A Stranger Things - KH Divergence parallel I'd not picked up on.
In my KHIII rewrite, the eldritch demon god who is progenitor of all Darkness in the World, Darxomnious, is officially unveiled as the Greater Scope Villain of all KH lore to that point, having been imprisoned within a black box along with the pieces of the original X-Blade but from there his darkness was able to influence the man charged with looking for the box, Master Luxu, so that Luxu let him out and eventually transferred him into a new Dreamscape prison tied to Luxu's own heart, an act that went about as well for Luxu as what Sailor Galaxia did with Chaos in Sailor Stars. Darxomnious gains more sapience and intelligence from Luxu, ultimately hollows Luxu out and drives him mad so that he becomes his vessel. To compare and contrast with Stranger Things, this is like if that scientist with the briefcase carrying the alien rock had been overtaken and possessed by the Mind Flayer and he became the first Vecna. The one time Luxu is seen free of Darxomnious' control within the Final World, he has become so completely dependent upon Darxomnious for life sustaining power that he chooses to re-embrace him.
But the parallels don't end there, because it turns out that Xehanort - as in old Master Xehanort who'd eventually take Terra as his vessel, lose his memory, and become the man who'd be split between a Heartless and a Nobody - was influenced at a very young age by a fragment of Darxomnious that entered his heart through the Dreamscape, beckoning him to go see the larger World and delve deeper into darkness ("Find Me!"), which gradually fucked him up and turned him into the sociopath he was. Xehanort wanted to shape his own destiny, to be a part of something greater than his own tiny world and even become something greater than human, but to Darxomnious, his destiny was always to be just another vessel for him. Sora doesn't exactly go "It wasn't you. It was never you!", but he might as well have since he does extend empathy for Xehanort and plead with him to let Darxomnious die when Luxu has been slain and it's come close to that, so that his heart can finally be free of that darkness....but Xehanort, without hesitation, beckons Darxomnious into himself, his essence merging with him in order to become this story arc's Final Boss. ("I need it, and it needs me. We. Are. One!")
Also note that I came up with this years before ST5 came out!
Say what you will about the Duffer Brothers as writers (which they certainly falter as compared to being directors), but in terms of storytelling instincts, they will forever have Tetsuya Nomura beat.
"What we have longed to see...a World torn apart at the seams."
A Kingdom Hearts OC of mine I've touched upon on here before. Not only the overarching Big Bad of the second story arc of Kingdom Hearts (Divergence) - the Key Of Destiny Chronicle -, Darxomnious is the closest thing to a dark deity this side of Chernabog. Born from when the World was plagued by darkness that arose from all the vices and ill intent in the hearts of men in the period that's got down into legend as the "Keyblade War", Darxomnious is in essence all the darkness from the darkest of all hearts aggregated together and made manifest as a singular entity. In the true history of the World (not the fairy tale), Darxomnious spawned all Darklings into being, with the amount of darkness this begot proving to be the final, back-breaking straw for the old World, which was completely consumed by darkness and left in tattered ruins as Kingdom Hearts faded from it into the darkness, prior to being restored into the Realm of Light with multiple divided worlds we have now thanks to light that survived within the hearts of children. These same children stood up to the darkness, incapacitating them with their light and trapping them within the remains of the ultimate key, locked away in a black box.
And in that box Darxomnious remained until one day Luxu, leading Keyblade Master for the Dandelion Guild unions (a guild started by the children who'd remade the World to keep it protected from the remaining Darklings), foolishly wanted to uncover the secret to restoring lost hearts, so he opened the box with the key materials and let Darxomnious loose upon the realm. This incident led to Luxu going into self exile so that he may right his wrong and find some way to erase Darxomnious from the World for good this time, and to one of the Guild's unions, soon to be known as the Luminous Vanguard, gaining traction through the abolition of Keyblade Mastery. The black box was buried beneath the earth of the world called the Land of Departure, which later became Castle Oblivion. Master Luxu eventually subdued Darxomnious but unabe to slay them, he performed a ritual to seal the dark god deep within the mental space that connects the heart and mind, known as the Dreamscape. But in doing so, the master had tied his and Darxomnious fates together, with him gaining life sustaining power from Darxomnious' darkness at the cost of his mental soundness, and from Luxu did Darxomnious gain full sapience and thinking skills. From deep within their Dreamscape prison, Darxomnious continued to absorb hearts so tainted by darkness that they could not be pulled into Kingdom Hearts by its light, while also keeping Luxu alive for all those years...
