In honor of igobygraven aka Riku's voice actor David Gallagher going through the Kingdom Hearts games himself, let's rant about his latest completed game - 358/2 Days.
Everything that needs to be said about this game has probably been said by now considering how old the game is (it's the same age as Final Fantasy XIII hehe), but I just wanna rant about my favorite parts.
One thing that always bugged me ever since KH3 resolved things was that Roxas is depicted primarily wielding two keyblades, the Oathkeeper and Oblivion, but I don't think I've ever read or noted people pointing out - Roxas can wield two keyblades because his second one is from Xion. He only gains his second keyblade in his final confrontation at the World That Never Was against Riku, and when Xion is fading away, Roxas manages to get his memories of her back when he had entirely forgotten her the moment she was defeated. Roxas is literally keeping a piece of Xion with him, as represented by him taking her keyblade.
Xion EARNED that keyblade. She didn’t wield one in the beginning of Days when she was fresh and just starting to absorb Roxas's power, and she even LOST her keyblade temporarily. Roxas handed her his keyblade to help her "remember" how to wield one, but this never stopped Roxas from being able to wield one in exchange. I think Xion, as she developed into an individual, genuinely earned her own keyblade even if she had a starting off point with Roxas.
Roxas himself is very different from Xion. It's a tragedy when you think about how Roxas is literally a child soldier. He popped into this world from extremely odd circumstances, similar to Naminé, and was immediately taken to be used as a weapon. He was almost entirely mute when he was born, he's coveted for his ability to wield a keyblade that he never had any control over whether he inherited, he has no memories of his past, and he's lived his life doing nothing but missions. The one day he gets a vacation, Roxas literally doesn't know what to do with himself if he has no orders to fulfill. The only joy he's ever had is relaxing at Twilight Town with ice cream and his friends. It's the only thing he voluntarily does even when he's aimless and even when he's wandering adrift after abandoning the Organization.
It's why his "Who else will I have ice cream with?" line hits fans, myself included, extremely hard. Roxas having ice cream with his friends is literally the one and only time he's known personal happiness, something he would choose to do even if no one ordered him to do it. At this point when I first played/watched this cutscene, I was originally like "What about Axel?" but at this point Roxas has turned his back on Axel when Axel refuses to tell him the truth. Xion is the only friend left Roxas wants to eat ice cream with, and now he's losing even his memories of her and their time eating ice cream together.
Props to Jessie McCartney, truly, for bringing Roxas's voice to life. He has this genuine empty note to his voice when Roxas is first starting out, as Roxas is just questioning the very meaning of his life with no prior understanding to go off of. He's being told all these things, but he still isn't quite sure what they mean. Over the course of his journey, Roxas gains curiosity, he gains frustration, he gains excitement and sympathy, and by the end when he's going on his rampage against Riku, the line always hits me: "I want Xion back. I want my LIFE back!"
He's so angry, he's so infurated that everyone only cares about Sora. Roxas is only special because he's related to Sora. The Organization wants him alive because of Sora, Xion died because she only existed to steal memories from Sora and she wanted to give them back, Riku wants him effectively dead just like Xion because of Sora.
There's a whole underrated bit in KH2 about Ansem the Wise felt crushing regret seeing how far Riku was going for his best friend, and yeah. Riku walked the line of darkness so he could basically single-handedly stand up to the Organization and ruin their plans with Xion, effectively sowing the seeds of doubt in Roxas too. Riku needed the darkness to open dark corridors and travel across the worlds as effectively as them, which meant he needed to wear their cloaks to ward off the darkness. Eventually, he even embraced his darkness so much that his body morphed into Heartless Ansem. Mickey was also going after the Organization, and he has his own way of crossing realms with the gummi ship or maybe he finally got his shooting star charm to work, but Riku was still effectively holding the line against the Organization's schemes completely alone.
