#where is Anti-sora

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 2 - Halloween Town Drive Forms

[robotsafari]

i know back then (like when i was twelve.) i would’ve been groaning at scenes where sora is liek “omg they’re like me and kairi fr” but honestly those scenes are so fucking adorable . this is a win for the bisexuals.

like sora is 100% bi. he is longing for both of his partners this whole fucking game.

[storm-driver]

bear with me, kh3 rewrite where sora is guided by eraqus' keyblade to castle oblivion early on in the game, and he stumbles his way into the chamber of waking to find ven, brings him back to everyone else to let him rest and recover for a couple disney worlds, and after a few worlds, he's ready to go save aqua, and a whole "world of darkness" world appears on the map, and ventus is your party member the whole way through the world. him and sora can have a proper conversation about their weird af situation, ventus can bear witness to The Horrors that is the worlds plunging into darkness for almost a dozen years. anti-aqua can be the final boss and ventus gets unique dialogue while fighting her.

just think about it.

[strayheartless]

People absolutely underestimate Rikus potential cryptid energy. We are talking like big “moth man” vibes.

Like he’s my boy, but I’m imagining nights where someone -we will say Aqua- hears noise from the kitchen in the land of departure. when she swings the door open all she sees is these two eyes that catch the light from the hallway.

Aqua yells and turns on the light, keyblade at the ready… only to find Riku standing with a yogurt pot in one hand and a spoon in his mouth.

And Riku’s just like “evening,”.

OR

times when Terra will be looking for him for literal hours only for him to fold out of a dark corner in the rafters like a paper doll. And Terra doesn’t know whether to terrified or impressed.

OR

times when Riku’s dream eater form is triggered (I love that particular fanon) and he’s crawling around and hanging off of ceilings and Roxas and Ven are doubly like “NOT TODAY SATAN”

It would be worse when Sora’s Anti form gets triggered at the same time because then you have one crawling around on the ceiling like some bram stokers nightmare fuel, and the other one crab scuttling across the floor like Gollum on darkness filled steroids. Kairi personally believes she needs a raise. Mostly because she now carries around a spray bottle to stop them from chewing on drapes.

Biggest nightmare fuel moment:

Riku’s dream eater form

Sora’s anti form

And Vanitas (just him in general)

Just coming together for one beautiful awful storm of cryptid behaviour while on mission in beasts castle.

Ven, Kairi and Xion trailing behind their path of destruction, apologising to Belle and Beast for the furniture they chew.

[kingdomhearts-and-soriku-trash]

After KH 3 and everything, I wonder if Riku knows about Anti-Sora and knows what that Side of him is.

Does he ever wonder about when Sora became a heartless? Like late at night does he ever think about his actions all those years ago in Hollow Bastion (I think that’s where it happened right??)

Do these questions ever plague him in the night and he can’t sleep because he feels at fault and he’s tired of feeling this way but Sora isn’t there anymore to help him understand that’s it’s okay?

[crepes-suzette-373]

Germa and French references

(Plus bonus Star Wars mention at the end)

Sanji's iron mask in the flashbacks immediately made me think of Dumas's works, but when I saw it I didn't think much about it. It's just like, "Oh I guess it's just part of the Sanji = French thing". Plus in one of the cover arts Sanji was drawn in a classic Musketeer outfit, so I thought it was just for fun.

But Twitter user Marudoro-san made this thread that pointed out a bunch of the same references I'd caught and said "Hey, maybe this is actually important to the plot later", and I think they have a point. So I figured I'd share what I'd already noticed, and I will highlight the input that I got from Marudoro-san in red here in this post.

Iron Mask

The man in the iron mask is a French prisoner whose identity is never truly known in history. In his novel, Alexandre Dumas invented a plot where the iron masked prisoner is the twin brother of King Louis XIV, and the plot involves the famous Musketeers from the previous novels in a conspiracy of switching the king for the twin brother.

At a glance, it might be just a literary Easter egg, but when I look at it again, I do start to have questions. Within the One Piece scenario context, this is unnecessary. In the Dumas novel, the mask seems to be needed to hide the prisoner's identity. But there's no need to hide Sanji's identity, and it's not to prevent him from shouting for help because he can still talk even with the mask. What is it for? Is it a clue that the Man in the Iron Mask novel is relevant to this story?

For one, the fact that the iron masked prisoner being the king's twin is noteworthy. Sanji is one of 4 quadruplets, but still. Marudoro said that maybe this is a sign that Sanji and Ichiji will have a confrontation later. This makes sense, because of the other Vinsmokes, the one most likely to represent a "king" would be Ichiji.

This is something I myself had considered before, that Ichiji specifically might later have a role as "Sanji's opposite". I don't know how yet, but the imagery and themes that I've seen so far seems to point that way.

Marudoro also points out that if you look into the Musketeer novels, Sanji has vibes similar to Aramis, who is described as something of a womaniser. Aramis happens to be the mastermind behind the twin conspiracy in the Iron Mask novel.

The correlation is vague, and it's hard to tell how is this going to be relevant, besides maybe "there might be other French history/literature references in Germa's storyline".

