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Another future CoM/YABITDON excerpt. Wrote this tidbit because I'm cruel, and I'm posting it cuz I'm evil. Feat. Goofy 😈

Fun fact: This is one of the first scenes I ever wrote for this lil fanfic series!

Goofy stopped mid-sentence.

One moment passed, and then two. Three. Sora, Donald, and Jiminy all exchanged a look of concern as a deeply troubled expression dawned on Goofy’s face. “Goofy?” Sora finally spoke, “What’s wrong?”

“I just remembered that I’ve got someone waitin’ for me back home,” He replied. He nervously fiddled with his shield. “A boy who called me ‘dad’. Y’know, it’s the darnedest thing,” Goofy gave a weak chuckle, and said, “For the life of me, I just can’t remember his name.”

No one chuckled with him, and no one spoke.

[Much later after the above scene, the moment after Namine offers them the memory pods.]

Goofy, surprisingly, was the first to speak.

“Sora,” She turned to see him having taken his hat in his hands. “I…I know me an’ Donald made an oath to follow King Mickey’s orders. An’ I know he ordered us to follow the key—and follow you.”

“Goofy?” Donald asked.

“If you need me, I’ll go wherever you go. I promised I wouldn’t leave you again like—” He tried in vain to remember the name of that place that was so broken and bare, and had left each of them just the same way. Sora could see it in his face. In that moment, she could see him try so desperately to remember who he was and what he had done.

But not one of them in this room could manage such a thing.

Goofy tried again.

“Well, I promised I wouldn’t leave ya,” He began wringing his hat. “But, uh, if it’s no trouble, I sure would like to remember my son’s name again.”

---

Note: I think I wrote this one in the initial months-long haze of writing anything and everything for this fanfic. You can see I hadn't solidified a lot of my plans then with the whole 'make them forget Hollow Bastion' part there, which probably still isn't going to happen, but I'm definitely going to still add Maxwell Goof (Knight in training! A squire?) to this whole shindig. Which is almost entirely because I really, really want to torture Goofy here. Just a little. Or a lot.

In retrospect, it's probably overkill to add a whole-ass character that I'll have to account for in future installments just for the sake of one tiny scene in just one fic...but ah, hell. That's a problem for future me.

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Another! Mostly about Namine this time, also towards the end-ish of CoM/YABITDON.

[Part of scene, Sora POV]

Sora huffed. “Anyways, Maleficent and that Ansem jerk were manipulating Riku like crazy,” She went on, waving her hands, “They were telling him all kinds of lies, making him believe the craziest stuff—”

“What, um,” Namine cut in, looking more nervous than before, “Sorry to interrupt, but, uh, what does ‘manipulating’ mean, here?”

“Well, manipulating is a kind of lying,” Sora answered, “But it’s more than just lying, because when a person’s manipulating you, they’re often kinda telling the truth. But they’re telling the truth in such a way that makes you believe a total lie.”

“Yeah!” Donald added angrily, “Manipulating is just lying with extra steps! Anyone who does it is up to no good.”

“Namine? Are you okay?” Goofy asked.

She and Donald turned to see that Namine’s eyes had gone wide with her face even paler than usual, if that was possible, and that she was trembling.

“Namine, what’s wrong?” Sora asked, starting to reach out to her, until Namine jerked away.

“N-nothing, I—I’m fine—” Namine said suddenly, as if on reflex, before her mouth snapped shut with a flinch. Namine ducked her head and refused to meet their eyes, and turned to leave.

“Did I say something wrong?” Sora asked, but Namine only shook her head, still not looking at them, and still going towards the door. “Namine, wait!”

She started to go after her, but that only made Namine break into a run. And once she got to the door Namine nearly clawed at the handle, wrenching it open to reveal the blindingly white hallway beyond, before slamming it shut behind her.

---

[Following scene, Namine POV]

As soon as she was safely alone on the other side of the door, Namine was lost in her thoughts.

She looked down at her hands with rising panic. Those chains of memories she’d manipulated with reckless abandon—Sora’s memories. All just to make her Namine’s friend, against her will.

Namine thought back to Larxene’s lightning, Marluxia’s vines. And in her mind’s eye Namine saw how hopelessly intertwined her own chains had become with those of her ‘friends’. How they all came together to form a vast spiderweb, with Sora trapped in the center of it all.

