#we need answers to strelitzia's death

[stresslitzia]

What headcanons do you have about Elrena/Larxene? ⚡️

Okay this is a question with a long answer. So I had to wait til I got home.

It is worth noting that This Character Is My Blorbo. I was introduced to the series by way of Days, and became so attached to Larxene that almost 100% of my internet presence became associated with her. The rest of the lore was good, but I was here for one specific character, and it showed. (This infatuation eventually included Marluxia and Namine, and also lead me to actually research the lore, which is why I was part of the day 1 group for KHUX. 5-digit id starting with a 3 babyy)

But you're not here for my tale. You're here for what's below this readmore because I have many thoughts.

So.

One major thing I noticed really early on about Larxene- before Elrena was a character we knew about- was how she reacted to things. Marluxia was a proactive character, turning things his way before they needed to be turned. Larxene was reactive, seeming largely unbothered until someone went out of their way to ruffle her.

This was something I was often called out for, and a few years after I got into the series- a few months before we were introduced to Elrena, actually- I learned that such behavior is usually a defense mechanism of sorts. When things are unpredictable, they tend to be easier to react to than to prevent.

This, paired with her nervous demeanor as Elrena- both before knowing who Lauriam was, and after- leads me to believe that she had some kind of traumatic experience before Daybreak Town. Further, the way she reacted when she realized that the flower siblings were- well, siblings- tells me that she may have had(and lost) a sibling of her own.

But the adamant refusal to refer to a friend as a friend("We weren't what you'd call 'friends'") and the fact that she's typically reluctant to help out anyone without an immediate benefit("Since when do you care about others?" "Shush, you!") reads as a post-trauma defense mechanism. She doesn't want things to go wrong again, so she ignores the people she has bonds with in favor of going it alone. Pretty common situation, and one I've been in, myself.

A further point here is that she seems incredibly nervous around the other Union leaders when she's brought to them. Fear of authority is a common trait among those traumatized by family members.

So my headcanon here is that she had a sibling, likely older, who she lost somehow. Either they disappeared, or they were killed. Her parents were perfectionists, and pushed her to give up on everything she enjoyed on account of their need for perfection. Friends most of all. She likely ran away in the name of self-preservation, joining a Union to be seen as 'useful.' Then worked alone, afraid that any friends she'd make along the way would be endangered should her parents ever find her.

Other, less serious headcanons of mine include..

She was in Leopardos, and was one of the top solo Lux collectors. Not good enough to walk away with special accessories, but often raised Strelitzia's party by a few hundred ranks when she'd pop in for the week.

Her Chirithy had the nickname of 'Honey,' based on an old translation of that one scene. She doesn't like to talk about it.

Despite her affinity for speed, and despite every Larxene medal being Speed-oriented, Elrena's specialty was actually in magic. I like to think she had the Diamond Dust Keyblade nearly fully-upgraded when everything happened.

Though I do believe she lost her memory when she got Nobody'd, I like to believe that she still had a vague recollection of Lauriam. That's why she was so close to Marluxia. Theirs is a connection transcending life, death, and memory. And I love that for them.

And I think that, post-KH3 and post-recompletion, she and Lauriam share a home in Radiant Garden. He chose it because it reminded him of Daybreak Town- she followed because she had nowhere better to go. She was just along for the ride, but the ride is over, and she's left to consider her few remaining options as best she can. Nothing that put her friends in danger is still around, so is it time to start making friends again? Is it time to right her wrongs, to atone for her misdeeds, or is it time to become as much of a memory as Daybreak Town did? I feel like her more meek demeanor returning would leave her with a LOT of regrets.

[derekscorner]

Kingdom Hearts: Gods & Angels

Just as the name implies this is a bit of a random shower-type of thought. It's not me complaining or trying to rewrite KH either, what I'm about to describe isn't even a problem objectively.

The thing I'm about to explain is a very much "me problem" that extends to any story I invest in but if you're bored like I am let's indulge a bit.

Kingdom Hearts: Angels & Gods

You see, I have the type of brain that tries to understand the lore of something. I do not need every answer given since a story should always retain mystery but there will always be some aspect of a world I can't help but hyper-focus on.

In KH's case it's the way life & death work. Initially it was easy to assume that Hades was the de-facto end point since the Disney version of the Olympians are very much godly.

Even in their source film the gods are depicted as immortal and omnipotent over their domain. Even Hades is, in actuality, a very powerful threat both in the movie and KH series.

(you see Hades display super strength in the movie a few times in fact)

Sora always wins with the power of friendship and Hercules has literal god-tier strength so Hades isn't that threatening but to the average living being he's basically a force of nature.

Even with his keyblade and otherworldly magic Sora can't actually kill Hades. He's legitimately immortal, there is no death for him.

Then later I assumed that each world essentially had it's own afterlife. Which may still be true to some extent at the time of me writing this. The presence of Joshua in DDD solidified this idea for me for a while.

I do keep in mind (as should you) that any Square character that cameos in KH is not the same one you see in the game they appear in. Squal isn't Squal, he's Leon. Cloud isn't Cloud, he's emo Cloud in Vincent Valentines outfit. Their backstories and personalities are rewritten entirely.

Even Zack who appeared in BBS was from the world of Hercules rather than having a history shared with Cloud. The closest being we seen to having a backstory hinted to be similar to their source material was Auron but the very fact he was in Hades underworld means some obvious variation has happened there as well.

This is very important because that means the same level of alteration exists for Joshua, his reapers, and the Shibuya that Neku calls home. We know the reapers game exists, we know that a Composer exists, but the actual accuracy to TWEWY's lore isn't guaranteed.

If anything, you should assume that the Shibuya that Neku calls home in KH is basically its own thing entirely. Especially now that Verum Rex exists with a Shibuya of it's own. (it was confirmed that the two shibuya's are indeed different)

The Final Headache World

But this all changes with KH3's Final World- hell, it all changes with Dark Road from the mobile titles.

In KH3 we're shown the "Final World" the place you supposedly go when you are done. There is no tricks, there is no miracles, you are as dead as you can be.

Sora literally broke time twice to save the day and still wound up here...or you're supposed too? See thanks to Dark Road or KH4's premise it's confusing.

We know you go to this Final World if you die both in heart, body, and soul. A total demise, KH3 tells us this in-game.

We also know that "Unreality" functions as a type of afterlife for people like Sora too since Strelitzia tells us as such in the KH4 trailer.

So...where do Joshua and Hades fit into that?

According to Hades here, according to what we've actually seen, the Underworld is your death. A Kh wielder or two die (okay more) in KHDR and they do go here.

The protagonists make a deal with Hades to speak to the spirit of one such dead key kid. Soooo that just makes my brain question "why?".

What dictates these differences. On a surface level you can assume Sora and Strelitzia are in Unreality because they were kicked out of "reality". We know this is true for Sora at the very least, the world at large didn't kill him it flat out removed him from reality as he knows it for breaking time.

But the first time Sora died he went to the Final World not the Underworld. The excuse that Kairi was keeping his heart connected to life is also a stretch because Sora still went to the Final World.

She offered a way back but she did not stop his death leading him to this world.

So where does the Underworld fit into that? How does Joshua's reaper game fit into this set up? Is there even a common denominator at all?

It's possible that every afterlife is connected to the Final World but that's conjecture on my part not a fact. I only offer it because Hades is shown fully capable of summoning dead people (like Auron or the Key Kid) and Joshua has shown that he's fully capable of retrieving dead people and moving them to worlds not within his domain.

He took Neku's group to the Realm of Sleep, he left his world behind to help reconstruct them. We don't know why he did but the point is that he could.

Hades and Joshua are literally two beings that you witness working on a cosmic scale. They clearly have power over death even in worlds they don't physically live in.

Kingdom Hearts: Gods & Angels???

And you want to know the real kicker? This bothers me personally not just for these questions about death but because my brain jumps the shark to the divine.

Death is always governed by something in any religion and what I have just described is an angel based on monotheistic religion and a pagan god working on a cosmic scale.

(technically composers are more like super-reapers or lower ranked angels than true angels but Joshua has the wings so semantics)

What is bothering me is that I do not comprehend how the cosmic landscape works. I know Hades is the god of death for everyone thanks to Dark Road, even Xigbar pokes fun at Hercules for having help in "high places". The Olympians in KH effect the universe as a whole.

But...Joshua exists and so does he. Do the gods just pick worlds to personally run? Do they make them? Between Joshua and the church in Notre Dome how do pagan gods like the Olympians or even Callisto from Pirates of the Caribbean fit in?

It's these kind of questions that my mind wanders too in KH and any story. I want to know, it bothers me that there's no concrete law.

Hell, I bet you even forgot that Davy Jones Locker was in KH3, it's an after life as well! Calisto is barely shown in KH3 but she's there, she's a sea goddess.

I didn't forget but I don't know where they all fit.

There is no answer for any of this and honestly it would be wiser from a writers standpoint to not try and do so. I just needed to rant about it for a bit.

I hope you enjoyed this trip through my insanity, I hope that I cured your boredom and never forget; this is a very me problem.

[sailforvalinor]

Now that the poll is over, let’s address the results!

1. Yes, Mickey did in fact get choke-slammed, and tbh I don’t think there’s any explanation I could give that would beat you just seeing it for yourself

2. Friendship is defined by a few characters as “when people eat ice cream together,” and while this is very often made fun of, it makes a lot more sense when you realize that it was said by characters who don’t have hearts or emotions and are trying to conceptualize friendship by imitating what they see other people do—namely, by going out and getting ice cream together like the other neighborhood kids do. It gets sadder the longer you think about it.

3. …again, I think you just need to see this one

4. Sora is actually canonically dead as of current canon, having tried to fistfight the narrative so hard to save his girlfriend that he pretty much got Thanos-Blipped after saving her. He appears to have shown up somewhere called Quadratum, which is where we see him in the new trailer, but from what we can tell Quadratum is some sort of afterlife, given that also notably dead character Strelitzia is there with him. Fun fact—this is actually Sora’s third time dying!

5. Great job to the majority of voters, this was the correct answer! There is one character that has an on-screen mother—the series’ main villain (until KH3), Xehanort. Good for him, I guess? Here she is (on the right.)

(If you want to get technical, Sora’s mother does have a voice line—her famous call for Sora to come to dinner—but she’s never shown on-screen.)

6. Yep, team mom Aqua does get trapped in KH-Heck “The Realm of Darkness” for a decade after failing to save both of her best friends. Actually, I think it’s longer—more like twelve years. She has an absolutely horrible time, is fighting monsters at all times, sees some freaky visions, has to deal with a shadow version of herself, almost gets consumed by her own hopelessness and despair and briefly turns into a Superpowered Evil SideTM version of herself, and now pretty much canonically has PTSD.

7. I don’t really have an explanation to give here, because there isn’t one. Sephiroth is just there, man. You gotta accept it.

8. https://youtu.be/amu4DI0M1Nk?si=XW4TeVjtrZMtOSs6 Observe.

Also, I can’t find it at the moment, but there’s a very similar cutscene of him appearing to get confused trying to count past three. Did he never learn to count? Is he just being a little bit silly? Has he sustained brain damage from the memory reconstruction and countless injuries and other head trauma he’s sustained throughout the years? The world may never know.

9. Hoooo boy…yeah, so. The universe was technically born via the deaths of thousands of children. I could just send you to the Wikipedia page on the Keyblade War. Or I could tell you about the Keyblade Graveyard, a notable location visited in multiple games, an arid, lifeless place covered in thousands upon thousands of abandoned Keyblades that we didn’t realize the full import of until years after the location was introduced. I could tell you that the war was so violent and awful that it split the known world apart and is now the current cited reason that the inhabitants of each world give for why there are stars in the sky. But maybe I should spare you all that.

[nyctoheart]

supposedly khux has only a few updates left before it’s union leader story is closed, but like honestly... they better be some long fucking story scenes cause we got a lotta ground to cover.... 

[dahniwitchoflight]

KHUX - Where’d they all go?

Alright so, first!

Who and what and where did everyone end up?

Maleficient: Took a pod to a specific point in the future, achieved this by also using her pet crow to force memories of her present self by having it fly her cloak to the great fairies and make them remember her

Ephemer: Brain from outside manages to send two pods back into the data Daybreak Town to rescue Ephemer and Skuld, (with the last Pod still in the Data meant for the Player, so all three could escape) Pops out of the pod to see the destroyed real Daybreak Town, goes back in with Skuld to escape the dying worldline along with the others, Gets flung forward in time just a tad from his own perspective to become the Founder of Scala Ad Caelum from the ruins of the destroyed Daybreak Town (Still doesn’t answer how or why he popped out in KH3 to help, but eh, guess that’s a question for Dark Road?)

Lauriam: Hops into one of three Pods in the real Daybreak Town to escape, Gets flung to present KH Times in a flower field from Snow White’s world, most likely proceeds to become a nobody some time later

Elrena: Hops into one of three Pods in the real Daybreak Town to escape, Gets flung to roughly the same time and place as Lauriam, but on the stormy mountain from the Witch’s area of Snow White’s world,  most likely proceeds to become a nobody some time later

Ventus: Hops into one of three Pods in the real Daybreak Town to escape, Ends up in the keyblade graveyard, roughly a few years before BBS and is found by Old Xehanort starting that story

Player: Tricks Ephemer into sealing them and the 4 darknesses into a piece of the Data Daybreak Town by pretending to have fallen to darkness, ends up dying from the 4 Darknesses, sacrificing themselves to save Ephemer and Skuld. In the realm between Death and Sleep, their dying heart then reincarnates eventually into a new young Heart (as they sometimes do), into that of newborn Young Xehanort, who is from Scala Ad Caelum in the time of Dark Road-ish, gets sent to Destiny Island’s by a mysterious old man who then dies, and then Young Xehanort begins his journey in Dark Road

Strelitzia: Her apparent Nobody gets sent to the future into the real world by Luxu, but it’s unknown where or when she ends up, last seen walking off in a white version of the Nobody Coat  (I suppose this is another question Dark Road will likely answer?)

Skuld: Brain from outside manages to send two pods back into the data daybreak town to rescue Emphemer and Skuld, Pops out of the pod to see the destroyed real Daybreak Town, goes back in with Ephemer to escape the dying worldline along with the others, We don’t find out her whereabouts, but the remaining theory is that she is Subject X from BBS, Lea and Isa’s friend with amnesia (I suppose this is another question Dark Road will likely answer?)