Les Misérables, Revolution, the French Royalty

The only two Germa servants who actually has proper names, head chef Cosette and Sora's personal servant Eponi, seem to be references to the Les Misérables characters Cosette and Eponine. Part of the narrative of Les Mis is the June Rebellion, an uprising of the anti-monarchists.

In the Soul Pocus song that serves as the outro of the WCI arc, the "lyrics" specifically has the exact word "guillotine". For many people, guillotine is very closely linked to the image of the French Revolution and the execution of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

Speaking of guillotine... Yonji's attack, translated as "Winch Guillotine" in the official translation, is actually called "Winch Danton" in the raw. This is possibly a reference to Georges Danton, and important figure of French Revolution, who is curiously executed by guillotine.

Sensei clearly knows the word guillotine, so why not just flat out call it "Winch Guillotine" like the translation?

For whatever it's worth, Danton was someone who was executed for opposing the new government after the first revolution. The revolutionaries got so bad that it was called the "Reign of Terror", so Danton turned against them and was trying to oppose this cruelty.

Yonji is rather visibly the least "bad" of the brothers and his reactions are almost like a "normal person" in a lot of ways, so maybe this is significant?

Marudoro-san said that the Nyasha/cat carriage the Vinsmokes were riding when they were about to meet Big Mum was incredibly similar to the funerary carriage of King Louis XVIII. While there are some differences, they do have a point.

Again, it's still unclear about what significance all of this stuff will have. Maybe the imagery of "revolution" and "King's funeral" indicate that Germa will be undergoing a lot of changes. Something that's beyond just the formation of Neo MADS.

The Knights Hospitaller... and Napoleon?

Marudoro-san says there's an interesting parallel between Germa and the Knights Hospitaller. This is a chivalric order that has privileges that puts them equal to a sovereign power. They have minimal land holdings, but has the standing almost on par with that of a nation. It's like the landless Germa, who is still recognised as a kingdom by WG up until their privileges were taken away after the mess in WCI.

The Knights has lost a lot of its power and territories in Europe through history, and finally, its headquarters in Malta was sacked by Napoleon. Marudoro-san highlighted that Big Mum's hat and sword was called Napoleon.

Marudoro-san took this analysis elsewhere, but for my part, I'm wondering if Germa almost being destroyed at WCI is a parallel of this attack of the Knights in Malta, with Big Mum being the parallel to Napoleon.

The possible proof of the Napoleon parallel is Law. Law was heavily instrumental in Big Mum's defeat in Wano, and his name are connected to events related to Napoleon's downfall.

Napoleon suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar, and the man who was his jailer to the point of his death was a surgeon's son named Hudson Lowe. Law and Lowe looks different in English, but in Japanese both are spelled the same: ロー.

[Edit: Napoleon was also famously defeated in the Battle of Waterloo. In Japanese, Waterloo is spelled like this: ワーテルロー. It contains the same "ロー" as in Law's name.]

Marudoro-san said that Napoleon's invasion of Malta involved tricking the Knights to letting him dock under false pretences. I don't know how true this is, but at the very least this is a narrative that is accessible to the Japanese. One could argue that this is parallel to the conspiracy in Whole Cake.

If this parallel is really correct, then, this could be a hint of "Good Germa".

The Knights Hospitaller surrendered and survived that Napoleon encounter, with its status being even more diminished. Eventually it restructured as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which still has its sovereign authorities (Wikipedia says they can even issue passports and currency), but is now an organisation whose activities are focused on charity.

Bonus: The Jedi and Clone Wars?? (Star Wars)

Marudoro-san also mentioned that the 66 of Germa reminds them of Order 66 from Star Wars, which ended the Jedi order and enabled the Sith to rise to power.

I only understand Star Wars very minimally myself, but a fan I talked to on Twitter confirmed to me that they think so as well. Especially because there's the specific focus on Germa soldiers being clones, and it's reminiscent of the whole clone plotline in Star Wars.

Order 66 ended the Jedi. The 66 of Germa is in reference to the destruction of the old Germa Empire.

If this parallel is true, then this might confirm the theory that "Germa is not actually evil before". If we read that the "Sith" is World Government, and the old Germa is "Jedi", then maybe it's hinting that all the story about them being evil in the past is a lie? They may be awful now because Judge is so driven by revenge, but maybe they were actually not evil before.

[tharkflark1]

Here's a fun thought; Sora in one of his berserk forms like Anti or Rage form protecting Riku with everything he has.

Do you know how weak I am to that trope??? SO WEAK TO IT

Feral significant other cuz their partner has been injured/down for the count/they think they’re dead

Where’s my fics!!! My artwork!!!! I want the good shit!!!!!!!