She felt sick.

[note to self: She thinks to the things Sora + Co. said about what Ansem and Maleficent did to Riku, and what she’s doing to Repliku now. How Namine effectively made Repliku start harassing SDG in the same exact way as a result. And Namine realizes she’s no different from the bad guys.]

And Kairi.

Ansem had cast her from her home, her family, all the life she knew before. Kairi had come so far after losing everything and succeeded in making a new life for herself in the years since—even helping in the fight against Ansem to keep from losing everything again.

Only for it to be Namine who’d stolen Kairi’s whole life this time, instead.

Stupid. Weak. Useless.

Namine hid her face in her hands. Her old ‘friends’ may have been fake, but the truths they told certainly weren’t.

But…that was exactly what Sora and her friends were just warning her about, wasn’t it? Even the truth could become dangerous in the hands of the wrong people. Anything could become a weapon—including Namine. Especially Namine.

After all, what kind of a wretched power was it to manipulate memories? To manipulate people? Even Larxene’s and Marluxia’s powers had their uses; plants could become sustenance for the body or the Heart, with their beauty. Electricity was needed to power practically everything.

But what good was it to be able to steal the happiest days of a person’s life?

“What have I done?” She whimpered.

Namine didn’t look up at the sound of footsteps approaching, then. It was the last sound she wanted to hear right now. But she supposed she should’ve expected this.

Namine sighed. “I’m sorry, okay?” She said to the Kairi without moving, still curled in on herself, “Y-you were right about everything. What I did to them was horrific, they didn’t deserve that—they didn’t deserve any of this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry! P-please, just…just leave me alone.”

She flinched when it gently tugged at her wrists and pulled her up, but she didn’t resist. She knew what was to come, she was sure of it. Just as she was sure that this time she deserved it.

She was slow to raise her head, and worried that the Kairi’s now-painfully familiar face would be angry, or disappointed, or disdainful. Or anything at all.

But she wasn’t expecting its sad smile. Nor the weight in its eyes that told Namine in an instant that the Kairi’s sadness—Castle Oblivion’s sadness—wasn’t mere sympathy, but understanding. That the weight she could see was nothing compared to the true burden hidden within.

But that revelation didn’t make her any happier. Instead, she felt seen in the worst possible way. Like she was some stupid little insect that had been buzzing in everyone’s ears for so long, that had finally been caught and laid bare. Like a mosquito that had been sucking the life out of everyone around her, and was now being dissected for all the world to see and know exactly what she really was. She felt small. She felt miserable.

Namine choked back a sob.

The Kairi let go of her wrists to wrap its arms around her instead, and Namine hated that she leaned into its hug. That the feeling of its hand cradling the back of her head, holding her close, soothed something deep down inside a Heart she knew she didn’t have. She hated that she was now crying on its shoulder like some stupid gross little kid. Why was its shoulder warm? If it was as much of an illusion as her and her old friends, why wasn’t it so cold and painful like them?

Why was it different?

…Why was it warm like Sora?

Somehow that realization only made Namine cry harder, to the point where she could barely breathe. She gasped between sobs, her fingernails scraping at her palms, and she wished the Kairi would let go. She wished it would just hurt her already. Namine knew pain—she understood it. Pain was familiar. And familiarity of any kind was a comfort.

And besides, Namine knew how to recover after getting hurt or insulted, or worse. All she had to do was get back up and keep going. Sora said so.

But how was Namine supposed to recover from that warmth?

“It is a sorry truth that those who are hurt must then bear the burden of not passing their pain onto others,” The Kairi said finally, “And it is an even sorrier truth that the path to decency can be treacherous for them; hurt people hurt people. If the only love you’ve ever known was violence, or deceit, or avoidance…then those are the only ways you will know how to love others by.”

“But what does that mean?” Namine’s voice broke, “D-does that mean I’ll always be like my old friends? That I’ll—that I’ll never be—?”

That I’ll never be normal or warm, too?

“No,” The Kairi answered, and in that one word Namine could hear a pillar of steel under all that compassion. “You are more than your pain, Namine. You are alive, and your pain is but one symptom of that. To live is not just to hurt; It is to hurt, learn, and heal.”

