#like i love merlin he has some of the most heart wrenching arcs and hes been through SO much and

[bryverros]

Who is your favourite Merlin character? :)

the question i fear the most is upon me. i struggle a lot to reply to this question because the writing of literally every merlin character makes them extremely lovable and i absolutely adore them with all my heart.

on a completely unrelated note, heres a doodle of merlin

[thebroccolination]

Hey Key, do you have a favourite ship of all time or is it really hard to chose from certain couples? As I see you post about a lot of wonderful couples :)

Hi lovely Anon! :)

I got this yesterday morning and I’ve been thinking about it ever since because of course my brain went directly to WinTeam.

I mean, they’re definitely the ship I’ve written most about. 38% of the fics on my current AO3 account are about WinTeam. :’)

Buuuut there were a lot of, like, formative ships that I didn’t write much or anything about. And they’re ships I always go back to whenever I’m between fandoms or just in the mood for something familiar and loved.

Like RayK/Fraser from due South! They were a massive part of my teen years in fandom. If you haven’t seen it, please give it a watch! It’s all remastered and up for free on YouTube! They still mean the world to me, and some of my favorite fics of all time are about them.

And then there’s merthur, whose meteoric and enduring impact on fandom should be studied by science. I read Awake by Cori Lannam and cry at least once a year.

There’s klance, who are loud and annoy each other and were never going to be canon and VLD was always going to be a catastrophe (who doesn’t keep a story bible to keep track of their own show), but the components for an incredible dynamic were there and fans did what fans do best and made gorgeous, heart wrenching fanworks that surpassed anything in canon for me.

I also love Stony, but I want to clarify that, like, most of my love doesn’t come from the extremely bro-y Marvel movies. I was intrigued by Chris Evans and RDJ’s portrayal of Steve and Tony back when I first saw Avengers, so I came home, opened Tumblr, and looked for the movie fandom that surely already existed. What I found more of, unsurprisingly, was comic fandom, and the more I found out about Steve and Tony in the comics, the more I was underwhelmed by the movies. So basically, the main reason I’m not into Stucky is because Stony fans presented this canon head explosion from the comics first:

There’s also drarry and wolfstar, and I love them the same way I love klance: the source material is disappointing, but the components for greatness were there, and fandom elevated them.

Okay so! Those were all fanon ships, and I always knew none of them were ever going to become canon (though Merlin’s, uh, debatable, maybe discussable—“the man he loves is dying so he’s holding him” REALLY), so I kind of think of them in a separate but equal category to the canon ships.

WHICH ARE:

Viktuuri is one of those ships that just feels like shelter for me. Just, Yuri on Ice was made with such devotion. Not just love, but passion. There’s no antagonist, just Yuuri’s own anxiety and Viktor painstakingly learning to understand and speak a mutual language so he can coax art and beauty and sincerity from Yuuri’s exhausted and heartbroken soul. I’ll always love them extra special.

These two trainwrecks.

KongArt! The whole arc of Kongphob and Arthit’s relationship in SOTUS is just so satisfying and beautiful to me, I just rewatched it with friends in January and I’m already rewatching it again with a different friend now. :’)

WENZHOU. I’m also rewatching Word of Honor and just having a marvelous time re-experiencing just how unhinged they are for each other. “YOUR SON WAS KIDNAPPED WHILE YOU WERE ROLLING AROUND IN THE DAISIES” “ah” “thanks for killing the moment”

And honestly there are more ships I love, but that wasn’t your question!

Of all time.

Hmm.

I think it really is them.

They’re everything I love in a ship: push and pull, vulnerability, sass, unhinged desperation for each other, and two characters I love equally.

WinTeam just has me by the soul, man.

[nikibogwater]

Aight, loves, I’m only running on four hours of sleep here, but it’s time to Blether (bitterly)

Niki Blethers: Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans (SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT!)

Okay, um, how ‘bout we start with the good stuff first and then move into the Real Discussion.

Animation? Gorgeous. Even watching the movie on a janky iPad screen, I was blown away by the visuals.

Voice Acting: *chef’s kiss* I think this is easily Emile Hirsch’s best performance as Jim. And oh land, Colin O’Donoghue once again nails Douxie’s desperation, exhaustion, and sorrow. Give everybody an Oscar here, they deserve it.

Some of the emotional beats hit so hard. I can’t say all of them, unfortunately, but I was definitely in tears in a couple of places.