[blowingoffsteam2]

i’m a bit like….shocked by the manga paopou scene. if this is supposed to be the big scene in the series where the two main love interests get together….its very anti climactic lol you would think it would be a huge deal ( like most mangas when it comes to romance ) with more detail, way more discussions about feelings but…..its NONE of that. it’s just not very romantic in general is it ? especially with one of the said “love interests” is STARING AT SOMEONE ELSE. Like soriku aside this scene just falls very flat and is NOT convincing at all

Right?! I mean the kh3 manga is FLYING through the story cutting out so much so the paopu scene having less detail wasn’t surprising but even so if it was supposed to be romantic there would have been ways to do it just fine in the space of a few pages. The fact that Amano ADDED Sora saying he wishes Riku would come over, wondering if Riku is nervous, plus adding Riku looking at them when none of that was in the game…and then removed the one mild smile Sora had in the whole scene. Damn. I definitely think Amano must have been briefed about the intentions behind this scene at least and/or told about Sora’s feelings. Because in past mangas Sora’s “crush” on Kairi was definitely played up a bit and I would have expected something similar here if Amano wasn’t aware.

[elizabeth-dicewielder]

Okay but the fact that Sora and Riku were able to defeat Anti-Aqua was just so ridiculous to me… Aqua survived 12 YEARS in the realm of darkness, was repeatedly shown to be more powerful than Ventus and Terra, defeated HERSELF, just got a darkness-fueled power up, and she is the only keyblade master who genuinely trained her entire life. She should not have lost that battle imo

Okay so AU where Sora and Riku can’t beat Aqua, so they flee to the realm of light, but Aqua follows them out. But even as Anti-Aqua, she’s clearly shown to still be in control. Upon returning to the realm of light, she would briefly pause hunting them down to awaken Ventus, and Ventus would be able to talk enough sense into Aqua so she would focus her efforts on taking down Xehanort and beat the shit out of Mickey later. Cue the Keyblade war, Aqua just rips through all of the members of the organization, until she gets to Terranort and there’s an epic fight and she gets Terra back, and upon seeing Terra and Ventus safe again, she lets the darkness go on her own

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts II Official Strategy Guide (Source) Sora's Forms

[selenestarmoon]

It's pretty scary to think that Eri, Anya, Kaede, King and Shiro could have ended up like Homelander.

Eri had a quirk that allowed her to rewind her target until she erased them from existence, which caused her to accidentally rewind her father, which caused her mother to abandon her and Overhaul to begin experimenting on her by extracting her blood and mutilating her to create anti-quirk bullets and in that way make the Yakuza gain money and influence through the trade of said bullets and if that were not enough, Eri had to endure hearing Overhaul tell her that she was a curse because of her quirk. One day, Eri briefly escaped and even though she had to go back to Overhaul and see herself as a curse, convincing herself that she wasn't worthy of being saved, she was eventually rescued and given a chance to live a normal life and taught that her quirks wasn't a bad thing but that she could help people with it and she just had to learn to control it.

Anya was raised by scientists who kept Anya isolated in a lab and always forced Anya to study and learn how to use her powers for the sake of world peace every day and they never gave her love nor let her act and play like a normal girl. On day, Anya escaped from the lab she was locked away in and ended up in an orphanage where she was an outcast and all the families that adopted her took her back until Anya was finally adopted by Twilight and found love with the Forgers.

Kaede was an orphan who suffered bullying and killed her bullies and was resentful towards everyone until she met Kouta but due to a misunderstanding Kaede kills Kouta's family and goes on the run until she meets another girl called Aiko who becomes her friend until said friend ends up dying to protect Kaede from the scientists who wanted to take her to experiment on her for being the Queen of the Diclonius race and Kaede turns herself in but not before swearing revenge, some time later Kaede escapes from the laboratory where she was locked up and later after a series of events she was able to resolve things with Kouta before dying.

King is a lunarian who was captured as a child by the World Government and held at Punk Hazard to be experimented on and have his lunarian abilities tested, as well as to extract the lineage factor from his lunarian blood. One day he is freed by Kaido (who was also being used as a guinea pig in the experiments at Punk Hazard) and the two escape and form the Beasts Pirates with Kaidou as the captain and King as his right-hand man and King is loyal to Kaido because he saved him and because he feels that he gave him a reason to continue living. Over time the Beasts Pirates became one of the most feared pirates, Kaidou being part of the Yonko and King one of the most respected members of his crew, although King became a pirate, Kaidou fully trusts and respects him and although the relationship he has with the other members of his crew is tense, they genuinely have a certain degree of respect for him and they recognize his fighting skills.

Shiro was an orphan who was subjected to horrible experiments that were originally intended to be experimented on by Ganta only for Sorae (Ganta's mother) to change her mind so Shiro was experimented in his place; the only good thing she had was Ganta who was her friend and emotional support since she was a child and due to a series of unfortunate events they ended up separating and hurting each other but in the end Shiro and Ganta reconcile and can have a normal life together.

But Homelander? He had no heroes to save him and no one to teach him to accept and use his powers like Eri, he didn't have a loving family to adopt him like Anya, he didn't have ties to ordinary humans to make him stop hating them like Kaede, he has no reason to live nor does he have people who genuinely trust him and respect him like King and he didn't have friends during his childhood to give him hope of living a normal life or at least give him a feeling of love and normality like Shiro.

Homelander is the Eri, Anya, Kaede, King and Shiro that was never saved, never knew love, and never experienced what it's like to live a normal life.