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it’s so weird to me that square enix is not only aware of that mickey x riku comic but also they talk about it regularly

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As promised 🫡

COM/YABITDON Fic Epilogue, Scene 1(?) Riku's Awakening

He didn’t remember falling asleep.

Riku came to in an endless field, where all was an ocean of grass made dark by the veil of night, save for the path before him. He walked it.

And he walked it alone.

But the boy held no fear of loneliness, nor for the darkness all around. For there was naught to fear of the Dark but that which lied within. After all, no beast of the earth could ever compare to the wild animal of a person’s Heart, not in the dangers posed or terror wrought.

And Riku had learned well that the depths of his own Heart held the greatest dangers of all.

There was no moon on this night, but the stars were enough to light his way. Riku watched them as he went. The more he looked, the more he saw. And as he studied them, he was struck by their beauty and the hope they brought—how they seemed to tell him that though the coming day was still far from hand, and the road seemed to go on forever, this night and all its shadows were but a brief and passing thing. For, in truth, there was always Light and high beauty forever beyond its reach. Whether it be made of the stars above the horizon, or the dawn waiting just below it.

The path continued on. Winding, rocky, and lonesome.

But though its arc was long, he knew it leaned towards justice. And though it was rugged, he knew he would overcome. And though it was lonesome, terribly so, he knew his friends were waiting for him at the end. Just as he knew their words and their love were with him in his Heart even now.

He saw figures standing up ahead. As he got closer, he steeled himself: Waiting for him at an upcoming crossroads stood one very familiar figure whose horns seemed to reach towards the stars in an unspoken threat.

Maleficent.

And with her, Riku saw two others. The first was the man in red he’d met just earlier, DiZ. And the second was…

…Ansem.

For a moment, Riku stopped walking.

His fear made the night seem so much Darker. And the path that much more winding, and rocky, and endlessly longer yet. His fear was to the point that his vision tunneled so that it seemed as if it were just him and Ansem in all the world, until he could no longer see the Light of the stars above nor remember the promise of dawn just below.

For a moment he could not even remember that his friends were waiting at the end, after this crossroads. Nor could he remember that his friends were with him always, even now. Especially now.

He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He took one step forward. And then he took another. And another.

Riku had hope, he had faith, and he had starlight. All of these things made his fear a little less so. But though it wasn’t gone, it was bearable now, and Riku looked forward again. He reached the crossroads.

He refused to look at them, but he could feel their eyes on him regardless. “You’re in my way.”

“Ah, but which of us is?” Maleficent’s painted lips were pulled into a smirk. “Do you not see where you are?”

He shook his head. “You’re all in my way. Two of you are supposed to be gone, now get lost.”

“I think it is you who is lost, boy,” Ansem chuckled. Riku scowled.

But before he could come up with a retort, Maleficent cut in, “You are well aware by now that power sleeps within you. But what form do you wish for it to take?”

At this, Maleficent, DiZ, and Ansem brought forth their hands in offering. Maleficent held out her staff for Riku to take; DiZ once again presented the Organization coat he had given him earlier; and Ansem, lastly, summoned the Dark keyblade he’d made in Hollow Bastion. Riku flinched at the sight of it.

Ansem chuckled again. “Is this too much?”

Ansem flicked his hand, and in a flurry of Light the Dark keyblade had transformed into Sora’s keyblade, the Kingdom Key. But that only made Riku angry.

“What’s going on here?” He demanded, and then shook his head. He knew better by now than to expect the truth from people like them. “Whatever. If you’re not going to move, then I’ll just—”

Riku turned to walk down the path he’d arrived from, and gasped at who was standing in his way.

His mother.

“Don’t look back,” She said, “You know there’s nothing waiting for you here.”

Riku knew this was a dream when he noticed the fact that her eyes were looking straight at him, and not through him. Otherwise, not a detail was out of place: Her clipped tone, the bright silver hair swept up in an elegant bun. Though the woman was still as thin as a model and now barely a head taller than him, she still somehow managed to be a more imposing figure than both Ansem and Maleficent combined.

Indeed, not another detail out of place from waking life.

“You have a choice to make. Now make it,” Lin commanded. He grit his teeth.

“Fine,” he yanked the coat out of DiZ’s hands. “I’d rather have the stupid coat again. Now will you all go away?”