Rest of the Sleeping Dandelions/Fallen Keyblade Wielders: As their hearts fall asleep, the Chirithy that is bound to their hearts also takes on a sleeping form and become Dream Eaters, Spirit shaped by their wielders Dreams in order to protect them

Luxu: Last seen dragging along the box, holding the keyblade, and lifting up his hood to reveal that he looks exactly like Brain just without the hat

Brain: Gets flung forward roughly to the time of Dark Road-ish, last seen in Scala Ad Caelum that has been rebuilt for a while now by Ephemer the founder from a long time ago, just without his signature hat, and due to his conversation with a figure named Sigurd (who gives him his hat back), has likely fallen roughly into the times of KH Dark Road, and is perhaps a closer ancestor to Eraqus than first thought! maybe even a grandpa or great-grandpa

now the fun thing about Luxu and Brain and why they might look the same, cuz there’s a few options:

Is that before their final scenes, the 2nd last scene Luxu and Brain had was with eachother, right after Brain sent everyone on their merry way, Luxu pops up and says hey watcha doing, and Brain says he wants to stay behind to help free all the sleeping keyblade wielders, even if it takes him the rest of his life, and Luxu comments at him that it’d be a shame for him to waste his life like that or something to the effect before a fade to black

and the thing is, we don’t get to see their individual arrangements for how Both Luxu and Brain escape to the worldline along with the others. We just know that for sure he doesn’t stay and wake up the wielders, because all of their chirithy’s turn into the dream eaters. (And also that apparently he left his hat behind before he left as he picks it up in Scala when Sigurd gives it back to him)

And since there’s only one seemingly possible pod left to take, the one from the data world left for the Player (who never took it and instead dies), theres seem to be only one spot left on the ride out, and with Luxu’s body snatching tendencies, it seems to suggest that Luxu overtook Brain’s Heart and Body, grabbed the last pod from the data and adios’d

BUT the key here is in their apparent attitudes that we know this is likely not the case, and also the Hat, not only does it make it obviously clear who is who, the logistics of the Hat make it clear as well

In both cases, the boy who ends up in the graveyard with the box and the key, and the boy who appears in Scala, neither of them have Brain’s hat

But Brain IS last seen with his hat

If Luxu had overtaken Brain, there would be no reason for him to discard the hat, since the entire point of the body snatching is to be that person

Then, when Brain wakes up in Scala, Sigurd comes along and presents the hat saying “We’ve been waiting for you.” and Brain takes it back

Brain would neither remove his hat, nor would Luxu remove it if he had overtaken Brain

Instead, the likelier option is that Luxu forcibly put Brain into a pod and sent him to the future, saying it would be a shame if Brain were to die while Daybreak Town fell to darkness, because that’s what would’ve happened if Brain tried to stay behind

Where does that Leave Luxu though? How does he get back?

Well back in the data daybreak town, there are actually two Pods left, one meant for the Player who never used it, which Brain likely ended up taking, and a Destroyed Pod that got written off since who would know how to fix it?

Oh, Luxu would! And we know he does, because he specifically taunts Brain with that knowledge, asking him if he even knows how their supposed to work, And wouldn’t ya know, it’s in the Data Daybreak Town, meaning Luxu wouldn’t have even need to physically fix it, he could have easily reprogrammed it to be fixed from the computer side

So, two people, two pods, Luxu sends Brain on his merry way, in the scuffle because Brain would have resisted, the hat might’ve been removed, and Luxu could have easily set it up so that the hat could be preserved and in the future they would know to look and wait for Brain to appear

The only mystery remains then is why does Luxu looks like Brain?

appearances are tricky things in the KH series as well all know, and Luxu’s face has been hidden all this time, likely because his face would have been a spoiler or potentially confusing had it been shown from the beginning of KHX, not KHUX even

The one hint we have, is that in the Back Cover cinematic, which takes places during KHX, If you look closely, apparently you can see a shaggy lock of hair under his hood that matches Brain’s

which means Luxu has probably looked liked Brain all along from the start!

And before getting into the crazier reasons of why someone would look like someone else in the KH series (look at you Ventus/Roxas, Sora/Vanitas, Kairi/Namine/Xion) 

the one that makes the most sense to me personally, consideriong this fact, is that Luxu is a Replica of some sort, of Brain, made by the Master of Masters to fulfill a specific purpose for him, and considering Luxu’s purpose was easily the most important of MoM’s plans, and with how in his early appearances Luxu appears very withdrawn, shy, or dependant on MoM but also separate in some way from the rest of the 5 and with how we know that MoM has no qualms creating living things to do his bidding like the Chirithy’s, we know he’s aware of the replica technology at the very least since the pod system appears to be a workaround for this very issue of needing a medium for the flesh at the appropriate time and place

I think him being a replica with Brain’s appearance makes the most sense, Brain was certainly already on MoM’s radar as a special keyblade wielder, since he was one of the ones MoM chose to be a new union leader, and the way that Luxu’s appearance has always been hidden, how he always wore the black coat which in KH3 seems to be confirmed as what a “default” Replica body appears in when not in use, as we see when Riku Replica shunts out evil Repliku to have the body for Namine, it appears as a doll covered in the black coat

To me, I think it’s fitting, and I think that Luxu being comfortable with shunting from body to body and switching between forms is also part of that, his original form is a replica made to mimic another person, so why wouldn’t he continue that trend? Moving his heart from vessel to vessel, never getting attached to the flesh or identity itself? 

So yeah, I believe that Luxu taking over Brain is a red herring that KHUX ending presents, but I believe it will ultimately not be the case, and the rest of Dark Road/Verum Rex will go further into the reason why that is, with Luxu being a Replica of Brain from the very start coming out on top as the most likely series of events

[frozcnlight]

The woman gave a soft laugh at his words. It was so indescribably cute to her how he cared about not just their own children, but also for Rai and her little sister, Strelitzia. She nuzzled closely to her husband, a happy, little sigh escaping her as soon as she felt him close. Knew that he was well. For Miran didn't care if he could destroy the whole city or not. Her concerns only dwindled once he was back in their home and as soon as she saw that he was well and secure. Perhaps, it was naive. After all, he held such a high rank within the mafia and she knew very well that he was a criminal, guilty of countless deaths.

The blonde had once been puzzled how she could have fallen for him, but as time passed she knew the answer so clearly.

They belonged together. He had saved her when she wasn't even aware of needing saving - and also whenever she was very aware of it. “I didn't forget halloween.”, she explained to Chuuya as she kissed his cheek, “I'm just not very good with it. Usually we did ignore this one, because father never saw a reason in celebrating it.”.

@frozcnlight asked:

"You know what time is coming soon?", she was way too eager to not drop the answer as soon as she asked without waiting for an answer. A joyful expression overcame her face, "Eggnog time!". { for Chu, because EGGNOG! c: }

Random Asks - Always Welcomed!

He had been about to suggest Halloween, thinking that perhaps his wife wanted to plan something now that they had two young kids running around, but of course she had skipped over such a holiday, wishing for her precious eggnog to be back in stores. It was amusing, but also a little concerning. "How much are you planning on ordering this time?", he asked, just a hint of fear evident in his voice, "Besides, there are still too months! I'm sure the kids are looking forward to Halloween first. Should we do anything? Eiji and Taru are a bit young...but there's Strelitzia and now Rai too...".

Never had he imagined he'd have started a family of his own, never mind how big it was growing. With a happy hum, he crossed over to wrap his arms around her waist, holding her close to his chest, "I'll get you all the eggnog you wish for as soon as december hits".

[bluerosesburnblue]

I hope you don't mind this ask, but... Any theories / speculations about the most recent story update for KHUX?

Oh, I don’t mind at all! I’m glad you asked, actually, because I’ve had some thoughts, though not many new theories of my own, unfortunately. That being said, I can definitely go over how some of my old theories and some of the fandom’s hold up and my thoughts on a few of the new theories I’ve seen floating around

One thing that I’m consistently proud of is how my old guesses about Darkness’s true nature just keep ending up almost right barring some slight details. I made the claim back when Re:Mind first came out that Darkness could be a hive mind of entities that plant bits of themselves in others, and then refined that back in July of 2020 by likening it to a parasite that worms its way into people’s hearts and incorporates itself into them to control them. This past update confirmed that the Darkness we’re fighting is one part of the hive mind that wormed its way into Ven to force him to act out, and that by doing so it detached itself from that hive mind and became incorporated into Ven’s being (which Ven can then shape). So I gotta say I’m pretty pleased about that part

All that’s left to be seen from the July post is if Darkness has a connection to Verum Rex/Quadratum, but I doubt that that will be touched on by the KHUx finale. Though I will say that it’s pretty interesting that the Master of Masters tells Darkness about “a world [he] can’t even conceive,” which seems like it could easily be referring to Quadratum, which also means that Darkness knows about it

That’s pretty much all I have to say on the Ventus/Darkness/Vanitas connection, but there’s still more to cover in this update

One thing that I’ve been trying to figure out is who the cloaked figure right at the start of the update is, Luxu or the MoM. Measuring the sizes and my old guess based on the KH3 Secret Reports both say Luxu, but this brings into question “when,” exactly, the True Dandelion scene takes place as it doesn’t have the dark haze around the edges that they give flashbacks, but is clearly the real-world set of pods as they’re not destroyed AND it’s missing the pod that Maleficent already used. The True Dandelion scene has a lot to unpack, but this scene at the start does make me wonder if Luxu and/or the Master have a way in and out of the datascape that doesn’t involve the pods, otherwise the numbers don’t add up

Also related to the post of mine I just linked is the idea that the Black Box is the datascape. I believe that this might still hold true. It’s interesting to note that they show the scene from Back Cover where Luxu is given the box in the first place just prior to the reveal that using the lifeboats to escape starts the process to seal it off and have the real Daybreak Town fall to darkness, and the Master’s “hint” to Luxu involves this very process. Why would Luxu be forbidden to open the box? Quite possibly because it contains the infected datascape meant to seal off the vast majority of the Darkness hive mind. And several Dandelions. It is both the “hope” mentioned in KH3 through those Dandelions, as well as a trap to keep Darkness out of being able to interfere for quite a long time

Now, the questions that I’m sure are on everyone’s minds are “who is the True Dandelion,” and “who are the ones who use the lifeboats?” Let’s start with the True Dandelion, as there’s far less moving pieces involved in that one

I won’t take credit for coming up with any of these options, I’m just going to discuss the logistics of them. So the candidates for the True Dandelion in, what is in my opinion, the least likely option to the most likely option, are:

Kairi: I’ve seen this one floating around and... honestly don’t believe it at all due to the sheer amount of logical contortions that you have to do to make it work. To wit:

Where the hell would she even come from if it was Kairi? As can be clearly seen with Ven, is stated to be true with Subject X, and is implied to be true of Lauriam/Elrena, those who travel to the future using the pods will regenerate their bodies at the age they were when they used the pods. Which would make Kairi at the oldest a four-year-old. Four years prior to KHUx was when Brain was told that he was a Union Leader. So she either would have been just born immediately prior to the war and was just... stolen or something? And we never saw? Or just after the war, where she would probably have to be the child of a Dandelion that got teen pregnant because they’re supposed to be both kids and the only survivors? Or Luxu and Ava’s kid somehow? Like, what? The timeline is just insane with that

If she was born before the war... you would assume that the True Dandelion would be, you know, a Dandelion. Which would mean that Ava handed a Keyblade to and recruited a literal toddler. This would also retcon Aqua being the one to accidentally pass the ability to wield a Keyblade down to Kairi and I refuse to make theories predicated on “the author will retcon this.” You just open up a huge can of worms doing that

The body wrapped in white looked a hell of a lot bigger than a four-year-old to me

I am sick to death of “this character was secretly from the Age of Fairytales~” being employed by the narrative. It’s happened at least three times already (four if you count Luxu). Enough already

Ventus: Ven has some hints, though some notable contradictions to it being him

On the one had, the sheet that the True Dandelion is wrapped in is extremely similar to the one that Xehanort wrapped him in when planning to leave him on Destiny Islands in BBS and there’s a possibility that Xehanort may have found him in that very sheet if he regenerated wearing it

On the other hand: Ventus might not have even been a Dandelion in the first place (he definitely wasn’t a Union Leader, but I don’t know if it was ever said whether he was selected as a regular Dandelion or not), and there’s the timing of the scene that I mentioned above. It’s definitely after Maleficent used her lifeboat but before anyone else used theirs (when you would expect Ven to remain with his friends) and, since the scene doesn’t have the flashback effect, it’s implied to be happening concurrently with everything else, so Ven should still be fighting Darkness in the datascape while it’s happening and eliminating him from being this particular person

Strelitzia: Oh, boy, have we got some nice old hints to Strelitzia, but still a few logical contortions, just like Ven

The white sheet is coming back up again. Namely, the fact that we still have an unexplained scene where Strelitzia appears to Lauriam in a dream wrapped in a white cloak, though it’s of a different style than the one that the True Dandelion is in. That scene also featured flower petals being blown into the wind, much like a dandelion seed (though, notably, the petals that are blown aren’t Dandelion seeds)

The question is, yet again, one of timing. How would Luxu get her body? While she was only introduced in KHUx, her scenes are all flashbacks to before the war, so we know that she was struck down in the real world, not the datascape. We see her body dissolve into light and her heart be released. Now, technically you only need a heart to time travel (actually, a heart is the only thing that can time travel), but Luxu is clearly seen putting a body into the machine. A machine that only allows for time travel because it destroys the body. If he had her heart, he wouldn’t need to use the lifeboat because she’s already in a state to time-travel on her own and this eliminates the possibility of him putting her Nobody into the machine, because without a heart it would just evaporate her body leaving... absolutely no heart to go to the future with

Now, Luxu theoretically could have grabbed her heart. We know that he was hanging around Daybreak Town at the time while observing thanks to his fight with Ava, but Strelitzia is struck down just after the fight with Ava starts so it’s very likely that Luxu was too preoccupied to retrieve her heart before it was gone. Speaking of Luxu’s fight with Ava...

