#Character Derailment

[mr-imagin8ion]

I have no idea what that is that's occupying Dav Pilkey's brain; all I know is that it sure as hell isn't Dav Pilkey

Dav: entertaining, funny, perfectly irreverent, compelling, convoluted, stands as its own thing, beloved by kids

Not Dav: sad, serious, dependent on classic works, heartful, derails all the best characters, kids are turned away by the sad seriousness

[themattress]

Clips from the videos I recently linked to.

Out of all the main characters, Nomura and Oka's writing in Kingdom Hearts III (and the preceding Dream Drop Distance + 0.2 Birth by Sleep for that matter) significantly derailed five of them, four of whom the video above discusses and the other whom I'll bring up myself.

Axel then: A deeply selfish guy whose pursuit of his own agenda above all else puts him into conflict with others, even his own friends. Has a fiery (heh) side but is usually cool and collected, with a dry, sarcastic sense of humor, and is very smart and calculating.

Axel now: Honestly still selfish but in a bratty petulant way rather than a mature interesting way, and the narrative pretends like this isn't the case and portrays him as this great guy and wonderful friend. He's also hot-headed dumbass whose style of humor is more "wacky", based in catchphrases and self-aware jokes. Yes, I'm aware he has a heart now, but that explaining the difference doesn't work when the series is now claiming he had a heart all along as a Nobody anyway! If Lea's gonna call himself "Axel", he oughta resemble him more!

Kairi then: Spunky and sassy. Prone to reckless actions due to following her heart without thinking. Will fight to the teeth against any enemy trying to chain her down and will always use her agency every chance she gets, even if it's simply sending a letter. While she obviously loves Sora, she cares deeply for others too and does all she can to help them.

Kairi now: Meek and polite, a "Yamato nadeshiko" type. Frantic and self-doubting, to the point of freezing up in combat. Greatest contribution is "believing really hard" rather than doing anything, and who will write a flowery love letter for the sake of it but never send it. Her care for others is de-emphasized in favor of her love for Sora, even though he barely if ever thinks or talks about her when she isn't right in front of him, making her look pathetic.

Riku then: Starts out as a rude, arrogant jerk who uses darkness and falls prey to it, ends up a still rude but humbled and considerate guy who overcomes his darkness and turns it into a unique power of twilight. At peace with following his heart more ("which is Sora-esque").

Riku now: Totally polite, nigh-infallible hero who just uses plain darkness, not twilight, without consequence. Acts like a dull stick in the mud who barely shows emotion from the heart.

Sora then: Just a regular kid/teenager. Could be kind of a dumbass but not to the point of chronic idiocy that's always being made fun of. Reacted proportionately to events around him and was prone to bouts of depression that he covers up with his usual cheerful attitude.

Sora now: More childish than he should be at his age. Stereotypical shonen Idiot Hero, to the point of everyone making fun of him for it. Reacts over-the-top and excited to everything, is seldom if ever depressed about anything short of people dying. "Weak" yet OP all at once.

Ansem, Seeker of Darkness then: Profoundly arrogant in order to cover for his insecurities. Feels as though everything he does is justified. Cares for no-one but himself + darkness.

Ansem, Seeker of Darkness now: Will openly admit to his insecurities and stow his pride. Knows and acknowledges what he does as evil. Apparently cares for "Subject X", and Riku to a degree, plus chides Ansem the Wise for his cold treatment of others. Seems on board with Xehanort's plan which evidently is meant to safeguard the worlds against darkness.

[ultraericthered]

Recently learned that the Dreamworks' The Prince of Egypt stage musical was a thing, and... yeah, the Disney's The Huncback of Notre Dame stage musical is still by far superior in terms of non-Broadway, divergeant musical retellings of an animated masterpiece.

And it's not like The Prince of Egypt is a terrible show the whole way through. It recieved a lot of middling reviews from people who were just whelmed by it. Some of the ideas behind what they added to the story are actually interesting and easily workable. But at the very end, they do something that is absolutely unforgivable to me in how it straight up spits in the face of the source material it was adapting. And it's ironic because I'd said with Hunchback that what the movie gave us of Esmeralda surviving, a big action climax against Frollo, and the big feelgood ending, feels like a Focus Group Ending wherea the stage show felt more like how the story naturally would play out, whereas here it's the reverse - the stage show plays out like a Focus Group Ending that the original movie wisely and boldly avoided!

