#khpm au

[leonawriter]

From the Kingdom Hearts/Project Moon crossover:

-Ayin meets Sora.

-Sora sees Ayin.

-Sora jumps to certain conclusions based on how the guy has a) yellow eyes and b) a lab coat and c) a keyblade.

-Sora promptly makes the executive decision to jump the guy first and ask questions later.

Cue Ayin spending the next half hour yelping as he tries to dodge and block a very experienced Keyblade wielder, with nine people trying to backseat drive his non-existent combat abilities before Sora figures out his mistake. "Oh shit" indeed.

[leonawriter]

Recent thoughts on the Kingdom Hearts/Project Moon thing:

-Still not decided on the timeline. Sometimes I want it to be KH1, sometimes I want it to be closer to KH3 or after. It's possible it might span multiple points of the games, like... the initial part where the City is overrun by Darkness and pureblood Heartless would be concurrent with KH1 or KH2.

The Ruina point in the timeline is set squarely right before the Reception of the Black Silence. Moments before. There's a reason why Roland's in a bad state, after all~ imagine almost getting to wallop the target of your anger as well as your close friend upside the head and she RUNS AWAY. My guy is distorting. As well as Heartlessing.

That's the point when Ayin would have a heart full of Sephirot and encounter Sora, who wouldn't know about his own heart hotel if that's the point we're at (with him acting as both a superboss and also a tutorial mode for poor Ayin).

-Ayin doesn't manage to get the Sephirot bodies during this point, but he is involved in something.

-Angela travelling Disney worlds. PLEASE. She neeeds to in order to come to the realisation that she has to go home, even if it means getting stuck and trapped in the Library again as a machine. Her realising that her friendship with Roland and the Sephirot that she left behind is more important to her than she could quantify.

-Ayin not returning to the Light when the worlds are healed and put back together, the Sephirot, Angela, and Roland all returning to the Library (as in, where they're supposed to be). All of this before Ayin gets them bodies so they're still made of Light when the final Receptions of Ruina go off.

-Ayin is now wandering around going "I have no idea what I'm doing or what to do right now" for a while, but I'm thinking he's still trying to figure out the bodies thing. Replica bodies would basically make them the equivalent of clones in the City's framework, kinda like Life Insurance in H Corp, which is borderline okay and due to the way it's actually technology, it's not true resurrection either.

-Except oops yeah that's not happening because he thought it'd be a great idea to get involved with this one new offshoot company and OH NO WHERE'S HIS HEAD GONE-

-Dante has no idea. No thoughts in their head. What's going on? Who are these people? How is it that there's this sword-like thing they can summon at will? The answers elude them.

-Actually looking at it that way it might well work best if the original break happens in KH1, and there's smaller incusions of Heartless during Limbus Era, which would coincide with KH2. Which would mean the Sora that Ayin encounters in Traverse Town would be far more green and new at this than I'd been kinda thinking of, but... oh well? Maybe that's all near the end of the game when he's got used to things....

-Dante and the Sinners would all get their own Keyblades because the Sinners would get them by way of their contract with Dante. Some are better at this than others. For example, I think Heathcliff and Don Quixote would be pretty strong, while I don't think some of them would pick it up so fast. Perhaps they'd know how to fight with it, but their attacks would always be weak (for example, Ishmael, Meursault, Faust, Yi Sang, and even Hong Lu before their Cantos). Some might get tempted by Darkness but that's something Dante would treat along hte same lines as distortion; making sure they stay on the path that's true for them, while not inhibiting who they are.

-Honestly I'm not sure what happens next but my mind skips a whole load and goes straight to "when Dante remembers everything they go "oh shit I was doing something important" and by that point, the events of KH3 have probably already happened, and when they head over to Traverse Town or send a signal (somehow) they're able to get in contact with Ansem and the others who can get replica bodies for the Librarians.

-Ayin already knows that the Sephirot can be turned into data for this process. They have been already, every single time the Memory Repository saved and restored them each day of a loop, and it's similar enough to how they were "stored" in the Light before waking up.

-This'd mean they're all able to fan out and go places. Tbh I like the idea of Ayin offering to fix Angela's systems up to date so that she can at least taste, maybe even her time perception, but a) with her approval, and b) she's... still a machine with the limitations of one... I think she'd end up having to be everyone's kinda. Base Control. Home point area. I think she'd like that, though? Being someone people can come back to like that.

-The idea of Ayin and Ansem the "Wise" talking AT ALL like hello one of them purposefully and knowingly took in a young kid because he had nowhere else to go and involved him in the reasearch and the other argued against his research partner involving a young kid as a researcher. Both of them (from their own point of view) used kids in unethical experiments.

I don't think that Ayin would like Ansem much tbh. Ayin has a throughline of "we can't just treat kids that way" and Ansem... does some pretty nasty stuff to kids. To Ienzo, to Roxas, to Namine... I think they'd butt heads a bit if nothing else.

[leonawriter]

Okay so my (tentative) ideas for the KH/PM crossover so far are:

-this does not overwrite KH lore, but adds to it. Likewise doesn't completely overwrite PM lore, but would cause minor canon divergences and differences

-the Darkness would have been attracted to the world (the City) by two, technically three, things.

first - the fact that the City is a place full of darkness, ready for everyone to turn into Heartless

second - the way that Ayin's amnesiac self went by "X" during the loops. my dude accidentally giving himself the Recuscant's Sigil there, oops.

this is where it gets funky, because I was thinking "okay but what woud be a break-off point from PM canon that wouldn't literally break the narrative several ways to Christmas" and threw several ideas out (WNDD? nah, several reasons. during loops doesn't work either. not sure about after it all, but that's somewhat better) and eventually, I decided on-

third - Argalia and his Reverberation Ensemble open the Door.

