#yeah this can probably go in that tag

[madeimpact]

just a headcanon question for you for some deep thoughts, have you ever thought about what happened to sora's parents whether or not they're alive after the events of the first game?

Interesting that you ask this, because this is something I want to explore more and part of the reason I reblogged this meme! I'd like to develop Sora's parents into fully fleshed, named (mayyyybe designed?) OCs / guest muses on the blog at some point, but for now, have me projecting the thoughts that have been knocking around in my brain, in glorious word soup form.

Putting this under a cut because WOWIE it got really long, sorry about that!

We're working with crumbs here, but based one one line of dialogue for each parent, his mother was attentive to Sora's needs and could tell when things were wrong (yes I'm extracting this from "Sora, dinner's ready,") and his father was present enough in his life that he was rowing Sora and Riku to the play island as kids.

So, honestly...I feel like Sora's family is about what one would expect of a happy, healthy family. Mom and Dad in a happy marriage, well enough off to support one kid, loving and doting parents. Nothing really remarkable. The Aono family is just about as standard as standard can get.

And then, y'know, KH1 happened.

Here's what we know:

Destroyed worlds show up in the Realm of Darkness.

Some of a world's denizens are scattered to worlds in the Realm Between, like Traverse Town.

Someone who becomes a Heartless (+optionally, Nobody, if their heart is strong enough) and is then defeated goes to where it originally happened in order to be recompleted (or their heart/body dissolves to darkness to wait for the other component to be freed).

If the world where it originally happened isn't available, they go to a world like Traverse Town.

Selphie, Wakka, and Tidus are all alive and well after KH1, albeit with no memory of Sora.

Knowing ALL OF THIS, I think Sora's parents are alive and well, and may even potentially have some knowledge about their son's world-hopping adventures. It's possible that they appeared in Traverse Town at one point, but we never see them there (this is probably just on account of the game not deeming it necessary, but it's interesting to consider from an in-universe standpoint...). So, I think one of a few things could have happened:

After the Islands were destroyed, Sora's parents ended up in Traverse Town, perhaps in one of the districts that aren't accessible until DDD.

Sora's parents fell with the Islands and were sort of suspended in "sleep" for as long as the Islands were in the Realm of Darkness. They awoke to little to no memory of the Islands' destruction. I imagine something like this probably happens to most whose worlds get destroyed, or there'd be no order to preserve.

Sora's parents were defeated by and subsequently became Heartless during the destruction of the Islands. At some point, Sora defeated their Heartless (knowingly? Unknowingly? Shit, I didn't think about the angsty implications) and freed their hearts for eventual restoration, either in Traverse Town or on the Islands once they were restored. If I were to go with this, the degree to which they remember it all could be up in the air.

One thing I'm pretty settled on (primarily just because I love the angst of this trope, sue me) is that they were alive during KH2, and like Kairi, had only very faint memories of Sora, and even those were starting to fade. But they knew that they were missing something very important. There was an ache in their hearts, a hole whose shape was painfully familiar and yet they couldn't put a name to it...

By the end of KH2, Sora has probably come clean to them about the world-hopping stuff, if they didn't already remember their experiences during KH1. Donald probably objects to this. Sora loves his parents and trusts them to keep his secrets, so lol.

That's kinda all I've got right now and I'd love to flesh them out more / solidify their stories through the meme I reblogged! I'm not 100% married to any of these ideas just yet, but I love piecing things together like this based on teeny tiny lines we get in canon.

Finally, I want to shoutout this artist, who made it excruciatingly difficult to not just steal Eimi (/j) for the blog canon. Seriously, this woman imprinted herself on my brain and now is inextricably tied to the idea of Sora's mother for me, but I'm taking that energy and putting it towards a stab at my own interpretation! Just wanted to shout them out because I love their take on her.

[chiricat]

ryomina demons are winning

[wasyago]

we're at it again🕺

[welcometogrouchland]

(ID in alt) I literally said I was gonna post this month's ago and then never had the wherewithal to describe it and so I didn't Lmao (said with pain). But since I'm thinking of opening my commissions I figured I should remind ppl that I. Yknow. Can draw.