Where it starts is in alterations made to Rameses' character and in how his and Moses' brotherly relationship falls apart. In this telling, Rameses is more easily won over to hearing Moses' initial argument and promises him that he will let all the Hebrew slaves go, fully intent on doing so. But when his wife Nefertiri and High Priest Hotep make him secondguess himself, he goes back on his word and doubles the slaves' work load instead. This itself is not a harmful change - Queen Nefertiri and the sway she could hold over her husband's decided courses of actions was a thing in The Ten Commandments, so it's neat to see it added back into this story, and High Priest Hotep is more like this version's equivalent to the Dathan character from The Ten Commandments than he is a Hotep-Hui composite character. The story plays out like you'd expect it to from there, with Rameses stubbornly doubling down and becoming a spiteful antagonist to Moses and the Hebrews who refuses to let them leave Egypt, with only the death of his and Nefertiri's child making him finally relent.

Then comes the finale. Rameses and Hotep raise an army to pursue the fleeing Hebrews to kill or re-enslave. Moses parts the Red Sea so that the Hebrews can pass through, but this time as the Egyptians pursue, Moses decides he will turn himself over and ransom himself for his people's safety. So he stands before Rameses, with Hotep urging the Pharaoh to kill him. Rameses has a long pause...and then refuses to kill his brother, rationalizing that there has been too much death already, and as such, "he will be the wink link that breaks this chain of destruction and suffering." This, people, is the epitome of "He Would Not Fucking Say That". The tragedy of Rameses in the movie was that his desire to be a strong leader for Egypt and to uphold the legacy of his father and dynasty without tarnishing it was all-consuming, and so was the stubborn pride, wrath, hatred, and dehumanization of others, even his own foster brother, that came with it. No matter how many plagues he and his people were made to suffer, he would refuse to relent and become that weak link; Seti's strict and abusive upbringing had ingraved this too deeply into him. Here, it seems much the same until right at the Red Sea, right at the cusp of triumph where he could kill his former brother who, need I remind you, is responsible for the death of Rameses' child, Rameses just...decides to finally stop trying to live up to the expectations set by his father and change his tyranical ways. His heart just magically softens on the whole matter. And it gets worse: he and Moses share a loving embrace, renewing their brotherhood. Again diminishing the tragedy of the film's story, the weight of what Moses had to sacrifice in order to do God's work and liberate his people from bondage and oppression. In the movie, Moses' faith and devotion to the will of the Lord, and to his enslaved people that he now could see, love, respect and dignify as people, was so strong that he had to see God's plan through to the end, had to work all of the Lord's miracles in order to free his people, even at the cost of having to be Rameses' enemy, and as a result, his loving, brotherly relationship with Rameses completely shattering beyond repair. Because doing what's righteous against an unjust reality is usually not easy and never without cost. Moses' place in Egypt and his relationship with the man he once called brother was the price he had to pay in order to win freedom for the Hebrews. Once it was gone, he could never get it back. Yet this stage play has him win the Hebrews freedom AND keep the love of his brother even if they have to go their separate paths in life, so I suppose you could say Moses ends up with "All He Ever Wanted!"

But here's the kicker - when Rameses refuses to kill Moses and the rest of the Hebrews, Hotep takes command of the army in his place, so it's he who gets swept away in the Red Sea with the rest of the Egyptian soldiers, and unlike Rameses in the movie, God does NOT spare Hotep! This is literally that "the story now acts like this cronie of the main villain is and always was the main villain who gets his comeuppance while the hero and villain suddenly become buddy-buddy with each other" stupidity from Goodtimes' Hercules! As much power as Hotep may hold as High Priest, it makes no sense that he take authority over the fucking Pharaoh, the actual antagonist of the Biblical story of Exodus. This is the culmination of what Alex Woods' review on the show was on about with how this version of the story "makes Pharaoh's power far less absolute." It hurts the narrative rather than helps it, detracting from Rameses' pathos and menace.

Can you imagine a version of Infinity Train's third season where Samantha the Cat talks Simon into using the memory tape extractor rather than him going to her to get it, and then Samantha ends up with the Apex when Simon's leading it at the end, and then at the moment where Grace saves Simon from falling off the train, he has a change of heart and reconciles with Grace only for the Cat to try to kill her and so the Cat gets killed by the Ghom instead of Simon? That'd be absolutely absurd, neutering the power in those character arcs and the haunting tragedy of the whole situation. But that's pretty much what this play does in regards to Moses and Rameses' story! It's like the script was written by someone who'd not been able to take the harshness of how things actually ended in the movie, so this is their Fix Fic where Rameses sees the light, he and Moses renew their brotherly bond, and they all live happily ever after. And it just does not work. Rameses is an animated villain I don't think I have ever seen anyone give the Draco In Leather Pants treatment to, since the film makes it abundantly clear the two truths that A: he is a complex, layered, tragic figure whose struggle to be a mighty king is pitiful because he is, in the end, all too human and fallible, and B: he's a fucking slavedriver who literally owns human beings as slaves and towards the end of the story intends to commit mass genocide of them - not something you can simply walk back from. So when he ends up losing everything that mattered to him, he's brought it on himself. This is widely understood. There was no need to change it.

