll never be accepted. Watch how he's treated for it. Think about whether you (Xehanort) were ever really accepted in Scala, or if you'll also always be second fiddle even with no one else left. You can only rely on yourself, and the future your older self has laid out for you.

Sora, in The World that Never Was. He's a walking time bomb; an empath with no control over his abilities, and totally unable to stop taking other people's pain into himself. He has already imprisoned three other hearts inside himself because he can't let go, and he is already cracking under the strain (Anti Form. Rage Form. Even Data Roxas tells Data Sora he'll destroy himself if he can't learn to let go). Sora is going to break, and Xehanort has seen what happens when an empath who can't handle the burden of other people's emotions catastrophically shatters under the strain. Get Sora under their control, before he goes critical.

Toy Box. They're just toys; spilt them up from each other and watch how they fall apart. They aren't strong enough to handle things without dragging on each other. Their feelings aren't real and they don't matter. You can reproduce the conditions of your own trauma and see that the outcome will be the same, that Baldr could never have been prevented and there was no way to save him (See, Angelic Amber just needed to be stopped by force. But then Buzz...). They're just toys. It doesn't matter.

Sora again. See, he's broken. He couldn't handle the strain. But... What's he doing? He can't save his friends, they're already dead. It can't be done; it shouldn't be done. How dare he; what's so different about him? What gives him the right to have them back? But Sora can't really have his friends returned without consequences, surely-

See? It destroyed him. Sora couldn't let go of his attachments and accept his grief and it destroyed him. Just as Xehanort warned. Just like it destroyed Baldr. Attachments only cause suffering; Xehanort won't let himself be ruled by them. He simply won't get attached to anyone else, ever again (but what about Eraqus- what about his dream friends- what about-).

And all while surrounded by Nobodies, hollowed out of all but the tiniest seed of the potential of a heart, and Replicas, only copies. Their feelings aren't real, and they don't matter. All that matters is the goal. Don't worry about the negative emotions other people are feeling about what you're doing. It's for the good of the worlds, they simply are too shortsighted to understand. A cat will also fight you when you try to pill it, but you are bigger and stronger and know better, and this is what you have to do.

It's fine. It's fine. Their feelings aren't real, and they don't matter.

Do what has to be done.

[unnounblr]

As someone said in the replies, according to Young Xehanort, the Power of Waking is for "traversing Hearts to reach Worlds", my only problem with that is. I don't entirely understand what that means?

Like, I get that Sora misuses it, by instead using it to "traverse worlds to reach hearts" and he does it Twice, once to save everyone after the 1st Graveyard visit, and once to save Kairi after beating Xehanort.

Except, like, while he does go to the different Disney worlds and finds the hearts of the Guardians and fights the Lich, and that makes a new timeline, apparently. I mean, Re:MIND is presented like a timeloop, like everything Sora's heart does, are things he. Already did. And always did. In both timelines somehow? And, also, the second time he connects to the different Hearts of the Guardians, each time? Not to different worlds, the way he did the first time?

And, again, the second time he didn't seemingly change the timeline at all. Apparently Xehanort "crystallized" Kairi instead of killing her, to use her as a back up for the light of the χ-Blade, even though he already had the χ-Blade because of the clashing of his vessels and the Guardians. He scattered her heart into the different petal fragments in Scala, which.

Okay, also, the endgame of KH3 involves using Xehanort's heart to make a portal to Scala Ad Caelum, which is "traversing hearts to reach worlds", okay, makes sense. Sora and everyone push Xehanort through his own portal. And then in the time between opening the portal and Sora, Donald and Goofy going through, Future!Sora is able to go through the portal, and do things independently in Scala, until his past self shows up, and I guess because there's no replica body for his heart, his future!Heart goes back to his past body. But that also preserves the timeline, because there was no replica body and embodied Future!Sora the first time.

Somehow, Xehanort had pieces of Kairi's heart and 12 replicas just. Stashed in Scala, either before they opened the portal. Or. After they pushed him through but before either of the Soras showed up. But either way, Sora ends up recompleting Kairi, after she's crystallized or killed or whatever, and it turns out they take a little tour together, reuniting Chirithy and Ven, and getting Naminé's heart out of Kairi's and into the replica body, then they both show up at the beach before Sora disappears.

Like, okay, is it that reunion tour where Sora misuses the power of waking? Traversing the worlds of Land of Departure and Radiant Garden to reach and reunite the hearts of Chirithy, Ventus and Naminé? And to reach all their friends on Destiny Islands. And to have Ice Cream in Twilight Town while everyone else also is. But like, Kairi is with him, and Chirithy is until they stop off to bring him to Ven. And neither of them fades away. And I dunno if Naminé would count when she was in Kairi, but I would note that Roxas and Xion were still in Sora's heart during the Demon Tide-Lich sequence.

I dunno, the power of waking still does seem sorta. Poorly defined. To me, or at least. What counts as misusing it is poorly defined, because looking through DDD, and 3 itself, the proper uses of it do seem to be mostly consistent, ish.

But the second time he quote unquote misuses it. I mean, he does time travel, but so does fucking Xehanort and the Master of Masters, and a whole bunch of other losers.

(And Pete, lol)

But once he arrives in the past he mostly seems to use the power of waking. Correctly? By traversing the different hearts of the Guardians. Like, okay, I guess he stays in the same world, each time? But that makes even less sense to be a misuse?

...God, actually, I think the reunion tour does actually make the most sense as the second time he misuses the power waking, thinking about it. Like, Kairi talks about how pretty the Final World is, and they talk about seeing worlds together. The first time he misuses it, he leaves the Final World, and goes to different worlds where the hearts of his friends are. And during their world tour, yeah, they leave the Final World, TVA are in the Land of Departure, the Sea Salt Seven are in Twilight Town, and. I mean, the replica body for Naminé is there, we see Riku show up in a few minutes for her, Ienzo and Ansem are there, though I don't know if either of them counts as a friend, they don't go to the beach party. But they do have hearts, I guess.

Except, Chirithy keeps telling Sora not to use the PoW to save Kairi, and Terra-Xehanort, Young Xehanort and Master Xehanort in Scala keep talking like he's already doomed. Then again, at one point Xehanort quotes from the Book of Prophecies, and he time travels a bunch, maybe he's read the script and knows Sora will fade he just. Misdiagnosed which incident caused it.

I think it was kind of strange that Riku was able to use the power of waking to open a portal to Quadratum. Not only does it feel out of the power of waking’s scope, it feels too easy? We find out that the master of masters has been divising a long term plan to make sure he finds his way there, yet we see riku go there with something as simple as creating a portal out of the nameless star.

From what we know, the power of waking allows its user to travel into the dream world of its target, essentially a manifestation of their subconscious as a visitable location. For that reason, Sora and Riku using it to reach the realm of darkness doesn’t seem too out of place, as I’ve always kind of interpreted the ROD as sort of like, the realm where the collective darkness of people gather. If that makes sense.

I feel like normally, it’d be more in line with what we knew if that portal was a portal to a dream version of Quadratum out of nameless star’s memories.

[felikatze]

Tell us about the German translations of keyblades? 🥺

I SHALL. there's a couple things that haunt me

Firstly, basics. A keyblade is called Schlüsselschwert, meaning "key-sword." Quite apt, but I find the german term more pleasing since it's a clear alliteration of the "sch" sound ("sch" is identical to a harsh s sound, like the ch in chapter. not 100%, but you get it yes)

It is possible to make a one to one translation of "Schlüsselklinge" but this lacks the charming alliteration, and the word Klinge itself has.. harsher connotations than Schwert does? Like, a Schwert in an RPG is whatever. But Klinge? you are going to cut a motherfucker

funnily enough, the X-Blade is called the X-Klinge. This is a mystifying choice to me, but the pun is lost in german either way. WAIT since its said as "Ki-Klinge" they named it klinge so that one is also alliterated. i take it back this is genius.

