Ansem's Report 10:
So Xemnas was too frail, but nine years later he's riding around in Riku like it's no big deal??
Suspicious.
edited 14th Mar '17 1:37:52 PM by unnoun
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
What I mean was...is this supposed to be a serious story? Because sometimes it feels like you're not writing it as one.
Not that that's a problem in and of itself, of course - it just felt to me like you were at least trying to write a fairly serious, in-character story.
Oh God! Natural light!
As serious and in character as any other story I've written.
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
...Okay, I think that "serious" and "in-character" are things you generally try to do (not that you don't do levity, mind you), but I suppose I'm wondering if that's what you see yourself as doing?
Oh God! Natural light!
There's not much I can do to make the series more ridiculous.
The best way to parody it is to play everything as straight as possible.
The ridiculous things I say are happening are what's actually happening.
edited 14th Mar '17 6:45:52 PM by unnoun
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
Alright then.
Oh God! Natural light!
So I've got the first two scenes done-ish and polished to my own satisfaction so I'll just post them here for critique while I work on the rest of it.
She froze in place, however, when Xemnas said something softly, too softly for her to hear. Deciding to take her chances, she swallowed her nervousness and spoke up. "I'm sorry, sir, what was it you said?" she asked hesitatingly.
Xemnas turned away from his reflection in the glass, and his lip curled into something that might have been a smile. "May your mind be your guiding key." With that said, he turned away, his coat sweeping behind him as he stalked towards his chamber.
She stared after him in confusion, briefly shivering for reasons that had nothing to do with cold, before she extended a hand and stepped through the swirling vortex of blackness that appeared, her hood drawn up over her head.
She continued walking forward, lost in thought, until her hood was blown back by a sudden gust of wind and sand that blew into her face. Coughing and sputtering, she squeezed her eyes shut as she brought her arm up to cover them, and as her boot stepped forward it bumped into something metal. Reaching blindly, she grasped for whatever it was and shuddered as images burst into her mind.
"Another wielder out for Lux, huh?" "Sorry, but friends aren't my power." "I'm your rival, not your friend."
Blinking away tears, (definitely not from the dust and grit), Naminé stared at the dull metal shaft, and the mirror image next to it. At first she thought she was seeing double, before she bumped into another one as she stepped backwards.
She looked up, and immediately wished she hadn't. All around her were keyblades, dull and lifeless and dead, littering the barren ground like tombstones.
She stared, and, as if noticing her for the first time, what started as a small murmur began to build, and her head began to pound as millions of voices crashed against her consciousness.
"Mayyourheartbeyourguidingkey—WhatUnionareyoufrom—I'mnotaDandelion—stealingourLux—Itscaresmetodeathevenjustthethoughtofit"
Surrounded by chains, the memories pouring into her skull, she took hold of that last memory, and the features of someone she recognized and pulled, following the links to—
—Another graveyard, He walked down the hallway as was His way, ignoring the chained up doors around Himself (the sounds of screams of the test subjects seeming to echo to her, even still, the faces of a red-head and bluenette frozen in the gaps between the bars) stopping only when He stepped through the door to His Chamber to find that someone he knew was already there.
Instead of a brown robe, this time the familiar intruder was wearing a teenage boy, the bones shifted and skin stretched to make the features older, and more closely resemble Xemnas's own. The same golden amber eyes shone out of that face.
Xemnas stepped forward, continuing on his usual route and not intending to let a change in routine disrupt Him, but was forced to a stop when the other man stepped between Him and the throne. His patience wearing thin, He finally decided to address the interloper, only to pause when His counterpart spoke first.
"Is this what you've been doing all this time? How trifling," Ansem scoffed.
Xemnas paused, briefly analyzed both the accusation, and the flippancy in its tone, before coming to the conclusion that He could not let this affront continue. "If you do not like my choice of recreation," He said, His tone deceptively light with an unspoken undercurrent of threat, "then you may feel free to continue your journey elsewhere, Seeker."