If this show is ever revived, someone needs to rewrite the ending. 'Cause sometimes, the villain just needs to remain a villain, dammit!

[canisalbus]

✦ 2023 summary of art ✦

[zephsomething]

“I don’t want to get better That Fast” top ten things a character has ever said

[zivazivc]

Man she really dumped him for being sad? I see where creek got his personality-

queen also didn't sign up for raising baby brothers-in-law instead of their own kids that they've been planning on having

[thewickwheat]

Y’all

I have so many wips

I have so many specifically character/design sheet wips 

But I made it through my public comms queue so fingers crossed for more time to focus on personal work soon~~

[bugsbenefit]

genuinely still baffled by the "they don't need to address Mike's sexuality, all that matters is that he's in love with Will" crowd. especially when people say it who claim to care about Mike's character (when you could also just say you don't really care for that part of the show, which would be fine, no one cares about all characters/arcs)

because Surely you realize how him being gay or bi would change his entire character, right. whether he's attracted to girls or not would change the way all his actions up until now are to be interpreted. not even making a statement on his sexuality here, this is generally speaking

if he was actually attracted to El you'd have to address when and why he suddenly stopped loving El since in fiction "it just happened" isn't usually a satisfying answer to breaking a multi season couple up. Why is Will it for him? he's been acting weird for ages so when did he realize? and what made it click he fell out of love with El for good? you'd have to give some explanation for why he was able to proclaim his love for El accidentally in s3 and then fail to do it in the same season while looking uncomfortable with kissing her and so on since his pov was so majorly withheld

if he's not attracted to girls his arc in s5 needs to focus more on comphet and how dating El affected him/why he felt he couldn't break up with her/homophobic attitude in his surrounding slash Hawkins. or the idea of platonic and romantic love in general. there would be no how he got from point A(El) to point B(Will), like what the focus of a bi!Mike s5 arc would have to be on to explain what happened, but a focus on how he ended up at point A in the first place and why he was stuck there/how it affected him

and even core moments of the series would have entirely different meanings depending on if he's attracted to girls. "it's not my fault you don't like girls" being a peak example. if he's gay it's easy to explain it with projection. if he IS attracted to girls though it would read as a much more intentional (even if blurted out) act of homophobia, since it would be him pointing something out that Will genuinely does (not liking being around girls) but he himself can't relate to

and that's all just the surface level differences. Mike being attracted to girls or not being attracted to girls would give his arc an entirely different focus in s5. AS WELL as make his past actions have entirely different meanings. the idea that "it doesn't matter for his character" is so insanely wrong it's wild how many people confidently peddle it

[absurdumsid]

slowly getting sick of the horror.... speaks.. like this.... dialogue im shoving that onto dust now

[lagosbratzdoll]

You guys are always yapping about how Criston Cole is Rhaenyra’s victim. Even though the show contradicts you on this point many times. Even though the producers contradict you on this point repeatedly. 

However, no one wants to reckon with the fact that those men took a tale about a misogynistic paedophile and the child he groomed and isolated and then turned his child victim into the initiator/aggressor. 

It’s par for the course with the adaptors. We watched it happen with Dany and Jorah, Doreah and Xaro Xhoan Daxos, Loras Tyrell and the homophobic way they adapted his story. The racist, heavily sexualised way they adapted the sand snakes and Ellaria Sand. I had hoped the fandom would know better by now but alas!

[genderqueer-hippie]

Look, I love Doctor Who but stop giving fucking DISNEY credit for the Doctor being queer - the Doctor has always been that flavor

AND

No he's not the first queer character. No one talks about Willow (2022) because they pulled it from the streaming service but... Fucking watch it! Lesbian princess in love with her best friend! And there's so much more than just that! Wonderful cast, practical effects, so much rep for POC, just fucking watch it

[keets-writing-corner]

Alright everyone, buckle up and sit down. I was talking with @nerdasaurus1200 on another post and came to the conclusion that I need to write Sera meta so let's freaking GO