Speaking of Riku, I still absolutely love the small detail that because Riku is a former keyblade wielder at this stage of his life, who cannot wield one because his heart gave way to darkness, he can still TAKE a keyblade from a true wielder and retain it even when they try to recall it. It's such a small detail from KH1 that Riku takes his keyblade, Sora reaches for it, and Riku takes a step back while keeping it. Keyblades being recalled back to their wielder at will, teleporting in the process, doesn't come up very often. It's mentioned only Sora can wield the leyblade sure, he's the only one who can summon his keyblade at all. But even if other people WANT to take it, they can't while Sora is still worthy. Jack Sparrow still can't wield the keyblade by KH3, I know we're all sorely disappointed.
When Roxas throws his keyblade at Riku at the skyscraper, I think Roxas genuinely didn't know Riku could catch the keyblade and retain it. The fact that they don't clash right there happens because, and this is just my personal headcannon, is because Riku ended up grabbing the keyblade Roxas inherited from Xion. That's why he has flashes of Xion's memories in that exact moment.
Remember, Roxas literally forgot who Xion was the moment his final battle with her was over. He couldn't even remember being the one to have fought and defeated her. I don't think Riku would have fared much better, seeing as his darkness powers were only partly activated by that point. I think Riku literally remembered all of his encounters with Xion in that exact moment upon grabbing her keyblade - which means that out of the two keyblades Roxas wields, Xion became Oblivion, NOT the Oathkeeper. Roxas is the one doing what Xion asked of him, trying to destroy Kingdom Hearts. Roxas became the Oathkeeper, and Xion became Oblivion.
Yep, thanks, breaking my heart all over again game.
Now that I think about it though, recalling keyblades is one of the reasons Roxas loses his Final Mix one-on-one fight with Sora. It's actually kinda sad how Roxas was a legitimately tough fight for Sora and almost overpowered him, but he may not have even known that keyblades CAN be recalled to their wielder through teleporation. Either Roxas forgot, never knew, or Riku tricked him into thinking that once you'd stolen a keyblade you can't get it back.
It's barely funny anymore how after KH2 the story went from "One keyblade in existence" to "Oops all keyblades" (I will NEVER forget the power of my eyeroll when Lea just casually popped one in DDD), but CoM and 358/2 make it explicit how far the Organization is going to have a keyblade wielder completely under their control. I think the devs were keeping meticulous count of who had a keyblade and why.
I always thought, before BBS came out, that Mickey got his keyblade from the Realm of Darkness. His keyblade colors are inverted from Sora's Kingdom Key, at least until he starts wielding the Starseeker, and I think that was intentially nodding at Mickey going on this big quest to find a key in the Realm of Darkness while Donald and Goofy were sent to find the key in the Realm of Light. If Mickey had a keyblade that could seal KH1's door already, why would he have sent Donald and Goofy looking for Sora in the first place? This does mean that Sora's keyblade is probably still special, even by keyblade standards, maybe because after BBS he basically became the only keyblade wielder left in the world whose heart hadn't fallen to darkness or smth? Idk, genuinely, they've retconned so much from og KH1, aka the one everyone liked enough to get into the series as a whole.
Roxas only started wielding two keyblades after Xion gave him hers, and Sora inherited two keyblades thanks to Roxas but ONLY when he's calling upon so much light that he activates his Drive forms. It's been confirmed in places that anti-Sora is a backlash effect of Sora calling upon too much light and having to be counterbalanced by going feral, using his claws instead of his keyblade, and it is distinctly different than Rage Form in KH3 where he still has his keyblade and does retain way more control over himself. Sora wielding three keyblades in KH3 is technically him equipping 3 keyblades and swapping between them, not explicitly wielding two or more at a time, which I personally think is a downgrade from KH2's Drive forms but I mean the KH3 gameplay is still fun so what'cha gon do?
But the biggest keyblade handoff that comes out of NOWHERE is definitely Riku just casually handing Kairi a keyblade at the end of KH2 like just "Take it." Like, ahem, pardon my French - WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?