Aaaas i have mentioned before, I'm so confused by DDD. The Kingdom Key is the Königsanhänger, the "King's Keychain." It's snappier than any alternatives that use the word Kingdom, Königreich, and since the name does refer to the keychain itself, it's perfectly logical to boot.

But, dream drop distance. Oh, dream drop distance.... calls it the Kingdom-Schlüssel. The laziest, most obnoxious use of a foreign word when a german name had already existed for a decade.

it's so stupid. why did they do this. hey squeenix localizers. talk to me. look me in the eyes. what were you DOING for ddd.

other keyblades! my thoughts keep running back to Oblivion and Oathkeeper. They're iconic keyblades, but their translations captivate me in different ways.

Let's start with Oathkeeper. It's called Sternentreue, "Star Loyalty." Treue has similar connotations to faith? Sparkly white magic shit forr jrpgs.

It's a simple name that plays on the obvious symbolism of it. Loyalty symbolized by stars. Star Loyalty. And yet, the word oath... It's much more impactful. Treue is what makes an oath, but an oath is like... more. It's quite a bit more romantic, in my opinion! Treue is also an impactful word, don't get me wrong, but just slapping Sterne in front of it cheapens it a bit. I wish it had the same impact, but it just doesn't! Get a little more spicy with it.

Oblivion though. Oh my god. German Oblivion is called Memoire. I'm never getting over that. It's called MEMOIRE. jesus christ. the definition here is the same as for english btw. a reminder, or, an autobiography. the totality of a life, summarized. the opposite of oblivion. and yet

thinking abt the relationships Oblivion symbolizes, Sora and Riku, Roxas and Xion, encapsulated by Memoire makes me bonkers. As though these relationships are everything. All encompassing. In lurid detail. Does Roxas not receive Oblivion at the end of his own memoire? Insane.

It's such a different name for the exact same thing. And somehow it conveys the same thing. Like all the romanticism wasted on Star Loyalty? THIS is where it is. it's called Memorie jesus fucking christ

Soul Eater is called Seelenfänger, Soul Catcher, instead, which is super fun, because down the line, Dream Eaters are called Traumfänger, Dream Catchers, too! It's a parallel I literally never noticed until now! Woo! The rikublade truly. Also because Seelenfresser (like, soul devourer. "Fressen" is eat, but exclusively for animals) just sounds too fucking beastial, and Seelenesser ("Essen" is eat, but for humans!) sounds stupid.

It being the same across two languages is either a neat coincidence, or deliberate. You decide!

The funniest change is Lady Luck though. It's called Herzensbrecher. Heart-breaker, like some kind of bad boy casanova blade. (bcuz the concept of "lady luck" as such doesnt exist in german, unless it's like, Frau Holle, but she's an entirely different thing that could not apply here)

One name I actually just don't get, is Divine Rose? It's called Zentifol, which is a word that doesn't exist as such. Like, if you look this word up, first thing you get is the kh wiki.

wait i googled more. it's probably from the latin name for roses, rosa centifolia, or the Zentifolien family, in german. This is like a WILD reach for the name. I have to wonder if they didn't have anything with more, yknow, symbolism on hand, besides just naming it Rose.

Same thing for Pumpkinhead, oddly enough! It's called Cucurbita, from some latin pumpkin name.

There's a lot of literal translations, too, of course, though that's not really worth talking about, ykno. Löwenherz is Lionheart, Feenharfe is Fairyharp, Diamantenstaub is Diamond Dust. Average.

Mysterious Abyss ended up as Mysterious Ditch though (Mysteriöser Graben, instead of "Abgrund", which both sounds cooler and means Abyss instead of Ditch). Epic win

There's sooo much more I could talk about. How clever calling Two Become One "Zweisamkeit" is that I can't even translate it without an extensive Translator's Note. The closest I can muster is "two-ness" but that's not it! That's not it. It's. Woah that is shmart.

AND HOW DAYS MUCKS THIS UP BY CALLING IT "AUS ZWEI WIRD EINS" IN A ONE-TO-ONE LITERAL LOSER TRANSLATION. kh handheld games, good lord.

i'm looking through a list of keyblades rn and is. is Destiny's Embrace called Schicksalswink. Schicksalswink. Fate's wave. but wave as in, waving. Not the ocean. Literal waving, like as a greeting. Objectively perfect name. God.

fucking props for naming Vanitas' keyblade in actual latin! Clavis Vanitatum. Which is latin forrrrr (drum roll please) Vanitas' Key. Is this Divine Rose all over again?

I'm gonna call it quits here.

TL;DR: there are some literal translations, some very literal names hiding behind a latin veneer, names I think are lame, names I think are decent, and Memoire, which I'm never getting over, ever

[minijenn]

Keys to the Kingdom AU Master Post

Ok so now that Keys to the Kingdom has reached its first big Plot Twist that I had to keep hush hush about for over a year, I’m excited to finally be able to share everything we’ve been cooking up over on my Discord server (PM me if you want to join the chaos)! This includes a whoooooole bundle of Keys AUs, many of which hinge upon the Grandfather Twist, but some are AUs I’ve talked about/drawn for on here before. A lot of these are things I’ve written oneshots/commissions/ect. for, so I’ll be sharing those previously unreleased pieces too over the next few days. Either way, this post is your one stop shop for all things Keys AU related. Enjoy! (also spoilers ahead for anyone not caught up on Keys, obvs)

Family Ties AU: Instead of staying on the islands, Thalassa decides to leave the islands with Xehanort. Venturing out into the worlds shifts her worldview to one similar to his and eventually, she joins him in his schemes (though eventually, she starts developing plenty of evil schemes of her own, basically Thalassa is a villainess here and she’s one of the best parts of this AU cause she puts her dumbfuck husband to shame). Xehanort and Thalassa still have Tsuki, who they raise to follow in their footsteps and, once he’s older, basically kidnap Himari and force her to marry him. The pair has Sora, who is basically raised within the Organization here and is kind of a villain/anti-hero who goes through Character Development? Either way, this is definitely one of the most developed Keys AUs here, there’s a lot of Lore behind it, and a lot of differences in characters’ roles, like Roxas’, Xion’s, ect. You can learn more about Family Ties by checking out this somewhat semi-incomplete timeline of how it all goes down here. 

Trifecta AU: Instead of just Sora, Riku and Kairi are also slowly being corrupted by Xehanort’s darkness at the exact same time (as a way to ensure Sora falls in line mostly, he’s still the one Xehanort wants most but hey, two more vessels, why not?). Caught between fear and lies and pain, each of them hides the truth of their worsening conditions, failing to see just how much the others are suffering as they all slowly slip into the shadows. (Rage Form (Sora), Fear Form (Riku), Grief Form (Kairi)). I’ve actually talked about this one on here before, and I’ve drawn each of the trio’s “dark” forms, you can check those out here. 

Heir to Hatred AU: This is basically just Tangled but Keys Edition. Xehanort steals Sora away from his parents as a baby and raises him in isolation. He’s an abusive fuckhead about it though, and Sora longs to see more than the World that Never Was, which is where he’s lived all his life. Just so happens that Riku, who’s kind of a fugitive bc of working with Maleficent in the past, is on the run from the Guardians of Light, and happens to stumble upon the CTNW and finds Sora, helps him outta there, and the entire time they’re being chased by Kairi (a representative of the lights) who they win over, and Xehanort finds out his little shit grandson is gone and is pissed and chaos ensues. It’s a fun time (also the Heartless pet that died in Keys lives here! It basically fills the role of Pascal lol) 

Chains of Memory AU: Keys kicks off as usual but when Sora is norted, he loses all of his memories somehow. Xehanort immediately takes advantage of this and takes the kid in, immediately making the grandfather reveal and also lying to this amnesiac child that he’s meant to be with the Organization and that the lights tried to destroy his heart or something. Basically, its just Keys but if Sora was willingly in the Org. the entire time (Xehanort lies and tells him YX is hiis older brother and Ansem and Xemnas are his uncles). It’s a lot of Sora being absolutely sunshiney and oblivious, while the Org. is baffled by this kid they all hate slowly winning them all over, and also the lights fucking panicking because Sora doesn’t remember any of them and thinks he hates them all. Yay, angst!