Ava is my current top pick for the True Dandelion candidate due to the sheer number of questions it answers and how few it raises

Ever since KH3 came out, the question of “where the heck is Ava?” has been buzzing around as a major mystery. Her last chronological point of appearance is the same as the other Foretellers: the Keyblade War itself, where she’s shown leading her Union to battle. Notably, she seems resigned to her part in this, and this is the first and only time we see her after her battle with Luxu where he reveals to her the Master’s true plans. Melody of Memory seems to imply that the other Foretellers managed to skip to the future by going to another world, Quadratum (or at least this is the most likely explanation as there’s not enough pods to send all four of the other Foretellers AND the characters that we know end up in the future to their destination). However, Ava isn’t with them and Luxu knows what happened to her

It would be easy to write this off as them trying to drop Ava from the narrative or her not being important, but her chess piece is included in the “Eraqus and Xehanort foreshadow the next saga” chess game on the far right of the board and Nomura confirms that they represent the Master’s six apprentices, i.e. the five Foretellers + Luxu. So, Ava is necessary in the upcoming saga and yet, she didn’t get to the future the same way as any of the Master’s other apprentices leaving her open to get there via a lifeboat

Ava is the very founder of the Dandelions, who all of the others look up to and defer to and was spoken of heavily in the scene just prior to the True Dandelion reveal. That’s grounds for being called the True Dandelion if I’ve ever seen one

Luxu would very easily be able to ensure that Ava would be able to make it to the future. Just like with the Master of Masters, he already has the memories necessary for her to use to regenerate a body, and either her Keyblade or her mask would make for effective mediums that wouldn’t be too difficult for Luxu to take. If he put her in the white cloth, he probably took her mask off already

Ava hasn’t been around for the events of KHUx, so there’s no timeline discrepancies if it’s her

So, now that we have an idea of who the True Dandelion could be, let’s talk about the rest of the lifeboats and how they might fit together. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s assume that the True Dandelion can’t be one of the Union Leaders and that their battle with Darkness is taking place at the same time as Luxu is sending off the True Dandelion. I’ll be referencing an old theory of mine, while making additions now that it’s clear that there’s two sets of lifeboats: the Data Set and the Real Set

Right now, there’s an equal number of Real Pods and Data Pods: 5 each. For the Data Pods, of the seven that we started with, one was used by Maleficent and one was damaged in the battle between Maleficent and Lauriam. As for the Real Pods, one has been used by Maleficent, and one has been used by the True Dandelion. This leaves us with five each.

We can narrow this down further by eliminating people that we know end up in the future. These are:

Ventus

Subject X, who is most likely Skuld based on her description

Lauriam

Elrena* (of note with Elrena is that we actually have no idea where the hell she is at the moment or how she’s going to get into the pods. Furthermore, while every other lifeboat user sans Maleficent has been shown to have amnesia upon waking and Lauriam/Marluxia directly indicates as such applies to him, too, in KH3, Elrena/Larxene’s KH3 scene and character file short story both indicate that she recalls Lauriam and possibly Strelitzia, though she also seems surprised at the idea that she’s part of an ancient Keyblade legacy. I won’t deny that there’s a possibility that she doesn’t use a lifeboat and ends up in the future by other means based on the discrepancies)

So with three confirmed cases, we’re left with one ambiguous case in Elrena and three more possible candidates: Ephemer, Brain, and Player. Four people, and two pods

I want to make it clear that despite what I brought up against Elrena, I do think that she’ll be using one of the lifeboats if only so that KHUx has narrative consistency. They introduced Elrena, they made her part of the investigation on Strelitzia’s whereabouts, so it only makes sense that they need to show us where she ended up for a satisfying conclusion. So let’s slot Elrena in for one of the lifeboats. That leaves one between Player, Ephemer, and Brain

My best guess is that Player won’t be using a lifeboat at all. Not only are they a create-a-character that would be a HUGE pain to try and incorporate into future entries in the series without making a “canon” version and thus ruining their appeal as an avatar, but we haven’t seen or heard mention of them at all in the games set in the present-day. There’s zero indication that they made it, which makes them the most easily eliminated as a lifeboat user

That leaves Ephemer and Brain, and I still believe that Ephemer will be the final lifeboat user, and for the same reasons as stated in the theory I linked at the start of this section. Not only does Brain have the same facial sprite as Eraqus, but he wields the Master’s Defender which will be later passed down to Eraqus and I believe that this eliminates him as a time traveler, despite the fandom’s popular opinion that it confirms it

Because I don’t believe that Brain is Eraqus’s grandfather, but rather his distant ancestor who inherited the No Name and passed down both Keyblades through the ages

So let’s resolve some plot threads taking everything I’ve stated and linked to above into account

My Big Guess for the KHUx Finale

Ventus will use the fact that Darkness is tied to his heart now to give it a physical, but still mostly amorphous form that he, the Union Leaders, and Player can finally take down. Darkness will be sealed inside Ven’s heart, where it will lie dormant until he reaches the future. Eventually, Xehanort will extract it in the form of Vanitas and it will follow Vanitas’s life cycle, ending in him being reabsorbed into Ven at the end of BBS. Darkness, now back in Ven’s heart, will make brief contact with Sora during the events of Re:Mind

Lauriam, upon learning that the world will be sealed with the use of the lifeboats, will attempt to rescue his partner, Elrena. Both will take lifeboats out of the datascape and into the future, whereupon they will be recruited into Organization XIII by Luxu’s current incarnation, Xigbar, likely to keep an eye on them. I believe there might be a squabble among Ephemer, Skuld, Brain, and Player among who will use the final lifeboats (each person nominating others besides themselves), but ultimately they will settle on Ephemer and Skuld

Skuld will wind up amnesiac in the future Radiant Garden and is discovered by Ansem the Wise and his apprentices and dubbed Subject X. She becomes Xehanort’s favorite test subject due to the similarities in their amnesia and possibly some lingering memories that he has that don’t quite belong to him (KHDR Xehanort certainly seems to want to meet his “old friends” very badly)

Ephemer’s heart will wind up in the Keyblade Graveyard as I mentioned in an old theory, unable to manifest a body due to the lack of a medium present. Through this state of being just a heart (and possibly related to those old talks about him being “unchained”), he will be able to enact the Light of the Past moment from KH3, and may very well be revived for future events in the series

This leaves Brain and Player behind in the datascape. However, you may remember one detail that I brought up, but neglected to fully expand on until now. There is a difference between the Data Pods and the Real Pods. While all of the Real Pods have been used up at the time of my proposed sequence of events, the Data Pods have not been. One was never used, only damaged. This leaves open the possibility that it can also be repaired (Also, I’m just gonna say it. Player’s met someone recently who has a magic hammer that can repair anything... might not come back but also totally could). Brain and Player could then repair the final pod and, in a callback to when Player was sent to Game Central Station, have them both agree once again that Player is the more expendable person in the scenario. Brain will take the repaired pod, leaving no way out of the datascape for anyone else, while Player stays behind to be sealed away for the time being (this could also be a callback to the original KHx, where Player also stayed behind to take part in the war instead of fleeing with the Dandelions, as they refused to leave their party behind)

When Brain escapes, however, he will be met with a Daybreak Town with no Real Pods left, as Luxu used one on the True Dandelion. Now that the seven pods have all been used up and the real Daybreak Town is falling to darkness, Luxu will take a corridor out as the Master instructed, but bring the newly appeared Brain along with him (either that or Brain emerges after Daybreak Town falls, either is possible) and bequeaths the No Name onto him. Brain, stranded in the past while all of his friends have been sent to the future, will be Luxu’s new apprentice and rebuild the fallen Daybreak Town as Scala ad Caelum, then pass down both of his Keyblades: Master’s Defender to his biological descendants, and No Name to his apprentices

As for the Master of Masters? I think he’s already taken an eighth lifeboat (you’ll note that there’s space right in the center of the cluster where one more could theoretically fit) and had done so before the start of the original KHx. He’ll be revived at some point in Xehanort’s young adult life to goad him into his insane plans as seen in Re:Mind, then duck into Quadratum to hang out until the next arc in the franchise, as hinted at with his appearance in the KH3 Secret Movie

(He is most definitely not Sora. He’s clearly bound to the same rules of time travel as everyone else which means that Sora couldn’t go back in time to become him as that would be long before the point in time where Sora was born and that breaks KH time travel rules. Not to mention that the Master talks about Quadratum in this update like he’s never seen it before until it came up in the No Name’s range of vision. Sora is literally in Quadratum right now, he’d definitely know what it was already if he was the Master)

And I do believe that should cover everyone’s whereabouts by the end of the game and into the next arc of Kingdom Hearts with minimal plot holes

This is just my best guess, putting together details that I’ve been accumulating for the past year and a half or so into what sounds like a coherent sequence of events that bridge the gap between KHUx and KH3 and beyond. There may be some details I get wrong, obviously. Nomura has been known to be... unpredictable. But I think, based on the evidence we have at hand, that this is the most logical series of events to end the game on and I’m really interested to see how close this gets to the actual finale we see

[violethowler]

False Start: Analyzing Kairi’s Arc After Melody of Memory

In October 2019, I did an analysis of Kairi’s character arc as of the end of Kingdom Hearts 3 and what I felt was being set up for her going forward.

My major point was that Kairi's fear of change was holding her back from reaching her full potential and catching up to Sora and Riku, but that by the end of Kingdom Hearts III she had overcome that fear and was ready to move forward. 

In hindsight, I jumped the gun in assuming that the end of KH3 marked the definitive point where she got over her change and could truly move forward. While she had some good moments in Re:Mind, Limit Cut promptly put her to sleep for an entire year, trying to search the memories in her heart for a clue to Sora's whereabouts. 

But then Melody of Memory happened. 

When Kairi faces the memory of Xehanort, she says in the original Japanese version that Sora and the others being hurt was the result of her strength not being enough. I'll save the rant about how the English localization consistently removes Kairi's moments of self-reflection throughout the series for another day, but my main point is that this sets the groundwork for her decision to remain behind while Riku goes to Quadratum. When she chose to increase her training under Aqua, I was thrilled because finally this was the sign I was looking for that Kairi was really, truly, ready to move forward. 

A lot of people were disappointed by this decision because they felt like Kairi needing more training was the whole point of her being brought to the Mysterious Tower at the end of Dream Drop Distance. But there are a few things that set this moment apart and explain why her training in Kingdom Hearts 3 did not amount to as much as fans were hoping. 

First, it's that this time Kairi is exerting her own agency and making the choice herself. Her training in Kingdom Hearts 3 was never something we saw her actively choose. So Kairi making that choice on-screen has more weight than Riku bringing her to the Mysterious Tower for training on Yen Sid's orders. 

Second, while the memory of Xehanort notes that she did improve in the brief time she was training, the way she was being trained wasn't suited to her style. The description we get of her training in Kingdom Hearts 3 mostly seems to amount to her and Lea sparring each other repeatedly - which is exactly how Sora and Riku developed their sword fighting skills growing up. And when you look at her battle stance and the way she holds her Keyblade in Kingdom Hearts 3 compared to how she held it in previous games, her stance is an exact copy of Sora's. It's no wonder then why she changed into Sora during the final boss fight in Melody of Memory then when she was clearly trying to imitate him. 

In the 2006 Characters Report Vol. 1 book, Tetsuya Nomura's comments about Kairi in the early games identify the fear of growing apart from Sora and Riku as a major source of anxiety for her. The fact that her training and combat stance in Kingdom Hearts 3 imitate Sora so heavily indicates that Kairi is trying to catch up to Sora and Riku by trying to be exactly like them in that area as much as possible. With how much the series has focused on personal identity with regards to Roxas and Xion being their own people, it makes sense why Kairi doing that failed her in Kingdom Hearts 3. Because Sora and Riku's style isn't suited for her. 

Because she isn't them. 

For Kairi to achieve her goal of catching up to Sora and Riku's level, she needs to step out of their shadow and figure out how to be herself instead of trying to be Sora. And the best way for her to understand herself will be to understand her past. 

The Xehanort that Kairi faces in Melody of Memory is explicitly identified as a construct of her heart. He tells her that the answers she seeks "lie in memories that are long gone," and tells her that there is nothing for her to find in her heart. However, that isn't really true with what previous games have established about how memories work in this universe. Chain of Memories establishes that memories are stored in the heart, and that while the connections between them can be rearranged, they are never gone for good. 

So while Kairi may not consciously remember her childhood before arriving on Destiny Islands, the memories are still there deep in her heart. All she needs is something or someone to help her restore the connections between them. To rebuild the links in her Chain of Memories, so to speak. Kingdom Hearts 3 and Melody of Memory both specifically call attention to Kairi's first meeting with Aqua in Birth by Sleep, as well as the fact that Kairi doesn't remember it. From a narrative standpoint, the series has set up that remembering that first meeting will help Kairi regain the rest of her memories from Radiant Garden. 

But remembering her past is not the only arc the story has set up to help Kairi understand herself better. Training with Aqua also puts her in a position to interact with another teen who has a heart of pure light.

Who was also in a coma for a time while his heart rested in Sora's body. 

It's not a coincidence that Union X first revealed the existence of the entity known as Darkness just a few months after KH3 revealed that being a Princess of Heart was a mantle that could be passed on rather than a permanent state of being. Then Re:Mind revealed that Darkness is still hiding within Ventus' heart in the present day. And following the release of Melody of Memory, the next Union X update revealed that Darkness had killed Streliztia because it saw her death as the best way to grant Ven's desire for strength. The ability for Princesses of Heart to pass on their powers serves as set up for Kairi to do the same, opening herself up to struggling with darkness in her heart for the very first time. 

Kairi wants to become stronger in order to stand alongside Sora and Riku. But she has not struggled with her negative emotions the way that Riku has or that the narrative framework sets up Sora will be in the near future. But her decision to train alongside Aqua puts her in a position that has the potential to force her to go through that struggle herself should Darkness try to grant her desire for strength in ways that she doesn't want. 

I know that I was wrong before about Kairi getting over her fear of change. But this time, I'm confident that Kairi's character arc is finally picking up momentum. What Melody of Memory has that previous games didn't is a clear sense of narrative direction. All Dream Drop Distance did was vaguely establish that she was going to start training. Kingdom Hearts 3 didn't give enough information to form concrete theories about the trajectory of her arc. 