The Heartless ignored him as he picked up the armor's helmet, mockingly lifting it on a hand to gaze at the face plate, (causing Xemnas to struggle to fight the sudden intense urge to roll His eyes at this unnecessary display of literal theatricality,) and continued to speak as if his counterpart hadn't said anything. "I would have thought, after all this time you would have found other, more worthy pursuits to keep yourself occupied," he commented, before smirking. "You didn't even get rid of it!" He gestured at the pile of armor, letting the helmet roll off his hand and fall to the ground, before seeming to notice something and taking a more curious stance, his hand propped at his chin. "Except for the blade." An odd (hopeful? wistful?) expression came over his face, as he looked at Xemnas as though for the first time. "Do you think that perhaps—"
"No, she has not returned," Xemnas stated neutrally. "I have put the blade to use in my own projects."
Ansem's facial expression changed to disappointment and then to alarm. "After all it did? After it failed her?"
"It's all we have left of her..."
edited 23rd Mar '17 7:13:55 PM by unnoun
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
Oh, nice! I look forward to seeing more of it!
Oh God! Natural light!
So I rewrote the ending bit of that second scene to be more in-character, I think.
"It was hers," Xemnas said simply. "It would be most impolitic to dispose of it in her absence. Which is why I left it in the care of her chosen successor."
Ansem's eyes narrowed. "Successor?"
Xemnas could feel a smirk creeping into His voice. "Oh? For the past nine years you've searched for the Princesses with that faerie, yet it seems you don't know anything about any of them."
"I found them," Ansem declared confidently. "And they have shown the path towards that which I sought."
"And you left them," Xemnas countered. "Do you even know where they presently reside?"
Ansem was silent for a moment, before brushing the issue aside. "Irrelevant," he dismissed. "My path since discarding you has led me to discover much. With the darkness of Kingdom Hearts, I'll have no need for a few paltry scraps of light."
Xemnas's lips curled into something between a smirk and a grimace. "And what makes you think it was not I who discarded you?"
Ansem scoffed at this. "Without me you are nothing. Now that I am free from the limitations of a body—"
"But you aren't," Xemnas pointed out, gesturing at the seeming adult form before Him. "For all your 'freedom' to roam time and space, here you stand before me entombed in a physical form once again, experiencing real time like the rest of us. I'm not sure what the point of your wanderings was when you end it just as corporeal as you began."
"This vessel is far more appropriate than you ever were," Ansem boasted. "Younger, stronger—"
Xemnas appeared behind Ansem and backhanded him, sending him flying through the door and hallway to land on his back, at the edge of the spiral ramp, and Xemnas appeared once again to stand over him, his arms crossed, head tilted, eyes searching, seemingly curious more than anything. "Younger, most certainly, to the point of infancy. But stronger?" Xemnas shook his head and turned, stalking back to the chamber.
"You may wish to take more time to consider."
edited 27th Mar '17 4:46:01 AM by unnoun
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
They certainly love to talk, huh?
I'll confess that I'm having a little difficulty following this conversation.
Oh God! Natural light!
Which part? What are you having trouble following?
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
Hmm...actually, it's less the conversation, and more that I'm not sure who Ansem SOD is possessing at the moment. Is it Riku?
Oh God! Natural light!
I mean, yeah?
Like, whenever we see Ansem and he's not the brown robe, that's Riku's body.
Apparently after Hollow Bastion, Ansem kicked Riku's heart out, but kept the body.
We see him definitely in Riku's body in the "Take a look at this tiny place" bit. Then he changed it with darkness to make it taller and look like himself.
But he already did that earlier when he confronted Kairi, so I guess he changes it back and forth.
With darkness, presumably.
edited 27th Mar '17 7:59:21 PM by unnoun
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
Ah, okay. Nevermind then.
Oh God! Natural light!
I mean, there are exceptions, like in Chain, when we fight Ansem at the end that's Castle Oblivion bringing Ansem out using the memory stuff it does.