Wayward Destiny AU: Upon returning to the guardians of light, Yen Sid proceeds to be a Shithead and does what Sora feared would happen to him if he went back, he locks this traumatized kid up, thinking Xehanort has already corrupted him too much and that he’s too far gone. Riku and Kairi, upon finding out, are pissed, and so they save Sora, take him, and run. Meanwhile, Yen Sid lies to the rest of the lights, making them think Sora has also “corrupted” Riku and Kairi and that the need to find all three of them; at the same time, these three dumb kids are trying to survive on their own while not being captured by the Org. and by the lights. An alternative title for this AU could be “Yen Sid is a Fucking Asshole AU” 

Survival AU: Tsuki survives Xehanort’s attempts at killing him by summoning his own Keyblade; he takes Sora and Himari and they flee the islands, hopping from world to world to get his son out of his father’s range. Throughout the years, Tsuki becomes very overprotective of Sora to the point of stifling him, and even refuses to teach him how to use his Keyblade after he summons one. Along the way, the family eventually joins up with the other Guardians of Light, though the events of Keys still happen and when they do, family drama abounds. I’ve actually written a oneshot about this one way back when, which you can read here. 

Brotherly Shove AU: Sora manages to talk Vanitas down from his attempts at killing him out of revenge, and they both decide to figure out Rage Form/Blight Form together. They bond along the way in the weeks that Sora is on the run from the lights, and eventually Vanitas gets to the point where he starts to care about Sora and strives to protect him from Xehanort and Maleficent alike. Because I just can’t get off my fucking high horse that Vanitas deserves a redemption arc, can I?

A Mother’s Love AU: When Sora briefly returns to the islands while on the run, he goes to see Himari, who’s heartbroken when she hears what’s happening to him. To the point that she actually follows him through the dark corridor he tries to leave through and ends up stranded on the run along with him. This eventually leads into her striking a bargain with Xehanort that leads to her heart falling into his hands, with her ending up norted as a result. Queue a whole bunch of mother/son drama that I wrote about in a short story I’ll be posting soon! 

Equivalent Exchange AU: Riku goes to Xehanort and challenges him to a duel; if he wins, then Sora will be set free. If he loses, then Riku will become Xehanort’s newest vessel in Sora’s stead. Riku loses, but Xehanort doesn’t set Sora free, and thus both boys are stuck in the Organization together. 

Destiny’s Embrace AU: Kairi goes to Xehanort and offers herself up as his vessel in Sora’s place; in this one, Xehanort tricks her and does NOT let Sora go, and both of them are trapped in the Organization together, trying to keep their love strong while Riku desperately searches for a way to save them both (basically Equivalent Exchange, Kairi Edition) 

Guardians of Darkness AU: The guardians of light lose to the Organization in the final showdown and as punishment for their “infidelity”, Xehanort forces every last one of them to join the Organization, each of them essentially serving as personal slaves to the other members. 

Dearly Beloved AU: In the aftermath of claiming his thirteenth vessel, Xehanort invites the guardians of light to a “celebration” where he forces Sora to “propose” to Kairi. In the weeks leading up to this mysterious wedding, the lights try to scramble to free Sora and Kairi from this situation, while also trying to figure out why Xehanort is so keen on seeing a “union between pure light and pure darkness” take place. (kind of a dead AU, Family Ties absorbed it)

And those are basically all of the big/named ones! Some of these are def more talked about/developed than others, but if you’re curious about any of these, then please don’t hesitate to ask! I’ll be sharing art and drabbles that I’ve written for the Keys AUs over the next several days, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

[embraceyourdestiny]

Found more of my observations so part two. Again, it’s rambley so it might not make sense. Also the beginning (1-5ish) is mostly the same as the first post.

Part one

me noticing things and speculating while watching all of roxas’ cutscenes bc i love my boy

1). Sora and Roxas’ “Where am I? Who’s there? Who are you?” I literally never realized that was the two of them having a conversation inside Roxas’ heart and from what I can recall I think that’s the only time “heart talks” canonically happen? I know it’s a really big thing in the fandom but I can’t remember a single other time that two people in one heart/body actually talked to each other and not one of them inside calling out. Although, you can probably count all the times Kairi made comments in KH1, like in Merlin’s house and such

2). The parallels between Roxas, Roxas’ life in the Org, and Ven’s time at the Land of Departure via people telling them the things they are experiencing weren’t happening. It’s probably done so intentionally with Roxas and his Org life but it still makes you draw an immediate connection between Ventus. Both of them were experiencing strange things and yet those around them told them they weren’t, either intentionally or because they didn’t think it was true, and in the end it lead them down the path those manipulating them wanted to go down and resulted in their demise.

2.5). Side note since this was specially about when Roxas tripped, the fact that Riku jacked Roxas for on the surface no reason at all is still hilarious. Like yeah you could say it was to cause turmoil and doubt within Roxas or to stop him from leaving the data world via train (if that was even possible) or even because DiZ just couldn’t make a whole beach area with everything that was going on, especially if that beach was Destiny Islands because remembering what happened to Xion when she went, it definitely would’ve messed things up, but it’s a lot funnier to think that Riku wanted to talk to him and also was like “you know what, fuck this kid I’m taking his money” lmaoo

3). Why do the twilight gang eat sea salt ice cream?? Obviously it’s because of Roxas, but with his precious memories missing I don’t think he would’ve noticed if they didn’t without being prompted. Sure, deep down it would’ve probably felt wrong to him to not do “the things friends do” with his friends, but since he had no recollection of it, I don’t think it would’ve mattered. Did DiZ intentionally program this? He had to of, which at first seems uncharacteristically kind of him, but I came to the conclusion that it was probably just a way to mess with Roxas even more and get him to do his bidding. Like I said, without prompting Roxas probably never would’ve noticed, but with prompting, suddenly the things he supposedly did all the time feel wrong. And if that’s wrong, why would he not question the rest of what’s happening, leading him to the end result of finding out the truth and returning to Sora? I could totally be BSing right now but DiZ is insidious, so I think it makes sense lol.

4). Roxas had an airplane in his room while Sora had a pirate ship. Besides obvious parallels between Sora and Roxas and sky and sea, is it possibly because Ven had his glider and could fly around and since Roxas had a part of him in his heart, that passed on to him? It makes me wonder how much of his room was his genuine interests/subconscious thought and how much of it was DiZ’s programming because there’s no way he could’ve known about that right?

5). Roxas sitting a considerable distance between him and the gang, not only showing his disconnect from his “life” in twilight town but his disconnect from his actual life in general, and possibly even from Sora. Visual symbolism is so powerful!!

6). I have to wonder how much of this “data” twilight town is actually data and how much of it is real. “Data” is honestly quite vague in KH but there’s no way DiZ was able to make all of this from scratch right? Why would he even, considering how much work that is? He had to have some how been able to use part of the source and I feel like this is backed by the relationships between the characters. DiZ is... an unsociable personal, to say the least. I do not trust his ability to portray genuine, realistic relationships between people and be as convincing as it is to Roxas and the player and a good example is the shopping scene with Pence and Olette. When Pence says “he’s stalling...” it sounds as if Roxas has done this before. And when Olette responds with a teasing voice that she’ll see him later, it sounds genuine and knowing, like this is just same old Roxas. It could just be good voice acting lol, and we know that “same old Roxas” isn’t possible since it isn’t real, but what if it was? What if there was a piece of their hearts in the data and their hearts had been able to bond in that miniscule amount of time and play out as it would if they were actually friends? There’s no way DiZ could’ve gotten the dynamics down so well like that, not with Seipher’s gang and the twilight gang, and not with Hayner, Roxas, Pence, and Olette themselves. And it’s even more obvious when you remember that the Org was meddling, sending in Dusks to find Roxas. There’s no way DiZ was able to make up the whole stolen pictures thing because he didn’t want the Org to mess with it. Sure, he knew they’d come and he planted data to get them off the trail, but between all that chaos I really can’t see him bothering making tensions between Seipher and the gang and making the town suspect them, it seems too natural to be made up data. He had to have some how take either their hearts or the entire town and everything in it’s essence and put it into data. How, I have no clue, but it doesn’t make sense otherwise. So, if their hearts of essence was sampled, even a little bit, of course they felt a connection to Roxas (and Sora) even though none of it was real. The heart is a powerful and mysterious thing and I don’t think that would’ve been possible if all of it was pixels and codes.