...until one year, Luxu's Dreamscape connected with that of the secret guardian Keyblade Master named Xehanort as he delved deep into darkness without his protective armor on, madly pursuing all the answers to all his heart's questions regarding the full history and true nature of the World. In that space within Xehanort's subconscious, a pact was made between the aging man and the deity of darkness, with the assurance that Xehanort's endeavors and legacy would far outlive his own mortality and would be made to serve Darxomnious. So after Xehanort had passed on, once in Heartless form and then in Nobody form, this contract enters play.
In KH3D, Xehanort's reborn heart, from the Hollow Replica vessel that had yet to reach completion, projects himself into worlds whose populations have been cast into slumber by Maleficent's sleep magic, skipping from one Dreamscape to another in hopes of finding his master and untethering them from it. When he successfully manages to do so, Darxomnious is now able to completely overtake Luxu's heart and mind in order to use his body as a puppet to initiate and spearhead the Seekers of Darkness movement, in which he and 12 other villains control multiple adversarial entities and initiate as many of those with dark hearts into the movement as they're able to, with not just hearts claimed by their forces but the hearts of the Dark Seekers themselves becoming sacrifices to a mass of distorted void that empowers their footsoldiers. The crux of Darxomnious and Xehanort's master plan is to sacrifice the seven pure hearts of the new Princeses of Heart to the abyss within the Dark Keyhole, and for this as well as the Guardians of Light's fight to rescue them to create a massive distortion from which a Dark X-Blade can be forged, which Darxomnious could then use to open the way to the true Kingdom Hearts and steal the light out from it. Darkness could then once more cover the World and tear it apart at the seams, with the realm being reborn into one in an eternally distorted state where all hearts born to it succumb to darkness, giving Darxomnious unlimited hearts to feast upon forevermore. A sick apocalyptic vision that must never come to pass, which is what sets the stakes for KH3 so damn high.
In the final level(s) of KH3's story, both Luxu and Darxomnious are split back apart in the Final World, but Luxu, having become so crazed and so dependent on Darxomnious’ power for life, beckons the dark ruler back into his heart. Then in Scala Ad Caelum, Darxomnious begins to summon Kingdom Hearts but is interrupted this time by Sora, Donald, and Goofy coming to face him. Luxu's heart is destroyed from the inside by Darxomnious, which transforms Luxu's physical form into one that is half-Darkling much like Anti-Aqua. After fighting him across land, sea, and sky of Scala Ad Caelum, his body is completely destroyed, exposing Darxomnious in their raw form as they flee back to roof of highest tower, just as the light-filled moon of Kingdom Hearts appears in full in the sky above. Xehanort, still positioned on that tower, pleads with Darxomnious to tie themself to his essence, to make him their new vessel. Darxomnious does so without hesitation, merging with Xehanort and then assimilating all Darklings, Heartless, Nobodies, Unversed, and Hollow Replicas in existence into himself, which transforms his form into a fiendish abomination. Using his new power, Darxomnort pulls all the Guardians of Light back into the Final World through the Kingdom Hearts moon, heads towards a giant keyhole symbolizing the inner heart of Kingdom Hearts to suck out all the light and infuse it with darkness. When Sora comes at him for the final showdown, Darxomnort draws all the XIII’s darkness into himself and they manifest as Keyblades around him during the fight. A Super Trinity Attack by Sora, Donald, and Goofy, with extra rear power from Kairi and Riku, is used to take down Darxomnort, blasting the demon backwards into the darkened Kingdom Hearts moon just as it begins to burn out, which disintegrates him into a massive dark void that, if allowed to spread and expand itself, could engulf the entire World. With Sora's Ultimate Keyblade mended thanks to Terra, Aqua, and Ventus' sacrificial move, the Keyblade Graveyard is obliterated as all the ancient Keyblades that had long lost the power they'd had that united with the hearts of their wielders regain power from hearts across all worlds that Sora calls out to for help, with all the blades joining with the Ultimate Keyblade to make the void shrink and implode, obliterating all trace of Darxomnious once and for all.
Some tidbits:
The name "Darxomnious" is something I thought of (it’s pronounced like “Dark’s Omnious”, as in “Darkness Is Everything”, and of course it has to include the "X" in there), but the concept behind it actually has basis in something introduced to KH canon here - the guy calling himself “Darkness” and referring to himself as a plural “we” sparks in the imagination the concept of an entity that’s basically a reigning deity of Darkness made from all the darkest of hearts. It would make far more sense for a literal dark god to be the ultimate Big Bad than an old man who’s just so overpowered, overly knowledgeable, and ridiculously advantaged that he might as well BE a dark god.