I'm mostly gonna be talking about Sera, what we know about her so far, and what makes her tick (aka her fears) and why she's not a bitch/asshole the way apparently so many people like to portray her? (I've mostly just been hanging out with fan art and headcanons specifically about Lucifer in the fandom so I haven't seen these specifically, but someone approached me about how they liked m portrayal of Sera in my fic which was NOT that of an asshole and apparently multiple people are portraying her that way? Idk I haven't seen any but uh yeah let's talk SERA)

Characters are always the most important part of a story, and even if they're not a main character and/or the audience nor the writer know what they want/need, the writer at the very least needs to know How and Why a character makes decisions, instead of just "oh they're an asshole" So let's do that for Sera. Why is she making the decisions she's making? LETS GO

Let's start off by talking about what we know about Sera

She's at least as old as Lucifer, she was there for the creation of earth given the appearance of her silhouette in Charlie's exposition

We know that the exterminations might have been Adam's idea, but it was HER decision to approve them

We know that she's FOR SURE older than Emily

and the other thing we know for sure about her is that she is the High Seraphim (we don't know WHAT that means exactly but clearly it is a position of authority and rule)

So those are the things we know for sure:

She's about as old as Lucifer

She approved the exterminations

She's older than Emily

and she's the high Seraphim

Now I'm going to circle back to all of these points but I want to start off with her relationship with Lucifer

Unfortunately for all of us, the only thing we can say about their relationship with 100% certainty is that they for SURE know each other, either because they were essentially "coworkers" in the past, or because they're both the respective rulers of their realms (even if Sera has some people above her) and they're implied to interact with each other

(at the very least you cannot convince me otherwise that they don't interact. Someone had to have talked to Lucifer about the exterminations for him to have had "approved it" and we know it wasn't Adam because Lucifer hadn't seen Adam since he fell to hell until the finale, and we know that Sera was not only the one to approve said exterminations but also decreed that no one else in heaven know about them. She clearly must have spoken to Lucifer about it because there's nobody else left who had the authority to do that AND knew about them)

So at the very least in present day Sera and Lucifer have some sort of professional relationship as leaders. And I'll come back to this because it's implied that this relationship isn't a very good one, but first let's talk about the past

full stop, we have NO IDEA what sort of relationship Sera and Lucifer might have had when he was still in heaven. But here's the thing, even if their relation was strictly "yeah I know them cuz I work with them, but that's as far as it goes" Lucifer's fall STILL would have been horrifying for Sera to witness. He was the same rank as her, probably no other angel except the elders likely ranked higher, and they still banished him. Charlie's storybook leaves it at that, but Lucifer implies it was violent in his debut episode.

trauma is a funny thing when you think about it, you're just as likely to develop trauma by watching someone else be assaulted as you are for you to have been assaulted. And Sera was there, she likely saw the whole thing happen. So not only did Sera watch how brutal the elders could be to someone who questioned and disobeyed the order, but the fact that it was done to LUCIFER someone of equal rank and authority as her means that absolutely NOBODY is safe from the elders

and this is without taking into account that on some level, she and Lucifer had to have been close. There are no other seraphim in heaven besides her, the elders (who appear to be rather hands off and uninvolved) and Emily. Emily was likely created as a replacement for Lucifer, so at the time, it was basically just her and Lucifer as the only seraphim up there. They not only worked closely together, they likely had a close bond as well. Now I have my own head canon preferences as to what kind of bond, BUT let's ignore that and look at 3 options (although there are likely more, but huuu this post is gonna be long already so let's not push it yeah? )

option 1: equal peers. You are Sera and you've known Lucifer all your life. You two have "grown up" together, learned about the world and your powers together. You're comrades in arms! You know all of each other's secrets! You lean on each other for support as you lead heaven together. You work together all the time. Sure, he can be a little excitable at times but it's so much FUN right? This guy could be your bestie/brother. And you sit back and watch as the only ones with more authority than you, skewer him and banish him to hell for having questioned the order and now there's a metaphorical spear against your back at all times because you know it could have been you instead, and it could still be you if you don't behave

Option 2: Lucifer is your mentor. He's taught you everything you know. The ropes, your powers, the world. He's fantastic! You admire him greatly. He has such energy you could never hope to match. You put him on a pedestal, and in one fell swoop the only people he answers to destroy your mentor in front of you. You are now alone, without any more advice or guidance other than a warning to not step out of line as your mentor once did

Option 3: Lucifer is your apprentice. He's adorable! A little over enthusiastic but who doesn't love someone who's passionate about the things they like? He brings a wonderful energy and vibe, and... he's your responsibility. You try to reign in his wild energy only for the elders to step in and banish him because you failed him and now you know that the elders could do that to you too

So, I'll be honest, option 3 is NOT the one I'm biased towards, but if it ends up being that one, it would make Sera's behavior towards Emily extra heartbreaking. She already failed one apprentice, she will not fail another one, right?