(On top of this, we know worlds are in some way sentient and can influence things on their own, so with even the smallest piece of the actual twilight town, the data twilight town could still function as normal. Everything would most likely be minute compared to the real thing, but it would still be there none the less. Time still seems to function, if it wasn’t real there wouldn’t be tournaments and the end of summer and such. DiZ was far too busy to be attentive to each and every person in Twilight Town, keep up with the in town events and flow of time, and repair Sora while stalling the Org. There’s proof of this because we can presume that KH3 twilight town is how twilight town usually is and from what I remember even when you go to the real TLTW in KH2 there are things like smoking chimneys and stuff showing it’s lived it, meaning he only sampled a small piece of it but it was still able to exist as a world even with that tiny piece. He effectively made an entire, functional world in data like the evil genius he is. This might not be that big of a revelation considering Tron, but Tron really is pixels and codes, that’s the difference. Tron is an AI who was able to grow a heart of his own, and also to some extent the CPU or whatever must’ve had one too to have that much awareness, but there’s no nature in Space Paranoids, no townspeople and school happening, so it isn’t the same. Twilight Town is a real world, even if it’s “data” and that’s just interesting because imagine what you could do with that information, in-universe or storytelling wise.

I guess this is technically touched on upon in UX because of all the data worlds but I don’t know if the fact that they were still real worlds is stressed anymore than it is in KH2, which is to say not. And data being real is definitely talked about in Recoded with Data Riku and Sora from what I remember. I haven’t seen much of UX though so I could be wrong but I feel like if it was talked about I would’ve heard about it lol.)

7). ROXAS DID VANITAS’ CARTWHEEL?? I literally never noticed this before omg so there really is a connection between them to some extent!! Of the male heart mates, Rox and Vani seem to have the least amount of attention put on them both in canon and canon which seems off to me since they’re both the “darkness” or anger particularly in Roxas’ case of their lighter halves, so I kinda doubted if there really was one but there is omg!! Now all the boys can (probably?) breakdance lol when will Xion!!!

8). It’s pretty funny that the Dusks just. Stand there and while while Roxas does his station of waking stuff. They’re like yeah we being controlled by someone else who wants to end him but we also respect him and wanna give him a fair chance lol, as evidence by them calling him their “liege” which I still don’t understand but now I’m imagining being Roxas’ pets and cuddling up to him and everyone is looking at him like O.O lol

9). Obviously I knew Roxas’ SoW heavily referenced Sora’s but I didn’t realize it also had a scene foreshadowing when they met later AND it parallels Sora’s even more by showing the “dark” side of Roxas aka his real self before he turns into the giant nobody, just like Sora’s shadow turning into Darkside, only Roxas’ happens in less than a second so it’s really fast and hard to tell

9.5). Omg I never noticed that they show us that Roxas is a nobody during this! It shows his hand, then it shows the twilight thorn. Same thing when it shows his foot than its foot that’s so cool!

10). More on “how true is this data” based on relationships!! There’s literally nothing that can convince me that DiZ would care about Roxas’ friends having drama, he’d even probably call it “drivel,” so I really can’t see him making Hayner upset that Roxas was with Seipher. They’re!! Real!!!

11). Olette saying they didn’t go to the beach because it wouldn’t be the same without Roxas hurts so bad, esp bc later when they’re talking about knowing him and stuff <//3

12). I am in so much pain over this one. I never made the connection between Roxas fighting his best friend twice, once Xion and once Hayner. No wonder he looked so uncomfortable, they made him relive one of the most horrible things that’s ever happened to him and that he’s ever had to do what the fuck 💔💔💔

13). I like the effort made to show that Roxas is friends with the whole twilight gang. It’s easy to assume he’s only really good friends with Hayner but him talking with Olette and checking out the seven wonders with Pence feels really nice and genuine

14). It makes me so sad they keep making Roxas look like a bad friend especially because he’s a GOOD friend and it’s not his fault. The pictures, losing the money, accidentally getting caught up with Seifer, losing the blue marble, none of it is his fault and thankfully the twilight gang are nice enough to not hold it over him but it still sucks like hasnt Roxas been through enough :(

15). It’s really sad we’ll never see Roxas as that somewhat happy go lucky, or at least carefree, kid he was in kh2 prologue because he never WAS that kid. He’s been through so much and his life has been so hard it’s really unfair. I hope post kh3 he can find at least some kind of peace, but he’ll probably never be that carefree again :(

16). Oh my god wait wait when Sora corrected himself form saying “the five of us— I mean, the six of us” WAS HE TALKING ABOUT ROXAS??? IM GONNA CRY 😭😭😭 I once saw someone say he meant Jiminy but as much as it sucks Jiminy isn’t that important to be included in the “gang that’s gonna save the world” and Sora seemed to say it on reflex, like he miscounted and corrected himself. He could’ve included Roxas but forgot himself, since he only just awoke when his heart was with Roxas not that long before. Omg I’m so sad and happy at the same time about this

17). Okay now I’m just watching someone play KH2 bc I wanted to see someone’s reaction to the prologue bc it’s so good but now they’re with the fairies and oh my god I never realized the mirrors in that room depict the different drive forms but specially that one explicitly mentions Sora being overcome by darkness aka Anti form?? That’s so chilling and a cool but subtle way to reveal all the drive form powers right off the back but you wouldn’t notice it til later

18). So. Roxas can double wield because he has both Sora and Ven’s hearts in him and Sora is able to double wield because when Roxas returned to him he either a). passed all his skills including double wielding to him, or b). Roxas legitimately was chosen to wield a keyblade and since we know he had a heart, when he returned to Sora Sora then also technically had two other hearts in him, granting him a second keyblade. Interesting.

19). Hmmm never realized that the samurai nobodies, which belong to Roxas, don’t appear until he goes back to Sora, almost as if they’re trying to follow their leader but then Sora keeps getting rid of them

20). Sora keeps bumping his chest with his fist just like Hayner does T^T I don’t know if that’s because Roxas actually did it or Roxas just picked up the habit from Hayner but I’m soft

[greetings-inferiors]

Is this because they’re complicated or that they’re tragic

Because both are true

See when someone’s heart is lost to the darkness their heart becomes a heartless and the remaining body becomes a nobody (yes you read that right, heartless are the heart, nobodies are the body). So heartless are only driven by emotion, corrupted by darkness, while nobodies are purely driven by logic, as they are heartless (but not a heartless, there’s a difference). You can think of heartless as the heart and nobodies as the mind.

however, it is possible for heartless to obtain a mind, like Ansem, seeker of darkness, and it is possible for nobodies to obtain hearts, like Roxas and the gang.

I cannot remember what lets heartless obtain minds, but I know that nobodies can obtain hearts through connections and friends and stuff.

Anyway, when someone’s heartless and nobody are killed they will be ‘recompleted’, where they will reawake in their normal form (there is a term j just forgot it lol) where they originally became a heartless.