Dang, this movie did not screw around. It was extremely hard to watch the Arcane Order torturing Douxie and Nari, Nomura’s death, Jim breaking pretty much all of his ribs…I know whump fans are gonna have a good time with this.

Douxie body swapping with Nari was both viscerally uncomfortable and also made my heart bleed because oh my gosh Douxie you selfless king, c’mere and let me hold you, you brilliant boy. Also @sergeantsporks, how in the blue blazes did you predict that was coming.

Really great to see Barbara in the thick of things. I guess she and Strickler adopted out all the Darklands babies. I’m also so glad that Jim’s father wasn’t some important, mysterious person who left for a noble cause. The guy is just a deadbeat, and that’s all there is to it. It really helps build up the theme of Jim’s arc—that anyone, even the most unlikely people, can move past such challenges and be a hero.

The moments between Jim and his mom were wonderful. Very heartwarming.

DOUXIE BREAKING THROUGH BELLROC’S CONTROL OVER NARI WAS JUST 👌👌👌 LITERALLY EVERYTHING I WANTED FROM THAT SCENE.

MAGICAL SIBLINGS HUG AAAAAAHHHHHH!!! LOOK HOW RELIEVED HE IS, LOOK AT HOW MUCH HE LOVES HER, YA GIRL NIKI TOTALLY CALLED THEIR DYNAMIC!

Badass Nari with the Earth Titan lives in my brain rent-free now.

As much as I hated Nari’s death, I have to admit that Douxie’s response to it was appropriately heart-wrenching. The way he kept desperately calling her name, only to gasp it out once more when he realized she was gone—that was some good angst right there.

I still hate it, tho. 🙂

CHILDREN OF THE SUN, YEEEEEEAH!!! GET ‘EM, JIM!

Jim and Toby being both the beginning and the end for the series is so heartwarming. Honestly lost it over Toby’s death sequence and the way Jim was clinging to him and sobbing.

Okay, time to address the many elephants in the room:

M!Preg Steve should not have happened. Period. That wasn’t funny, that was disgusting, and honestly kind of insulting to the very real challenge of bearing children and giving birth. I’m sorry Dreamworks, but that is a hard no for me.

There were a handful of scenes where characters didn’t feel fully present, emotionally. Like, when the team realizes that Douxie is in the Order’s clutches….no one seems very worried? Like, guys, I know there’s a lot going on right now, but they literally killed him the last time he meddled in their affairs, why is nobody expressing any concern here? And when Douxie realizes he’s never going to see Archie again, he just kind of….shrugs it off? Bro, Archie is your Familiar, he practically raised you, and has been your one constant for nearly 1000 years, don’t you at least want to shed a tear or something? This isn’t anything major, but it was enough to break immersion for me in a few places. Just….why aren’t you guys emoting like you usually do?

I especially noticed this with Nari. She always seemed…really disconnected from everyone, which felt odd, because in Wizards, she very clearly cared about the others, and expressed genuine sorrow over Jim’s suffering and Merlin’s death. But here she seemed kind of….ditzy and out-of-it. Girl, why don’t you just tell Jim what to do. Use your words, I know you have them.

The ending. Oh. My. Gosh, that ending.

Let me make one thing clear here: I’m not averse to bittersweet endings. One of my favorite movies of all time is How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. What I hate is the fact that this movie basically retconned the entire series.

These characters who we have loved and followed over the last few years, related to their struggles, took comfort from their triumphs—all of that is gone now, in terms of canon. Everything and everyone was reset, with the exception of Jim. That doesn’t feel bittersweet. That feels pointlessly cruel. And to make it even worse, it wasn’t reset in a way that would allow for everyone to live in much-deserved peace. The Order is still there, the trials and suffering of the series still have to be repeated—but hey, it’s fine, because at least Jim gets to live happily ever after!!!

I cannot fathom how in the blue blazes anyone thought this was an appropriate finale to this series. What was the point of all those adventures, all those relationships, all those struggles and triumphs, if you were just going to erase them at the end? It feels cynical, not bittersweet or conclusive.

This was….a very difficult morning for me. Most of you know that my passion and love for this series has been a huge driving force in my creative growth as an author and an artist. To have it turn so sour, so suddenly, right at the end of it all…I’m probably going to need some time to get over this.

That being said, I know the team behind the movie was under a lot of pressure. Tales of Arcadia is known for being innovative and breaking storytelling molds. I can understand their desire to take the ending in such a drastically different direction. But I don’t think it was the ending this series deserves.