[miqotepotatoe]

All of my Ninjago AUs because I am insane & autistic + it's fun

(disclaimer, a vast majority of these focus on cole brookstone because favouritism bias)

My Nonexistant Friend - Ghost!Cole AU where Day of the Departed...did not end so well. He's trapped in the Airjitzu Temple and is effectivly erased from existance. He suffers in nonexistant puragtory for 300 years until Lloyd's future students move in and the Master of Earth of this new era befriends the ghost. Fluff, feels & the power of friendship ensue

Perma Ghost - Ninjago but Cole remains a ghost. To prevent him from fading he anchors himself to friendship bracelets all the ninja + Wu & Pixal wear. He can't stray to far from anyone wearing a friendship bracelet but he doesn't mind he's always with a friend.

Curseworlds - Possession bad end, heavily inspired by The Star from Fionna & Cake. The Preeminent has won and has cursed all the realms and ghosts torment the remaining living souls. A small faction of survivors is fighting to take out the Queen of the Cursed, but it's very difficult with her two princes causing havoc. Anyone order evil Sandstorm?

Reverse - An alt Ninjago where Wu was bit by the Great Devourer instead of Garmadon. Wu becomes an evil dictator, Ninjago is in a lawless era, the og ninja are all traumatised child soldiers made to do Wu's bidding, Garmadon and a few familiar faces are fighting back.

Genderswap - As it says, everyone is genderswapped. But it's like Fionna & Cake where some stuff is different because of the swapped genders.

Elemental Anacondrai - Chen decides to be extra twisted and mark all the loosers of the Tournament with the Anacondrai Mark as a sign of ownership. When the cult is transformed into Anacondrai, they too. So for the last two episodes of ToE, Skylor, Karlof, Gravis, Bolobo, Ash, Cole, Jacob, Chamile & Tox are turned into Anacondrai.

Constrictai!Cole - Cole isn't dehypnotised at the end of Home and is taken prisoner by the Hypnobrai. When the Fangpyre are free and team up with the Hypnobrai, Skales has them turn Cole into a Serpentine. He ends up a Constrictai. The ninja end up rescueing him durring Can of Worms, remove the hypnotism with some anti-venom tea, and now Cole must adjust to his new reptilian body. Lots of Glacier

Lost But Never Found - AU where Cole ends up in the Land of Lost things after running away from his school. He becomes a Finder and is living his best life with his new found family. Sora also ends up there after running away and Cole adopts her

Vampire!Cole - Cole ends up becoming a vampire after getting attacked by one. Lots of hyjinks & vampire hunting (hunting other vampires, not Cole)

Wu Adopts Cole - Wu finds Cole a lot earlier then canon, at 10 years old. He's an orphan, his mum passed from illness and his dad drank himself to death. Wu raises Cole, trains him in his Elemental Power, very wholesome Dad Wu stuff.

Amphibijago - Ninjago + Amphibia crossover. Cole, Kai and Jay take the places of the Calamity Girls and end up in Amphibia. Cole ends up with the frogs, Kai ends up with the toads, Jay ends up with the newts. What could go wrong

The Oni House - Ninjago + The Owl House, basically the Owl House but with Ninjago characters. Cole is a troubled teen about to be sent off to a performing arts boarding school when he ends up in a realm of witches, demons and magic after wandering through a portal. There he meets Lord Garmadon, the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles and his baby dragon demon Rocky. Lava time

Ninja in Eorzea - Ninjago + FFXIV. The ninja play the criticly acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV with an extended free trail with unlimited playtime that allows them to play the award winning expansions Heavensward and Stormblood, and they get suckef in...litterally like Prime Empire.

Miraculous: Tales of Firefly & Charcole Cat - Ninjago + Miraculous. Ninjago City is being ravaged by supervillains created by someone known as the Dark Lord. But new heros have arisen, known as Firefly & Charcole Cat, ready to protect the city from the Dark Lord while trying to balance school & dating. HONEYCOMB MY OTP

Age of Elements - My original Ninjago story set 300 years after canon. Lloyd is training 7 new ninja, the Elemental Masters of Fire, Earth, Wind, Nature, Water, Lightning and Ice to protect the world because a prophetic vision of the furure said so. He's trying his best to make sure they aren't super traumatised by having them keep their ninja identity a secret, not keeping secrets about the FSM family lore, having them go to school, but trauma as a Ninja is a canon event. Got 18 seasons planned and counting

[organizationhimself]

just kinda having some thinky thoughts about how dark road totally rewired eraqus's character and what a phenomenal job they did.

like here's your problem you have. you need to take this cloistered old man who raised his students in the jedi way, somehow put up with Old Man Villainy being That Way presumably on the regular, lost every last iota of his shit and turned on the Apocalypse Child he adopted as well as his surrogate son who was infested with The Evil (which the series has long established as not necessarily being good or bad without context) to say nothing of the headtrip he gave his direct heir, and you need to reduce him to a version of himself as a child that is. like. fun. someone who has a genuine friendship with xehanort and is regarded by xehanort as someone who is a "sly fox," i.e. not the sort of buffoon who tests for mastery of the keyblade by child-proofing some orbs of light.

where do you even begin?