The most conveniently OP of all Darxomnious' ability would be to use their darkness to reach out through all time and space in the Kingdom Hearts multiverse in order to grab darkness-filled hearts in a vicegrip and bring them to themself to either absorb or, in the case of the other twelve of the XIII, place them in Hollow Replica vessels.
Much like Chernabog, Darxomnious does not speak in their default form. They only gain a voice through Luxu, who they puppet to deliver their own words in Luxu's voice (Hector Elizondo) but with a faint demonic filter behind it. The wordless sounds Darxomnious does make would be provided by an uncreditted Frank Welker.
Darxomnious inhabiting Master Luxu, with hood and without hood
The partial Darkling form that Luxu's body is transformed into
THE XIII DARKNESSES WE DESERVED, FROM THE KH3 WE DESERVED
(For reference, see this post.)
I. Master Luxu (vessel for Darxomnious) - Operates in The Keyblade Graveyard
II. Xehanort - Operates in Toy Box
III. Vanitas - Operates in Monstropolis
IV. Braig - Operates in Olympus
V. Eraqus - Operates in Realm of Darkness
VI. Saix - Operates in Twilight Town
VII. Axel - Operates in Twilight Town
VIII. Demyx - Operates in Glimmering Bayou
IX. Luxord - Operates in The Caribbean
X. Marluxia - Operates in Kingdom of Corona
XI. Larxene - Operates in Arendelle
XII. Xion - Operates in San Fransokyo
XIII. Riku Replica - Operates in Realm of Darkness and San Fransokyo
Other Darknesses not in the XIII: Ansem SoD, Xemnas, Maleficent, Pete, Hades, Dr. Facilier, Mother Gothel, Randall Boggs, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles, Lord Cutler Beckett and Davy Jones
EDIT:
However, just like in the actual KH3, Demyx does not make it to the end with the rest of the chosen, being easily won over to Vexen’s side after Vexen, secretly still loyal to Ienzo and the others, planted himself among the Darknesses in order to sabotage their movement from within. And so the thirteenth is, in this version as well, the surprise appearance of Terra-Xehanort, the original trilogy’s Xehanort but in full pre-amnesia, Master Xehanort possessed human mode!
Is darxominous an oc, Google doesn't come up with anything, in any case the name sounds cool
Pretty much an OC. The name is something I thought of (it’s pronounced like “Dark’s Omnious”, as in “Darkness Is Everything”), but the concept behind it actually has basis in KH canon here - while Nomura will no doubt reveal a different, less satisfying identity for this figure, the guy calling himself “Darkness” and referring to himself as a plural “we” sparks in the imagination the concept of an entity that’s basically a reigning deity of Darkness in the same vein as Chernabog. It would make far more sense for a literal dark god to be the ultimate Big Bad than an old man who’s just so overpowered, overly knowledgeable, and ridiculously advantaged that he might as well BE a dark god.The idea I had was that Darxomnious’ dark power, while not the source of all Darkness, is what gave birth to all Darklings, which in turn evolved into the original non-emblem Heartless. His power is also something that Xehanort had come into contact with during his quest for answers on how to bring balance to the universal powers of Light and Darkness, meaning he unknowingly made a deal with this devil. The darkest of hearts, like Xehanort’s or Scar’s, instead of going to Kingdom Hearts end up becoming one with Darxomnious, hence his use of “we” - he’s like a Hive Mind of Darkness. What would set off the revised plots for 3D and KHIII would be that, after the defeat of Xemnas, Xehanort’s heart became whole again and got claimed by Darxomnious, who with it absorbed all the knowledge of Xehanort’s three previous plans to try to take over Kingdom Hearts, and this inspires Darxomnious to attempt his own plot to absorb, corrupt, and destroy Kingdom Hearts so that all Light in the World dies - a plot that borrows aspects from all of Xehanort’s prior plots. Seven guardians of Light who protect the seven Princesses of Heart would be made to do battle with thirteen followers of Darkness, phantoms of past villains created from the dark god’s powers reaching through time itself, to save countless hearts from being sacrificed to a new Keyhole to Darkness which would see the hearts trapped in a void somewhere along the Dark Margin. Through this battle, the Not X-Blade is forged (unsure what I’d call this thing) and Darxomnious’ physical avatar uses it to absorb Kingdom Hearts, which leads to the final battle between Light and Darkness. More info will probably come from @themattress whenever he does a post for fixes to KH’s post-BBS storyline.
Now read this post in Patton Oswalt’s voice, like from here starting at 1:10.
