I was hoping I’d get an ask like this so I had an excuse to go all out like this! Artfight is an annual art event that surrounds giving and getting art for a whole month!
once you make an account you can upload all your ocs and their information on your own page! This should include stuff like references and small bits of character info (enough for someone to draw them accurately). You need to have at least one OC uploaded to participate so people can draw art for you during Artfight (although i would say upload about 3 so people have choice.)
All people who sign up for Artfight that year get separated into two teams once the event begins (I’m using red and blue as an example but they are usually stuff like sun vs moon, technology vs nature, coffee vs tea etc)
Once that happens people can make art of your OCs in exchange for points for their team! Yep! You get free art of your OCs!
But that means your team is now down a good few points so its not without consequence.
By drawing an OC that belongs to the opposite team for more points than the piece you were given your team is able to stay on top of the game and you also put some good out in the world in the process.
if you draw something for the person of the opposite team and they attack back you can get extra points for your team by starting a “revenge chain” its one of the best ways to get a point multiplier going and to start a friendship with someone who has cool characters!
So what happens when your team wins?
Your team all get a nifty little digital trophy, all the art development that comes with drawing competitively, the knowledge that you’ve put a lot of good and happiness into the world by drawing peoples ocs, and complete ownership of bragging rights! (I personally developed my art style a whole lot during artfight last year! it was super fun!)
So what about when your team looses?
Well the reason why the other team won is because they gave your team the most art of your teams characters! So statistically you just got a whole bunch more free art than they did! Even if you don’t get all the celebration and bragging rights you now have so much more amazing art of your characters!
So basically…
I totally implore everyone who loves to do visual art to participate in artfight! It’s an amazing event that challenges you in a great way and you get to be introduced to a lot of really amazing artists and make alliances with people on your team!
Here’s the link to the website
Here’s the link to my account on art fight if you want to check me out!
Keep in mind you don’t have to participate in artfight once you make an account, you need to opt in for that year at any point during the month so you can absolutely just make an account to watch and look at the good art!
I had a thought the other day... And to be honest, I don't think the developers intended us to make this connection at all, because I highly, highly doubt it's something they thought of themselves.
But I wonder if Xehanort putting Kairi to sleep before he killed her as a "mercy" was painful for Sora and Riku to see--and of course for Kairi as well!--because even though they only had a split second to witness her like that, it could have reminded them of when she was in a coma without her heart in the first game.
Once again, I seriously doubt it--we have nothing to indicate this is true at all, because the characters don't say anything about this being the case (though they really would have only had an instance to)--but it might be a cool idea for fanfictions or something. And is once again an example of how the devs do the neatest things with Kairi, but never even seem to realize that they do. Or if they do realize it, or set things up with her, they don't really delve into it: or it happens offscreen. -sighs-
I have four that I can name off the top of my head.
SoRiKai is the first one. I love myself a good throuple, and the childhood friends aspect clings on tight. It's easy to go one way or another with the three of them but I honestly can't imagine any of them without the other, especially with how their bond is presented throughout the series -- novels and manga included.
Terra/Aqua is another. I honestly have no idea why I'm attracted to this pair so much. It doesn't help that they have a good couple of scenes that present their bond as being more than platonic (in my eyes anyway). They have a deep relationship with their hearts tied together. I also think its kind of funny that in BBS, Terra seems to interact with the princesses the most in the first three worlds while Aqua's interactions are mostly with the princes.
Lastly is Lea/Isa -- which is a more recent one that I didn't get into until after playing through KH3. I'm also a sucker for a good amount of tropes that they present such as childhood friends, THE ANGST FACTOR and the sun/moon dynamic.
The last one is Everyone x Therapy Yen Sid Pays For. Because good GOD does everyone need it.
My Sister Immediately Called Riku Homosexual When She First Saw Him, and Then Saw the Destiny Trio’s Radiating Throuple Vibes
I’ve recently started getting into Kingdom Hearts, and I even more recently actually got 1.5+2.5 on my computer. I’ve already gotten most of the story down, but I wanna play the games that my computer can handle (which is everything except for 3) so I can get a taste for smaller details because Obviously That’s Fun and Cool!
So, I was playing in my sister’s room the other day, and this specific shot played:
AND MY SISTER IMMEDIATELY SAID, AND I QUOTE, “Is it just me, or is there something extremely homosexual going on?”
My opinion going into Kingdom Hearts was biased, because I got soft launched into the series with Namine fanart, but more importantly
SORIKAI.