There was one instance of someone recompleting with their nobody still being alive, which was when sora turned himself into a heartless and he went back to normal with Roxas still knocking around, but I’ll attribute this to princess of heart shenanigans, as it’s very clearly not supposed to happen due to both Sora and Roxas essentially breaking down until Roxas went back into Sora and he officially recompleted. But because at this point Roxas had grew a heart, sora now has three hearts inside himself (the extra one is from Ventus but don’t worry about him) (you could argue that Xion’s heart is also inside him but I’m not familiar as I haven’t actually played days yet)

Anyway I think kingdom hearts biology, especially heartless and nobodies, is fascinating, because clearly nomura had no fucking clue what he was talking about, but he had a strange sense of logic which makes it kind of able to be understood. Twenty years in and he very clearly knows he has to think about the logic behind these things instead of just randomly making stuff up and it somehow has logic, so I’m interested to see where it goes from here. And I didn’t even bring up the unversed or unreality!

Oh fuck I didn’t go into why nobodies are tragic

Essentially, nobodies are beings born without hearts. In kingdom hearts all living things have hearts, even Pinocchio or the toys from Toy Story have hearts, the thing that defines a living thing in this series is having a heart. When a nobody is created it appears in twilight town, a world of eternal twilight, not in the light of life, but not in the darkness of death.

So right off the bat, you could argue that nobodies aren’t living things. You could say they don’t exist. And the games really hammer this in.

But I only said born without a heart. This doesn’t mean they don’t have hearts. Anything can grow a heart (see the puppet and toys I mentioned earlier) and nobodies are no different. The tragedy is that they aren’t told this and are actively lied to about it. Most of the members of organisation XIII are people whose emotions, love, compassion, and life, we’re taken away from them and they are brainwashed into thinking that the only way to get them back is to do these awful things. Especially Roxas, who is only a boy. Imagine telling a 14 year old that the only way for him to feel is to be a terrorist, and he believes you because he only started existing yesterday, he doesn’t know anything else (nobodies don’t experience amnesia Roxas, Larxene, Marluxia and MAYBE Demyx are special cases)

Obviously darkness is the bad thing™️ but this is what really made Xemnas evil to me. Brainwashing innocent people into believing they are incapable of emotion and then pretending to sell it back to them for your realm ending apocalypse plan really makes him a despicable villain.

Anyway sorry for rambling so much I really love this franchise. I’m pretty sure I made some slip ups (I think Luxord might have amnesia as well? Idk) but that’ll mean people will correct me and I get to talk about kingdom hearts more >:)

Shadow reads the Kingdom hearts lore book

he just learned what a nobody is

[atomic-taco-muffin]

Hey there! Keep up the good work!

Can I ask for an another KH boys request? I seriously can't get enough(I probably need help😂). The reader is depressed and has been mentally drained for a long time. The reader later reveals about not feeling to live anymore because of depression(and maybe anxiety too, if you wanna add). I really need some comfort as I'm going through the same situation right now😔.

Awww, I’m sorry that you feel like that. I’ve been there. It sucks! I actually have a emotional support dog that helps me with my depression. I have other ways of helping, but my dog is the most helpful. Anyways, here ya go! 

KH Boys Reacting To You Being Depressed

Warnings: angst, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, why aren’t they real?!

Sora: 

You’ve been feeling depressed for over a month now and no one has shown any sympathy for you. They didn’t even know you were depressed. But Sora knew that you weren’t your usual self. He decided that he was going to make you a care package having your favorite foods, books that you’ve been dying to read, and a whole bunch of stuff. He headed to your place, making sure that he didn’t drop anything or forgot anything. He knocked on your door and waited for you to open it. 

“Baby? You here? Hmm, their lights are on. And their doors unlocked. Where are they?” Sora asked. Sora looked around your house, trying to find you. He saw that the bathroom door was closed. 

“Baby? You in here?” Sora asked. He opened the door and saw you sitting on the bathroom floor with your arms cut. 

“Baby! What happened? Talk to me.” he said. You said nothing but looked at his necklace. Sora helped clean your arms and gently placed you on his lap while he stroke your hair. You soon told him that you’ve been feeling depressed and that you feel like you don’t deserve to be alive. 

“Baby, you deserve to be alive. You have all these friends that care about you including me. If you died, I don’t know what I would do without you. You mean the world to me.” You started to cry and buried your face in his shirt. Sora gently shushed you and stayed with you until you calmed down. He then took you to bed and cuddled you while giving you your care package.

Riku:

Riku knew that you were depressed from the first symptom you had. He didn’t want to pressure you into telling him what was wrong but he needed to know why you’ve been feeling like this. He went to your house and saw how you were lying on the couch and staring into space. 

“Hey, bunny. You okay?” he asked. You didn’t say anything. He walked closer and sat down next to you. He moved a piece of you hair (if you have short hair you can ignore that part) and rubbed your cheek with his thumb. You looked at him, your eyes showing no emotion. 

“Bunny, what’s going on? You’ve been acting different lately and I want to make sure it’s nothing serious.” You told him that you’ve been feeling numb and how you wished that you went to bed and never wake up.

“Bunny. How long have you been feeling like this?” 

“A couple of weeks.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“I thought that you wouldn’t care.” 

“Bunny I do care. I care a lot about you. We all do. I know what it feels like to feel depressed but you have your whole life ahead of you. You’ll get through this. I know you will.” 

“Thanks, Riku.” 

“Anything for my bunny.” 

Vanitas:

why are all the good gifs on the tumblr app?

Vanitas was sort of pissed when he found out what’s been going on with you. But he wanted to hear from you. He stormed into your room and demanded to know what was wrong with you. 

“Alright, you’ve been acting weird and I want to know. Do I have to kill somebody or what?” You told him that you’ve been feeling overwhelmed and it caused you to go into a state of depression. He gets it honestly. Being trapped in world of numbness, feeling like people don’t care about you. 

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner, babe?” 

“I thought that you wouldn’t care. That you would brush it off like you do with everything else.” 

“Babe. I care. I care so fucking much. I know that I’m not the best boyfriend but I do love you. Why else would I come to figure out what was wrong?” 

“Thanks Vani. I love you.” 

“I love you too, babe.” 

Terra:

It took a while for Terra to figure out that there was something going on with you. But once he did, he went to go do everything that he thought would make you feel better. When they didn’t work, his last hope was looking at the stars. 

“What’s going on, babycakes? I know something’s up. You can tell me.” he said. You soon confessed about your depression and how you wanted it to all end. 

“Baby, it’ll be okay. You got me, your friends, everyone. I know it seems hard right now, but you’ll get through this. I know you will. It’ll take some time though. But don’t worry, I’ll be right here to support you.” 

“Thanks, Ters. You’re the best.” 

“I try my best.” He pulled you close and gave you a kiss on the head. 

Ventus:

why did i choose this one?😭

Ven knew something was off but he couldn’t figure out what. He decided that he was going to ask you nicely. He went up to your room and knocked gently on the door. 

“Butterfly, can I come in?” You opened the door and looked at him with a very tired look. 

“Butterfly? Are you okay?” You shook your head no and hugged him. he hugged you back and rubbed your back. 

“Can you tell me what’s going on. I hate seeing you like this.” You told Ven how you’ve been feeling depressed lately and wished things would end. 

“Aww, butterfly. That sucks! Is there anything I can do?” 

“Can you hold me for right now?” 

“Sure. Let’s go cuddle.” 

Axel:

Axel returned home from a mission one day and saw you laying on the couch, not touching the food you made for yourself. He set his stuff down and sat next you. 

“Hey firecracker. You okay?” You mumbled a yes and continued to play with your food. 

“You sure? You’ve been playing with your food for a while now and I’m sure that it’s cold now.” You set your fork down and buried your face into a pillow. Axel heard you sniffling and knew that you were crying. 

“Aww, firecracker. I didn’t mean to make you cry. C’mere.” Axel gently picked you up and held you close. 

