Sephiroth0812

Haha, I think this is the most I've learned about Star Wars lore that technically didn't come from a wiki or book. xD

Yeah, that's what I've heard about the Clone Wars and Rebels. Makes me wanna travel back in time and clobber my younger self for dismissing them as "stupid kiddy shows." Fortunately, it seems like my bro kept all seasons of both on his tablet, so I can start catching up any time now.
... No, come to think, I didn't dismiss Rebels because I thought it was a kiddy show, it was because my friends and I were still miffed about Disney throwing out the EU. Quite petty of us. But from the sound of it, elements from the EU such as Thrawn are being re-worked into the new canon anyways, so there's really not much to be all angry about anymore.

I don't think there're a lot of other popular franchises where one of the main antagonists is the face of the franchise rather than one of the heroes. Then again, between that design, the breathing, the James Earl Jones voice, and how he was introduced long before the rest of the cast, I don't think a lot of villains were able to leave the same kind of impression as he did.
Maul didn't have any badass lines and only really came alive in the last fraction of the Phantom Menace (which everyone hates anyways), no one seems to care about Dooku unless they're Christopher Lee fans, and Palpatine didn't do much besides talk in a really creepy voice and shoot lightning from his hands (although he was a pretty kickass fighter in Ep. III). I know there's a lot more to these characters that can be seen both in the movies and out, but gaining popularity with a mass audience seems to require a more direct and simple approach. Like strangling someone without even touching them, and having some ominous telltale trait to announce your presence, like modulated breathing!
... So even if Palpatine is the sci-fi equivalent of Satan and wins the "most evil" award, no one will ever be able to upstage how memorable Vader is.

Exotic, huh? I think it also helps that silver doesn't look particularly weird compared to more colorful hues that some characters have, while still making them stand out like a sore thumb. Maybe it's because humans CAN have naturally silver/grey/white hair, just usually not at the ripe old age of 15. It looks good and special, which is probably exactly what most character designers are going for when they create a total badass or a suffering-prone cinnamon roll.
(please for the love of god let Ephemera stay as a non-suffering cinnamon roll)

Well, people might be overreacting to the hoods simply because they're proof of Kairi and Riku's new designs, and they're the easiest elements to see without looking too hard. I'm personally enjoying the sudden explosion of Kairi fanart while Riku's occasionally thrown in there like an afterthought. Guess a guy wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, and a hoodie is just too normal for them. xD
Eh, it's not too surprising. Ven's far off in the background and there's nothing new about his design other than the missing pauldron and the reduced spikiness of his hair (which seems to be trending in most of Nomura's characters anyways). I'm pretty sure the pauldron and the fact that he's there probably both have some kind of significance, but I'm really not sure what that might be. I really doubt that he's a dandelion though...

A part of me is thinking that Go was actually a social experiment to test out the popularity of Pok?mon, the power of the bandwagon, and the depth and magnitude of current human stupidity. A good chunk of the "incidents" reported (like that one person who found a dead body) are happening simply because people are actually GOING OUTSIDE for once. A lot of the others (such as two guys falling off a cliff after jumping a safety fence) are just people lacking common sense. The game, while loading, even tells you to "always be aware of your surroundings." Sometimes I think the message should be more blunt, like "don't get hit by a diddlying car."
Really, it's like that one article I read once said: "any phone game worth your 15 minutes is going to get some backlash." With the kind of scale Go has at the moment, idiocy is inevitable.

Ha, the best part about conspiracy theories is that a lot of them are so ridiculous that I can throw something together on the spot and there would be next to no difference between that and the "real thing."

Thanks again! Okay, I'll advertise your fic if you update soon, how's that sound?

More complicated designs, motion, having more elements in the picture than just a character against a plain wall, that sort of thing. I can already draw​ some of the more complex BS Nomura has designed, but I've never tried to really color it in before.

These forums do seem to be a bit more wonky than others that I've visited before. One weird thing that always really bothers me is how using italics and then backspacing will screw up your position in the text. I have no idea why it happens and I doubt I would understand the coding-speak explanation anyways.

Militaristic, you say? Huh, suddenly this all seems a lot less improbable than before. I'd thought that the Republic was always something like how it was during the prequels: bogged down in bureaucracy and dependent on the Jedi Order to solve its major problems.
Three seperate groups holding near-equal political power... It's a triumvirate! *scribbles that detail down in a list of SW-Roman Republic parallels*

Hoo boy, I'm beginning to think I should set aside a couple days to watch the Clone Wars and Rebels series and just catch up with Star Wars politics in general, because it looks like I've missed a lot, and with the franchise moving forward with new episodes and stories like Rogue One, I'd hate to get left behind. Chances are that anyone could still enjoy these as stories and entertainment films, but the more nuanced and complicated bits are what really keep me up thinking late at night.