“The power of the guardian,” DiZ nodded in clear approval, “Kindness to aid friends, a shield to repel all. A fine choice. But what will you give up?”

“Everything else. Can you go away now?”

“You can only choose one.”

Riku sighed. On his left, Maleficent held out her staff for him again. On his right, Ansem and the Kingdom Key beckoned. He sneered at it.

“I’ll give up any hope of getting a keyblade ever again, if it means I won’t see you ever again either.”

Ansem, Maleficent, and his mother all paused. For two seconds, then three. It was more than a bit unnerving.

“What?” Riku asked defensively.

“Do you mean that?” Ansem replied, sounding oddly intrigued, “Truly?”

What the hell was this question?

“Of course I do. Why are you even asking?”

They all watched him for a moment longer. Until suddenly they and the night all started coming apart—in pieces carried on the backs of birds.

In the past, Riku’s Heart would’ve soared at the revelation at what was unfolding. But now, dogged by fear and regret and too much self-loathing to bear, he only wanted to run back to the night that he’d long since learned to conquer.

He flinched at the feeling of movement under his foot—but not at the stained-glass dawn unfolding below him. Rather, Riku flinched at what it meant. He was by no means ready for this kind of responsibility yet. He was barely capable of being responsible for himself at this point. But it seemed fate had other plans.

And indeed, a Voice then spoke.

Be not afraid, child.

[End Scene]

I can't add much for context here since it's 11:38 and I'm late AF for bed as it is lol, but I remember writing this one with the thought "What would a slightly changed/symbolic Awakening look like?" I know canon Awakenings are all (theoretically) made of the same components--stained glass, making choices, etc., and they're already pretty steeped in symbolism as it is. So I kept the most essential parts and let myself get a lil bit artsy fartsy in my usual style (though I've realized there is such a thing as being *too* subtle hahaha) and imagined how the Voice would interpret Riku's experiences at this point in the story and reflect those back at him in the choices it offers. I'm worried that the specific forms here (particularly Ansem SoD) could come off as the Voice kinda 'leading the witness', per se, in that it's clearly trying to get Riku to *not* choose the keyblade and resist temptation, thus proving he's worthy of its responsibility now, and of the far greater role he's unwittingly signed himself up for much later on. But to do so this overtly could raise the question of whether it's really Riku making that choice freely, or whether it's a knee-jerk reaction to his greatest fears. If it's the latter, would he still be able to do what needs to be done in KH3?? And *why* would he make the choices he does then??

Hmmmmmm. Note to self: think about the Voice's motivations and whether this is technically fitting its characters. Ugh im tired

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also! thanks to a shitload of IRL character development, I decided I needed to completely reevaluate my approach to writing--Writing may be ~Serious Business~, but fanfic is ultimately a casual endeavor and just a hobby, I need to chill out and stop making such a gosh darn fuss over it.

Sooooo I'm just going to start posting the fic series' scenes, scripts, snippets, etc on here as a sort of scrapbook!

However, a note: This stuff might not necessarily make it into the fic series at all, or it could be completely changed from what ends up in the final product. I'll try to warn you if I'm sure that's the case with any of it, but the weird thing about writing is that there's always a point where the story takes over and starts telling itself, so I can't 100% predict what'll end up on the cutting room floor.

(I'm still writing the chapters properly, of course--or at least I've finally returned to doing so, in earnest, as real life allows!! But this is my way of apologizing for virtually dropping off the face of the earth, and as a new way of fulfilling my responsibility to make sure this story is finished being told one way or another!!)

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Nice to see this place hasn't changed a bit since I was gone 🫠

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a collection of seemingly unintentionally profound shitposts that fill me with a viscerally intense feeling of existential awareness

(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

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We’ve all been there

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Aunties, can you please explain the whole GameStop stock debacle in normal-people terms?

Bahahaha! I’m fucking STOKED you asked. This is the kind of absurdity that I live for, cry over, and reinforces my belief that MONEY IS FAKE. Ok here goes...

First a definition: What does it mean to “short a stock”? Shorting or even short-selling stocks is when you borrow shares in a company then immediately re-sell them in the hopes that you can buy them back later at a lower price. You then return the shares to the original lender they were borrowed from and pocket the difference. It is a STUPIDLY RISKY way of making money on the stock market, and has traditionally only been used by Wall Street Evil Knievels and people so hopped up on cocaine they thought the housing collapse of 2008 would be a great fucking idea. None of you should try shorting stocks. Buy stocks, invest for the long term, and go about your business. 