But all the Kingdom Hearts content released in 2020 has set up foreshadowing for a very specific plotline in regards to Kairi's character growth. And not only that, Xehanort's monologue in the flashback to her childhood where he says "if you arrive in a world that is neither light nor darkness, but somewhere on the other side, your task will be far from easy" adds a significant connection between Kairi rediscovering her past and the mysteries of "unreality." Especially because Xehanort acting like it was actually possible for her to end up there instead of Destiny Islands raises the question of whether she truly went straight to Destiny Islands after Xehanort sent her off. 

Kairi's connection to "unreality" makes her the lynchpin of all the major story arcs being set up for the other characters while Sora and Riku are in Quadratum. The parallels between them foreshadow Ventus regaining his memories of the Age of Fairy Tales just as Kairi is set up to regain her memories of Radiant Garden. Ventus regaining his memories of the past logically connects the Birth by Sleep trio to Lauriam and Elrena through his role in Strelitzia's death, as well as to the Twilight Town crew considering that Subject X is heavily implied to be Skuld. Then of course there's Luxu, who is directly responsible for Subject X's disappearance, and the Foretellers, who are still with Luxu last we saw them.  

With Sora and Riku off in Quadratum with Yozora and the Master of Masters, Kairi is narratively set to step up and take charge in dealing with the major unresolved plotlines from Union X and KH3 that need dealing with. By the time Sora and Riku finally make it back, she'll be a whole lot closer to their level.

TL;DR: I was too hasty in 2019 when I declared that Kairi had gotten over hear fear of change. I only had nebulous ideas of what would come next. But now I can pick out all the subtle foreshadowing that illuminates a concrete path forward, and I'm confident that now she's finally on the right track.

[jcmorrigan]

001 - Kingdom Hearts

Favorite character: On the villain side: VEXEN IS BEST ORGANIZATION XIII MEMBER. Shoulda stayed evil, though. I like it when he complains and screams about everything and hates everyone. He's one of my favorite villains, just, like...in general. So fun to write. Also attached to Demyx, but I actually liked him more in III than II because it reminded me of my rawr lolspeek weeb days when I f/o'd him without knowing what f/o'ing was and then transitioned this to shipping VexDem like heck. On the hero side: MY GIRL KAIRI! But honorable mentions go to Sora, Riku, Aqua, Ven, Terra, Xion, Roxas, Lea, Ienzo, any Disney character I loved beforehand (this is way too fuckin many to list), Merlin (OKAY I WILL SINGLE HIM OUT), Yen Sid (I'LL SINGLE HIM OUT TOO), you know what let's also single out the Mickey+Donald+Goofy power trio...just...any KH hero who isn't part of the Yozora stuff or the KHUX stuff. ...Except I also LOVE Strelitzia, and she is the only KHUX-exclusive kiddo I care about but I care about her MANY. (Oh, and there's a least fave I have who's a "hero" but that's a debatable label). I would go on about why I love all of them but...that's too many characters to elaborate on

Least Favorite character: See, I think the real answer is Yozora, but the thing is I just tend to forget about him or not care (unless I'm doing a weird AU where he's Noctis' bratty Nobody, don't ask). He kinda represents the Shark Jump and I don't like watching that scene where he literally petrifies Sora for not being strong enough. But again, I can just kinda forget about him if he's not fed to me through a social-media unit. The one I LOVE TO HATE is Master Eraqus. The man actually triggered me back in the day. He is purity culture. He is the overbearing parent who will not accept you unless you are perfect. He is by and large the reason VAT didn't communicate with each other properly. He was the one who taught Aqua to think in absolutes. He lied to Ventus for years and then insisted to kill him was the only option, and then, when Terra tried to defend his brother figure/friend without knowing WHY Eraqus was doing such a thing, Eraqus didn't offer an explanation and instead switched targets to Terra citing that the problem was Terra's lack of OBEDIENCE. Eraqus is just very "my way or the highway" and uses his moral high horse to justify doing things that utterly lack compassion in any regard, which is something that GETS to me on a deep level, and let me tell you, I hated him for so long until I realized he was actually a super fuckin fun guy to imagine as a Bigger Bad in AUs that either have the KH protags teaming up or have villain protags needing a "greater good lawful evil" figure. And I just have found too many good memes about him cheating at chess and killing children. I have to laugh. Making fun of him is fun. He's a ridiculous character. That said, this recent trend of "erase everything bad he ever did and paint him as the ultimate hero of the saga" makes me raise eyebrows for SEVERAL reasons

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): VexDem, SoRiku, Kairi x Jaune Arc (RWBY), Aqua x Rosalina (Super Mario Galaxy) x Bayonetta, IsaLea, Ventus x Papyrus (Undertale), that was six but they all needed to be mentioned

Character I find most attractive: Ienzo. HOO BABY he is adorable. I saw someone make a Valentine's Day gifset of KH and FF characters shortly after III dropped and seeing his smiling face paired with a romance quote made my heart FLUTTER

Character I would marry: Probably Ienzo, see above. He's also a very kind guy. Favorite redemption in the modern era.

Character I would be best friends with: I hope the Destiny Trio would adopt me into their friend circle the way they've tended to do with every other inter-world denizen they've come across. I would love to have them as my positivity squad. Or, y'know, two positivities and one "it's okay to screw up" guy. Just. I would love to hang out with them. I often worry that I'm unlikable to my faves, but even though I would usually prefer to hang with the villains, I can pretty much guarantee these three would be open-minded about me. (Do I kiiiiinda wanna be friends with Vexen though? Of course I do. He'd hate me but maaaayyyyybe he would see me as one of his pet idiots who makes him look smarter, and we could bond over our fragile egos?)

a random thought: You ever think about that one NPC lady in Traverse Town who refused to tell you where she was from because it was none of her business? You ever wonder where she WAS from? What her world was like? How she ended up being the survivor of the Ansem Apocalypse when it hit her? All I know is that when I read her lines out loud (I used to read KH speech balloons out loud all the time), I gave her a Southern accent for no discernible reason and I stand by it. That woman has a twang.

An unpopular opinion: I don't want KHUX to be canon because I feel it's smaller-scale and takes a lot of mystery out of the worldbuilding. I always assume that the KHverse just includes ALL worlds in fiction, and that includes their thousand-year histories, meaning the Age of Fairy Tales should've happened long long long LONG LONG LONG ago and not five generations. And whatever screwed up the world should've been more than just five people having a fight, and whatever saved it should've been more than just five people getting along, and Daybreak Town really suffers from having to stick to mobile-friendly graphics and therefore is the least aesthetically attractive KH town ever, and I don't like that Lauriam and Elrena used to be such selfless people. I do still love Strelitzia because she's shy and relatable and quirky (sitting on the roof) and she questions authority and if you go with shipping subtext she's probably bi (or pan?), but I don't like the "Lauriam's dead sister for his arc's drama" bit. I liked when Marluxia was angry because he wanted to run Organization XIII but it was in the hands of an idiot who wasn't him. And more than anything I just like imagining that the Age of Fairy Tales was something bigger, further in the past, and more mysterious than something designed for a mobile game. Scala ad Caelum, however, I like a lot better because there IS a lot of mystery there and also it's a very pretty town with an amazing design.

my canon OTP: I really only count the Disney couples as the "canon" ones, so this is a question of picking my favorite Disney couple that shows up onscreen. I hope I'm not forgetting an important one, but I think the title has to go to Aladdin/Jasmine, which is always perfect in everything. (This would be an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT STORY if KH had ever adapted Treasure Planet, and if it ever gets the mind to adapt Treasure Planet then even if I don't care about that game I will immediately declare that Amelia/Doppler takes the KH canon OTP crown. *taps watch* Get on it Squenix)

Non-canon OTP: SoRiku, which I counted as "basically canon" after DDD until III decided it wasn't sure. But I'm just a sucker for how DDD is the two of them all "HE'S GOT MY BACK AND I'VE GOT HIS AND I'D DO ANYTHING FOR HIM SO LONG AS HE'S HAPPY." It's just the best kind of Friends-to-Lovers, except when you take all canon into account it's Friends-to-Rivals-to-Enemies-to-Friends-to-Lovers and that's a very juicy dynamic. BUT ALSO: VexDem, which is a nostalgia ship SO STRONG I had to accept that it eclipsed my former Vexen ships by a mile and I wanted to go back to my roots. That one, I have a much longer essay about that I'll just have you refer to so I don't repeat myself for pages. To make a long story short, their scene in III was JUST DELICIOUS.

most badass character: OOF THEY'RE ALL BADASS but in the end it's between Sora and Aqua, because Sora gets the widest RANGE of abilities across the series that he masters while Aqua gets the most POWERFUL abilities due to her Mastery (Command Styles seem like they'd be the most OP things ever in-universe and I'm here for it because flashy battle moves make brain go brr).

pairing I am not a fan of: SOKAI, Xehaqus, RikuNami, Vanitas/anyone not evil

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): OH BOY. KAIRI THE MOST. YOU ALL KNOW WHY: lack of screen time, Fridging for drama, forced romance to invite death flags (they really wanted to milk that death to get people talking didn't they?), giving Alyson Stoner ZERO direction to actually follow up on Hayden Panettiere's performance. But then I remember that they made Vexen redeem and lose his entire personality and I just...uuugghhhh. I can't believe he died twice in this series. And then Demyx is FUN but also I know he's flipped sides as well, which means he won't be fun much longer! Xehanort seems to switch motivations to whatever makes him the biggest threat (and several of Eraqus' old flaws seem to be mysteriously glued onto him), Sora isn't a motormouth anymore, Riku just doesn't get anyone who cares about him anymore because everyone's distracted by Sora and Kairi, IS ANYBODY GOING TO ADDRESS THE ACTUAL ISSUES THAT DROVE THE WAYFINDER TRIO APART, oh God Marluxia and Larxene you're good guys now what have they done to you

favourite friendship: I really like each of the trios. But you know what's even BETTER than the trios? If you put...all of the trios together...meaning Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Aqua, Terra, Ven, Roxas, Xion, Lea, Hayner, Pence, Olette...and then you added Isa back in there...and you gave them Ienzo...and you brought back Naminé...and you say that Subject X is Strelitzia and you have her turn back up so she can have justice done...AND YOU HAVE AN ULTRA KEYBLADE GROUP OF FRIENDS. As for Vexen, any purely platonic relationship I have for him is a crossover but trust me I have many crossover pals for he

character I want to adopt or be adopted by: See everyone I listed above in the friendship question. They can either mentor me or let me be their big sis/mom. But also, I will GLADLY be Merlin or Yen Sid's daughter. (But also would I kiiiiinda wanna be a VexDem daughter? This is the worst idea. Still wanna try)

[kitsoa]

KHUX Theory Confirmations

Oh my god so much so much

Alright let me lay out my original theories all in one pretty picture. I subscribe hard to @kingdomheartsnyctophiliac‘s Ava=Darkness theory-- so much that I’m down with the next logical conclusion that Ava killed Strelitzia to make room for Brain, her man on the inside. Ava as the traitor, disguising herself as darkness, basically trying to hatch a coup against the very role MoM had her follow is a great twist and it is still alive. 

Brain’s got the Book

Now in my theorizing I believed the reason why Ava would off Strel is because maybe, Strel was the one circled in red that MoM assigned the BoP to. Knowing the book was selectively granted, the fact that the verified impostor in the group has it means it might have been the very motive as to why her. Now as a reminder, the timeline of this switcheroo is very fast but there is still ample time for this to go down. 

Timeline:

Ava carries out her duty and selects the union leaders

Ava confronts Luxu and learns an unknown truth. She is the traitor. The bell rings and the keykids prepare for war

Strel panics and tries to find player hoping its not too late, walks into the store room.

Strel is killed. The Switcheroo is put into action.

War happens and the Dandelion’s retreat.

According to my reasoning Ava changes gears only after talking to Luxu and triggering the war. If she is the culprit then pre-bell Ava can blindly follow the role and pick Strel and post-bell Ava can then basically back peddle that act in order to sabotage MoM’s goal. 

Now I insist that Brain is pretty innocent in all this. Regardless of his level of knowledge of Ava’s plot he did not dirty his hands with Strel’s blood. There’s a good potential he doesn’t understand what brought him to the seat he sits on at all. Furthermore the information they are currently discovering mainly pertains to MoM’s part of the plot. Aka-The orchestration to put them in a digital bunker-- not so much Ava’s counter plot with Strel’s death. He says he’s not sure how much Ava even knew of the (MoM’s) plot and that could be very true. From this we can assume Ava didn’t actually tell Brain much, but simply entrusted him with the task to change/destroy the program. The exact end that program was aiming towards is something Ava perhaps did not fully realize. 

MoM’s goal.

So this update really helped with my theorized motives here. So I had laid out in a recent post that the entire X, Unchained, Ux stuff appears like a series of experimental trials. The fact that MoM reveals that this war has been ongoing is extremely enlightening. Because that means that MoM’s plot is serving some kind of end in exacerbation of this cycle. That this is something he either wants to discover why the war inevitably occurs or he wants to discover the means to finally prevent the war from inevitably happening again (be that by eliminating the darkness that persists alongside the light or whatnot). Ergo the idea of the MoM creating this closed off ‘bunker’ where he controls the variables makes a ton of sense (and Lauriam even calls it a cage). He’s trying to get to the bottom of it or change it. 

The stuff about darkness changing shape and persisting in the hearts of man is interesting in the interpretation of the cosmology of kh but ultimately I think it’s fancy talk for the darkness of human nature. It sheds light on MoM’s apparent pessimism or weariness of this cycle though. So we have 2 variations of motives for MoM. We got a mad scientist route that paints him more morbidly curious and fascinated by the cycle. This is probably the interpretation Ava discovers prior to hatching her coup. But then we’ve got this martyr route that makes it so MoM is simply try to prevent the war from happening ever again.  

Ava’s Goal

So I refer to the mad scientist route as the route Ava understands because I have long picked up that MoM’s Dandelion plot goes to extreme lengths to manipulate the new variables (the leaders) into the very same positions of tension as the original run in a style similar to an experimental trial. As with the Fortellers there are arbitrary unions (for division), there is a secret chosen leader to have crucial information (the Lost Page and the BoP) and there are mechanisms in place that encourage the building of power, in-fighting, and completely refuse recovery (PvP recreation and memory overwriting). 