Around the time of Ep. VII's release, I remember reading an article about the most popular SW characters. Heroic characters like Luke or Obi-Wan were pretty popular with kids, but the most popular one by far was Darth Vader. The article suggested it's because Vader's a figure whose very image radiates power and control, things that young kids would love but generally don't have.
... In that light, I can suddenly completely understand why so many people were so pissed that Vader's backstory was the downfall of a lovesick dumbass.

I really have no idea what's up with the silver hair. And what's weird is that most of the silver-haired characters that I've really gotten to know are either certified badasses, predisposed to a lot of suffering, or both. ... Maybe it's just the kinds of stories I've been reading?
Eh, outside of anime, I haven't really noticed a particular deficiency in brown-haired characters. I wonder if the silver hair thing has some kind of cultural significance? Or maybe it's just popular because it can make a character stand out very easily while avoiding an absurd protagonist haircut?

B-but the hoodies ARE a big deal! I mean, Riku's never worn one before (as far as unique personal designs go, so Org Coat does not count) and Kairi is actually a Team Magma member! The collar of Riku's hoodie is even the same design as Sora's! This is unprecedented! Historic! And I even have Spockanort's approval to refer to them as the hoodie trio from here on out!
Okay, but joking aside, I'm not sure what's up with all these people jumping the gun about the hoodies' significance rather than the fact that they simply exist. All this theorycrafting on what those black "ears" on Kairi's hood mean, and nothing about the fact that Ven's missing his characteristic armor pauldron? Really?

The year is 2016. A Clinton is running for American presidency and Pok?mania runs rampant and unchallenged through all of pop culture. Conspiracy theorists claim that these various phenomena were caused by CERN's September experiment, which caused the linearity of time to break down and dragged past events into the present.

Has and always will be idiotic religion fanatics. Screw those guys, they're really not worth spending a couple sentences to bash them.

Thanks! The image has stuck with me ever since I read your fic. xD
I got my hands on a digital art thingy recently and I tested it out a bit. So there's a colored version now!

Spoiler Show

I might try more ambitious things than just character art once I get more used to the controls.

(Auto-restore brought back only a small portion of what I'd written for some reason. I should've copied the whole thing before posting just to be safe...)

The Republic stood for 25,000 years?? Holy...
Heh, sadly, while SW politics can be very intricate and interesting, they never seem to go over well in the movies. While I'm pretty sure a large part of that can be blamed on the execution (like pmuch all the prequels' flaws), but I think it also has a lot to do with audience expectations. Most people are going in to see the usual SW stuff... spaceships, laser sword duels, saving the galaxy from your standard black-robed baddie. Politics requires a considerably longer attention span and thinking from the audience, and a whole lot more talking from the movie itself.

My dad's one of those people that you would probably call an "Empire fanboy," but I get the feeling that he's joking half the time. He's one of those people who cheers on the bad guy because Evil Is Cool in whatever universe he's dealing with.
That's the thing about creating a monarchy... it's actually much more fragile than a democracy because it all depends on how loyal a buncha mooks are to a single person. Kill that single person, and everything falls into disarray. Have the mooks be shifty, unreliable political types, and your system is already weakened before anyone can actively make an attack against it. I remember getting my hands on a "Book of the Sith" that had a few passages with commentary from Darth Sideous while he was in control, and quite a few of them were complaints about how this "unlimited power" he'd seized for himself was constantly hampered by the incompetency of his minions.
Soooo even when the bad guys have a mastermind at the helm, you can always count on the majority of them being dumb as rocks, as per usual. =w=

Oh, Ephemera's hairstyle is definitely feasible, I've seen haircuts like it irl more than once. Er, they weren't silver, of course.
Yeah, I didn't think it was likely that Riku and Kairi would be running around with those things up. Besides, d'you know how easy it is for those things to fall off your head? Running and sometimes just walking can do it, let alone swordfighting, spellcasting, and wall parkour acrobatics.
Really tho, everyone is looking at those "ears" on Kai's hood and screaming "what does it meeeeeean?!" while I'm over here, just thinking "dorkness boy is wearing hoodies with sleeves now? Whaaaaat??"

Ha, this is Game Freak we're talking about. The only thing they overdo is the amount of Pikachu in their advertising.

And this is why I'm pretty certain that theocracy is one of the most potentially damaging political systems out there. There's a very good reason that "separation of church and state" has been a popular concept for the last few hundred years... Religion has no place in government, aside from maybe being the foundations of the people's personal moral compasses.

Oh yeah, you should've seen the Rebels chat when you destroyed Tinny's attempt at a flamepost yesterday. Everyone was figuratively munching popcorn and cheering on the roast. xD

EDIT: I got bored today and tried something new. D'you recognize this?