However, I’m aware that this is all pretty subjective. If you loved the ending, please don’t let my take on it ruin that happiness. Just be aware that I will probably be ignoring this movie’s existence as I continue to create fan content. I love these characters too much to abandon the fandom altogether, don’t worry.

[reannabeth]

Couple more tiny complaints about Rott that no one cares about, but I just gotta get them off my chest.

RET-CONNING

there’s the most obvious example of this: the resetting of the entire series to be done once again but differently. So many different levels of wrong here, but we all know that by now so I’ll just move on.

The center of the universe thing? Goes against one of the first episodes of 3 Below, where Krel says the center of the universe is actually far far away from Earth, least of all, California. That was stupid anyway.

Why the frick-frack tic-tac paddywhack did the heartstone come back, full commission? You’re telling me Jim and Claire and the whole of Trollmarket had to endure a long, tiring journey TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE US, only for it to jump up into bellroc’s waiting arms? W H Y

((Also, I still really wish they’d done a season 4 of trollhunters about that journey and such. Like, c’mon. Such an interesting concept, and we could’ve seen more troll interactions and Jim leaning into his trollish ways a bit more. I want more of troll!jim anyway, because I needed more time to get used to his new voice))

Don’t even get me started on time-travel. Why? Why did they feel the need to include it, AGAIN? We had d’aja vu, unbecoming, and Wizards. Now this too? I mean, COME ON. Why isn’t there two Jims? Why can’t everyone else go too? Is it a different timeline now?

And destiny too! Apparently the amulet didn’t choose Jim for his pure heart, just for him being human. This makes Unbecoming less impactful and simultaneously makes Merlin out to be even more of a buttsnack (am I supposed to be sad that he died?)

now for the long one: CHARACTERS

Douxie: horribly side-lined, other than that, his character was pretty spot-on and I love him all the more for it. That being said: WHY WASN’T HE A MAIN PLAYER? C’MON!! HE IS NINE FREAKING CENTURIES OLD!!

Claire: Kind of reduced to “oh no J I M” again. She’s so experienced now (somehow) and yet they sideline her too? They are cowards for not almost having her die, and even more cowardly for not making her hair all the way white.

Toby: Toby was the wingman, and proud to be. He never wanted to be the main man, so the fact that they chose him to be the new trollhunter was stupid and I will forever be bitter about that. He was proud of being moral support, and he could’ve still helped in the minimal ways he does. Or they could’ve just let him die. Would’ve been a real ballsy move, me thinks.

Nomura: :’(((

Strickler: Love him, but he’s stupid. His death (and Nomura’s for that matter) were totally and completely avoidable and DANGIT I wanted a Stricklake wedding 😡

Barbara: Where the frick did she even go? Would’ve been cool if she was on the sidelines, helping with injuries and such.

Not!Enrique: Gone :(

Same with Chompsky

Zoe: *cries in so much potential*

Aja: Actually pretty intelligent, yet made out to be harsh? Her points were valid what the fuzzbuckets

Steve: No explanation needed. Hate Mpreg with a passion. Killing off potential.

Eli: glow-up and sidelined

Krel: My boy was side-lined so hard, I’m pretty sure he was just goofing around in akiridion for a while

Varvatos: honestly didn’t need more of him, he was fine :D

Skrael: Wanted him to turn sides, ended up cheering his death

Nari: bby N O

Bellroc: wish I understood them more. Kind of two-dimensional

Jim: boy, I freaking love this kid. He’s definitely one of my favorite characters of all time, ever. So to say I am mad about his characterization in this movie is the understatement of the year. SO many things off about him in this.

1. Voice. I barely got used to it for his troll-form, as I mentioned before. This movie didn’t help much. I appreciate the thought that Emile was Anton’s friend, but the truth of the matter is that his voice simply does not fit the way Anton’s did. Either they should’ve tried to make it sound like Anton (mixing in some sounds from trollhunters, or getting a vocal coach) or they should’ve found someone that sounds like him.

2. His role. Why, oh WHY, was he the head honcho in this movie? Huh? He was the TROLLHUNTER. These are NOT trolls!! This was more of Claire and Douxie’s expertise, or even Zoe (I am still crushed they didn’t involve her, btw). Even at the end of Trollhunters, Jim was no match for Morgana. Why is everyone following his lead? Especially now that he doesn’t have his amulet. It just does not make sense. At all.