Mmkay, so with that out of the way, let’s talk about what’s going on with GameStop. 

Hedge fund managers (people who run big conglomerations of investors and investments) are betting on GameStop to fail, business-wise. They think the stock is crashing and that the company is in trouble. Why? Not important for the purposes of this explanation. They have just made certain projections that show GameStop is failing on the investment front. So the hedge fund managers want to capitalize on this failure (read: get rich off of GameStop’s demise) by shorting GameStop stock. With me so far?

This is all business as usual for the world of high stakes investing. But heeeeeere’s where it gets interesting. There’s a Reddit forum called /r/WallStreetBets. Their whole thing is sharing stock tips and hot investments. It’s for people who know the stock market well enough to literally play with it on a small scale. They found out about the plan to short GameStop stock. And they took evasive maneuvers. 

Suddenly, members of this Reddit started buying up GameStop stock en masse. These purchases drove the price of the stock way up (that’s how the stock market works) AND it prevented the stock shorters from fulfilling their scheme AND it forced them to lose a ton of money. For example, the professional hedge fund managers lost $1.6 billion in a single day last week. By contrast? One of the WallStreetBets dudes turned $50,000 into $11 million.

But what does any of this literally have to do with GameStop? ALMOST NOTHING. The company itself is not doing anything any different. Its value and stock prices are soaring not because of anything GameStop has done to improve itself... only because people who play with money are artificially inflating its value through this weird war.

In my opinion, the heroes here are WallStreetBets. They are demonstrating, in real time, how fucking arbitrary the value of something can be. They are calling Wall Street’s bluff and fucking with the people who--FOR A LIVING--just regularly decide to drive an individual company out of business and its employees out of jobs. 

Whatever your thoughts on GameStop as a company, this is an abject lesson in how capitalism is not some hallowed law of the universe, but an arbitrary system we made up. That system can be hacked. It can be broken. And it can be fun!

Anyway, hope that helps. This is as close to a simple explanation as I could get, and a LOT of nuance is missing so please don’t @ me. If you want a way more in-depth read that’s still simple enough for those who don’t know shit about investing, I got my information from Vox. And if you enjoyed this explanation, maybe read these ones too:

A Brief History of the 2008 Crash and Recession: We Were All So Fucked 

Dashit Just Happened, Equifax?

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total loss over the Gamestop thing is apparently something like 70 BILLION right now I am howling

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If you have god damned Ted Cruz, Trump Jr., AOC, and Ben Shapiro agreeing that this is bullshit, you know you fucked up.

Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point

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Good morning! Here’s your Gamestop stock/WallStreetBets news for 1/28:

- GME soared overnight when retail traders (people like you and me with brokerage accounts through apps like Robinhood) in India hopped onboard the GME rocket 🚀🚀🚀

- Robinhood decided to not allow people to buy GME and a few other meme stocks - if you have a Robinhood account, currently you can only sell (DON’T sell - it’s a trap! They’re trying to scare you)

- People flooded you WeBull as an alternative (especially since WeBull will transfer your Robinhood portfolio for free if it’s over $2.5k), and now WeBull’s servers are down.

- All of this is both shocking and to be expected as we get closer to the Friday expiration date for a significant number of short sell contracts.

- If firms can’t execute contracts by close tomorrow, they’ll have several days after that to resolve them regardless of share price/availability. As long as people hold (and even buy more if you can afford the risk), the price will go up. Expect the peak sometime next week.

If you’re already in - Hold. The. Line. This only works if we all hold. Every time someone sells, the hedge funds buy and cover more of their shorts and the pressure on them goes down.

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seriously holy FUCK THIS IS INSANE

how has tumblr not caught wind of the mexican standoff going on between r/WallStreetBets, GameStop and the wealthy hedge funds who have already lost BILLIONS of dollars this week because of some stock market trolls fucking around on reddit. its literally real life robin hood.

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i would literally kill to walk around in a museum or a library right now. don’t even talk to me about coffee shops unless you want me to cry. god I miss being out and about

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