Either way, Sera is terrified of going against the elders because of what they did to Lucifer in spite of his rank. She knows first hand how harsh they can be and because of that, she will do everything in her power to make sure nobody around her falls into the same fate. No one will ever question the elders again, and she will lie and withhold information to make sure that happens

And we're just talking about the INITIAL banishment.

Now why would Sera bring this up, unless what she was most afraid of wasn't even the initial banishment, but of the suffering she clearly knows comes afterwards? And why would she care or even know about the suffering? Well, if it's true that she and Lucifer were close, then regardless if she was spying on him or not the way we know heaven can do, she still watched a cute enthusiastic little angel go from this:

to this

all because because he suffered.

She watched him question, get banished, suffer, and change into someone she didn't recognize, in real time. And the worst part is, she's not only scared of what happened TO him, she's personally scared OF him and what he's become. He might be fallen, but he's still a powerful angel

And this segways into another bullet: she approved the exterminations, but WHY

Charlie's intro implies it was as some sort of punishment towards Lilith who was rallying the demons and they felt threatened

But clearly there's more to this

So first thing I'd like to point out, Sera doesn't look happy about this decision. She mentions as much in the song "You didn't Know" when she outright tells Emily "It was such a hard decision" and earlier in the same episode she outright tells Adam she wouldn't have approved of this if she had known it'd make things "worse"

But this is incomplete. Something doesn't make sense. Sera clearly meets with Lucifer for certain matters as previously established, and Lucifer, in spite of his initial trauma "NO CHARLIE DO NOT TALK TO HEAVEN" knee jerk reaction, never doubted that he COULD in fact get her a meeting with heaven. He outright tells her at the end of episode 5

He never says, "I'll try to get the meeting". He says straight up, I can do this. There isn't a doubt in his mind that he can get this meeting. He knows Sera will meet with him/take his call (idk how he contacts heaven) and will agree to the meeting. We don't really know WHY Sera agreed to this if she thought it was a bad idea and never really intended to entertain the idea to begin with, going as far as to tell Adam to rig the results and calling Charlie misguided. So what's up? Why on earth would she agree to it? Well...?

Sera is scared of the demons of hell, hence why she approved the exterminations, but she's even MORE scared of Lucifer and folded to his request. (or idk maybe there's more going on here and she feels guilt about what happened to him so she folds to him sometimes idk, but for the sake of this meta, SHE'S SCARED OF HIM)

but here's what's kinda weird. Charlie's storybook only mentions LILITH'S involvement with the demons rising in power, not Lucifer. Sera later claims that they were uprising to Emily as the reason she's scared of them and that it's her job to keep everyone safe.

Clearly SOMETHING happened between the creation of Hell and the exterminations being approved that involved BOTH the sinners AND Lucifer that made Sera scared of both. Sera doesn't seem the type to fear without reason. She fears questioning the order because that incurs the elders' wrath. She fears the elders because of what they did to Lucifer. She fears angels falling because she saw how much it hurt Lucifer. Sera is not the type to fear randomly. Clearly there is some sort of thing that happened that made it clear to Sera that Lucifer is to be feared enough to fold to his requests and that the sinners are dangerous enough that it justifies genocide.

And now to bring back the whole Sera is older than Emily. Emily didn't know this otherwise Sera wouldn't have needed to tell her. AKA Emily wasn't even around when said conflict happened. Sera not only had to go through something that clearly traumatized her to the point where she agreed that genocide was a reasonable response, but she had to go through that ALONE. Trauma is hard enough to deal with, but to have to navigate it alone really gives it some steroids it has no business in having

This genuinely makes me wonder how long the exterminations have to have been taking place. It probably took a WHILE for hell to gather up enough numbers that they started making buildings by the look of Charlie's storybook, AND THEN did something against heaven, so this was not happening from day one of hell, far from it. And this also makes me wonder how old exactly is Emily? She strikes me as extremely young

season 2 come out please, I'm working from CRUMBS here, there is so much we don't know