3. His Arc. The truth of the matter is Jim’s character has been very thoroughly explored already. He already went through the whole why was I chosen? bout in unbecoming. The teamwork thing, too. Both of which were very poorly handled in this movie. And not to mention, his lack of empathy overall. When Douxie finally got his body back after the switch (which seemed very draining and excruciating), Jim immediately grilled him about Nari’s council instead of checking in on his friend/new brother figure. That is so out of character for him, wow. When Nari died, he pulled Douxie back (so did others, but still). What exactly was the purpose of that? Is Jim this all-knowing leader that you have to listen to? NO! Douxie is 9 centuries his senior.

4. Giving up the amulet. It seems for all this movie’s messages, it even happens to ret-con those as well. Jim spent the whole movie trying to be worthy of having the amulet, and for a dashing moment, the pay off was worth it! Seeing him use it again sent chills all over my body. And then he gave up and shifted the responsibility to his best friend, who had just died in the other timeline, and decided to help from the sidelines. What kind of message even is that? Imagine kids like, “Oh yeah, Mommy! I’ll be just like Jim, step off to the sidelines and have you do my project and take the fall if it goes wrong! Have fun!” Like,,, w h a t.

5. Leaving Claire. I am especially mad about this one. As beautiful and heart-wrenching that good-bye moment was, it was completely and utterly unnecessary and I actually found myself unable to feel super bad for them, simply because there was the simplest solution:

GO BACK IN TIME TO BEFORE THE EVENTS OF THE MOVIE HAPPENED!!!

Why did they start all the way over? Just… why. W H Y

I just wanted closure. teamwork and rainbows and slicey-slice and sprinkle of death, and then college graduation and stricklake wedding and the end. But NoOoOo

They just had to be all revolutionary, using one of the oldest and most hated tropes since the beginning of mankind.

:(

[hashtagkairideservedbetter]

My main issue(s) with KH3

Spoilers abound, so please don’t read if you haven’t beaten the game or don’t want any negative opinions influencing how you see the ending/ the game. I did enjoy several parts of KH3, but this post is focused on things I had issues with, and if you don’t want to see criticism of your media please look elsewhere. 

This is how I interpreted the game as someone coming into KH3 with KH2 being the last game I played, and a playlist of youtube videos spanning lets plays, summaries, and humorous deconstructions as a codex. 

Here’s the thing. I’ve seen several people already break down how KH3′s story and pacing could have been handled better. Specifically, to more comprehensively tie in the 10,000 plot points that needed to be covered in a way that actually helps connect the main characters. I’m not going to get into all of that, because frankly I can’t fake knowing enough about the background lore of Kingdom Hearts to know how to better juggle all of the intermediary games into KH3. 

Most of my grievances honestly lie with the handling of the Destiny Trio and the Disney Worlds. 

I’m going to do a read more on this because it’s gonna be a long one. (Also very much a train of thought, so disorganized, sorry). 

So. Sora. Protagonist of the game (mostly. kind of?). 

A cheerful ray of sunshine.

A Keyblade wielder who has overcome traumatizing ordeals that tore him away from all he loved and knew at least twice now for over three years. 

A continuity disaster stuck being pinballed back and forth between happy goofs and hollow tragedies every thirty minutes in between busywork battles and off-scene disney films for 85% of KH3. 

I understand that Sora’s greatest power is supposed to be his optimism, as it’s sort of the prerequisite for going through disney worlds where people sing about their problems. I get it.  

However, there’s a difference between, “I’m naive and happy and oblivious and that’s why I’m a guardian of the light,” and “I have battled true darkness and felt true loss and decided that choosing to be kind, choosing to embrace joy in new experiences and relationships, is a bigger middle finger to the darkness than anything else.” Guess which one I prefer. Guess which one I was thinking would finally be Sora’s character arc. Instead he’s happy, happy, happy, happy... and then suddenly in the eleventh hour having a mental breakdown. 

Sora is written into a loop every game of kind, naive, but unchanging (”Don’t ever change, Sora”). That was endearing when we were both 14, but after almost twenty years it gets tiring to watch Sora get hit with a reset button every time you meet up with him again. There’s a scene in the gummi ship early on in the games where Donald asks Sora to “take this seriously,” and Goofy remarks that they seem to be stuck in a rut as Donald and Sora have the same conversation over and over again before entering the first series of Disney worlds. Sora knows he needs the power of waking in order to help his friends and free those trapped in his heart, but seems content to just drop into various worlds and wing it, and hope that it all sort of works out. 

And then when it does work out, and Sora uses the power to save everyone, he’s immediately told he’s doomed now? Like, what was the point of him being able to use this to connect with people if he’s doomed. Why did they want him to have this. What’s the point then of Sora having these strong connections. 