Spoiler Show

(eyyyy original reply was a bit more wordy, but something about submissions and tokens happened and I didn't really feel like retyping the whole thing all over again. Yay, laziness!)

Aight, I wasn't really able to get started with this story earlier because I spent the entire day in the car, but I should be able to dig into it now.

4500... years...
From time to time, I can't help but marvel at the Galactic Republic. Sure, it was full of bureaucracy and probably corruption as well, but to create a republican democracy out of a whole galaxy, and have that democracy hold for thousands of years, toppled only by the immaculate scheming of a Sith Lord... it's incredible. I mean, we can't keep a republic together for more than a few hundred years, and those are just countries, fractions of a whole planet. Somehow, the politics of Star Wars seem much more fanciful than the blasters, massive spaceships, or the powers of the Force.
... Of course, the Galactic Republic has the Jedi Knights as its elite peacekeepers, so I guess that probably helps a lot... Wait no, the Jedi are pretty what allow such a system to keep functioning at all, come to think.

Ha, I'm surprised that people actually feel entitled to one KH game a year. The only franchises that do that are those annoying EA sports games and the mega-popular FPSers. Even huge franchises like Pok?mon don't release a core game every year.
Ha, like things could've been THAT simple.
It feels like there have been two story tropes that I haven't been able to escape from lately: prophecies, and evil human experimentation science. At least the former makes ense since it's been appearing in stories since the dawn of humanity, but the other one... It's shown up as a main plot point or theme in every single new story I've gotten into.

Given the recent shift in art style, I wouldn't be surprised if all of the Foretellers had relatively simple haircuts. Nomura seems to be going for a less over-the-top look for everyone, since new characters like Ephemera or Skuld look relatively normal (both with hairstyles and clothes) while the redesigns we've seen so far could easily be real-life street clothes. I mean, I could probably cosplay as KH3 Riku right now, because all you need is jeans, a white t-shirt, and a black hoodie.

The most intricate or complicated thing that Pok?mon has ever done with its plot is open up a big ol' multiverse theory in Gen VI. Game Freak decided to pull a Kingdom Hearts and created story reasons for why remakes exist and can be considered canon alongside their original counterparts, as well as suggesting that the game mechanic of trading was actually swapping 'mons across alternate realities. (The Link Cable was a device that people used to connect and trade when Game Boys were still a thing, and in the story, it was the name of a device that would open a portal near a giant meteor and warp it away to another reality.)

Religion has three particularly helpful qualities: it can establish a genuine sense of community, it can help set you on the right path to get a decent afterlife (if that's what you believe anyways), and it can help you understand yourself and spirituality better. I can attest that the first two are pretty helpful, especially if your family's dealing with some kind of tragic event like a death. I dunno how my family would've managed without the support of others, and... losing someone still sucks, but it's good to know that their soul is ok.

Of course, these things don't really make up for the shit that happens whenever religion's scope and scale get completely out of control. Add power of any kind to it, and people will start twisting the message to their own benefit.
Religion never sees to be the actual cause of war, just a convenient excuse to get the commonfolk all riled up over something they don't really understand and to cover up the more basic and unsavory reasons behind the fighting.

Yeah lol. Over 500 missions is too much for me. I don't go far in mobile games in general.

Well, I guess I know more than the average person who finds KH confusing as crap without playing any of the games xD
I see. Thanks for telling me this. Now I can get back on track

Ah, I'll definitely check that one out. I just powered through a manga called Psyren that Gram recommended to me, and I was just thinking of finding something to fill the void. I've realized that most of the people around here seem to have good tastes when it comes to stories, so I'll take your word for it.

I actually have heard of Thrawn and several of those other characters before. I managed to get my hands on this massive three-part book that was a droid and creature encyclopedia, as well as an outline of the entire EU canon. I think it covered everything from... hm, I think there was something called a "Star Forge" was early in the beginning, and ended with the Jedi defeating the Yuuzang Vong space orcs, then defeating a hive mind of huge insects that used to live on Alderaan.
Granted, I mostly skimmed through the history section, including the parts about Thrawn.
haha, Wookiepedia, your one-stop shop for literally anything related to Star Wars. My dad's used it for citations every now and then (he's a bit of a SW nerd too) but neither of us have really dug too deep into that site. Just from what I've skimmed it seems pretty huge.

Ah... crud, you're right. Whininess levels would reach record highs. That would be so annoying to listen to...
I think I've already seen enough "doom and gloom ominous apocalypse prophecies" that I wouldn't mind the absurd contrast in the least. Again, the MoM WAS stated to be a rather eccentric guy. And besides, that flippant sassiness is exactly what stole the show when he made his debut in the 2.8 trailer~

Forms, huh? It might be too early to decide on any of them, but what kind of ideas do you have about the possibility of some chimera business going on?
Given by how suspiciously he's been acting, I'm putting my money on golden eyes because that's just what suspicious people in this series always have. (Eh, with the minor exceptions of Riku-Ansem or Marluxia, I guess.) idk if his hair will look like Guardian antennae, but he's a character designed by Tetsuya Nomura... he'll have over-the-top hair, if he has any of course.