Lots of Steph here (I had major art block making all of these and my brain worms for her kept me going) + some sprinkles of stephcass for Cass nation to enjoy!

[kit-screams-into-the-future]

drawing your favorite guys being silly is very effective at keeping The Horrors at bay

bonus doc from a different canvas:

[tagarilaghost]

I SWEAR CELEBI'S THINGY IS COMING SOON BUT I REALLY WANTED TO POST THIS ALRIGHT

yeaah... future trio got me too...

and Darkrai is there too, because of course he is.

hey look i drew a cute Drifloon :D

...ignore the rest

whatever started at Darkrai doodles ended in brainrot of future trio + darkrai and I'm blaming @scribz-ag24 for this

[boredlime]

when you're Probably Not Cis but you present as it anyways because you're too lazy to do anything about it

[dizzybizz]

some doodles

[jasperthejester]

me: finally accepting theres a good chance im autistic and starting to work up the courage to ask my parents to see if i could get a diagnoses but being scared to

my mom: do you ever think you have adhd? if you want to do a screening for add next time your at the doctors you can

me:

[wyvernity]

sss day my favorite national holiday WOOOOHHHH

bonus

[kagooleo]

johto’s champion and chronicler for the deity of the ilex shrine, it’s lyra!🌿

this one took me a while due to trying out different techniques (studying a Lot of art nouveau) and making a couple changes to her outfit (the details help), but I’d like to think she’s learned a lot in her journey and wanted to reflect her experience more in her champion fit

her specialty would be in fairy types and her meganium’s divergent evolution is grass/fairy 🧚🪷

and a bonus w/ the johto gang after the photoshoot!

[meamiki]

Happy Anniversary In Stars and Time!! Have some Friend Quest based drawings :D

(These have specific quote picks related to them! And there's also a long ramble on why I like those specific quotes below if interested)

(And by long, I mean roughly 2k+ words of proper ramble total, so be warned before clicking keep reading this link right here to the rb!!)

[emmavakarian-theirin]

the way the music died at just the right moment made this so perfect

[kaiserouo]

them making magnets

[protect-namine]

yingdu episode 5 spoilers

ohhh my god this is everything I want from cheng xiaoshi. yes. perfect. sorry, but I'm a cheng xiaoshi whump liker and link click always brings out the best of them in episode 5 of each season.

there's just something cathartic about how when cheng xiaoshi becomes an emotional mess, it's also when he's most disconnected with the people he knows (physically, as he's diving in a photo and his only link to his home timeframe is a disembodied lu guang in his head) but it's also when he's most connected with strangers (when their own personal trauma lines up with his). to me, it's a showcase of empathy and a strange manifestation of his own agency. something about how the disconnect gives him the space to blow up, and the connection heightens it and grants him permission, almost, to express his anger more freely for his own sake and for another person's behalf.

like. listen, okay, I'm gonna ramble now because cheng xiaoshi is my favorite character in this entire show, but listen. sometimes some fans will conflate adjectives to his character that are usually associated with his character archetype, but they aren't necessarily true about him as a character. and I don't mean it in a, "he's not like that because he grows out of those traits" kind of way. I mean it in a, "he was never like that" kind of way.

one of those adjectives, for me, is when people call him immature. he isn't! to me! imo! he's got big emotions, yes, but I personally don't think the presence of big emotions indicates anything about maturity. because you know what? as long as his primary trauma (feelings of abandonment) isn't touched, he is very good at handling interpersonal conflicts, and that's what's interesting to me.

qiao ling hides relevant information from him? he removes himself from the situation to give himself space and sort out his feelings. he tells her he's fine and that he'll be back.