“What’s going on? I’m sure that I can help.” You told him that you wanted to end your existence because of how overwhelmed you feel. 

“It’s gonna be okay. I know it seems overwhelming right now, but you’ll get through this. You have me to help you.” 

“Thanks Axel.” 

“Anytime. Wanna go take a bath with me?” You nodded and you two went to go take a bath. 

Roxas:

Roxas was confused when he heard that you were depressed but he was willing to learn. He asked you what it meant to be depressed and you gave him an answer. 

“I’m sorry that you feel like that. Is there anything I can do?” 

“Can you just hold me, please?” 

“Of course. Do you want something to eat as well?” You shook your head. 

“Okay.” He laid down and wrapped his arms around you and you two took a nap together. 

[nobodies-png]

So I remember you wrote about a sibling au with Sora, Roxas, Ventus, and Vanitas. Now i wonder how each one would react to horror games? (I.E. Amnesia, Slender-Man, Fnaf)

I love sibling headcanons so hell yeah lets go

Sora :

All four are scaredy cats and will flip their shit when it comes to horror games, but they show it differently. Sora is the type of guy who will just yell at every jumpscare and then laugh and holler - or just cackle nervously all the time as he braces himself for the next scare. Like, if he were a youtuber now, people would just complain about Sora’s reactions being fake and “too over the top”. But the guy is JUST that loud and expressive. 

His brothers LOVE playing horror games with him because it’s the funniest shit but ALSO because his cheerful nature calms them down.  Since he’s not very interested in horror games, he's the perfect victim - Vanitas and Roxas have made Sora play shit like Can Your Pet (not really horror but just as traumatizing) and Doki Doki Literature Club all blind. 

Sora doesn’t really mind and thinks the plot twists and jumpscares are actually really funny ! As in, getting super scared is hella funny in the end. It’s kind of like going on a rollercoaster ! Out of all 4, Sora is the only one who’ll have no trouble going to sleep after playing horror games. The others might crawl and sneak into his room if they’re too afraid to sleep alone lmao.

Vanitas :

Bastard will brag about knowing the scariest most horrifying obscure indie horror games, tease others for not playing them “properly” (all alone, in the dead of the night, full volume and headphones on) and tHEN REFUSE TO PLAY THEM WITHOUT HIS BROTHERS. Vanitas will legit just go “it’s not like i’m scared, I just want to see them suffer” and expect anyone to believe him. Like okay, boy. We see you. 

Definitely the type of guy who’ll act all cocky, alpha and macho during the first 20 minutes, poking fun at Ventus for hiding behind a pillow and then go dead silent the second shit starts to get real. This is the only time you’ll see Vanitas shut the fuck up, because he’s too busy chewing his nails to the bone. The second he starts getting nervous, he’ll pass the controller onto someone else and sit back, pretend he’s not scared and all of that.

But Vanitas isn’t the type to scream, instead he just curses and drops the longest and funniest fucking rants about the game they’re all playing. Sometimes, Roxas and Sora will straight up fucking choke because they just can’t take it seriously with Vanitas yelling about “Slenderman’s skinny white boy forest dwelling crayon loving bitch ass needing some art classes from Namine asap”.

Ventus :

Ventus hates horror games and he hates being roped into playing them even more. But Vanitas always gets to him with that lowkey competitive rivalry they got going on and ah shit here we go again, motherfucking animatronics. Why is this a thing. Why are there so many games of these funky metal animals ? ? ? ? 

His first instinct while playing is to either hide or just. Straight up leave the room. And then probably regret leaving the room because holy shit it’s so dark in the hallway, who the fuck turned off all the lights oh my god Sora where are you. When he gets scared, he’s the type of person who physically CANNOT scream, like his voice just dies in his throat and he can only make weird noises and hold on to dear life. 

Ventus has a DEADLY fucking grip, once he clings onto someone, he doesn’t let go of them until the game is over. And he’s the most likely to cry too, but usually his brothers have the decency to shut the game and calm the fuck down together before Ventus gets even more upset.

Roxas :

Roxas has a love-hate relationship with horror games, because he’s REALLY into the dark and eerie atmosphere and ambience they have. Specially the stories they come up with, but he thinks most of horror games these days have become too repetitive and boring (but he’ll still fall for every single fucking one of them). But yeah the guy is down to play anything, really. 

Ngl, he has the worst backseat gaming habit so his brothers just make him play to avoid all of that unnecessary commentary. And Roxas is pretty good at keeping his cool, even if he’s kinda sorta dying inside. He won’t make a single peep while playing but he’ll be super jumpy and jittery the next few days - like, he might just punch Sora for sneaking up on him or scream when he accidentally bumps into Ventus.

But once he’s calmed down, he enjoys analyzing the game with anyone who’s willing to listen. Surprisingly, he and Vanitas like to talk and discuss all the shit they play together and then shit on the “stupid obvious jumpscares haha totally didn’t get us that time right bro”.

[roxasboxas]

Theorizing Two Characters Are Related Based On Their Lack Of Screen Time Together

AKA: An actual whole write-up on the “Braig/Luxu is Ventus’ dad” theory because I refuse to shut up about this.

So since we don’t have a solid point for when Braig got superseded by Luxu I’ll be folding all of both their scenes with Ventus together for the time being. This is very easy, because there’s maybe two of them. (I’ll also use Braig/Xigbar/Luxu pretty much interchangeably based on where in the story any given point I’m making is at)

1) That scene in BBS where they’re at the keyblade graveyard at the same time. They exchange very few words, but Braig calls Ven “Kiddo” which is something I’ll get back to

2) I mean the potentially fake Master Ava in KHUX might have been Luxu........

That’s it. That’s the screentime. Not a lot. But! We know Xigbar’s heart is connected to Ventus’ somehow! We know this, because he sees Xion with his face, and people see Xion as someone whose heart they’re connected to. Now, I suppose we could assume it happened in that first scene there, but come on. I’ve exchanged a few words with people who were pissy with me before. I probably would not recognize them 10 years after the fact, let alone consider our hearts connected. We could also assume it’s limited to know Xion’s heart is also connected to but that’s never really discussed and we could argue that she’s not even connected to Ven at this point anyways (thats a totally separate discussion than this, though).

But Xigbar not only sees Xion as Ventus, he recognizes him after (for all appearances) one encounter 10 years prior (and maybe another one 1000 years before that). It’s a bit of a stretch tbh, and I’m not just saying that because I’m half face-blind. Why Ventus? Why not anyone else? Why not Brain, Skuld, or Ephemer? Hell, at this point, why not Roxas? He’s certainly had more canon interactions with Roxas than Ventus by the part of Days where we find this out.

Meanwhile, Xemnas, who is made out of Ven’s key-brother and a guy who was raising him (albeit poorly) for a hot minute and spends half his time not staring up at Kingdom Hearts trying to get people to find Ven for him, sees Xion as Sora. Weird, right?

There’s also something else about Xigbar’s interactions with Xion (and Roxas) that’s very interesting in terms of this theory, however. Xigbar refers to those two with various nicknames (“Kiddo” I think gets thrown around for both of them, “Poppet” for Xion, and “Tiger” for Roxas) and he does it quite liberally, and relatively quickly. He also calls Ventus “Kiddo” in the one line of dialogue he says directly to him.

Contrast this with how he talks to Sora. He still treats and talks to Sora like a kid, but he doesn’t use any nicknames for him until Dream Drop Distance, when they’ve known each other for like a year or so? Even then, he starts out with “sleepyhead” rather than anything else. He doesn’t even call Sora by any sort of nickname when he and the rest of the Organization are trying to stir Roxas’ consciousness. And then, even in DDD, after a “sleepyhead” and a “kiddo” for good measure, he just... stops? He calls Repliku “Kid” at one point during the boss gauntlet, but other than that it’s Nickname Machine Broke.