YOU TRAUMATIZE THE UNGODLY HELL OUT OF HI--okay i'm getting ahead of myself, let's start with principles.

because eraqus is principled. he believes really firmly in the light in a way that's nearly sora-adjacent in its intensity, but the thing is that sora has this flexibility that eraqus was simply not raised to appreciate. yes, nomura, we understand you like the bright sunshine one and the wry brooding one, you did it with sora and riku, god knows what you did to axel's spine to fit him into the sunshine kid's mold next to isa as brooding anti-crybaby, and now we're doing the same thing to eraqus. ok. i love it when you're optimistic, let's do it.

so first we need confidence. easy; he's a smug little rich kid. worked for riku didn't it? (source: kh1 manga, and the fact that you cannot convince me anyone can maintain a kid with that build on a budget) but we also need to see how dark road changed him as a person. let's contrast his uptight stick-up-his-ass future with a present day class clown who doesn't take things seriously; a headstrong fighter who jokes that he'll just run away. and hey speaking of emotional damage, let's start easing into the inevitable terrible, horrific, unspeakable traumas we're going to visit on this defenseless creature with a little one as a treat:

HIT HIM RIGHT IN THE GRANDPA.

and there you go! we now have a source for eraqus's rejection of the darkness that is not simply a function of his career as a jedi keyblade master, but has an actual personal experience he can point back to in order to say "hey, darkness is the pits!! here is why." it sets the stage early for him to be already butting heads with xehanort, who takes a much more flexible look at the worlds and the way they work and is more willing to view things from the perspective that he is not an authority on the moral peculiarities of whatever world he is currently inhabiting.

xehanort is also a child of destiny [citation needed]. an isolated visitant who was born for finer things but never slept a day in his life without waking up with sand in his mouth until he reached out and took his fate in his bare hands and let it drag him all the way to scala.

where he met the blueblooded child of a keybearing legacy thousands of years in the making, just like his.

and suddenly what you have are unwitting equals. we're ready to set them both up at the chess board; eraqus's legacy is plain, he moves first and he makes no apologies for it because it's his birthright. but xehanort's half of the board is still buried in shadow, implied but never stated, never surrendered to eraqus's probing questions or revealed by his moves, but already aimed at a clash with destiny, fated, inevitable.

shall we say, already written.

and this is brilliant!! now we have a source for our "sly fox," a reason for xehanort to be extremely familiar with the way eraqus thinks (and not to star wars on main but the obi-wan kenobi series did something really similar to this narratively by using anakin and obi-wan's familiarity with each others' fighting styles to predict the actions they would take in a situation, and i will actually never be over it in my life, absolutely stealing it for a xehaqus fic sometime, just shamelessly mugging ewan mcgregor in the street for that solid gold good shit). not only that, but we also have an explanation for xehanort's motivations as described by kh3. he is not looking at the fight from the perspective of one of the pawns; he is looking at the fight as a player, deciding which pawn gets taken. selecting which rook to sacrifice in exchange for the queen.

and eraqus is opposite him, doing the exact same thing (sort of, kh3 was a little cerebral with that), but there's an important difference here that we'll come back to later on.

so, okay. we have a vague outline in the shape of a sunshine kid now. he has confidence tied to his role in society, his legacy gives him perspective, his trauma ensures that he will one day calcify against the darkness with such emphasis that he will unwittingly pad the therapy bills of an entire generation. so far so good.

but uh, yeah, his kids? he fights them? like okay, axel has his differences with his kids too but he's not trying to kill them (mostly). eraqus really definitely for real is, and ven is defenseless. so that'ssss...hard to square with the sunshine kid we're building, nomura, how do we explain that? we really can't handwave it as amnesia this time, we're not working with ansem the wise here.

(BALDR. BALDR IS HOW--

ok but wait wait wait, before we even get to baldr, there's something we can do:

make eraqus impulsive.

and i mean impulsive. make eraqus spoil for a fight with so much unmitigated howler monkey energy that he will fight his friends just to vent. (this isn't even a unique thing, riku and xion and even sora do it all the time, and we're not here to talk about ven's crimes against miners but it's clear that violence is a spoken language in kh.) eraqus is fluent, so we're making it so that all of eraqus's intensity and passion can be focused on a single point if xehanort pushes exactly the right switches in his head.

and then, y'know, yeah. make baldr slaughter all of his classmates, several of them right in front of him, because of unchecked darkness and baldr's own inability to see past his own grief and resentment for long enough to understand that all he's really doing is inflicting his own suffering on other people in a murderstorm of nihilism and bitterness. unrelenting trauma conga line, check.

and now we have almost all the elements. eraqus's principles can't allow him to accept darkness, both because his grandfather was lost to it and because it left him (by all accounts a bourgeois slacker at the bottom of his class, someone vidar doesn't even consider as a candidate for one of the lights despite what baldr has to say about eraqus as a light source) one of the only survivors of an event that completely resculpted his life and community. time to pack him off to the jedi temple land of departure to be least okayest teacher of the year, right?

well...no. we need eraqus to wait.