But yeah, all of this to say, Sera isn't just some alpha bitch who's prejudiced against demons (not to say there isn't bias there, there ABSOLUTELY is, ugh) but at her core, she's a leader who underwent a lot of trauma and she's full of fear and she makes decisions, rational, moral or not, based off of that fear. And yeah unfortunately, fear, especially trauma based fear, messes with us in ways we never would expect

a kind man may suddenly resort to violence. The confident argumentative person, may instead end up frozen. Someone who thought they valued their family all their life instead runs away. We may regret what we do in moments in fear, we might even logically know that we're making bad decisions, or decisions that go against our morals. Sera CLEARLY hates that she made the decision to approve extermination, but she holds onto it steadfast because it alleviates the fear

Funnily enough, I don't particularly LIKE Sera. I dislike her microaggressions towards Charlie and her attempts to sabotage her efforts at the meeting by calling upon Adam. But as a writer, looking at the clues I got to say she's a very interesting character to me. She seems like a reasonable authority figure, but she's so full of trauma that she's letting her fear make all of her decisions for her

[themattress]

I hate Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance. Everything about it.

However - there is one scene in particular that I absolutely despise above all others. Don't get me wrong, every other cutscene is bad, many of them even rage-inducing....but none of them quite measure up to this one in its wretchedness. Which one is it, you ask? THIS one.

So after Xigbar reiterates the bullshit Inception-esque "dream within a dream" plot twist that Sora is currently experiencing all because he happens to have an "X" on his clothes (yes, that is an actual thing that Nomura wrote), Sora just randomly declares that Nobodies have hearts after all. What does his base this on? The memories from 358/2 Days that he experienced.

"Axel and Roxas and Namine, and that other girl. I felt what Roxas felt and they laughed together, got mad, and they grieved. You have to have a heart to cry."

First off, "that other girl" shouldn't be here. In 358/2 Days, Namine specifically said "If you return your memories to him, you'll disappear. And since everything about you was built on those memories...no one will remember you when you're gone. There won't be any "you" to remember. I can't save you, Xion--even a memory of you." But this game, just like Coded before it and KH3 after it, is flagrantly ignoring that because the rabid fanbase that Days / Xion / the Seasalt Trio developed, particularly in Japan, demanded Xion back and because he's a clout-chasing coward Nomura complied, the story's internal logic be damned.

Secondly, all of the characters Sora mentioned are special cases. Roxas and Namine were special Nobodies built upon a literal heart-to-heart relationship (Sora and Kairi), allowing them to feel things at the cost of having no memory, when for normal Nobodies it's the other way around. Xion was not a Nobody, she was a replica with a heart constructed from memories. Of course she felt stuff. Lastly, this game continues to ignore that Axel's feelings were...off. Making a connection with a heart allowed him to start feeling things, but his Nobody nature was still technically heartless and self-centered, which meant that his feelings were purely based on himself and what his friends mean to him. He never cared about them the way someone is actually supposed to, as that depth of feeling was still foreign to him.

And finally, this seems to be in direct response to that stupid Tomoko Kanemaki-made scene from KH2:FM of Roxas talking with Axel's ghost and they wax poetic about what a heart is and what it means to have one, ending in a shot where Axel is seen shedding tears ("You have to have a heart to cry"). But even that scene, as bad as it was, was still written with Nojima's KH2 scenario in mind where the answer is a philosophical difference between a literal heart, which Nobodies can't have, and a metaphorical heart, which they can develop through bonding with someone with a heart and find a way to exist (as evidenced by Axel even having a ghost at all) within that someone's heart. But now, we get this from Xemnas:

"A heart is never lost for good. There may have been variances in our dispositions, but a number of us unquestionably showed signs of a burgeoning replacement. Once born, the heart can also be nurtured. Our experiments creating Heartless were attempts to control the mind, and convince it to renounce its sense of self. But understand, one can banish the heart from the body, but the body will try to replace it the first chance it gets, for as many times as it takes. And so I knew, even after we were divided into Heartless and Nobodies, it was just a temporary separation."

Where do I even begin?

"A number of us unquestionably showed signs of a burgeoning replacement"? Is this Nomura's way to "explain" why the Organization reacted emotionally on many occasions? Except that was already explained in KH2! As Yen Sid said, their behavior is a ruse to pretend that they have hearts and properly exist, and as Saix said, it's their memories of their human selves and the feelings they felt with hearts that allow them to do this. We literally SEE Demyx drop the facade and show his true unemotional colors right before fighting him!

"One can banish the heart from the body, but the body will try to replace it the first chance it gets". Um, HOW? The body shouldn't be able to recreate a heart because in this universe the body never created the heart to begin with! The literal title of the series, Kingdom Hearts, is where all hearts are born and where all hearts return to. We established that in Game 1!