I can believe Riku was a former keyblade wielder and managed to get his own between Days and KH2; possibly when Roxas temporarily lost his keyblade to Riku during their confrontation, he similarly "remembered" how to wield his own in the same way Xion did when Roxas had her take his for a mission. But this was a warning sign of things to come, having Riku not only pull a keyblade out of nowhere for Kairi, but having it be Destiny Island themed already. It wasn't like a normal Kingdom Key and it transformed as a result of Kairi taking it. He had that thing prepared. Riku what sorcery is this? The power of darkness is OP man you never should've stood so close to that explosion and gotten your true form back (I'm kidding I love you long-haired Riku, you should've never cut your hair in DDD).
Kairi wielding a keyblade is so contrived, ngl. I love seeing our girl slay now that she's in the spotlight searching for him, but Kairi literally does nothing but get captured and nearly killed with it. I feel zero emotion for Kairi wielding a keyblade because she did absolutely nothing to earn nor retain it. She's a Princess of Heart and by default has zero darkness in her heart, something even Sora doesn't have, as evidence by him becoming a Heartless when stabbed by the magic darkness keyblade Riku wields in KH1 (David Gallagher's favorite keyblade btw AND another potential keyblade that could have eventually explained why Riku can wield one by the events of 2).
Xion, meanwhile, goes through an entire arc where she learns to wield a keyblade, and when it's called a sham she loses her confidence. She has to actively relearn to summon her keyblade, and while both her and Roxas have their keyblades thanks to Sora, they seem to genuinely earn them thanks to their capacity for kindness and duty to friendship. Both of them were empty at the beginning of their lives with the Organization, both of them lived in the Realm of Darkness and wielded the darkness, but they fought to become their own people.
And Kairi, she's proven herself to WANT to help, to WANT to be useful and to find Sora. She dived recklessly into a dark corridor just to find him...and got herself kidnapped, sure, but she never stopped fighting to escape. When Naminé breaks her out, Kairi is told to believe in herself and her bravery, so there ARE hints of her becoming worthy of a keyblade slowly over time.
It's just nothing compared to Xion being built from the ground up, literally existing by coasting off the memories of other people, never even having her own "self" to retain if she gives those memories back, and still chosing to do the right thing even when it means hurting her friends. Kairi is a pure individual just by default, and while she shows potential to grow into more than a damsel princess, guess what happens in KH3 where she is nearly fridged all for the sake of everyone else feeling bad about it and using it to her own ends.
Xion coming back in KH3 to resolve her plotline is also so underused. She's just also there now. The bad guys thought "Hm, this highly flawed experiment of ours that ended in failure and took the chance to rebel against us the moment it found free will? Let's do that again."
I could forgive Xemnas for the mistakes he makes in 358/2 Days because Xemnas genuinely feels like a villain who doesn't understand human hearts. He and the other Nobodies CAN seem to grow new hearts over time or can at least observe and remember what it was like, but Xemnas only ever thinks hearts are pain, rage, and anger - and thus he uses things that trigger anger to get his way. He has a disconnect from reality; he literally sees his plans fall apart in KH2 and then says to Sora, Mickey, and Riku "Go and rebuild Kingdom Hearts again". Like what? Your plan failed dude and they're the ones who ruined it, why would they do that? But Xemnas truly doesn't care that all of his Organization is gone, that his Kingdom Hearts is ruined. He thinks he can just start over, that his power is supreme, and that connections between hearts through friends are weak and fundamentally fragile. Those people betrayed him? Troublesome, but it can be worked around. Those people failed him? Tell them to try until they DON'T fail, or find someone who won't fail.
But when Xemnas is actively working with a bunch of Xehanorts, their scheming shouldn't be this sloppy. People are defecting left and right, sure, but Xehanort's plan nearly does work regardless! There was absolutely no reason to make Xion a part of the plan. Like everyone was working extremely hard on the good-guy side to find a way to extract the hearts hidden inside Sora, and they couldn't contrive hard enough so they had to make the villains be utter idiots bringing back Xion and being disappointed when the failure they were happy to dispose of before happened to fail them again. Xion even seems to already have her facial features and body fully defined even before Sora...calls her name? Gives her the piece of her memories back? What even is happening in this scene? How does Xion already exist if SORA STILL HAS HER MEMORIES HOSTAGE?