Like many watchers of Back Cover, the obvious answer to the question “who is the traitor” is simply “there is no traitor”. The paradox is that very truth creates a traitor in Ava. From my theory Luxu’s conversation with Ava that results in the bell tolling reveals this. Ava acts in initial denial and then betrayal, refusing the role and very quickly hatching a plot to negate that role. 

So MoM simply manipulated the situation to build the tension and made it happen. Now that we know that even before X, the Keyblade War was cyclically occurring to MoM’s witness, and now we have a better perspective to the fact that MoM was clearly invoking the war to happen with his apprentices. But even more, it was a long plot to manipulate the rebirth of the realm. And curious enough, the realm is now of his making. (God mode anyone?).

On that note he calls Unchained the trial and UX the ‘real deal’. If Unchained was basically retelling X, then the fact that they expanded past that telling means that MoM has a very stark interest in making the UX phase of the plot unfold differently (or maybe... simply watching IF it unfolds differently).

Who knows, there could actually be well meaning intentions in all this manipulation, we are at least getting some level of feedback to both of those perspectives. 

DT as a data-world

This is a confirmation that really... soothes my heart. The persistence that the entire Dandelion reality was real was starting to erode the theories guys. I did joss my meta-catastrophe concept that Game Station was actually digitizing the world from the outside but it’s honestly easier to swallow this way. In summary, the leaders insisted that the world they left for after the war was real because believing it was data would key them in too early that they are trapped. Lauriam states that truth just as much. It is a cage. The truth is that if they left to the real world there would be nothing but the ruins of the war they left behind. 

This kinda helps with the concepts of worldlines too. I was originally allowing worldlines to have a definition of ‘real’-- expanding the concept of reality to have multiple planes of legitimacy, but it almost seems safe now to interpret worldlines as entirely fabricated strands of reality. Say, a dream or a data construction. I know this was a movement before, but I held on to the idea that there could be a ‘real’ definition in the worldlines based on Luxu’s Observations of the KHUX happenings. This informs a little more about Sora’s kh3 shenanigans (creating dreams that unfold differently?) and implies a wealth of what actually needs to go down to bring us to Scala and make the leaders time displaced (escape the data world and rebuild atop the ruins of the decimated DT from the X war-- and time doesn’t flow in the dream realms a la ddd so they could leave the dream at potentially wild points in time). 

Keyblade War cycle

On a side note, MoM is very evasive when Luxu is asking clarification questions about the forces involved in his childhood war and even the existence of keyblade-- weapons we know MoM himself devised the crafting of. My thought is that the ‘keyblade war’ is a catch-all term MoM is using to describe a repetitive, endless cycle of world-ending destruction. Basically war in general. The keyblade aspect is potentially an added element of his creation. Potentially. Not entirely positive on that matter.

But essentially I do not think events of X was happening over and over and over again. The Keyblade War took many forms but always resulted in total destruction and was always rebuilt by the survivors. By the time X started MoM was invoking the war and trying to control how it unfolds and again, control the rebirth of the world. 

Finally

I have a few more off-shoots to spin from these confirmations. (Xehanort’s ambition to learn about this war by recreating it echoes MoM so discovering that it’s kinda already been done would potentially halt his actions explaining Luxu’s defensive measure against steering Xehanort away from the past). And there are some questionable reactions in the murder mystery drama (my new Ven sleeper agent theory felt some gooooood support with MoM’s description of darkness taking human shape). But my meta catastrophe is seeing some revisions with MoM still behaving like an author and worldlines asserting themselves as fabricated, but MoM’s origin seems to have firmer feet in the realms of fiction at least for now (though his childhood ‘Keyblade’ War is vague enough to be our form of war you know).

This is just my ramblings. I cannot for the life of me make my khux theories streamlined.

[player-1]

Union X update 9/3 (Spoilers)

Oh boy, time to let some steam out... And major spoilers and speculations are below, so tread carefully.

STOP SAYING VEN IS THE MURDERER! HE IS NOT GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION! HE IS THE VICTIM! THE BLOOD IS NOT ON HIS HANDS BY DEFAULT, DARKNESS WAS THE ONE WHO TOOK STRELITZIA’S LIFE! HE JUST HAD THE UNFORTUNATE CHANCE OF BEING IN THE WRONG PLACE AND AT THE WRONG TIME!!

Alright, rant’s somewhat over, let me explain a few things...

Given Darkness’ information with the Book of Prophecies, and with the famous phrase “And the Darkness will triumph and Light will expire”, it used Ven as the Trojan Horse in order to ensure their survival in the Worlds beyond (more so like a double standard, but I’ll explain that later). But of course, there’s a few key factors to consider...

1. Why would Darkness kill a Union Leader? Wouldn’t Ven being a Dandelion have the same effect as ensuring its survival? Because being a Union Leader assures the person the privilege of keeping their original memories of the past. If Ven was a Dandelion on its own, he would have his memories erased regarding the War, and under the Leader’s watch, they may destroy Darkness in its path before it made it out of the data world. And on that note, Ven might even reject Darkness as a regular Dandelion regardless. 

2. If Ven had Darkness with him, wouldn’t Ava be suspicious?  Of course, since Darkness works as a completely separate entity and uses Ven as an unassuming vessel of sorts. And with a Keyblade like Missing Ache, a powerful three-tier in fact, it would be odd for an eleven-year-old like him to possess at the cusp of the War. But on that note, we now know that Darkness took the form of Ava to trick Ven into going to the abandoned warehouse, where both the Player and Strelitzia went into. And given their striking similarities (more so the default Player), it would be easy to assume some kind of mix up...

3. So what does that have to do with anything? If Ven wasn’t supposed to be a Union Leader, or even a Dandelion himself, why did Darkness pick him?  Because he was alone. Because he didn’t have anyone to call a true friend. Because he doubts his strength as a Keyblade wielder and a Union Leader. He was shut off from the world, possibly by force, and raised oblivious of the Keyblade War itself and the burden he inadvertently carries.  All of that was possible because Darkness saw a lonely little kid and twisted his mind to believe that he may never get the love and support he wanted, that he can only trust his own shadow and his own heart.

-“The one who answered was a boy with short, wavy golden hair and a tendency to look at the ground. He was so quiet that it was hard to imagine him fighting with a Keyblade.“ -“You two know each other, huh? Must be nice; I’ve always been on my own.” -Ephemer had never seen this boy Ven. Many Keyblade wielders he would at least recognize by face, and would usually hear stories of the truly exceptional ones, but Ven fit in neither category. (Unchained X light novel, pg. 125) Ventus: "Wait. Keyblade wielders fighting each other!?" Ephemer: "Didn't you read the book, Ven?" Ventus: "I did, but...I guess I didn't realize what it meant." ~~ Ventus: "I disagree." Brain: "Whoa, Ven. When did you grow a spine?" Ventus: "This is serious. I don't like the thought of wielders turning their weapons against each other." (Union X Mission 846: Pride Shift) The Union Leaders and Dandelions knew about the rising tension leading up to the War, or in this case, everyone in Daybreak Town knew about the War coming.  All except for Ven. He never considered it a possibility that wielders would turn their weapons against each other, fighting for Lux and not against the Heartless itself. For all he knew, everyone was just going about their missions like nothing even happened...After all, that’s what the Keyblade was for, right? Fighting against the Darkness?

But without Darkness (the entity), he never would’ve gained the Keyblade in the first place.  

Notice how Missing Ache is mostly connected to Dark Medals? If the Keyblade is a physical manifestation of the heart, than that defines their relationship: Darkness coming into contact with a pure Light like Ven’s, and taking care of the rest of his potential. It’s that kind of control that will eventually make Ven doubt himself, doubting his strength and his potential to make any kind of friendship apart from the Union Leaders. 

And even if he lost his memories in the Birth by Sleep timeline, it still had a lasting effect on Ven. -Xehanort tearing his heart apart because of Ven’s incapability of using the forces of Darkness...Because Darkness is an entirely separate entity. The same reason applies on why Darkness/Vanitas was able to survive on his own while Ven was forced to heal with the help of another heart (Sora). There was never “two halves” of Light and Darkness, there was only 1/4 of Light and 3/4 of Darkness. -He reacts negatively to any sort of criticism, and even goes into shock at the motion of a Keyblade raised at him (see BBS novel ch. 11 for more info (it also mentions his love of sweets, btw)), but he also hates the idea of Terra and Aqua holding back their strength, automatically assuming that he’s weaker than both of them.   -And even with the four years living in the Land of Departure with Terra, Aqua, and Master Eraqus, he never closed the gap between friend/student to brother/son-figure. Even with his amnesia, he remained distant of their compassion, never opening up to them in an honest, loving manner...

Darkness thrives on the idea of controlling someone weaker than itself. Daybreak Town, no matter its grandeur and charm, is a dog-eat-dog world, and it made sure Ven know that truth from the beginning.  Friends and partners will abandon you when you fulfill your purpose. The weak will die alone and the strong will crush the weak like bugs. Opening up your emotions and true feelings will make you weak, and people will take advantage of you because of it. The only thing you can trust is your own shadow and the weapon you carry in your heart.  Darkness and Light are one and the same, one cannot live without the other. They are brothers until the end of time, experiencing and feeling the same things and the same emotions. Where you go, I follow, so even if you think that you are alone, I will always be by your side forevermore. And because of me, you would’ve never made new friends (that will eventually leave you), you never would’ve been in the seat of power (that will eventually crumble around you), and you never would’ve seen the Worlds come into fruition (Light will eventually fade, and the Darkness will consume). You are my Light, I am your Darkness, and without me, you would’ve been dead long ago. Darkness as Vanitas wanted to keep that control, even after they were separated by Xehanort. He also didn’t fight back against Xehanort because, as the abuser became the victim, he had no idea to react. Xehanort made Vanitas weak because of his own power and his own skills of manipulation.  Even if he didn’t remember entirely, his dark heart grew colder at the thought that, even without his darker half, Ven can still live a proper happy life. He’s furious of the idea that Ven can live without him, that they can’t share that same happiness, but also avoiding the cycle of doubt and eventual betrayal caused by his hand. But Darkness isn’t inherently evil, it’s just stuck on the logic of “There is no true happiness, where there is love is betrayal, where there is friendship is abandonment, nothing is truly happily ever after...“. And because of that fact, he let Ven watch Darkness take Strelitzia’s life, hoping to find the Player and save them from the War, because life doesn’t give you second chances that easily.

In a way, that would make Ventus believe that her death was entirely his fault (since he accepted Darkness as a part of himself, ie. guilty by association), that all he will do is hurt people, and possibly his new friends. And he may believe that, as long as he’s all alone with his shadow, no one will get hurt, no one will betray him, and the cycle will just repeat on and on and on.

On a sidenote, KH3 Vanitas pretty much describes their relationship to the core: -I’m the piece of Ventus that was taken away, and you’re the piece Ventus needed to be whole again [Sora]. So why shouldn’t you and I look exactly the same? (Taking the appearance of someone Ven can trust, ie. Master Ava and Sora) -You define me, Sora, the same way that Ventus does. We are brothers who, together, make a greater whole. (Light/Darkness duality) -But I am darkness. And I do stand by your side, I’m the shadow that you cast. How much closer could I be? -Ventus: But I didn’t ask for this. To be sifted apart, nice and neat. We should be free to choose. Not just light, not just darkness. We decide what we are. Vanitas:  But...Ventus, I did decide who I am. You see? Ventus: And what you are is darkness? Vanitas: What I am is darkness. Ventus: ...Okay.

All in all, Darkness/Vanitas decided that he should exist by his own nature, meant to be the opposing force against Light. But at the same time, Ven decided that he should be defined as a person, not a puppet stuck with the strings of fate. And in the light of the new Worlds, he could abandon the weak and innocent child he was in the past. But as Vanitas’ final words tell him, what I am is Darkness, you can’t change Darkness in its truest form.

(Also don’t ask me on where Ven’s Chirithy fits into this, I honestly have no idea. For all I know, they may or may not be aware of Darkness’ control on Ven, so we’ll just have to wait and see in the next KH arc.)

TL;DR: 

[floriswrite]

It was hard, for both of them, trying to piece their lives back together, both /together/, and apart. 

Radiant Garden could be more destroyed. It had been. At a point. It had been utterly gone at a point. Transformed by their own greed for knowledge. 

But his World was at least back in some form of capacity after the destruction of Xehanort. And Vexen had slipped back into being Even with ease. The two were really the same side of a coin. Vexen had simply not had to care about morals when it came to science. 

His research could happen without any pesky interruptions from his own mind. 

But he was whole, once more, and Ansem was back, and he was thankful for the man who was a critical part of his heart and family, but it made being in his lab strange. 

He had committed his life so deeply to the clone research. Because he could. Because he was told to. He could never have imagined what it’s true purpose would be. But he had never put much weight into the thought of time travel until then either. Until his services were needed and he had no idea what degree of agent he had been at the end. 

To think they would truly believe that he would betray Ienzo like that. How idiotic could they be. 

But he had to leave with Saix without telling him, and it had been a painful but easy fact. He was needed on that side. That side had his research. He wanted Vexen’s journals more than anything else. And then he had been instructed to make empty vessels, like Xion, but more perfect, and it had been easy.

So, so easy. 

So easy because his loyalty was not to Xemnas but Ienzo. It had always been to the child gifted to him by Ansem all those years ago. 

So easy to ask Demyx, because his research had given him an out to the battle, to bring something to Ienzo. Because no one would expect that he would speak to Demyx. Vexen had always made it very liberally known his feelings on the other members. 

His feelings that were not real and merely built on fragments of memories. Marluxia had always made them feel so real. 

Marluxia who was there, again, with Larxene, of course, and that was a part of the puzzle that Vexen could not understand. How had Marluxia fallen back to Xehanort? Why was he not his Somebody once more? That was all the man had wanted at Oblivion. To find a way back. 

Even, Vexen, felt beyond foolish to learn the way back was death. And not even death via Keyblade. His body would always have scars from Axel. As if he needed reason to hate his body more. 

He couldn’t speak to Marluxia. Not then. Not when everyone was planning something. Because it could go either way.

It had almost gone bad. Very wrong. 

Vexen had not cared, or perhaps he had cared too much. 