because he doesn't take on students. and doesn't, and doesn't, for decades. first he fights xehanort, and as we have established he is spoiling for that fight (white moves first!). and then when xehanort finally visits him to drop off that half-dead kid he found (ven was like that already shhh), he's kind of like politely like "oh, you have apprentices. they seem...bright," like he's congratulating eraqus on finally reaching a life stage that eraqus should have hit approximately 50 years ago, and eraqus is like "yeah yeah whatever shut up anyway YOU'VE got one too now right." (yen sid talks about the role of "seeker" like it's a different thing from "keyblade master" so that's where i'm extrapolating this distinction from, but regardless i don't think anyone ever seriously expected xehanort to take on students.)

my point here is that eraqus waited until the last possible opportunity to take on students. to carry on the legacy that was so important to him as a child, and to re-experience the closest thing to the camaraderie he had as a keybearer-in-training that he could ever have back. that is how impactful baldr's actions were for eraqus.

i'm veering completely into speculation now but i think eraqus was terrified. how could he not be? his class wasn't even taking the mark of mastery and still got decimated by it. how could he risk going through that again, but from odin's perspective this time? what guarantee would he ever have to avoid the same tragedy his master had failed to prevent?

so, NOW we know why eraqus's mark of mastery was a handful of light pinatas and a duel. (i like to think xehanort felt a certain level of professional embarrassment for him and wanted to make it just a little more like a real challenge.)

(this is a sidebar and i'm going to talk about my other blorbo for a second but terra has a beautiful dream of being a sly manipulator. that's why he doesn't worry about investing himself in villain schemes, because he assumes he'll see the snare coming before he gets his head caught in it, but it's never coming from directly in front of him like he expects. so this is a dream that will never come true, but he has it, and i think given what we knew about eraqus as early as blank points, its only possible source is a master who was strict and exacting, but--very occasionally--also a sly fox who secretly delighted in his students' nascent abilities to surprise and outwit him.)

back to the trauma, we also have, obviously, the explanation for eraqus's attitude towards terra, and later ven. terra is a tragedy in slow motion that eraqus has seen happen before. baldr was unable to control his darkness; it overwhelmed him, and eraqus does not have the context that xehanort does, that baldr was in some ways a product of his own darkness-shunning society. even if eraqus does have that context, i can't really see him agreeing with it--and even if he at one point agreed with it, he would have gotten that context from the same guy who last showed up at his house talking about kicking off the apocalypse for the vine.

so like. eraqus has never seen any damn thing in his whole life that doesn't confirm his bias against the darkness. does that make him innocent of parenting Incorrectly? no, he is a Bad Dad. does it explain his hopelessly unsuccessful parenting strategies? yes, it does.

what it reinforces is also that eraqus didn't want to have to fight terra and ven. the original bbs is honestly not very good about establishing this: he cries one Sad Tear. yawn. still child abuse, asshole! the stakes in bbs are also not very well established, because there's approximately six people in it and some of them are just the same guy over again, so we don't really have a sense that terra being taken over by the darkness is like...gonna mean something to eraqus that is sincerely worth the personal cost of killing him. since we're clearly no longer worried about ven, there aren't other students to protect (besides aqua, but she's a really hard sell on the "needs to be protected from terra with so much urgency he must not live another moment" front). there is no immediacy to ven's status as Apocalypse Child; if anything vanitas seems like the obviously more important threat, and maybe eraqus should be less concerned about weeding out students and more focused on vetting friends like Old Man So Clearly The Villain My Guy. bbs eraqus is just genuinely hard to like as a character.

but now we have dark road context.

and white moves first.

eraqus is not seeing terra or ven in that moment, he's seeing baldr. he's seeing the summoning of kingdom hearts that almost was, and he is gripped by meticulously prearranged, bone-deep, irrational, traumatized, unbridled impulse. the emotion must vent. the thing he was powerless to stop has returned to haunt him and he must resist it. he knows what will happen if terra strikes him down here and heads back out into the worlds in search of other hearts, other lights. he knows.

but terra resists, using the full spectrum of his strength without remorse, and it is only when eraqus's keyblade is ready to fall from his hand that he realizes the truth:

My own heart is darkness.

and when this happened in the original birth by sleep all i could think was yeah star wars dad!! nailed it your heart IS darkness you fuckin dillweed, about time!! what took you so long!!

but after dark road, this context is completely changed. eraqus is not just realizing that he fucked up.

he is realizing that he fucked up the exact same way baldr fucked up.

that he let his own grief and suffering cloud his judgment and guide his blade to strike out at his loved ones. that instead of finding a way to live with what's already happened to ven, what was long ago fated for terra, he turned his resentment outward and gave that darkness leave to consume them both whole.

but unlike baldr, eraqus regrets it.

it is that moment that xehanort cuts him down anyway, not because eraqus can't be saved the way baldr couldn't but because xehanort is cleaving away the last of his own attachments to the world so he can follow through with the rest of his plans, and i am SO NORMAL ABOUT THI

but okay anyway. eraqus has exactly one move left.

he can't see the board. unlike xehanort, he has no extra pieces of himself he can just bandy about; the warriors of light must assemble without any of his direct input, chasing the echoes of eraqus's students and pushing and pulling in reaction to xehanort's steady advance through the center. he has only one chance. he can't afford to waste it.

the kings are meeting in the middle of the board. the stalemate will come any moment, when they're both out of moves and out of time, leaving the fate of the worlds undecided.

and it is at this moment that eraqus pulls the same penultimate move that xehanort himself used on baldr, confronting him with the first victim his darkness ever struck down. eraqus almost doesn't have to say anything, at all, because xehanort has to know what it means. has to know what it says.

xehanort resists. the world is too far gone. too many horrible things can happen in it; it must be reset. not purged and filled with darkness, like baldr wanted, but returned to a state that can never mutate into the conditions that made baldr exist in the first place. that doomed all their classmates to die. it's too late.