The cherry on top is Roxas coming back wielding his two iconic keyblades...and Xion still having her own individual Kingdom Key. So Xion's sacrifice literally being the reason Roxas can wield two keyblades just looks like a joke now. Lea getting a keyblade amounted to nothing but him getting his shattered by Xemnas, thus Lea is replaced by Xion on our "Oops all keyblades" roster. Lea getting a keyblade STILL has not paid off since my DDD eyeroll.
Then Kairi wielding a keyblade ALSO results in her losing and being saved and losing and being saved and then one finally battle where she gets to be controlled for a second, and then her only getting a spotlight when Sora is gone.
And listen, I'm shitting on KH3, because KH3 feels like a game bogged down by too many loose threads.
KH2 and it's sidegames feel like a cohesive "okay now we have to make a sequel" for Kingdom Hearts. The Nobodies were a logical leap from heartless, ya know the heart and the body making a new set of enemies, AND gives a cool reason for Roxas and Naminé to exist. Xion was a tragic tale that works because the villain plot using her also makes sense. Naminé, for all her power, is just a young girl who came into the world with power she never ask for, immediately abused by the people who hold her captive, and who gets won over by Sora's forgiveness and friendship anyway. Even if it started as a lie, he still wants to save her and that's so sweet.
KH3 barely had room to breathe, introducing BBS enemies and the trio to save, the bugs from Re:Coded, the dreameaters and Mark of Mastery from DDD, Lea and his missing memories of Xion (which genuinely made me tear up when he saw Xion in Kairi I'm not a heartless okay - or a Nobody?), Roxas and Ventus and the power of waking, the KHUX stuff with the little cat guys and the distant past or...something...and there were all these names in a keyblade tornado...guys I'm so tired
KH2 was, for all intents and purposes, it's own standalone game. There's a new set of bad guys going around, and Sora's on the hunt for Riku. On the way, he meets new and old friends, follows their stories, has a little of the Organization hijinx sprinkled in for flavor, and struggles with the moral dilemma of saving people by defeating Heartless actually helping the Organization. Chain of Memories and 358/2 Days added as individual stories that explained what happened between the two games, but you could go into KH2 and still have a cohesive story without playing them - which a lot of people did, back in the day, because they didn't have the right consoles and such.
By comparison, KH3 you basically HAVE to have context from the other games to not be going "Scuse me...what? Who are you?" Even when you DO have context, you're just like "I...do I know that? Is that a new mystery or do we - are we supposed to know why that's relevant? It sound familiar, but I can't tell if I'm hallucinating. Which game did that come from?" Meanwhile some of the worlds are fun to explore, fun to journey with the Disney characters and such, but also there's Tangled where you're just watching the movie recreated scene for scene and maybe Sora says "Let me handle those Heartless for ya...okay proceed with the plot now guys", there's Frozen where Sora just kinda spots Elsa from the distance and we have to climb a mountain 3 times while people narrate over a music video, and there's Pirates of the Caribbean that actively skipped over an entire movie's worth of plot and just kinda jumps in without context. If you don't know what's happening, you'll never figure it out by playing KH3 alone, and that sorta is funny to me.
Compare them to Mulan where yes we follow her journey joining the army and getting discovered and such, but Sora Donald and Goofy actively join the military with her, there's some gameplay interacting where Ping is horrible at fighting but Mulan gets an upgrade when she's just being herself. Pirates of the Caribbean in KH2 explained the curse of the treasure, explained Elizabeth and Will's role in a simplified explanation, and even gave an interesting gameplay mechanic of the cursed pirates being weak to magic in the moonlight but invincible in the shadows.