SO I’VE ALWAYS LOVED SORA, KAIRI, AND RIKU’S RELATIONSHIP, BUT I’VE ALSO BEEN BIASED
BUT APPARENTLY MY SISTER CAN JUST FEEL THE LOVE FROM RIKU’S OPENING SHOT. Right
RIGHT AFTER THAT, I TOLD HER TO JUST WAIT FOR KAIRI TO GET ON SCREEN SINCE THE DESTINY TRIO’S VIBES ARE
AND SHE IMMEDIATELY AGREED WITH ME. “They’re giving throuple vibes,” SHE SAID AFTER THE OPENING SCENE!
SCREW SORIKU VS SOKAI, SORIKAI IS WHERE IT’S AT!
Later update: When I showed her this, she said “I saw gay, so I said gay. That’s not bullying, that’s an astute observation! And you’re welcome for validating you!”
Oh yeah, also, when she first saw Riku she called him the ugliest child she’d ever seen. So. Yeah
Also, also, my other sister immediately started clowning on Sora’s shoes by calling them clown shoes. She’s obviously right, and I also kinda hate Sora’s kh1 outfit, so yeah lol. And then I went on a tangent about Nomura’s love for belts, zippers, and plaid (seriously, kh3 Riku looks like a PICNIC BLANKET)
The thing I can’t stop thinking about in Kingdom Hearts III is that like. We have at least two pretty clear elements, right?
1) Sora is observing and learning what love “looks like” in each world- Hercules and Meg (romantic), Flynn and Rapunzel (romantic), Woody and Buzz and their love for their friends (platonic), Big Hero Six (platonic), Pirates of the Caribbean (romantic), Frozen (platonic), Monsters Inc (platonic).
2) the build up to Sora’s breakdown in the graveyard with emphasis on him being mocked for being weak by enemies (and lowkey even his friends). He grows more and more insecure and frustrated throughout the game.
And all I can think about is how these specific two themes are at odds in how they culminate in Sora’s sacrifice for Kairi.
Sora spends a majority of the game learning that, often, love means sacrifice. It means caring so much about someone, that you’re willing to put their life above your own- Most of the relationships he witnesses throughout each world involve sacrifice: Flynn cutting Rapunzels hair even though he can’t be healed, Meg pushing Hercules out of the way and getting crushed, will sacrificing himself for his dads freedom, Anna sacrificing her chance to save herself to save her sister, etc.
He is shown repeatedly that love is valuing someone more than yourself- prioritizing their safety over yours.
However, this is only true if you value yourself at all in the first place.
With Sora’s lack of self worth growing more evident to the point of him actually saying “without them, I’m worthless”, the plot actively devalues Sora’s sacrifice for Kairi. In fact, it goes out of its way to show that Sora would hurt himself for any of his friends when he actively risks himself to save their hearts after he ends up in the Final World.
Why would the story go out of its way to do this? Did Sora sacrifice himself because he loves Kairi so much more than everyone else? Or is it that he values everyone else, including Kairi, above himself? Did he feel compelled to believe that was the right thing to do *because* he has seen the script play out multiple times in the game and he thought this was his part to play?
I don’t really know, but it’s definitely food for thought.
Speaking of Kairi, have you ever noticed that all the characters that are reflections of Kairi are like vampires?
Naminé can only become important to Sora by re-organizing his memories to center her. She's the tool the organization uses to trap him.
Xion derives both existence and power from her ability to contain and copy the memories of Sora and Roxas. This is at the heart of Saïx's antagonistic stance toward Xion; basically, he's jealous because she is benefiting from love that he thinks only he and Skuld are entitled to.
In my previous post, I suggested that Kairi's character might be a depiction of cultural misogyny, not an example. The memories Kairi recalls at the end of Melody of Memory, of being told why she was leaving Radiant Garden by Xehanort, seem to agree with this idea.
Kairi didn't accidentally end up inserted into Sora and Riku's lives. She was forced out of her natural context for the explicit purpose of using her light to draw out Keyblade wielders. She has a symbiotic relationship with Sora and Riku, much like Ventus' with Sora. Her vulnerability calls out for their protection, and that vulnerability is imposed artificially!
This is gonna be very long, more under the cut.