Science or family. He hated himself for constantly making that a decision in his life. 

But they had won in the end. Won were it mattered. Even if Sora was missing. Dead but not dead. And his research had turned to focus on that.

Because Ienzo and Ansem willed that. 

They owed the children that much. 

So he settled into his new life. Because his life was science and his family. 

But Lauriam. 

Lauriam was distinctively not Marluxia. 

That had been clearest in the way he spoke to Ansem when he first appeared on Radiant Garden. Elrena close to his side. Elrena who was softer as well. 

Everything made so much sense about the two of them when he learned of Strelitzia. 

Lauriam had spoken plainly to Ansem. Because Ansem was a kind king and deserved as much. Because Ansem knew betrayal intimately. 

Ansem insisted that Lauriam and Elrena stay with them. The castle had plenty of space and he had the notion that he wanted to be close to some mildly familiar faces.

Lauriam had hesitated and Elrena had bristled. They had always been a duo. But eventually Lauriam had agreed. To find their bearings. To try and understand the time and place. 

Ansem had merely told them to take as much time as they needed. 

It was a week into their stay that Lauriam had even come near the labs. Even could not get out of Lauriam /where/ he had woken up. His response to any question that was a bit too deep was an immediate shut down. 

Once it had been his Keyblade. And that had made a few more pieces fit into place.

“Allow me to speak freely?” 

Even startled at the voice. 

Ienzo had left his side a few minutes ago and Even had fallen right back into his research. Memories held the key to everything. Memories controlled everything. It was work that made his heart ache with thoughts of Oblivion. The Riku Replica should have been a perfect idea. But it had wanted to be too real. Ienzo had hesitated for some time before admitting to him how he had died. 

“Lauriam,” Even turned slowly, feeling suddenly caged, “Go ahead.” 

“I had wanted to talk to you about this before, but it seemed foolish to speak of death when it would be coming again soon.” Lauriam started as he walked across the room. 

“How morbid of you.” 

“I have always been on the side of Sora, after all.” Lauriam smirked, but it fell quickly. “Do you know what became of the Riku Replica?” 

“He died in battle, I presume. He was not a large primary focus of mine. You must realize.” Even responded with a wave of his hand. “A failed means to an end.” 

“How heartless of you.” Lauriam laughed. “Vexen was so proud of him. Honestly, it was cute.” 

“You thought it was /cute/ that I made a replica out of spite?” 

“Marluxia found everything about Vexen cute.” Lauriam shrugged. “He created a whole interior being to try and prove that Sora was the wrong choice. Even now you do not get it. Why it had to be Sora. Always Sora.” 

“I doubt I ever will. But I’ve always been more on the side of dark, Mr. Champion of Light.” 

“You’re either getting guardians or princes mixed up, which I am neither.” Lauriam shook his head a little. “Or are you making fun of me?” 

“There’s princes of light?” Even squinted at him. 

“There’s princesses of heart. Which are hearts that lack dark, so essentially they are light.” Lauriam sighed. “Did we ever properly apologize to all the people the Organization kidnapped?” 

“No, too busy dying.” Even smirked at him. “But there are /princes/?” 

“Well, there’s Ventus. More a joke, then anything.” 

 “How is that boy?” 

“Odd, but I am happy for him.” Lauriam placed a hand over his heart. “I am very thankful to Terra and Aqua.” 

“Odd?” 

“He is still a boy. I was only a few years older than him. I... worry it makes him uncomfortable.” 

“That’s understandable.” Even gave him a careful smile. “What did you actually want to talk about?” 

“I wanted to apologize. For before.” Lauriam swallowed. “I- I did not expect Axel to actually go through with it. To go that far to- to win my /favor/.” He scuffed a little and played with his hands. “I do not expect you to ever forgive me, but I needed you to know that I did regret it.” 

“Do you have scars from your death?” Even questioned. “I believe you, but only on the basis that you killed me while I was still useful to you.” 

“You have burn scars?” Lauriam’s voice hitched a little. Wounded. “Vexen needed to only stay out of the way. He allowed a- a /pissing contest/ to destroy him.” 

“Yes, and you are not being pleasant enough to see them.” Even scuffed. “Well maybe if Marluxia had gotten off his high horse it wouldn’t have been such a problem.” 

“We both know you would love if I bent you over your desk right this second.” Lauriam laughed. “Xemnas gave him a /castle/.” 

“Shut up.” Even snapped. “That castle should have been Vexen’s.” 

“What a joke.” Lauriam stepped closer to him then. “Even now you don’t get it. Would Namine have listened?” 

“What?” Even stepped back into the desk. The feeling familiar against his lower back. Familiar ground.

“What was the purpose of Castle Oblivion? What would you have done with Sora? That castle was not supposed to have casualties. Larxene and Marluxia were meant to handle him. Nothing else. To lead him through his memories so Namine could do her job. Why was Vexen stationed there? Why were Lexaeus and Zexion?” 

“Are you accusing Castle Oblivion of having been a trap?” Even stared down at him. He grasped the desk behind him so he did not grab Lauriam. 

“Namine was making Sora loyal to her, was he not? How were we meant to control him? It seems so obvious now.” 

“You’re terrible at apologies, you know that?” Even sighed. “You can’t change the past. ...Probably.” 

Lauriam laughed a little. “Probably.” Lauriam sighed and slowly placed his hands over Even’s. “My point is. Nothing about Castle Oblivion went correctly. I regret all of it. I do not expect forgiveness. I am aware I do not deserve you after what I did. But I would like a chance.” 

“Are you... are you asking me out?” Even stared at him in shock. 

“I think I am. If that is okay.” 

“Give me time to think. My mind and body are- /competing/.” 

“I am being a touch unfair.” Lauriam slipped his hands away and stepped back. “Take as much time as you need.” 

“You are serious?” 

“Marluxia’s words were never lies. But Vexen was a liability and there was a war.” 

“Come back tomorrow.” Even gave a small nod. “Do you- do you still-” he swallowed and finally reached for Lauriam “Do you still feel that way?” 

“I am not Marluxia.” Lauriam responded. “What they felt is theirs. We cannot build a solid foundation on it.” 

“I understand.” Even placed a hand on his cheek. “A fresh start.” 

“That is all I ask for.” Lauriam leaned into his touch. “Remember to eat dinner, Even. And get some rest.” 

“Yes, yes.” Even stepped closer. “Tell me something.”

“Anything.” 

“You really mean that, don’t you?” 

“Do I have reason to lie or keep secrets from you?” Lauriam closed his eyes. 

“I- I suppose not.” Even held his ground. “Back then, it was love at first sight, is that still-” 

“Even.” Lauriam cut him off with a kind smile. “Think about my offer and give me your answer tomorrow.” 

“Okay.” Even withdrew his hand slowly. He had nearly kissed him. It had been so easy to fall into the motions of his body. The control of it all. 

Lauriam caught his hand. “I’ll make you breakfast.” 

“That would be nice.” Even gave him a small nod. A promise for tomorrow. Something to look forward to and think on. 

It wasn’t really a question of yes or no. 

It was a question of what they did after the yes.

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Cherish the Moment - A SoKai Wedding Fic

Rated T. Sora and Kairi get married... Though there's some subverting expectations in here, since it's the only way I could write this--A, because so many others already have and B, because I felt I'd mess it up if I did it any other way--like, there are some moments Kairi's a bit sad that the few feelings she had for Riku will remain a question mark now (and thinks Sora might feel the same way about his feelings for Naminé)... But that really only lasts for five seconds, and can be seen as Kairi wedding jitters, as I swear all of this is really the fluffiest SoKai piece you'll ever read. SoKai, RokuShi, Namiku, Terqua, Gulava, VentusStrelitzia (as well as past PlayerStrelitzia). Slight RiKai and SoNami, but not really, but definitely more of the former, if any. Kind of written by accident when I needed a break from my other stories... and then it snowballed.