There was a reason to return to all the worlds AFTER you'd helped your friends for a second mini-plot with them, and while some scenes were replicated from their original sources they weren't redone beat-for-beat. The lower-quality and haste to the recreations made the stories unique to Kingdom Hearts. In my opinion, KH isn't SUPPOSED to be just full recreations of movies, and then Sora was there with his duck and dog. These are like alternate realities of what if Heartless were involved in these worlds, and these worlds were just backdrops for the KH story overall.
Anyway so what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Roxas and Xion being amazing and then just their resolution in KH3 being a mockery of their original potential. No time to breathe, no time to think about the ramifications of their tragic existences, how hard it must be for them to think about living lives they never thought they'd get, always being compared to others they look like or who they were completely MADE from. They ended their lives in KH2 being forgotten and sacrificed to Sora, their existence defined by him to the very end.
"I am ME! Nobody else!" Except he was only ever Sora's Nobody, wasn't he?
Jessie McCartney doesn't even get to talk to himself when Ventus and Roxas eye each other. Even Haley Joel Osment got to talk to himself when confronting Vanitas. #LetJessieMcCartneyTalkToHimself
had this ChangMian thought: omega!JFM masks as a beta because he's the sect heir, but then he has his first heat unexpectedly while trapped in a cave with his alpha shixiong and receives a mating bite...but they can't be together because he has to marry for the clan...
Don't you enjoy being a writer and getting bored in class? Most teachers look for children playing games on chromebooks, but I'm on my Google docs thinking up my storyline. That, or I'm writing in my notebooks (though occasionally, I'll write on loose paper or flashcards too). It's just kinda funny to think about ngl.
I don't slack in class; I only write when I finish notes or assignments early. 😭 (Should I post some of my writing on here? It's not that good, but I do it for fun :b)
Me too yessssz dude it's literally the one hobby you can get away with in most classes. I've had teachers catch and call out kids for doodling artwork on paper and notebooks, but I've never had a teacher stop to read what I was actually writing in my clearly-not-a-school-notebook leatherbound journal writing Shadowhunter fanfic or original stories about my phoenix that I was writing with my friend - the quotations of dialogue apparently also didn't draw suspicion???
Although one of my guy friends leaned over at just the wrong moment when I had a character making a facetious comment "He's hot, that's the only reason I put up with him" or smth like that. Like dude, she’s being sarcastic there's a deep and meaningful relationship here it's just - no it's not a personal diary wait
I mean at least he didn't tattle because he thought it was none of his business - which it wasn't, he would never be worthy of my Faerieland worldbuilding notes
(I don't slack in class either lol usually I've read up on the day's topic beforehand and have minimal notes to take anyway; if there IS something important to note down, I always have my actual notebook/doc open beside my personal stuff)
I keep seeing older people complaining about the "Gen Z stare." And to be fayah, I have never experienced it. I had a Gen Z coworker at my last job but he was on the older end of the spectrum and not "in lockdown for high school" age so idk if it counts.
But anyway, the older people (people about my age, I think) are saying that it is because Z-ers don't know how to do things or know basic social scripts, so they sort of freeze.
And... older millennials... gen X-ers... that was your job. That *is* your job. To teach them. If they don't know how to answer the phone professionally or what basic customer/employee interactions look like... you need to show them???
And look, Gen X, especially in America, I know a lot of us raised ourselves more or less. But this isn't the 1980s. You didn't let them out of the house and they have no third spaces if they do go out and tiktok lies to them. Where were they supposed to learn this stuff? If you don't want to teach them, then fine, but don't bitch about it.
As a Gen Z in my mid 20s by this point it's honestly so frustrating that older generations just don't know how to teach people. They expect you to already know how to do things, and if you don't know how they blame the internet or social media for brainwashing us or something.