There was talk earlier about puppets like Pinocchio "growing" a heart, but that's not even the case. As seen earlier in KH2's Space Paranoids and later in KH3's Toy Box, it's not that the non-living thing "grows" a heart, it's that Kingdom Hearts grants them a heart specifically based upon the feelings someone with a heart has toward them. Gepetto, Ansem the Wise, Andy, etc. The hearts didn't just come out of nowhere from nothing like this game suggests.

For that matter, the heart is established as holding the essence of a person; it's who they are. The whole reason Nobodies "don't exist" is because while they have the body and soul of a person plus the memories of said person, without a heart they are not actually that person, who is actually now a Heartless. So is Xemnas saying the body can grow a new freaking person? Then what will become of the original person once they're purified from being a Heartless? The same bullshit of "recompleting" that Lea and co. underwent? But doesn't that contradict the notion that Nobodies are their own individuals who supposedly deserve to live as such? Also, why does all of this only apply to the Organization? What about all of the lesser Nobodies, like the Dusks? Can they not also "regrow" their hearts? Did Nomura think any of this out at all before committing it to script form? And at this point, Sora yells out:

"Why, then? Why did you lie to them and tell them they had no hearts?"

Yep, that's right. Even though Yen Sid also said they had no hearts, Ansem the Wise's research turned up that they had no hearts, and they themselves largely behaved as though they had no hearts, apparently it was all just a lie Xemnas concocted, stripping away half the depth that he and the Organization in general had. Xemnas is now depicted as just a simplistic bad guy and the others save for Xigbar as total victims of brainwashing. Hilariously, the narrative tap-dances around how, if this is true, then Sora and the other heroes now look way more questionable for killing them. The bullshit train keeps chugging as Xigbar says:

"Xemnas and Xehanort formed the Organization for a specific reason - round up a bunch of empty husks, hook them up to Kingdom Hearts, then fill them all with the exact same heart and mind. Translation--they were gonna turn all the members into Xehanort."

So now the claim is that Xemnas, who totally had Xehanort's heart inside him even when Ansem existing should render that impossible, was gonna use the power of Kingdom Hearts to copy-paste that heart into the other Organization members as part of Xehanort's plan to forge the X-Blade. Just like with the claim that Ansem's goal was the Seven Princesses rather than the Final Keyhole they unseal, this clashes with what we actually saw in the previous games. Why would Xemnas do anything he did if this was the plan? The event that got him his thirteenth "vessel" also set the Seven Princesses loose, then several of those "vessels" perished, and yet he carried on with the plan anyway? KH3 tries to do damage control by suggesting Xemnas was out to betray Xehanort, but that just creates more issues with this abominable retcon trying to force separate villainous plans as part of some convoluted whole.

Xigbar then follows all this up with:

"Me? I'm already half Xehanort!"

.....Moving on. Xemnas proceeds to give us this absolute howler:

"However -through weakness of body...weakness of will...or weakness of trust--most of the original members we had chosen for the Organization were inadequate. Thus, naturally, they never had a chance to attain their goal."

MOST of the original Organization members were inadequate!?

Um, yeah, let's flash forward to KH3 and see who made the cut:

Xemnas Xigbar Vexen Saix Demyx Luxord Marluxia Larxene Xion (as a replacement for Roxas)

So basically, 9 out of 13. Only 4 (Xaldin, Lexaeus, Zexion and Axel) "failed".

.....Xemnas, I don't think that the word "most" means what you think it means.

Then we get to the big, dramatic confrontation as Sora yells:

"Just stop it! You treat people's hearts like bottles on a shelf, but they're not! Hearts are made of the people we meet, and how we feel about them-- they're what ties us together even when we're apart! They're what...make me strong."

This is a good line, but Xigbar proceeds to ruin it with his comeback:

"Duh! You're strong because of the ties you have with other people. As if the Keyblade would choose a wimp like you. But no pouting. We see much bigger and better things in your future...once you side with us."

To which Sora replies:

"I know the Keyblade didn't choose me, and I don't care. I'm proud to be a small part of something bigger--the people it did choose! My friends. They are my power!

Beyond this callback to a famous line in the original game feeling cheap, Nomura doesn't even seem to actually remember the scene in which the line was used! Because the Keyblade DID choose Sora in that scene, precisely because of how he bonded his heart with others and took strength from them. In fact, he may be the ONLY person the Keyblade has "chosen" in this series - the allegedly worthier "other people" who appear in the above image have either had their Keyblade bequeathed to them by a prior wielder, transformed another weapon into a Keyblade, or wield a Keyblade specifically because Sora can wield it. (Also, why are Terra, Aqua, Ven and Xion even there? Calling them Sora's "friends" is a huge stretch, especially when people like Namine and HPO who fit the bill better aren't present! And if them not having Keyblades is the excuse given, I must point out that Donald and Goofy are also here! So are they part of "the people it did choose"!? Where is the consistency!?)