Kairi's PoV

As lovely as Kairi’s marriage to Sora was—that she did want more than anything else in that World, and that was a dream come true in so many ways—there was a little part of Kairi, that was sad that the questions she’d once had about Riku and herself would remain exactly that. And she imagined that… even though Sora would never admit it, the side of his heart that still existed in Castle Oblivion felt that about his tangled feelings for Naminé. But it was what it was—since this was real life, and it wasn't perfect, and Kairi wouldn't trade this feeling for the nothingness she’d felt at Sora’s disappearance for the world. Kairi wore something evergreen as her wedding dress—since it was the color she looked best in, and she wanted to look as beautiful as she could for Sora. ….Also, because Kairi had lost her virginity to Sora a long time ago, and she wasn’t going to lie or feel ashamed about it—and in order to match her, her sun was wearing a yellow tuxedo: that reminded Kairi of the bog world she and Sora had recently visited, that made her happy. Of all places they could've gotten married, the couple had chosen Monstropolus' laugh factory, for Kairi had thought if they got married in front of all the running doors, it could make a lovely sight. And it had. The two had also gotten Barbossa to marry them (when King Mickey had said he would be too nervous to do so). That had been Sora's idea… and Kairi got the sense that it was largely because he had been inspired by Will and Elizabeth’s wedding, who he thought they were like. Which was beyond sweet... And seeing the man's humorous reaction to this new world—before Sora and Riku had nearly instantly shoved him back through a Corridor of Light—had been more than funny to Kairi. But he'd actually officiated for them perfectly, in asking Sora if Kairi was the Elizabet to his Will or Calypso to his Davy Jones… But when Barbossa had begun talking about Sora and Kairi’s upcoming wedding night, Sora and Riku had furiously made him vacate the premises… and despite everything, Kairi had laughed. Even while she’d tried to defend the pirate from her husband and big brother (because yes, that was what Riku really was to her) But after that drama—right after they’d been married—Sora and Kairi had rode atop one of the doors together for a while—with both of them kicking their legs to and fro as it moved beneath them, like they’d both rocked on the paopu tree all those years ago. And while both Kairi and Sora felt somewhat bad that they were keeping their joy from everyone else, by having this special and private moment… they contended themselves with the fact that every other married couple would have been getting pictures away from everyone else at this point, anyway. "But maybe we shouldn't be doing this," Sora eventually said with a chuckle. "I mean, your wedding dress is so impractical for writing doors on, Kai. You might fall right off! And the last thing I want, is for my wife to die on our wedding day." But at this point that Sora had said this, the door had already reached its destination—sort of making Sora's words moot—but Kairi couldn't help teasing her love about it, all the same. "It's okay, Sora. Wielding the Keyblade gives us mastery over gravity, remember? That's how I fought in a dress in The Castle That Never Was. So, I’ll be fine if we want to do this again." But right now, they had bigger fish to fry. So Kairi walked towards Boo's door. The spouses had planned to go visit Boo during their wedding—because they'd wanted everyone they loved to be able to attend. And Kairi adored her, now that she’d gotten to meet her a few times. But now that she and Sora were at her door, planning to go through, Kairi found herself second-guessing if this was a good idea at all. They didn’t want to risk spooking the girl’s parents, who still somehow didn’t know about other worlds… "Sora," Kairi started, as she with loving eyes pulled him away from the door he'd just opened. “We can maybe disturb Boo later… But don't you think we should go see the rest of our friends for a little bit before our honeymoon? Sora didn't have to be asked twice; Kairi had sensed that he was missing Riku, after all. When the two of them got back to the Laugh Floor—where their ceremony had taken place—the lovers could see that Riku was trying to see if Naminé would eat the lemon meringue pie, if he got rid of the gooey bits from it, that she didn't like. …Riku and Naminé were wonderful for each other, and Kairi was honestly glad that they had each other... And Naminé ending up accepting Riku's offer was just further proof of that, in her eyes. And what were Sora and Kairi’s other friends doing right now? Most of the ones with responsibilities in other parts of the galaxy had left already. But some were still here. Like right now, Kairi could see that Ariel was thrilled that she could be part human, part mermaid in a monster form here if she wished... Aladdin was trying to stop Abu from stealing things, it appeared (though this was unnecessary, as both Kairi and Sora had told their guests that they were welcome to any of the decorations the two of them had brought here), and Kairi was glad when Xion kept reminding him that it was fine... Hercules was trying to convince Mike and Sully that they might as well have statues of themselves put up here in their world, like he had a few of his own in Olympus. And the Restoration Committee was trying to see if they could use the door system themselves, as some part of the defense mechanism. And a Lightning was wondering why just because a "Tron" (who had thankfully been restored!) had added a data version of her to his system, the real her had been invited to this wedding… Kairi didn’t even know the answer to that herself, but the more the merrier! Right? As for everyone else... Roxas was by Xion’s side in the whole Abu and Aladdin scenario. The former Nobody did seem somewhat sad that Xion was paying all her attention to it, instead of him… But since it was for Xion, it was clear that he was happy to be doing whatever she was. Terra and Aqua were dancing, and it made Kairi ponder whether or not they'd now decided they saw each other as more than siblings, after all. Lauriam and Ven were… comforting Strelitzia over Player's death. And Kairi once again thought about telling the poor dear that she hadn't had to come here—and that she could leave whenever she wanted to—but that she and Sora were both thankful she had come at all... And Lea, and Isa were catching up with Skuld at the punch table... And it looked as though King Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Master Yen Sid were working on some amazing fireworks for Sora and herself? "Where do we even begin?" Sora asked nervously, as he scratched his ear. Kairi imagined that Sora probably wanted to go help with the fireworks display, but given his tendency to sometimes make things blow up—like those blasters back at The World That Never Was—Kairi didn’t know if that was the best idea. "Say, Kairi… what do you say we go talk to Ava first? Is it me, or does she seem lonely?" And Ava did seem that way. And Kairi got the sense that while the woman was thrilled, that what she’d done had helped to lead everyone here... that she was beginning to think what the Master of Masters had been after similar things, after all, and that maybe she had been wrong to kill him. And as soon as they approached Ava, she was telling them just that. "It's a beautiful wedding you’re having, Sora, Kairi... but my father should have been here, since he created all of this. But he isn't... and that’s my fault." '…Except that, as great as your father was… I think he did go insane from it all and would have destroyed the world, if you hadn't stopped him,' Kairi wanted to say, but didn’t. And judging by how Sora kept opening his mouth and shutting it again, Kairi thought that her other heart felt much the same way. But instead, she enveloped the girl in her arms--that Sora watched with a proud twinkle in his eye before he’d turned away from them, Kairi had seen. Perhaps he was about to find Gula and tell him to make sure his girlfriend was happy –and told her what was in her heart. "I get where you're coming from, Ava. Really, I do. And joyful times can make you think of all those who you've lost, who you wish could be there for you, too. …But I think you're looking at this in the wrong way. You've got to think about all that you have! Like your dear friends Gula, Invi, Aced, and Ira... and all of the various Key Kids who found their way here; and how you're now friends with us: the new guard when it comes to the Light, and together we've created some beautifulthings." And there was also the answer to Kairi’s own problem, wasn't it? She had been somewhat focusing on the teeny, tiny bit that she and Sora were losing in getting married—since they had had other feelings for others in the past—that she’d missed that, despite everything, she was finally tied with the love of her life in every way she had wanted to... and that meant more than all of the munny in the world ever could. And her words must have had the intended result of getting through to Ava, too, Kairi saw, because the older woman wiped her tears away... smiled at Kairi and Sora, as he joined them with Gula being pulled behind him, and said, "You’re right, Kairi. And in my heart, I’m still a leader to the Dandelion children. So why am I becoming undone, when I should be comforting Strelitzia--who's already lost so much!—about her love? If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go do that right now. Thank you, my King and Queen." Kairi blushed at that title she and Sora had been given after everything they'd done (Riku and Naminé had even been given some, too), but didn't let it show. Instead, she admired how at that exact moment, Gula had chosen to kiss Ava on the cheek—to show her that she was cared for, but not distract her too much from her mission; or so Kairi guessed—while Ven had chosen to kiss Strelitzia full on the mouth, who was responding positively while Lauriam was not. So suddenly feeling very much in love for a few reasons, Kairi leapt into her precious Sora's arms—wrapping her legs around his waist, as he caught her at the last minute after her surprise attack. "Sora, you know what I just realized?” Kairi asked, as she leaned close to Sora and prayed to Kingdom Hearts to give her strength to say these next words, since she was a terrible dancer. “We've been lame! in not giving everyone our first dance yet!" Sora chuckled at this, as he leaned his forehead against Kairi’s own and looked deep into her eyes with loving ones of his own. “Then let’s go give them a show, Mrs.” And everyone around them must have realized what they were finally about to do, because Terra wolf-whistled, and Riku called out with a hand over his mouth, "Dance already, you two! You've already broken tradition by having the other couples do so before you!" Sora stuck his tongue out at Riku for that one. So in wanting to everything wedding the traditional way now, Kairi let Sora lead her onto the dance floor—and he winked at her in a way that made a shiver run down Kairi’s spine in the best way possible—and she prepared to do a nice, slow dance with Sora... only for the song to change to the Cupid Shuffle. And Kairi and Sora cracked up, as they once again leaned their foreheads against each other’s, but also held both of each other’s hands this time while doing so. After dancing to the song by themselves very shortly, Kairi and Sora motioned for everyone to come onto the dance floor with them... which Kairi was glad for—since it would hopefully distract everyone how she always messed up timing or did the wrong thing in this song. But Sora was a godsent when it came to making her look good at dancing, and somehow seemed charmed by her bad movements, so it was a win-win. Fortunately, the Cha-Cha slide came on right after the Cupid Shuffle—that Kairi knew better than any other dance—and she was able to redeem herself some. And seeming to realize she wanted to leave the dance floor on a high note, Sora asked with the kind of kindness he’d had in his eyes when he’d told Chirithy she’d made him remember how good it was to experience things with a friend, "Want to give everyone else the dance floor now?" And Kairi shouted "Yes!" faster than anything she'd ever said in her life, since—as it was—her feet were starting to kill her in these high heels, too. Sora, truly being a psychic, swept Kairi up off her feet before she could even voice the thought. And she leaned her head into his shoulder, like a soldier coming home for the first time in ages. It was at this time that everyone seemed figure out that they were ready to leave. So there were last minute goodbyes (Roxas pretended to cry that his brother was all grown up—and this had gotten a kick out of everyone—nevermind the fact that Sora was older than he was), thank yous, and promises to see each other again soon....As well as Kairi trying to give away some of the lantern decorations that she and Sora had bought for the event... But soon enough, everything was sorted out and Sora and Kairi were leaving in the gummi ship to go somewhere magical for their honeymoon, as all of their friends waved at them... and it was then that Kairi promptly passed out in Sora's arms... all the planning, stress, and exhausting—though perfect day—having finally gotten to her. … When Kairi later awoke, it wasn't to her and Sora's honeymoon location—as nice as that would have been; and Sora was still keeping it a secret where they were even going—but to their room in their gummi ship. And Kairi had to say... even if there was always a part of her that would slightly prefer being home, she could certainly get used to waking up in their bed in the gummi ship together. Sora’s scent was all over the blankets and it was lovely; Kairi had to resist the urge to roll herself back up into them and go to sleep again, even. But Sora must have sensed what she was about to do, because he stole her blankets away from her before she could get too comfortable and Kairi glared at him... before descending into a fit of giggles. "Hey, Kairi!" Sora was laughing himself. "You can't go back to sleep yet! I mean... here I am, somewhat carelessly leaving the ship in autopilot to make sure I was by your side when you first woke up after we were married. And you don't even care? C'mon! Where's the Kairi who jumped through Corridors of Darkness to see me?" Suddenly feeling more awake now, and giddy, and even somewhat like their younger selves, Kairi sat with her knees on the black mattress, and spared Sora a glance and a thought. "You're right... I'm not appreciating this moment enough at all. I should be calling you a 'lazy bum', and slapping you upside the head... Or actually, not doing that, because I'm a sensible girl who knows how to deal with her feelings now, outside of physically hurting the object of my affections. Especially since I need no excuse to touch you now. Eep!" And even before Kairi herself knew it—and she was the one who had done this!—she was flying through the air and then in Sora's arms, as she peppered kiss after kiss on every inch of his face, neck, and shoulders. And when he gently pushed her away from himself—while still smiling stupidly—Kairi could tell that he’d been getting distracted, too. But Sora somehow got himself back under control soon, to which Kairi could only frown. "Kairi… not now. The gummi ship will crash. And we're saving this for our special honeymoon, remember?" Kairi wanted to do anything but let Sora go. But as she recalled how Riku and Naminé's ship had been nearly destroyed by Heartless not so long ago, she thought that being cautious probably was for the best. "…Okay, Sora. Go pilot the gummi ship—and take me to wherever this glorious new world is—and I'll get us breakfast." Kairi, who had been moved by Sora's cooking at the bistro, almost hated that she was going to make stuff for them now... instead of letting the professional chef make food for her. But she also thought it was only fair, since he was apparently going all out for her in another way. And besides, she was quite the cook herself, wasn't she? Hadn't she found many neat ways to cook fruit on the island, that Sora and Riku had adored? Kairi got her answer to that question soon enough, when Sora told her "Yes, please do that, Kairi! And bring out the fruit flavor even more in the orange chicken, as you do!" And then Sora was diving for the control panel, as both he and Kairi saw an asteroid heading their way. And the Keyblade master got the ship to move in just the nick of time. Kairi laughed. As much as, in some ways, she didn't want it to be... this was kind of like old times: like when Sora had been driving the gummi ship after saving her from Hollow Bastion, and Kairi had been left asking Goofy what she could do to help him at all, while the brunet and Donald had fought about who was driving. And as much as Kairi had grown since then and was thrilled by it, because she never wanted to lose her friends again but to rather be their equal... She still liked being cherished by Sora like this—especially the day after their wedding—and if creating non-breakfast food was her part of the bargain to have that feeling, then she'd gladly do it. And she did. And the happy couple ate merrily. When they were done? Sora was pointing out to her the biggest amusement park she could have ever imagined! "Is this where we're going, Sora? It seems so fun! Oh! What's that ride that looks like a skyscraper, and-" Kairi got her answer to that question when she saw the "elevator" within the false building rocket back down to ground level from a horrifying height. "...You know, Kairi, weirdly enough... I must have somehow drawn on the imagery of this place when I developed my Attraction Flow. Or something. Like, I almost wanted to make an attack like that skyscraper—like a guillotine, almost—but I didn't." Huh. That was odd. Kairi really didn’t know what forces governed the multiverse—so maybe all things happened for a reason—but even so, there was at least one thing she didn’t want to talk about in that... "I'm all for us being entertained by roller coasters as part of our honeymoon, Sora... But can we stop talking about beheadings, please? I think I’m going to be sick." And not needing to say anymore to convince him, Sora gently took Kairi’s hand in his own and began leading her through the exit… and the moment Kairi’s feet touched the ground, she was already having so much fun! She ran on the cobblestone to where she could get funny little hats, and then motioned with her eyes that she and Sora should go to the castle towering above them next! Which they did. And as the two of them had always wanted to fly with one another, they went on a ride together of soaring elephants. And it reminded Kairi of that “Dumbo” Sora had summoned on his first journey. She had seen this while being in his heart. And Kairi made sure to point this out to Sora, as she leaned as close to him in the seat as she could—even getting out of her own seatbelt, so she could be within his. Once they exited that attraction, one of the workers seemed annoyed with what Kairi had done... but upon seeing the rings on her and Sora's fingers, shook his head and seemed to imagine it was only expected of newlyweds. Or so Kairi guessed, since he let them walk by without chewing them out in the slightest. Then, Sora was amazed by something called vanilla ice cream—since the two of them had only had seasalt and chocolate before—and in trying it herself, Kairi decided it was every bit as good as Sora said it was. And after that, Sora and Kairi discovered something called "race cars" in a place called “Autopia”, that neither could get enough of. But too soon after that—or perhaps not soon enough—they were back in their hotel room (that had aesthetics they both loved. Kairi partly loved them because there were pictures of Sora here somehow! Maybe the two of them really were somehow connected to this place and the multiverse was trying to show them it). And then Sora and Kairi were worshipping each other's bodies, lazily, as warm air spilled into the room. They'd both been slow and nervous with each other when they’d started, almost like it was their first time again, but then they’d found their way—as they always did with each other—and had just opted to make slow love. "And to think we can start every morning like this, Kairi," Sora said sweetly, as he kissed her lips and the morning sun spilled in. "Mmm. That’s the most perfect thing I can think of," Kairi answered back… “Well, aside from a few other things to make this even better”, Kairi said cheekily, as she sat up and her lips started going down, down, down Sora’s body. And in a world where anything could be torn away from them in any given moment—including each other, as they both knew well—knowing that they could wake up together for a while really was the best feeling in the world. And Kairi cherished it.

[angel-with-a-pipette]

I’m sorry I am replying late, but... I genuinely have problems answering this appropriately.

You see, I look at Sora and I am happy. Just seeing his face makes me happy and I could gush about something he did and said or just the way he looks all day, but your ask made me think. Yeah, why do I love him so much? Can I even explain it? Is there an actual reason?

(Warning: Long post is long. Tons of screenshots. You have been warned)

It’s everything about him. It’s the fact that I got to see him grow in the last 12 years, from a 14 year old awkward and goofy but cute boy to a 15/16 year old handsome young man who had to mature far past his age with everything he has been through. But his personality is just so delightful, too.

He is a funny person:

He has sass:

He radiates confidence:

But despite being thrown into these crazy adventures and being forced to make very adult decisions and having to fight the fight of adults, he still retains his childlike wonder:

Actually, he really keeps the child inside of him alive and it’s precious how playful he is. It’s also telling how we get to see more of this playful side after he’s been nearly norted :/ 

It’s like he is trying to live life to the fullest now - and he is so genuine and uninhibited about this. Not to mention downright precious:

He’s the type of person people like to surround themselves with, he shines as bright as the sun with only a smile:

But most of all?

It’s his love.

Sora has practically become a symbol of love and hope in this franchise.

He is always ready to help people despite not even knowing them:

He is even ready to help somebody who attacked him prior. He can immediately tell Elsa was just scared and doesn’t hesitate to protect her:

And he doesn’t leave Riku behind even though he turned into a villain right before his eyes:

Heck, he’s even friends with a bunch of stuffed animals! 

And gladly so, he is even super upset when he suddenly vanishes from the Winnie the Pooh book cover, indicating that his connection to them might have been harmed:

And if that wasn’t sweet enough - can you picture a 15 year old boy starring in a musical just to cheer up his mermaid bestie? Because that’s what Sora absolutely does:

And don’t even get me started on how sweet he is to little creatures and kids!! He even tends to crouch down to their level to make them comfortable:

Just look how sweet he is to Hiro who clearly looks up to Sora:

Upon witnessing Will’s death, Sora freaks out and goes to punch Davy Jones because he is done witnessing unfair deaths:

But not only Will - Sora has such a big heart that seeing Flynn die shortly after meeting him devastates him as well:

And when he is revived, Sora is more than relieved, so relieved in fact that he has to hug Donald and Goofy:

It’s so rare to see a male protagonist be so openly affectionate with his friends in general and it’s such a fresh breath of air:

He also doesn’t hesitate to show tears of relief and happiness:

(okay, he was a little flustered about that xD)

And he is so incredibly selfless, too, willing to give his life for Kairi:

He even expresses the wish to help Strelitzia Nameless star despite barely clinging onto life himself, if that isn’t selfless, I don’t know what is:

Sora insists that his friends are his power and he values them most:

And he pretends he is alright just for their sake, not allowing his sad feelings to surface if he can help it:

He even goes as far as to doubt his own self-worth without them:

And it’s the connection to them that shows Sora ultimately that everything can have a heart and he acknowledges it:

And of course, one thing that gets overlooked a lot: His love for Kairi. How he started out crushing on her, but still feeling so protective over her that he just had to share a paopu with her, no matter how, as long as he did it before Riku could:

He promised to return back to the Island with Riku in tow, but he can’t hold his promise. Sora feels guilty about it and doesn’t even have it in him to rejoice until she hugs him first:

And in KH3, they finally confess their feelings for real, by sharing a paopu fruit:

She is his light.