So, and this is because I have no plans on starting another great epic fic just yet, I'll summarise the idea.

Argalia opens the City to the Darkness.

No one is prepared, and no one has a keyblade, so the Heartless can't be held back. The closest they have are Angela and the Sephirot, who were all exhausted after a long fight.

When Angela looks around for Roland, he's already gone, taken by the flood of Darkness.

Now, I'm thinking that somehow or other, Angela gets lost out in the worlds and has a grand old time being torn between "yay I can explore and I'm free of the City and I'm free of everything" and "how much of this is all my fault" and "when everything's back to normal, if it ever is, will I ever have Roland back as my friend again, will he ever come back, even if he never forgives me."

I also have the thought of Ayin somehow getting spat out because a) the whole idea of a crossover started because I wanted to give him a keyblade, and b) if we take the idea that the Keter trio were all parts of him and were then put back, and the Light is all scattered... that means the full being that is Ayin had to go somewhere.

So. Somewhere around KH1 or 2, we get a "human" Angela wandering around with a very conflicted attitude, and an Ayin who's in Traverse Town.

As for the Sephirot? I'm kinda thinking that since they're constructs of the Light it's less easy for them to just be re-formed outside of the Library, and also just. Maybe it's self-indulgent but it's my idea, so- Ayin, as the original (and with Roland MIA and Angela also missing and not fulfilling the role, currently only available) Keter, the Sephirot are just... hanging out in his heart. Like Ven and Roxas and the others did in Sora's.

I can imagine it being a kind of strange thing given there's so many of them, but hey. Whatever works. But also the idea of Ayin constantly feeling Ben/Hokma being encouraging and warm in his heart, Chesed giving him faith, Netzach pushing him to keep going...

Ayin's keyblade would be made of his bonds with all of them, and resemble the tree that the Library looks like on the outisde.

He'd... also be researching ways to put a soul back into a human body. Which would coincide nicely with Ansem's own research, and what happens in KH3 with Sora needing to vacate his own heart hotel.

So... with that in mind, I'm thinking of Sora fixing everything up and the City getting put back to "normal" back the way it was, Angela and Roland finding themselves back where they were, Roland having his crash-out, Angela choosing to put all of the books back (especially after her own solo adventure), and the Distorted Reverberation Ensemble being basically the very last Heartless before the world's shut off from the spaces between (at least for a while).

The Sephirot are back where they were before in the Library (with Hokma especially feeling rather smug and like he's just had the best experience ever and wistfully wishing he could go back). Ayin, meanwhile, is now out of the light and stuck in the City without a place to go, and unfortunately for him the ability to wield a keyblade doesn't translate into anything useful in the City... oops.

And, as a bonus:

Dante, some months later, having no idea what this key sword thing is. They had it when they woke up. Sometimes weird dark things attack them and the Sinners and the Sinners have weird key sword things that none of them say they had before they had their contract with the Manager, so that's weird, right? That's weird.

(In other words, they ain't got no memories of it because they're amnesiac, and their ability to use a keyblade is transferred through the contract, but the Sinners' keyblades are more like... cheap copies, rather than the real deal, until they manage to unlock their own.)

Honestly? This is the kind of crossover AU I'm probably just gonna talk about and doodle for rather than make an epic fic just because that fic would take literal years to write, hahah.... but hell if it ain't all fun.

[leonawriter]

About the KH/PM stuff and Sora assuming that Ayin's been Norted, how difficult would it be to Nort or otherwise possess Ayin without his and the Sefirot's consent? Because I'm thinking damn near impossible. Ten people, one with the home field advantage and a lot of practice dealing with existential despair and none of them forced into dormancy by circumstances, are not so simply bypassed.

You'd think right! Any part of Xehanort that tried to go anywhere near Ayin with ten people going "hell no, we're shining" is not going to get very far.

The funny thing is...

Adam, the closest thing to Norted Ayin ever might be, would have existed well before Ayin would have had any of those sort of protections. He'd not have been sure of himself, he'd have been following incorrect ideals, and... I mean, he both looks and sounds like he's been Norted, really.

So just imagine Sora describes what being Norted looks like and Ayin immediately goes "nope, not me" only to then process it and look like he's eaten something both sour and mouldy.

Thank goodness Adam was just a potential possibility who could have existed, and doesn't actually exist...

But yeah. I think Sora would also figure out that this guy is way too bright to have been Norted, because... the Darkness can't stand being near that much Light, can it?

[leonawriter]

Btw i have been coming up with casual ideas for a PM/KH crossover au.

So far I'm thinking of it being around the end of Ruina but my big self-indulgent thing would be giving Ayin a keyblade. Because hell yeah.

I do have more ideas but I'm also still figuring it out

[leonawriter]

Actually now I think about it Angela doesn't have the Sephirot because, well - it's probably a KH1 Sora and Riku situation.

Angela is given the opportunity to escape the confines of her home and prison - let alone the City - for the first time in her life. She's currently 99% human. Roland, her first friend who has nothing to do with the loops, is succumbed to the Darkness.

Instead of trying to defend the Light, Angela... runs. Maybe she only hesitated for a moment, but that moment was all it took.

And with that, the Sephirot no longer have her EGO to reside in, and need to find somewhere (someone!) else, and who better than the one who knows them best, and who also had them reside in a place extracted from his heart?

So, that's how it's Ayin looking after them and not Angela.

Don't worry about her, though, she's doing fiiiine...

[leonawriter]

Putting the KHPM ideas in the main tags because otherwise people might not see them and tbfh I think more people need to see the idea of all the Sephirot and Sinnbers having keyblades

It's badass

[leonawriter]

...if I wanna draw someone holding a sword-like keyblade, I should really use references next time so the thing doesn't end up looking like a shovel.

Oh well.