This combined with Xehanort's later "dull, ordinary boy" remark reeks of Nomura being touchy about criticism BBS got for making Sora out to be more special than he was supposed to be which led to him overcorrecting here....which doesn't even stick given Data!Ansem the Wise's later monologue about Sora and the events of KH3. Just terrible, contradictory writing.

I hate Dream Drop Distance. I hate the convoluted dream mechanics, I hate Yen Sid's whole Mark of Mastery test and the stupidity and hypocrisy he displays as it unfolds, I hate the literal TWEWY cast being present, I hate the Lea subplot, I hate Maleficent and Pete doing nothing, I hate the shafting of Kairi, I hate the Sora/Riku queer-baiting, I hate young Xehanort, and I hate all of the screwy, time travel-based retconning and twist reveals in the last act that essentially destroyed the whole series. But this fucking scene in particular, I hate above all.

[toxooz]

Reread the comic and Abbio's backstory. Is every human just an asshole to monsters or have the gang actually encountered anyone chill

nah not every human is an asshole that's way too broad of a generalization for any story to reasonably make without being scoffibly corny imo lmfao it depends on the area and the overall city or county ect. you could have a school with only a handful of monsters or a school with only a handful of humans and they may being bullied to hell and back or treated chill by the majority and maybe even become the 'token' monster or human of the school it just depends. Basically Abby's dad wasn't living in the best area when he got with Abby's mom for he was currently working toward his degree and Abby's mom had no idea about the area much less the schooling system until it was too late, so Abby had to spend most of his elementary school years in some shitty backwards school before Abio's dad was successful enough in his career so they could move. In fact i used to have a few human ocs that dropped off the face of the earth that i miiight bring back and revamp their backstories to better fit the world which is Rigel and Alaric:

only the true OGs remember them bc they were around only in the miiverse days LMFAO but this last drawing i made of them 4 years ago makes me yearn to bring them back a little plus it'll definitely flesh out the world more and bring a brighter light to the human side of it since i never draw humans??anymore??or really elaborate on their existence in the world PLUS Alaric was a tattoo designer and Ollie has his Entire legs tattooed ass cheeks n all and ive been pondering about who gave him that so he migght just be my answer

[doodlebloo]

"The dsmp characters are my OCS now!!" Dude they were always your characters. They've been ours from the beginning.

We spent years of our lives analyzing every line in every stream that was even partially in-character to help form a complete and complex and often contradictory picture of the characters these streamers were trying to portray. No matter how good at rp they were there was always a pretty significant portion of their characters that came from fans analyzing and theorizing and creating compilations of consistencies...

The form of storytelling in the dsmp was extraordinarily collaborative with it's audience, so many things that eventually became canon were inspired by or even directly lifted from fan interpretations and it's no exaggeration to say that the fact that the server became roleplay-focused at all is mostly thanks to the fans.

Not dunking on people saying they're going to "OC-ify" the characters - on the contrary im actually saying go bananas w making them whatever you want! But I do want to remind us all that as a fan base we practically co-authored these characters in the first place. They've always been ours too!

[jupiter-86]

I see a few us out there but more people should be watching the Chinese drama Derailment it is SO AMAZING and I'm 1000000000% obsessed!!!!!

It's a Sci-Fi/Romance/Mystery and it has me by the throat right now, so much so that it's hard to focus on anything else. You can watch it with subs on Viki or Youtube.

It's hard to say what it's about without giving major spoilers, but it begins with a rich but unhappy girl named Jiang Xiaoyuan in 2025 who time travels/transmigrates into the body of another, alternate Jiang Xiaoyuan in 2018, in a parallel universe. In this new world she is alone, left with nothing and no one-- until she meets Qi Lian, a man who once knew the alternate Jiang Xiaoyuan.

This show raises deep questions about the nature of reality, memory, and identity. The characters and their relationships are complex (and I LOVE THEM), the cinematography is unique and beautiful, and the plot has so many twists and unfolding mysteries you will probably end up with your own conspiracy board with connecting dots like that meme we all know.

Fair warning though, this show is angsty af and delves into some dark territory, and our characters suffer a lot, but it also has such deep sweetness to it... I'm so invested in our two leads and their happiness omg.

TL;DR: This show is awesome and I need more people to check it out.