Their love is so sweet and wholesome and innocent and it just melts my heart when I look at them. Sora is so clearly in love and it suits him so well:

Needless to mention that Haley Joel Osment’s performance for him just adds to the richness that is Sora’s character. Without him and the emotions he is able to emote, I doubt Sora would have such an effect on me. In fact, I didn’t originally play the English version of Kingdom Hearts and while I always had a fondness for Sora, I only really fell in love with him in the last years, when I played KH1 and 2 FM for the first time, when I got to play CoM and BBS for the first time and especially now in KH3, his arguably best performance since KH2. With every scene, my love for Sora just grew.

Also, how can you not squeal at these images?

He’s the good this world needs. The unconditional love, the happiness, the helpfulness. If more people were like Sora, I truly believe this world would be a better place.

I’m sorry, I don’t feel like I did a good job at explaining at all ._. I also don’t feel that I remotely did Sora justice :/ There are so many other people who’d be more eloquent than I am, sorry ><

[mzargentum]

The Stormsender’s Daughter | Chapter XIX | Amat Victoria Curam

Chapter XVIII | Chapter XIX | Chapter XX

Warnings: None.

Word Count: 1,566

A/N: Italics represent past events.

The silence returned.

For hours and hours.

It felt like an eternity.

Only because of the anxiousness that rattled Galahd’s bones.

4:29am.

The silence made it easy to hear the pitter patter of Birdie’s feet on the marble floors.

She enter her room over an hour ago. The pipes still roared within the walls. She was still in her shower.

There was not a single stir otherwise.

Dion was stationed in his office, the girls still in their wistful dreamland, the Pythoness tossing in her bed.

Asleep, lightly. She was on her guard.

Good...that means the escape will be quick.

And she had little reason to doubt.

The Nifs will find the letter soon. The window would be short.

This depended on how long Birdie showered.

It needed to be at the right time. Where there was a zero percent chance of suspicion of their battered young maid.

All focus had to be on the devil and his bird.

Success depended on who was in the midst of the chaos and who wasn’t.

And to succeed, the Pythoness needed to be furthest from the chaos…

…and that was what was to happen as soon as the pipes settled. 

She sat still.

Appearing lifeless in her sitting position, Galahd’s mind was steady.

Her breath light.She couldn’t miss her marker. Any moment now.

Time blended together.

The roaring overtook her entire psyche. Growing louder and louder every moment. Her heartbeat becoming faint against it.

Her feet planted firmly on the ground waiting to pounce.

This was life or death.

No second chances.

And she was not going to die here.

5am.

Galahd’s eyes popped open as the roaring within the walls ceased. Like a spring, she leapt from her seat dashing from the second pantry, satchel in hand.

Birdie was definitely exhausted for she heard nothing, but silence from her room. The fireplace to Dion’s office just barely illuminating the floor against the sunrise through the windows of the foyer.

It was only slight, but Galahd could see the sun raring to peak its head over the horizon as she raised up the stairs to the second floor.

By now the empire has found the envelope and will be contacting Dion fairly soon. If it involved the Stormsender’s precious daughter, the Chancellor would definitely get involved. They didn’t need to be here for whatever Dion did to his Strelitzia Reginae, let alone what that insane Chancellor would do to Dion for losing his trophy.

This was a short window, but the sooner she got to the Pythoness, the sooner she’d be out of here. Finally.

First thing’s first: angel face.

                                             __________________

She was right though, Muerlin was definitely on defense.

As soon as the wizard heard the door swing open, she wasted no time slamming the girl against the wall by her throat. It took everything in the girl’s power to keep quiet as the air in her lungs was abruptly forced out. 

“G-Galahd?”

Muerlin pulled back from the coughing servant. “I’m sorry, I thought you were-”.

“No time!”, the girl suddenly cut off the wizard’s apology. “We’ve gotta hurry and get you out of here!”

Muerlin raised a confused eyebrow. “Whatddya mean? What’s wrong?”

“Dion”, the girl panted in between her words, appearing to be in panic. “He…he’s told the Chancellor that you’re here”.

Muerlin’s heart sank to her feet. “Dammit all…”.

“They’re coming for you now. They’ll arrive at the manor any moment”, she continued. “You have to get out of here. NOW!”

“Right”, Muerlin nodded as she pushed open the large window aside the bed, “come on”, she gestured to the servant to follow.

“W-What?”, the backed up slightly toward the door, “b…but…I can’t or-”.

“You’ll get pistol whipped again?”, the wizard interrupted.

The girl just stared at the wizard, fear and uncertainty in her milky eyes.

“Not on my watch”, Muerlin declared with an outstretched hand, “now come on”.

The girl hesitated slightly as she took the wizard’s hand before Muerlin sent them soaring through the window onto the manor grounds below.

Upon landing, Galahd peered toward the rear of the manor. “That way”, the girl pointed toward a village against the horizon by a mountain range, “we’ll be safe there for a while”, she insisted.

“Gotcha”, Muerlin heaved the girl onto her back. “Hang on tight”, the wizard instructed with a wink before dashing toward the horizon at top speed. Leaving Dion’s manor to fade in the dust.

                                                 _______________

6:30am.

Roaming about the village, Muerlin examined the occupants with a confused eyebrow.

Most of them seemed to be female and they were all most or less dressed like Galahd was when they met. Just…older and…extra voluptuous. Peering toward Galahd, she didn’t seem to acknowledge anyone.

Her expression was stoic, much unlike how she was in the manor.

Much less timid and…seemingly fragile.

She looked like she could stomp out everyone here.

“Galahd”, Muerlin continued to suspiciously stare at the girl, “where are we going?”

“I know a safe spot for us to lay low”, she firmly replied.

“Really now? And you know this how?”

“Just trust me”.

Muerlin retuned to viewing the residents. They were all staring. Actually, more like glaring.

“They don’t seem really happy to see us”, Muerlin lightly whispered.

“Don’t worry about it”, Galahd replied, expression unchanged. “Just follow me”.

“Hm”. Muerlin just stared at her as she continued to followed. Her suspicions still high, but she wasn’t going to learn anything without a little digging and that could possibly require a little cooperation.

After a while of walking, they came across a small tavern.

“We’ll stop here for the time being”, Galahd instructed as she walked in.

“No sense in objecting, I suppose”, Muerlin smirked as she followed. They took a seat at a table in a far corner and ordered drinks. “What now?”, Muerlin finally raised her voice after a brief period of silence.

“The point is to not draw any attention to ourselves”, Galahd replied with a light glare. “We’ll be able to move soon. Just be patient”.

“Hm”, Muerlin smirked, “whatever you say, captain”.

After more drinks, minutes turned into a couple of hours of mostly silence.

By 9:30am, Galahd finally stood from her seat.

“What’s up?”, Muerlin asked with a raised eyebrow.“I’ll be back”, Galahd insisted as she pushed her chair back in.

“And where are you going?”

“Fetching the way out of here”, Galahd replied before abruptly storming away.

“…Right. We’ll see about that”, the wizard mumbled to herself with a smirk as she finished her drink.

                                               _________________

8:45pm.

“I swear, I don’t know where she went!”, the shaky barkeep stammered, “you have to believe me!”

“I don’t HAVE to believe a word you say, simpleton”, Ulldor snarled at the man. Imperial soldiers holding him and the patrons at gunpoint. “We got a call specifically to search this location and here you are calling my intelligence false. Are you insinuating that I am lying?”

“N-n-no, sir! I would never”.

“Then I would suggest you start answering my questions or I will be legally obligated to try you for treason!”, Ulldor commanded.

“Sir!”, an underling solider shouted toward his superior, “the Chancellor gave us permission to search the rest of the village!”

“Well, what’re you waiting for?”, Ulldor growled toward the man, “Start searching immediately! We cannot allow the Pythoness to escape!”

The village remained in peril all night with Imperials searching through various homes and businesses for the fugitive wizard, but to no avail. By the next morning, they seemed to have all, but given up until…

“E-excuse me…sir…?”, a young child hesitantly waved to get a soldiers attention. “I…I think I saw the Pythoness up there…”, he pointed toward higher ground, “…toward the caverns in the mountain beds…”.

With a light nod, the solider informed his captain leaving the child, whom in turn darted in the other direction toward his home, a large handful of gil in his grasp.

                                                ________________

A light fire crackled against the echoing silence of the cavern.

Galahd’s hands warmed against the flame’s aura as she sat upon a discarded log. She shook with light anxiousness waiting for her window to leave the cavern and evacuate the village. Just like before, she had to time it perfectly. Success required remaining out of the chaos.

She just needed to be patient.

As her window approached, she proceeded to prepare herself. Her mind and sense closed off to the rest of the world.

She would succeed. She would not die here.

She could finally relax. She was free.

Standing from her seat, the girl’s window opening, she headed toward the opening of the cavern.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you”.

Galahd’s heart felt as if it had halted in her chest at the sudden echo from behind her. 

But...she was just sitting there...facing that direction.

However, thinking about it further, the fire didn’t cover the furthest end of the cavern.

There was a gap of pitch darkness in that particular space.

Slowly turning around, her eyes nearly popped out of her skull upon seeing a figure sitting in the darkness.

“There’s some sketchy shit going on out there”, the figure spoke. “No place for a helpless servant”.

Her body lightly trembled once she noticed the figure’s twinkling electric fingers.

“But you wouldn’t know anything about that...”.

And her bright teal eyes.

“...would you...Galahd?”

                                                  ________________

Tagging: @digitalkanvas​ @completelyinappropriate​ @aquathemermaidstripper​ @glacian-apocalypse​ @a-new-recipehhh​

[derekscorner]

Characters stick around too long

Even now I still stand by the notion that some of KH’s problems is the sheer refusal to leave a character be. Which isn’t the only reason but I do think it’s one of them.

When the only thing that invests people is their trios then you’ll do what you can to keep them invested. (even if it takes random new rules or convoluted schemes to keep them around)

Which is a bit ironic since they’ve done their best to erase Final Fantasy cameos as the series go on but that is a character attachment rant of my own and I’d like to avoid my own hypocrisy for this post.

Onto my tangent

Knowing how much attachment and headcanon people have for characters makes me skeptical this will be read beyond here but hopefully I’ll get a few responses. (cause I like to hear calm opinions)

I’ll be blunt, I think there’s a few major issues with writing decisions we all dislike. One is that KH only has one or two writers that even follow along with Nomura’s plans (including himself). Second is that nearly every member of the cast we have is a clone of another.

And most importantly, I feel another huge issue is fans and Nomura’s refusal to let a character just bow out. They keep dragging them back. And I understand that many have a very strong emotional attachment to some to these characters even if I dont know why. (since more traits are fan assigned headcanon or manga added)

This love isn’t an issue in of itself and, given how little the games will develop a person, you need these manga/novel traits or headcanons. However, this turns into an issue when they deter progression for other things or characters just to appease what is viewed as unfair.

Sure, many of these characters had unfair lives. That tragedy is a big (if not only imo) reason that they got such followings. I also dont think they should just be left, what I think is they needed resolution. And I will grant you, how I’d resolve some of them differently than many others.

I mean, think about it, how neglected was Roxas screentime in Days, Strelitzias everything, or Kairi’s time just to focus on something else? How many random rules did DDD add to “fix” something that already had a clear means in canon to be saved or resolved?

It’s hard not to sound like I”m hating on characters that, in truth, I feel nothing for at all but any form of opinion or critique these days is seen as “hate”. Gotta love the close minded nature of the internet amirite?

How many of you have sit down and asked the questions like; “would I even care about this character if their story wasnt’ sad?” “what purpose does this character serve now?”

LIke Roxas, Xion, Namine, or Axel. What purpose did they have beyond their initial focus? Axel’s keyblade felt forced, Roxas and Xion just kinda popped back in, and of the four, Namine did the most by contacting Terra. Of course, you can miss that last bit due to how missed Namine’s scene in KH3 is.

What purpose does it serve to put present characters in the KHUX’s story? I can see Luxu or the MoM reappearing in the future because they vanished prior to that war. It’s a bit lame KHUX was remolded to such relevance but that alone is annoying but passable.

But why does Ven have to be from the past? Or Marluxia and Larxene? What does this do? I know lots of people wanted the lives of some Org members explained...even if I can’t understand why.

At this point I know I’m rambling but I’m truly just baffled by it. It’s adding stuff to things that dont need it while ignoring things that could use it. Kairi is so neglected that anything they try to do now feels forced.

Strelitzia was the first new character in a while, a female at that, and she was killed off two weeks to the day of being introduced. What fucking purpose does that serve but to add to the intrigue of human Marluxia?

Hell, why did KHUX have to keep going? That initial run as a browser game was damn good. It was a self contained mystery story. It explained what a war was, it explained how Sora’s world even formed. Look at it now though, it’s a cycle apparently, there’s timelines all around, and it continues to drag in present cast into it’s fold to artificially grow.

Fuc it I am just rambling with no point now. I should wrap this up, I am sorry.

At the end of the day I am just horribly annoyed that things seem to happen for no reason or time is wasted to explain a revival and I’m horribly annoyed when someone is ignored to explore a character that’s lived beyond their point.

I believe in resolution and I think so much of KH would’ve flowed better if the story had it.

Edit: For fun, how would’ve resolved it? I’ll list my ramble below-

Chi/UX? That would’ve ended at the initial war. No time traveling, no present cast, that story would exist to explain Luxu, the MoM, and the war. If need be, you could even remake it as a console title but never artificially keep its story alive.

And dont tell me Chi kept going to answer unanswered questions cause we’re now on UX and still dont know anything.

Roxas, Namine, Xion, and Axel? These people had the perfect chance for resolution in DDD. Sora was in a realm that could manifest them. They could’ve been a great tool to show Sora’s darkness grow. Whether they lived on as dreams or Joshua reincarnated them, they should’ve stopped here.

TAV? I felt Aqua’s story should’ve resolved in KH3 or even the Secret Episode of BBS. I wouldn’t have kept Ven nor Vanitas around past BBS and I still would’ve had Terra (as the Lingering Will) help destroy Terranort. Whether he got his body back or died you can decide.

Xehanort? For the love of anything you deem holy, do not try to redeem him. He was developed ok for a villain till DDD turned him into Aizen and invalidated the series till then. He definitely didn’t need to be passed off as he was in KH3. Just let me end the fucker. I dont care about his wishywashy motives at this point.

And the nobodies? No, never, recompletion is a sad way to bypass death. I hate it and Xehanort (and at this point, Luxu) didn’t even need it to return. 

/rant