post-earthquake arc? I'll just copy paste what I already said in a previous ask:

what initially got me was when I was first watching S1, I thought the earthquake arc would have devastating effects on [shiguang's] relationship. listen, I didn’t know what I was getting into with link click, but I thought that was expected. it’s ripe for drama! but how do they handle the fight? they put their side business on hold but they still keep being roommates. they still do their day job. they still talk. they’re still upset but they give each other space but not to the point where they can’t stand existing in each other’s spaces. that’s when I realized that oh, they really trust each other. they have a very solid foundation for their relationship that not even the earthquake arc can break. they’re pretty level-headed about this, actually, all things considered? all the doomed yaoi stuff came later, but that’s just the cherry on top. it’s the way they handled conflict and disappointment in S1 that got me.

okay, protect-namine, why go through that whole tangent? BECAUSE! circling back to yingdu episode 5, we finally, finally get to see cheng xiaoshi let out some of his anger. and it's precisely because his primary trauma point was on the table. he can forgive a friend lying, and he can forgive being told not to change the past. because at the end of the day, qiao ling and lu guang stayed. they never left him.

but he cannot handle abandonment. he cannot understand why people leave. he cannot understand why he's been clinging on to false hope this entire time. and more importantly, he cannot understand how someone can be such a hypocrite about it. "a man who'd rather be kind to strangers than face his own son" like fuck man. cheng weimin you fucked up so bad.

it's the disconnect/connect thing again too. thematically, it makes sense. when does cheng xiaoshi blow up? when he's alone, far away from the people that ground him. alone, the feeling he hates the most. he's not even in his own body. he blows up when he's inhabiting a stranger's. he doesn't even get to be angry as cheng xiaoshi.

how fucked up is that. man. I love him so much.

also I'm going crazyyyy over the family themes going on in link click. much to say about the show itself across all seasons (the twins, qiao ling and cheng xiaoshi, even the liu siblings), but for this episode... god. okay this is slight speculation territory now and I'll try to keep this very short, because this is only tangential to the post. but. imagine xia fei getting the good parent figure in cheng weimin that cheng xiaoshi never had. and he doesn't know!! he's bitter inside about his dad and he's having hotpot with xia fei and he doesn't know he was in that school!! fuck that's so good. that's so juicy.

okay, sorry, I have a lot of feelings about cheng xiaoshi. he's my link click blorbo of all time, and I love when he experiences The Horrors™ because it's also when other sides of him gets to shine.

on a brighter note:

VEIN AND CHENG XIAOSHI MEETING AGAIN!!! their greeting was so cute. also omg does xia fei know? that his boss is maybe possibly a cannibal? actually, wait, I don't think I'd be surprised if he does know.

ah and finally. finally:

I've been having many thoughts on how yingdu approaches "friendships" and their transactional nature (mostly with regards to liu xiao) but I mostly thought they're headcanon stuff. but now. I'm so so happy that episode 5 is bringing out more of the quid pro quo theme. liu xiao with the gift giving. wang qing's "friends" (bullies) demanding her to cheat on the exam for them. and now, vein and cheng xiaoshi having a friendly greeting but also exchanging favors. so good. so good. it goes along with how there's so much handshakes and handholding this season (not just with lu guang and cheng xiaoshi, but with cheng xiaoshi and the the antagonist trio too, who have all met him by "helping" him in some way). something something trust and favors. probably something that deserves its own post though, but I wanted to point this out because I am soooo here for that. it's goes hand in hand (ha!) with the whole fraud/lies vs innocence/honesty theme this season, and deals/contracts being an equalizer to the two. very good. very tasty.

edit: ooh they also point to this in the YE6 trailer too. nice, nice. if you knew someone's true colors, would you still be their friend?

man, I love episode 5. it just hits all the stuff I personally wanted to see. the only flaw is that we still haven't seen the older version of wang qing, but yeah I kinda expected that they'll hide her until episode 6. they're giving her the liu xiao treatment from season 2. sigh. really wish she'd keep showing up in S3, we need more female characters in this show 🙏

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

Still very wild to me when people try to gotcha Jason with the whole "if you can kill other people for being evil why can't they kill you" when jason is like. One of the most passively suicidal characters I've ever seen. What if man