Each world makes a big scene about the friendships and connections that Sora makes so easily, but in KH3 there never seems to be enough time for Sora to actually pay them any attention unless the person is right in front of him. Sora seems to make connections for the sake of making connections in KH3, and the ones he has, he does very little to advance or reconnect with.  

Like, the whole point of 100 Acre Wood this time was apparently that Sora’s connection to Pooh was weaker for some reason. I honestly didn’t understand the reason or how it was magically resolved just from Sora showing up and saying hi? But whatever. 

My two least favorite worlds were Corona and Arendelle, for the same reason. There was no believable connection between Sora and the characters there. For fuck’s sake, the combat ally you get in Arendelle is the snow monster, not even a main character.

Sora is like the living embodiment of the B99 clip of Rosa with her dog. He just met Elsa and spoke a whopping five sentences to her, but damn if he won’t climb a mountain five times just for her to save herself without ever talking to him again. Like, literally that is the only interaction Sora has with Elsa. Same thing with Anna, and in her case I literally had to mute my tv so I could track what she was actually saying since they decided to shove two songs from the movie into this game.  

You spend the majority of your time in these worlds trying to play catch up to the leads as they have their movie play out around the bend in the road in front of you, out of your sight. Props to Disney’s ego that they think I remember the beat by beat plots of their films when they came out 9 years ago (Tangled) and 6 years ago (Frozen). I actually had the thought of going and watching Tangled just to remember what Flynn and Rapunzel got up to while Sora wandered around a marsh and had a pointless conversation with Marluxia. 

(Also, getting real tired of the “Good to see you Sora” “Who the fuck are you?” “Oh that’s right you don’t remember that game haha it’s fine it was a gameboy game nobody even knows what those are anymore.” That shit was getting old midway through KH2.) 

To be fair, the PoTC world suffers from the same problem as the other two. Sora shows up, sees everyone for thirty seconds, gets separated, and while we’re dicking around trying to find white crabs on the islands there’s a whole movie going on that we don’t see or participate in. I feel really bad for anyone who did not keep up with that franchise because I only watched the third movie the once and I was confused as hell. Also, the whole time I was finding the crabs in Port Royal all I could think about was this ProZD video. 

I just. I’m 26 years old. These movies hold no nostalgia for me, and maybe that’s the problem. I already had a connection to Aladdin, Peter Pan, etc, so I was maybe more willing to suspend my disbelief and just enjoy the interactions. But those Disney worlds also felt more tied in to the plot. You can make the argument of Marluxia and Larxene putting pressure on Sora to find the Wayfinders so that six princesses of heart aren’t used as backup... but where are the other three? Anna, Elsa, Rapunzel, and Kairi make four. Where’s Merida, Tiana, Moana? Mulan or Pocahontas even, since Moana was probably too recent. (But probs not, as it was probably starting development in 2014). If that’s going to be yet another subplot, shouldn’t you at least see it through?  

My point is, I can distinctly recall prior games mostly keeping to the established script in the disney worlds, but still letting Sora really get in there and interact with the characters. The heartless, nobodies, etc were a real wrench in the works for the plots, and had an actual effect on how the story was told and the order of events. Sora felt more involved in cutscenes and was an active participant in the world’s events instead of just a bystander. 

In KH1 and KH2 there was a dialogue happening between the villain of each world and a greater evil. Hell, in KH1 they were a unified council! In KH3 they’re puppets who don’t even talk to the bigger bad like Randall or Mother Gothel, or are there for a whopping thirty seconds like Hans. It makes it more and more obvious that the Disney worlds are just being shoehorned in as a contractual obligation than for any real purpose anymore.

 The only world that’s appeared in all three games, Olympus, was especially jarring. Like, you could tell there was a lot of corners cut on what VAs they could get for this game, as Phil does not speak once. Meg spends more time making eyes at Hercules and nodding than showing any of the sass she has from the film. (This was a thing in KH2 as well tho so I can’t complain about them continuing to drop the ball on even background women characters-- Oh wait, I can, because they’ve had T H I R T E E N YEARS to get it right.) 

Which I guess is as good a segue as any into Kairi Time. 

Listen. Did I mention I’m 26? Yeah. I started reading fanfic on livejournal. I was there when AO3 first got its start. I’ve seen the shipping wars. I know the dark past of Soriku vs Sokai.

I couldn’t give less of a fuck. 