My parents are great. They kinda spoiled me as a kid because if I looked at some responsibility or task and said I didn't want to do it, they'd just do it for me. I never had chores growing up, I just cleaned my immediate area and my mom handled the rest of the house - maybe every once in a blue moon she'd hand me a duster and say "go around every room and find dust." My dad drove me around all throughout high school AND college because I wasn't interested in getting a license and learning to drive. My mom handed me the phone one time to order delivery and forgot to tell me that I need to STATE that I wanted delivery before I put in the order, the poor lady on the other end just heard me say "Yes!" after her "Can I help you today" and hung up while I was waiting for her to ask what I wanted.
Now granted I think I was lucky enough to be interested in intellectual stuff. Whenever I said I didn't want to do chores, I was reading books. My parents couldn't send me to my room because my room was where I thrived. My hobby was writing, the one thing your teachers can't confiscate without eliminating your ability to take notes as a whole. Even when I was playing video games, I was developing a mind for strategy and perseverance - as well as the ability to look online for others having the same problems or debating whether some claim about the game was true or not. I was there for the "Save Aerith" route of the OG FFVII, and no there WAS no secret route you could take to save her, it was an easter egg at best and a glitch/hacking at worst. Piecing together story and lore and secret references was fun for me. If I had known how to use Wikipedia at the time you know I would've been the first one creating entire breakdowns of characters and story plots.
I took AP classes in high school and was lucky enough to get a teacher who was active with his students, ignored the textbook and just made his own curriculum breaking down how things worked. He said "Here's an easy thing" then "great now let's make it a bit harder" and then "here's a set of problems, do it over and over again until you feel comfortable."
It was a horrible shock to my system when I went to college and the teachers just said "Read an entire chapter by yourself. Memorize everything and be able to extrapolate new data from it. You have one week. Now do that 5 times for each class per week." They weren't interactive, they barely showed up to administer a test and said you passed/failed, and when you got something wrong they didn't bother to explain what the CORRECT answer was, they just said "Sux to suck" and moved on to the next chapter.
When I got a job, I had no idea what to say when I had to make phone calls to customers. Thankfully my coworker had a script she used for certain scenarios. I was a theater kid, I could listen to a script and memorize it beat for beat (even the tone beats), and every time I faced a new problem out of the script, I always had someone to ask beside me. I was able to just passively stand by, listen, observe, and then execute when I felt comfortable - no one forced me onto the phone, but I said "Hey should I call these people for XYZ?" and they said yeah.
My poor coworker, a kid fresh out of high school, was asked "Wanna try to make a phone call?" and he was enthusiastic, he gave it the old college try - he stuttered through the information, forgot to mention most of the important beats, didn't know what to say before hanging up, and suffice to say whoever got that phone call would know it wasn't an AI message because only humans can fail that badly.
He got teased badly for it, and while he was charismatic enough to play it off as a joke, I know there are way more kids out there who would've been crushed from the experience and berated for just not doing a good job on their first try.
It's so irritating when the first response to failure is "Oh you can't do THIS? This basic thing that we were all taught-" it's like yes, society has gotten to a point where phone calls can be avoided with a website or an email and spam is rampant so no one picks up the phone anyway and texts are more convenient because you can basically see what someone has to say and respond at your leisure.
Kids ARE spoiled by technology or uninvolved parents - or too indulgent parents. It's just that they aren't encouraged to do better, they're just threatened not to fail. Kids are being taught that they don't BELONG in the adult world, as if they aren't going to be PART of the adult world eventually; hey, how about we hide kids from anything and everything even remotely adult-like in nature and cut off all their ability to converse with people to figure out how the world works when no one in their personal lives bothers to teach them? Wonder what could go wrong, wonder why they're all so afraid of talking to people who berate them for even asking 🙄
Sorry for the rant but by gods I've been in the blank-stare position before and I've also had way better people in my life and like why isn't THAT the norm instead of all the bullshit?
i just apolitically killed the king like i have no agenda or whatever im just the jester here but i stabbed him anyway LOL all the courtiers and advisors are trying really hard to figure out who did it LOL all of them wanted him dead but they dont know whose scheme it was so nobody can promulgate a coherent political maneuver based on the circumstances LOL just playing my lute #MyLute
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