Also, throughout the games, he makes remarks about Ventus glaring at him. He first does it in KH2 when talking to Sora, saying “he” always used to give him the exact same look. But I’ve played most of Days myself and watched all the cutscenes multiple times, and Roxas doesn’t glare at him. Ventus and Xion do. Interesting. And he keeps remarking on it, all the way through to DDD. It seems to be the one thing Sora does that reminds him of Ventus (“Sweet dreams, Kiddo” in DDD is after this remark)

So, to recap: Ven and Braig barely have one confirmed interaction, but Ven seems to be the protagonist that Xigbar is most fixated on, besides maybe Sora. Maybe. I honestly wouldn’t bet on it.

Also I can’t figure out where else to fit this in earlier but Luxu is derived from the Latin word for “Lust” so symbolically speaking Xigbar canonically fucks

In conclusion, Braig/Luxu is Ventus’ dad. Whether it’s something they plan on addressing at any point or it’s in the same vein as Xion being so trans coded she also trans codes at least three other characters by association is up in the air at this point

[gala-xyzz]

okay so. a quick thing

this is a sort of continuation of my not-exactly-a-kingdom-hearts au, which is going to get it's own written bit one day if i can get myself to write again. however, it's kinda crazy so let me summarize it first (dw you don't really need to know anything about the games)

in as few words as possible: boy with amnesia names kaeli meets kingdom hearts characters sora and roxas when they land in his bedroom, and he has to babysit them. he learns the games are mostly untrue, and has to deal with a guy names tenebris who wants to talk to him for some reason. during all of this he's still grieving for his friend, who died a year ago and was his only friend, and sora, fucking optimist that he is, helps kaeli heal. sora also takes kaeli back to his world once they find a way back, and we learn that tenebris is actually kaeli's father, and tenebris is the ambassador for the physical manifestation of time throughout the universe/sort of multiverse, and kaeli gets his memories back after learning this.

now i can get to the new characters :D

so by the time we meet the new characters, it's been a few months since kaeli got his memories back. he's adjusting to this new life, he's got some fun time powers that he's learning to use, and he's become good friends with sora's buddies (they're chaotic. but that's for another time)

well one evening things are swell when suddenly there's a knock on the door. now let me tell you, the place where kaeli is living is a beach house in a world where is nothing but some islands and this beach house, and the five guys living in it. nobody even knows they're here. so they're really confused when they open the door and there's a group of seven people just. standing there. asking if they can come in. for no good reason. also kaeli deadass thinks one of them is bill cipher (you're going to see why in a moment)

this is our colorful cast of characters

in order: cahira, lucium, paradox, spirum, psychis, tristan, timori

they introduce themselves, and for a while they just act... normal. but like a polite normal. almost too polite. and the whole time kaeli and co are all thinking "what the fuck is going on here"

well except for two of them but that's for a bit later

eventually kaeli gets enough nerve to ask why these people are here, and paradox (who is the leader of this group) just starts laughing. becuase he's crazy like that

turns out they all know tenebris/kaeli's father! and um. they do not like him. and they REALLY do not like lord tempus (the manifestation of time; will here on out call these manifestations "entities"). point is that they want to destroy time and they came to meet kaeli so they could see how much of a threat he is

because guess what they're all entities too :_D cahira is bloodlust, lucium is chaos, paradox is confusion (you see now why kaeli mistakes him for bill cipher here), spirum is manipulation, psychis is madness, tristan is grief/agony, and timori is fear/supersition

so yeah they're basically gods and kaeli is Not Equipped to fight gods

then one of sora's buddies vanitas (another kh character, one of my FAVORITES) steps up and is all like "wait a shit i know you guys!" and they're all like "oh, there you are! we haven't heard from you in four hundered years, and i thought you were trying to stay out of our little conflict and yet here you are with the ambassador's son?" because in this story vanitas is also an entity, but i cannot say of what because that's actually major spoilers for the games womp womp

feel free to ask questions, rant, etc, because i need to make the salmon for dinner and then i will be back

hey. hey mutuals. if i tried to introduce you to some new characters and gave you the crazy story that comes with them would you listen. i don't wanna waste your time 👉👈

[ajdrawshq]

OK SO I'm here to tell yall about the rarepair I was talking abt earlier aka repliroku (Repliku and Roxas)

I,, would put this under a cut but I dont know how to do that on mobile. Apologies in advance. If someone can tell me that would be nice n I'll edit this as such,, but yeah

(Quick note that I hc repliku as nb and use they/them for them ,, anyway)

So basically how this came to be was I was in the most boring class known to man with the world's most monotone teacher (seriously if it were a competition he'd at least place third worldwide) and I was thinking about Repliku, bc this was around the time that they first slipped into my list of major comfort characters, and I thought itd be cool if they were to be informally adopted by the sea salt trio because of how their experiences relate to each other. Also like, they got those Vibes y'know. Theyd get along I know they would (although at this time I did not realize what exactly Axel did in castle oblivion and. Well. If u know u know but I need to revise Repliku's potential interactions w him now that I've played com). Also because Repliku still has self worth issues and believes themself to just be a copy of Riku, and if any group could help them adjust to life as their own person, especially from experience, it's probably the sea salt trio and it's also because Repliku needs something to do while Sora's gone and everyone else is just Here looking for him so they're getting some new friends now

And that got me wondering abt their individual relationships with each member n all that, and theres some interesting dynamics going on in there especially regarding Xion and them having similar origin stories tho with varying results and with how Axel used to be in castle oblivion with them n all but has changed drastically since, and Then. I thought abt Roxas. I'm gonna be honest I have no idea what exactly it is about the dynamic between Repliku and him that is so appealing to me but in the moment I felt like a total genius and went with it

But like...... is it the shared desire to protect, holding memories of their friends so dearly that it's what kept them going this far? And the way that they both fought so hard to prove they have a right to exist in this world even when they were never meant to be? Being told they are nothing more than the "other", enough that they thought it was true?

Is it the equally hilarious and depressing knowledge that Roxas' relationship with Riku has always been a Little Bit Fucked and now theres ANOTHER ONE (and the slow realization that hey, this kid isn't half bad actually)? (Not to mention Repliku would probably be confused by....... everything that happened when they were stuck in the realm of darkness for over a year. "So why are there 5+ Soras now? And who the fuck are *gestures at over half the cast* these people??")

Or the bastardous shenanigans they could get up to if they put their brain cells together? The way theyd absolutely team up against poor Riku for fun? (by which I mean funny lil pranks n shit not like. murder. Repliku just goes "hey wanna go annoy my brother" and u know Roxas is already halfway there)

The answer is yes to all! They have this mutual understanding of each other, with both the shit they've been through and who they are as people, who and what they value...... they Get It

So like naturally by that point I was like, oh hey, these two would be great friends tbh?

And THEN. I thought. What if they kissed.

Thus the start of me having a rarepair comfort ship that I'm pretty much the sole creator for

And a lot of this ties in with an everyone lives (but Sora's still missing) au I have where those two as well as Xion, Naminé, Vanitas n maybe Ventus form a friend group of their own bc of their shared fucked up lives. They meet up like twice a week bc it's Supposed to be like a therapy thing but they really just hang out n play games n stuff n occasionally open up abt shit and support each other thru it yknow? Basically the average gay friend group at school but like way less drama

[khtrinityftw]

Honest KH2 Critique

I wanna talk about Kingdom Hearts II since we're quickly approaching it's 15th anniversary. Ever since it was released, it's become a game that people irritatingly refuse to be moderate over, or at least when it comes to the vocal fans online. People who love it don't love it so much as worship it, while people who hate it don't hate it so much as despise it with every fiber of their being. I may technically fall into the "love" category (I share the majority fan and critic view that KH2, especially it's Final Mix edition, is the best game in the series), but I'm also willing to look at both its good and its bad, and do so in moderation rather than hyperbolically.

And I know, without a doubt - Kingdom Hearts II...has the absolute worst-written story out of the KH Trinity!