These characters are still 16 and I am now 26. I’m fine with them trading noogies and maybe being able to kick back and play some Mario Kart. Kairi would wipe the floor with both of them because she had time to get good enough to beat Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie combined between KH1 and KH2. 

The point is, I don't care one way or the other about shipping. If my 15 year old self were here, they would be horrified I wasn't over the moon when Kairi and Sora finally shared the paopu fruit. As it is, I kind of stared blankly at my screen and went 'huh, there's gonna be a lot of fanfic fixing this moment.'  From both sides, I think, because even if you're into Sokai you gotta admit that moment did not feel romantic. It felt forced. Like "Oh hey, we've been putting this off, huh. Welp, here we go!" 

It doesn't help that I really, truly, don't like whoever Kairi's VA is in this game. Like, she sounds so ditzy and soft. Get that shit out of here. The dialogue and voice acting in this series has never been its strength, but honestly, I cringed my way through every interaction between Kairi and Axel because of how stilted and bad their conversations were! I’m definitely not saying that Kairi’s voice was stellar in 1 and 2, but at least her voice was clear, and had personality, and by the end of 2 was actually fairly strong. She sounded strong, and determined to be fighting with Sora and Riku, green as she was then, in the World That Never Was.

Whenever she talked in the third one I just sort of grit my teeth and wondered why someone on the production team wanted Kairi to sound so weak. 

Then they killed her at the labyrinth and I said, ‘Ah, that tracks.’ 

I played FFXV, so I guess shame on me for not seeing the signs when the girl love interest is about to be capable and not needing the hero to save her. She gets taken! And killed. Fool me twice, shame on me. 

I actually saw people excited about that Verum Rex thing and after seeing the Noctis ripoff reaching for the Luna ripoff covered in purple light I laughed, and laughed. And then sighed and reached for a stiff drink. 

All this to say that while I’m angry but not truly surprised that Kairi was once again shafted, I’m all the more pissed that they did it in the laziest, most insulting way possible by hinging it all on Sora needing a reason to fight Xehanort. Like, really???? Really. That’s your angle. The man-pain trope is so painfully overdone. Please. It’s 2019. Come into the future with us, Nomura. 

And I feel bad that all of the stuff I just wrote mostly revolves around Kairi being Sora’s romantic interest. But that’s because that’s all this game allowed her to be! Princess of light what? Bequeathed Keyblade wielder in her own right who??? Every battle she and Axel share with Sora they get their asses kicked in 30 seconds flat, so maybe Merlin should have left them suspended in time a little longer. Maybe long enough to convince someone out there in the universe that these two deserved to be competent. 

Hell, not just competent. Amazing. Kairi deserved to be able to stand on her own two feet and hold her own. To be running alongside her boys and not just be an object for them to tussle over or save. As Aqua’s somewhat successor, she deserved to be a terrifying wielder of battle magicks and flurries of light magic. 

To be replaced by Xion was just insult to injury. Like, I’m very happy that Xion got her heart back and was reunited with Roxas and Axel, but she didn’t need to be brought back at Kairi’s expense. The world won’t implode if the replica and actual person inhabit the same space. 

Which is leads us to our third member. 

Riku. To be fair. Riku got the most growth as a person out of the three of these kids, easy. We finally see a Riku who is confident in himself and his journey, and willing to take everything he learned along the way to help Mickey, Aqua, and even his own replica. However.... 

He doesn’t seem to give two shits about Kairi anymore? Did they even talk, like, once during the whole game? I can’t recall a single instance where Sora, Kairi, and Riku were in the same place together where it was just them, and they held an actual conversation. Hell, where they even said “Hi, how’s it going? What have you learned, had any good food lately?” 

God, even when Kairi was taken, and then when she was killed, Riku had one moment of anger, and then was completely, like, chill again, and back to talking Sora down. Like, what? I don’t want any love triangle bullshit, but Riku and Kairi were friends as much as Sora and Kairi and Sora and Riku are friends. 

And that’s what bothered me the most about the disappearance of Kairi introducing this bullshit narrative of Sora abusing his power of waking. He spent two games trying to get him, Riku, and Kairi together. But he doesn’t want Riku to help him get Kairi back? And Riku’s just going to let him go?! After all Riku has done and learned about falling to darkness and clawing yourself back to light and peace, he’s just going to let Sora do the same?

I call bullshit. 

And this is why when Sora suddenly faded out of view on the beach next to Kairi I slowly leaned back in my chair, dropped my controller into my lap, and flipped off my tv screen with both hands.