The natural state of a princess of heart is to uphold the narratives at the heart of their worlds by acting out their stories as kind, vulnerable girls who inspire others to help them. Removed from this context, a princess of heart is merely a force of overwhelming love with nowhere to go, attracting darkness and then Keyblade wielders like moths to a flame. This is what happened to Kairi when she was sent away from her home world of Radiant Garden.
But if you notice, it is also what happened to Naminé. She appeared with no connection to the world except to Sora, was immediately captured by the forces of Darkness, and called Sora and Riku to her location to help her, despite her guilt and fear! Not because she wanted to trap them, but because she didn't have anyone else.
In 358/2 Days, when Xion discovers her origins and the final conflict to decide which of the two, her or Roxas, will survive, Xemnas says something interesting. That "the story is proceeding as hoped" and all the organization has to do now is watch. Why was he so confident in the result with a seemingly new thing like replicas?
Simple. He knew about Kairi and Naminé! Because of the events of KH1 and Chain of Memories, there was enough experimental data to conjecture that in a situation where a conditioned victim with a heart of pure light was forced to choose between her own desires and the well being of her saviors, she will always choose her saviors. Sora was ready to die for Kairi, but she wouldn't let him. Naminé could have forced Sora to be with her forever, but she let him choose to forget her and accepted that her fate would be to disappear. These hearts without darkness can never choose to be selfish, so their behavior is predictable.
Xion did have the choice -- she's not a real princess of heart, after all-- but she was modeled on Sora, Kairi, and Roxas. Odds were very good that she would sacrifice herself and leave Roxas alive. The Organization successfully manufactured a Kairi by creating a warrior of light and abusing her until she could only rely on her friends.
When the shippers claim that Kairi is just in the way of Soriku, they are kind of right. Kairi is a frequent target of the darkness' strongest and most basic manipulation tactic: use an innocent victim to drive warriors of light toward the actions you want them to take. Whether they want to protect her or destroy her or possess her or marry her, it always works in every world.
But Soriku purists who call Kairi a wedge or beard are also devastatingly wrong. Because "vampire" is only a superficial understanding of how Kairi and her mirrors operate. She's not a true parasite, she's a fully integrated and necessary part of both their trio and the universe; a true symbiote in the style of a mitochondrion or gut flora. Kairi doesn't just have the capacity to strengthen and protect herself through them. She can do the opposite.
The love in Kairi's heart can heal damage no other force could. She is the restorer who brings homeostasis and regeneration back to the devastated World. When she turns Sora back into a human from a heartless-- that's what she gives back in exchange for being sheltered in his heart.
Just so, Naminé used Sora's memories to make herself important to him, but ultimately, in restoring his memory and becoming a true friend to him, she was able to wake him from sleep so he could save the world.
Xion, too, initially appeared as a parasite who trapped Sora's memories and prevented him from waking. But it was ultimately Xion who connected Roxas and Riku, and who gave up her life so Sora could be restored. And though Saix was jealous of her, by processing that jealousy and atoning for his actions, he gained more friends than he's ever had in his life.
It is a false parasitism. These girls worm their way into your heart and make you better than you were without them. They appear to be inserted to the detriment of everyone, but end up being the only path to salvation.
So with all that said, I'd like to propose an alternative explanation for the events of Kingdom Hearts 3.
"Love is the unifying force of the universe. Imagination is the animating force of the universe."
The one who kept Sora in the Final World, whose sacrifice ensured the World did not perish when Darkness prevailed at the Keyblade Graveyard, was Riku. The light that saved Sora was Riku. However, as seen in Melody of Memory, Riku's sacrifice for Sora was taken from Sora's memory, likely as a punishment for abusing the power of waking.
This created a crisis. Without awareness of Riku, Sora should have been lost, alone, and unable to reconnect with the hearts of his friends. Riku was able to hold Sora to the world, but unable to help him rebuild it. This is why the darknesses were so certain they would win. Even if Sora made it to the Final World, there was no chance he could make it out.
Re:Mind shows us how he did it. It was Kairi. She took Riku's place as Sora's guide, and with her unique ability as a Princess of Heart, she genuinely connected every star in the sky, using the very interconnection at the heart of all things to join Sora to the hearts of his loved ones. Only Kairi could have done this. She was the true key.
What I'm saying is, it's always been SoRiKai. Sora genuinely couldn't live without one or the other. Kairi is not Riku's replacement, she is his complement, as he is to her. What his desire and imagination create, her love stabilizes. What she fears or cannot reach, he destroys in her place. Therefore do not fight, shippers!