For us, perhaps...but not for them.

and now we go back to the distinction.

the thing that makes xehanort's chess game different from eraqus's is that, for xehanort, it's only chess. the pieces he's moving have ceased to exist in his mind as individuals. they are pawns on a line of white and black squares, and they may weave away from his will here or there but they cannot be swayed from their march.

eraqus never forgets.

and it's actually eraqus's capacity for forgiveness that i haven't even touched on yet. this isn't a word i ever expected to associate with him, but eraqus spends dark road forgiving. five minutes after any altercation he's already forgotten about it. name-calling. arguments. rejection. opposition. full-on fighting.

murders.

when xehanort kills baldr, eraqus is still calling out for him to stop. when xehanort later strikes out at him with darkness (the thing eraqus is scared of the most!!), permanently disfiguring him, eraqus has already forgiven him before seeing him the next time in person.

he does not forget that baldr is a person in spite of his darkness, and eraqus doesn't want him to be killed for it. that terra is a person in spite of his darkness, and eraqus doesn't want to see it consume him. that ven is a person in spite of the darkness that was cleaved from him, and eraqus doesn't want to see it return.

(if you think about it the real tragedy is that we were robbed of him looking aqua in the eye and telling her that she isn't tainted forever, that it did not take her, and even if it had, that will always, always matter less than her finding her way back. i refuse to believe terra was not already made aware of these facts.)

but he also does not forget that xehanort is not a faceless player in the skies, impossible to convince of the significance of a pawn; he remembers that xehanort, too, is still a person.

this point is important because eraqus's last move is not a checkmate (I KNOW HE SAYS CHECKMATE but it is not checkmate), but it is calculated to produce something else: a concession. he doesn't need the board to support his win or xehanort's loss; he needs the player on the other side to put down the pieces and follow his beacon out of the dark.

and that is how nomura shows us our sunshine kid at last, fully formed, as he takes xehanort's burdens from him and spirits them both well beyond the reach of the board.

anyway yeah microwaving him in my brain along with axel (and also roxas and terra because if i don't collect all my blorbos AND their hot mess dads i'll never fill out my pokedex).

[rikuzdreameater]

Vanitas HAS to be in KH4.

So I watched a couple of Vanitas scenes and now my brainrot is back in FULL force so im gonna be annoying for a bit.

I genuinely think Vanitas is one of the best characters that Nomura can put into KH4 thematically.

This is the game where:

1) Sora will be struggling with his own darkness, especially after his breakdown in KH3. Someone on here had a brilliant theory on how light represents selflessness and darkness selfishness, ill link it below since Tumblr won't let me tag them @andrewwtca

Anyways, Sora as we all now is a very selfless, downright self sacrificial person which what can be theorized is what happens when there is "too much light".

(Need I call back to the the stronger your light the stronger your shadow grows opening from KH1)

No doubt Rage form and Anti-form will be explained or at least the game will lay the groundwork for the explanation in the future, my point is, what better way to add weight to Sora's arc than bringing up Vanitas someone hes met that is "pure darkness".

2) The start of the foretellers arc which would be a great opportunity to tie in the Darkness and Vanitas content we got from Dark Road and KHUX, especially with Strelitzia being a secondary character in the game.

(I also suspect that Ventus is going to be a major player in the arc to come with the addition of that Chriithy and Ven interaction at the end of KH3)

Because as much as everyone says otherwise...we don't really have confirmation on w h a t exactly Vanitas is, sure characters and Vanitas himself guess and speculate but we haven't got confirmation and I think thats important.

Kingdom hearts is a series which allows its characters to be wrong, we've seen this time and time again (nobodies can't grow hearts for example) which is why I find it kinda hard to believe that Vanitas is and will stay some "ancient evil pure darkness".

Especially when, regardless of whether you think the novels are canon, Vanitas is an abuse victim in the BBS novel, he comes off more as a scared child than an ancient evil. Its plain as day you can't interpret it any other way

(also canon or not Nomura had to approve them pre release)

Add to that the subtle changes in expressions and voice acting during the end of BBS, the KH3 Monsters Inc world and his theme being in the Heroes section of an orchestra.

Idk gang some of yall have way too little faith in Nomura and the team behind these games.

I was dissapointed with Vanitas' handling in KH3 at first too but if you look at it from a deeper lens (as we should always its KH after all) the Two Vanitas theory, especìally @embraceyourdestiny 's explanation which I think is fantastic btw, works.

Or at the very least, him starting a redemption arc in KH4 is more thematically cohesive with that game rather than KH3, frankly I think it would have been too rushed to add into KH3 with everything else going on.

"But he said he fully accepted his darkness" Yeah and Xigbar is Luxu, characters can hide their feelings or lie yall.