And in DDD I honestly can't tell whether Ansem is time travelling while in Riku's body, or if the Ansem we see is the lingering Ansem still in Riku that's able to be active because it's a dream.
I feel like the Ultimania hints that DDD actually has two separate Ansems in it, one of which is time travelling and one of which is in Riku and I don't know how I feel about that.
But if Ansem is active in a real, physical world and he looks like a tan, shirtless bishonen instead of a hunched over brown potato sack, he's in Riku's body taking it for a joyride.
edited 27th Mar '17 8:03:41 PM by unnoun
The Struggler
I feel like that I should have asked this question along time ago, but can allies make Key-chains for a Keyblade user?
You gotta start somewhere.
...I can't tell.
Like, some of the keychains in the first game definitely seem to be physical things that people give you. Oathkeeper definitely is. And like, Jane says that Tarzan wants to give you something when you get Jungle King.
But then, in the cutscene where you get Oathkeeper, Kairi doesn't say "oh and my lucky charm will totally be a sweet new keyblade form that boosts your magic".
So I feel like. If they can, it might not be on purpose.
edited 4th Apr '17 4:07:40 PM by unnoun
My headcanon is that the actual trinkets you get as keychains don't actually do anything on their own, but rather bring to mind your memories of a person, event, etc, causing the focus on those memories to change the Keyblade's shape.
In other words, the keychains are a mnemonic device/placebo. That their purpose to help you use the power of your Heart to modify your Keyblade.
Of course, the exception is when an actual Keyblade itself (not a keychain) gets handed to you, such as Yen Sid giving Starseeker to both Mickey and Sora at various points and Eraqus giving Master Keeper to Aqua.
edited 4th Apr '17 9:06:34 PM by justinkal
The Ultima Weapon, in the games where you synthesize it, definitely seems to be something that the Moogles are making deliberately.
You could even stretch and make an argument for BBS, where you get the Ultima Weapon and Royal Radiance from the Mirage Arena, that the Mirage Arena is actually run by Moogles. Because you get Medals from it, and can use those Medals to buy things from a Moogle.
Same goes for Days where everything is either Synthesized, Bought, or earned via Challenge Sigil from a single Moogle.
And. We see a Moogle in X. The animation for when you pull medals shows a Moogle opening the book of prophecies, and the Moogle of Glory quests involve it trying to make a powerful keyblade.
So, like. I have this horrible suspicion that there's a fucking Moogle conspiracy with the Master of Masters to craft things for keyblade wielders to drive things towards the first and second Keyblade Wars because it's the best way to increase their profits.
edited 5th Apr '17 7:49:42 AM by unnoun
Within that headcanon, I explain away Ultima Weapon as representing the sum total of all the work you had to put in to actually make it.
It uses such rare and hard to find materials simply because doing so makes the final product contain more memories and emotions.
The Struggler
I'm going to go with the placebo effect for all Keyblades. Including the Ultima Keyblade as you're still putting your hard work and desire for a powerful weapon into it.
And more importantly, this is one of the few things that I won't be able to munchkin/metagame the shit out of.
You gotta start somewhere.
Like when Mickey grabbed the Kingdom Key D in the Realm of Darkness, when the Kingdom Key changed hands a few times between Sora/Riku/Roxas/Xion, when Eraqus passed down Master Keeper to Aqua, and the unknown number of times that Luxu's Keyblade has been passed down to the next generation.
The Struggler
Okay, most Keyblades that weren't apart the Inheritance Oath or anything like that.
You gotta start somewhere.
World's Cutest Direwolf
I like the idea that the craftsmoogles react to learning that this one customer wields a weapon made from friendship by going, "Fuck it, I can make that, and I can make it better than you can get anywhere else. There is a demand and I will supply something to meet it. If you see McDuck, tell him that this is what being a captain of industry looks like." Once you've made a war harp and a dictionary of death and a gun that is also a sword, forging a weapon made of social links doesn't seem so daunting.
edited 14th Mar '17 12:41:46 PM by KarkatTheDalek
Oh God! Natural light!