OK, that was said hyperbolically, but I did so as a joke!

It's so weird that the original Kingdom Hearts and Chain of Memories have narratives that are deeply and thoughtfully structured with such care and consistency, and then the trilogy is rounded out by such a messily-written rollercoaster of quality!

.....Well, all right, maybe not that weird.

When interviewed shortly after KH2's first public reveal at the 2003 Tokyo Game Show, this is how Tetsuya Nomura described the process for writing the game's story: "I'm writing the plot, the main story of Sora and co. Other people are in charge of the plots for the events that will happen in each Disney world. Combining that with Nojima, we're completing one scenario."

The "other people" in question are the Event team: Masaru Oka, Ryo Tsurumaki, Michio Matsuura, Atsuko Ishikura, Yukari Ishida, and Kumiko Takahashi. Daisuke Watanabe and Harunori Sakemi also assisted Nojima with scenario writing whenever the need arose.

The problem that this process caused isn't apparent at first glance, but it's actually right there in that interview excerpt: "I'm writing the plot". In KH and CoM, Nomura only wrote the initial plot outlines, which were very simple and ripe for being fleshed out by the actual scenario writer. There's a big difference between that and writing a full-fledged plot the way he did here. 

Nomura wrote the story for what transpires in the KH-original worlds: Twilight Town, Hollow Bastion, the World That Never Was and Destiny Islands. It goes like this:

As far as plots go, I actually really like this one. It's a strong plot.

It's also convoluted as Hell.

I made a post saying the three one-word convoluted elements of KH2's plot are "Nobodies", "Data", and "Ansem". All three of those are literally the cornerstones of this plot that Nomura cooked up: they play a huge role through the beginning, middle and end! Because Nomura had more power with making this game, none of the more...out-there stuff that these concepts created could be curbed or removed. Which means that the scenario writer had better be in tune with Nomura when it comes to presenting them in a coherent way.

For the most part, Kazushige Nojima was....not.

Here is a tell-tale sign that Nomura and Nojima were not in sync. When asked if he planned from the start to make Kingdom Hearts be the heart-shaped moon seen on the cover of the original game, Nomura replied "No, I didn't. I asked Nojima-san to write the scenario and in his scenario it was written that the Kingdom Hearts Xemnas created is 'like a moon that floats in the World that Never Was'. When I read that, I thought ‘’Oh, this can be connected!’’"

Nomura just admitted that Nojima essentially had to make up how to convey Xemnas harnessing and trying to complete Kingdom Hearts, because Nomura's plot did nothing to convey it. It was a "wait, how the fuck is he doing that!?" detail. And you really get the sense all throughout the scenario that Nojima is struggling with trying to convey Nomura's stuff, and he has said as much in interviews: Nomura's plot and concepts confused him.

It also doesn't help that Nojima was the least major scenario writer on the original KH, mainly limited to the co-creation of Ansem with Nomura and writing the entire End of the World section. This is probably why Xemnas and Ansem the Wise are clearly the KH-original characters with the most confidence and complexity behind their writing in KH2's scenario. Nojima writes Sora, Kairi, their Nobodies Roxas and Namine, and Riku far more simplistically and trope-y, and the other Organization members and trio of Hayner, Pence and Olette are side characters so naturally they don't get much depth. 

Then there's Masaru Oka and his Event Team. First off, while Masaru Oka is definitely on Nomura's wavelength and understands his vision to a fault, as Event Director he is superbly mediocre at presenting that vision, or Nojima's for that matter. He just isn't cinematically inclined the way Jun Akiyama was in the original KH, and that leads to the event scenes usually being the barest minimum of adequate at best, and laughably awkward at worst.

Secondly, Oka and his team were responsible for creating the plots in the Disney worlds (hence Oka's credit alongside Nomura under "Base Story"). But not only were they frequently lazy and just directly rehashed the movie's story but with Sora, Donald, Goofy and the Heartless shoved in, but half of the time they didn't even bother connecting the world plots to Nomura's main plot in any meaningful way beyond thematically ala CoM, and neither Nomura nor Nojima seemed keen on correcting this even when they really should have.

Here is a chart displaying the game's flow, stage by stage as set by world battle level. Stages where the main plot is progressed in some way are bolded, and stages of the main plot as created by Nomura have red borders around them:

Aside from Space Paranoids which was part of Nomura's plot from the get-go, the only time where correlation with the main plot occurs without any side factor to note is Beast's Castle, where both visits feature the machinations of Organization member Xaldin and culminates in the boss battle against him that leads to his demise.

Olympus Coliseum correlates to the main plot in the first visit but not the second, although the second visit is now made plot-relevant due to tying up loose ends from the first. Port Royal correlates to the main plot in the second visit but not the first, although the first visit is now made plot-relevant due to setting the stage for the second (it also has Larxene's Absent Silhouette in FM). There is technically a main plot correlation in the second visits to the Land of Dragons and Agrabah (the latter of which has Vexen's Absent Silhouette in FM), but Nojima botched the writing of them to the point where there may as well not have been, especially in the case of Agrabah’s which is "oh btw, an Organization XIII member came by off-screen".

And then there's the case of Disney Castle / Timeless River, which only acquires relevance to the main plot because it was decided that Maleficent should be resurrected and be Pete's boss in the present time. And unlike her appearance in Halloween Town, her role in this stage correlates directly to her role in the main story, revealing her resurrection to the heroes and establishing that she seeks a new evil stronghold from which to advance her return to power. Pete's backstory and connection to King Mickey shown here also receives a direct reference toward the climax of the World That Never Was.

While it could be argued that there's additional value in the first visits to Port Royal, Agrabah, Halloween Town and Pride Land due to the presence of Pete (Maleficent when it comes to Halloween Town), I would have to disagree because nothing they actually do in these stages end up mattering to the main story whatsoever - especially in Pride Land, where Pete just shows up in lion form to say “Ooga Booga Booga!”. Their presence alone just ain't enough.

The consequence here is that for the continuous stretch of Port Royal in the first go-round, Olympus Coliseum in the second, and Agrabah, Halloween Town and Pride Land in both go-rounds, it feels like nothing is advancing. And as bad as that sounds on paper, it's even worse when applied to gameplay because it means this lasts for several hours straight! The only main plot event that happens in either cycles is Kairi going to Twilight Town, which happens in a sudden cutscene between Agrabah and Halloween Town and is thus totally out of the player's control!

To sum things up, Nomura wrote a main plot that was good but too overwrought with confusing and complicated details. Nojima is a highly talented writer, but he didn't fully get Nomura's vision. Oka gets Nomura's vision, but he isn't a highly talented Event Director (and as seen in later games, he has even less talent as a writer) and often portrayed scenes that Nomura or Nojima came up with flatly. And none of these men were in sync when it came to how the Disney world plots and the main plot would connect, often simply not caring or else just not trying hard enough.

That is why KH2 has the weakest writing in the KH Trinity: the primary creative voices that shaped the story were completely out of sync with one another on a regular basis. You could say that their hearts just didn't connect on this project. And as a result, we have blatant inconsistences, bad edit jobs, pacing problems, mood whiplashes, missed opportunities, and dumbass moments galore.

However, on the occasions where things between them did manage to sync up, we were given some of the highest points in not only the KH Trinity but the entire KH series, and the input that was given from Daisuke Watanabe, Harunori Sakemi, and others like production assistant (and major Disney fanatic) Eri Morimoto surely helped the messy story become not quite as big a mess as it could have been otherwise. And that story still stayed true to the series' roots as a whimsical Disney/FF crossover project driven by relatable characters and emotional resonance, as opposed to a vanity project for Nomura that is driven by perplexing lore, plot twists and mystery boxes.

And that's why I and so many others love KH2, warts and all, and would gladly take dozens more narrative messes just like it over the different, far less enjoyable kinds of narrative messes that we've been getting afterward.