Even if he DOES truly believe that, don't you think its a touching story for a character who's hit rock bottom and has 0 faith in themselves to start their road to redemption? KH has always been sappy it would be a hard oppurtunity to miss.

[chaoticstarlightwonderland]

One Piece x Dungeon Meshi AU

Specifically where the straw hats act out the dungeon meshi story with some slight alterations

I was thinking about a One Piece au with Delicious in Dungeon and how you would put the stories together and it seemed like the obvious thing would be to have Roger as the dead king at the beginning of the story. But that made me realise- What would Luffy be like in this world?

Roger, instead of his canon self who died with a smile, this version is filled with regrets. I’m assume his crew and other people close to him would be in the cursed kingdom. That includes buggy, shanks, and Ace. Without Shanks and Ace, what would Luffy grow up to be.

In canon, it was revealed from a young age he wanted to do something great to change the world, which turned into deciding to be pirate king thanks to Shanks. But there’s no great pirate era just a dungeon amongst many other dungeons all across the world.

So this is where a get a bit… “creative” with what Luffy will be in this AU. Brace yourselves.

Luffy is actually the half-elf in this AU and is known famously as “the least elf-like elf you would ever meet.” His grandfather Garp is a full elf who left Luffy with a group of humans to raise him. He learns just how badly the long-lived races can treat the short ones, which builds an anti-authoritarian attitude. While he is still cheery and adventure-loving self, he is fully aware that he will outlive all the friends he will ever make. Which gives him an idea, “If only every race could have the same lifespan.”

Such a powerful goal can seem very attractive to certain hungry demons…

But before all that happens, let’s talk about some of the others!

Zoro is a half-Ogre from the Eastern Archipelago. He left with his Tall Man cousin Kuina, the latter leaving because she didn’t wanted to escape an engagement and hone her magic. (They are canon cousins in the Shimotsuki family, I’m saying Zoro’s Roronoa ancestry are ogres/oni).

As you might guess, Kuina is the one that gets eaten by the red dragon and sacrifices herself to save the party.

Usopp is a half-gnome magic user. (I know another mixed race but I was reading and apparently many gnomes have vision problems and we couldn’t have that for Usopp). He has excellent vision from his human father, Yasopp. He became entranced by stories of adventuring and wanted to become one himself when he grew up. (Yasopp is probably dead from old age cuz gnomes are long-lived). Usopp is also the resident hair expert in the group like Marcille. (He and Robin are the canon hairdressers in the straw hats so it’s fate).

Nami is a half-foot trying to get rich to help her mother and sister on their family farm. She doesn’t have Chilchuck’s spouse and children problems but I reckon she gets a lot of slack from other half-foots for not settling down and getting married.

Sanji I think is a full elf fighter. Judge is an elf race supremacist. Sora is her kind self but only Reiju and Sanji grew up to be decent people. And even then Reiju is still forced to work for the family as the heir due to politics. Sanji escaped, but spent a long time on the streets half-starved. He could only make a living working lousy jobs for unscrupulous adventurers. One day he was left behind as bait in a dungeon but rescued by a dwarf named Zeff. Zeff took Sanji under his wing. Teaching everything he knows about monster cooking so that Sanji would never have to go hungry again. (Sanji was probably a little older than canon when he met Zeff). Zeff eventually started a restaurant within a dungeon, that isn’t very popular cuz of the monster meat taboo, but it’s known for being a good last resort and has saved many adventurers. Unfortunately one day the dungeon ended up closing up and Zeff and Sanji were left adrift again. They end up at the new dungeon where the rest of the straw hats are. Zeff is trying to make a living above ground to save up for a new restaurant and Sanji goes into adventuring to help. Sanji is an infamous eccentric elf cuz of the way he is helpless around the ladies and how open he is with monster cooking. While his food smells really good, he hasn’t been able to get anyone else to try it until Luffy came along.

While some of the other straw hats got sadder stories but Nami I think got off easy here lol.

Anyway I hope any of this makes sense.

[xehanortsreport]

sometimes i think about how we technically get to see ansem fight with a keyblade via the riku-ansem fight and i wish we got to see him do so again outside of riku's body 😔.

anyway i think it's interesting a heartless can wield a keyblade even if it's in the body of another. the kingdom key rejected riku at this point and in kh1, riku doesn't have access to way to the dawn. i think it's safe to say the heart determines the keyblade - terranort summons no name and not ends of the earth, after all. and it looks like normally, becoming a heartless (or heartless adjacent, see sora's anti/rage forms) completely neuters your ability to use a blade. i wonder if this is a quality of the vessel - if he could still do so in a non-wielder body or if it specifically must be the body of one already able to wield.

i'm unsure where i land. he should still be able to do so in a replica body, yes? after all, xion is very much able to do so. a replica does not possess any innate abilities of its own, so perhaps the body truly has nothing to do with it. in that case, ansem would be truly exceptional - the one and only case of a heartless keyblade user. perhaps it is a quality of the blade itself?

the keyblade of heart is a manmade creation forged by using the hearts of the princesses. as it was presumably crafted by ansem's hand with his knowledge, perhaps the process of forging his own blade means it bypasses the normal "rules" of wielding. much to consider.