I know a lot of people say they read to get sleepy. I have no idea what they're talking about, because if I get a good story in my hands, I can keep going without even getting a bit sleepy. As a matter of fact, that's exactly what happened just now... I finished Psyren, but I'm not sleepy at all even though it's 2 in the morning.

I get that the games aren't everyone's cup of tea and I personally find the anime insufferable, but you gotta hand it to Game Freak for creating so many solid games and marketing the franchise enough that it's stayed popular and relevant. There are probably a lot of other factors going into this, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that the Pok?mon fandom is so positive because it has a steady influx of younger, newer players. Even if older players become jaded or simply lose interest, there's a horde of obsessed kids to replace em every time. Can't really say the same of KH, as much as I love it.

Haha, I've actually been studying Latin for almost six years now. I've heard that most people study it to get a better understanding of language and vocab, but out of all academic hoops they make us jump through, vocab is a topic that I can crush pretty easily. Then it turns out that students who take so many years of Latin can get some kind of "classics diploma." Seemed like a good deal to me.
Religion though? My school's one of those religious ones, so you couldn't get rid of religion for the curriculum even if you tried. Thank god (ironically) for summer school, or I would've wasted a year's worth of classes or two on writing essays about the significance of the direction which Jesus rode into Jerusalem or something.

good luck dude. if you ever want a hand with writing or anything, just give me a shout.

Thanks for the link. I completely missed those. I doubt I would get far into Ux, so I just keep up with the news.

Possibly the debates and theories, but info was missed, too.

well thats okay if you dont want to. i just figured i'd offer you a spot lol. if you ever have free time and change your mind, let me know.

if you dont want to, you dont have to, but everyone around the forums knows you pretty well and you'd probably be a good addition lol

It's fine by me! My absence started in May, and the only info I've seen was the new 2.8 trailer since then. I was completely lost at the Ux reveal of Luxu. BlackOsprey said I missed a lot.

From what I've heard, Bleach has this main antagonist mook called "Aizen" who is like Xehanort in the "every damn thing that happened was all a part of my genius master plan!", only he's actually WORSE. And that's only a small part of the huge problem.
Despite how messy it is, some of the fans are actually urging me to read it. Enjoy it like how one enjoys a B-movie. That series is at least 650 chapter though... it would take such a long time, even for me.

Thrawn's a genius schemer, huh? Where does he show up in the EU? I'd like to see this guy in action.

I don't know if I would laugh, cry, or fly into a rage after witnessing that. Strangely, I almost WANT him to pull off such a nerdy troll. It'd blast anything that Xigbar or Y. Xeha has done out of the water.

Ohhh, so THAT'S what was going on during that clocktower scene.

Pfft, subtleness is for chumps!
Still can't help but wonder if that chimera theory I messed with a month or two ago still holds any water, now that Luxu is confirmed to have seemingly followed the MoM after he disappeared carries the Goatblade (which STILL has the lion motif, the animal symbol of pride, despite the horns). There's probably a reason why he's keeping his appearance hidden with that coat...

Mwahahaha, no villain is safe from the saccharine annoyingness of that terrible song! 8D

As an unemployed student on summer vacation, I can say with certainty that I have a lot of time on my hands. =w=
It's true that art in general takes a lot of time, but that also kind of depends on the methods you're using and the kind of scale you're going for. Oh, and how much inspiration you have, too! On a good day, if I've got some idea in my head, I can complete a decent sketch in a few hours. School projects can drag on for weeks. Gotta say though, there's nothing like the feeling of complete focus when I'm working on something good. It's enough that I can go on til 3am and not even notice. xD

lol, less limits to what you can enjoy. That's always a good thing!

Yeah, the appeal is multi-layered and you can choose whether you want to go deeper or not. Aside from the nostalgia, I think that's why Pok?mon has managed to stay very popular and relevant for such a long time... and aside from the vocal minority of the genwunners, its fanbase is actually civil, united, and non-toxic!

The English teachers are too busy being grammar Nazis and wasting time teaching cursive handwriting to do anything that would give kids actual life skills.
(lol, I don't have anything against English teachers really, but I think a lot of teachers could focus on more useful skills from time to time...)

Hey there, I don't think we've ever talked before. I was absent for quite some time now and I missed a lot of KH, I thought I might come to someone who is expert on the KH lore. xD

its just a group of people from khi, we all get together and chat and its pretty fun. you know, you COULD just make a fake facebook account. or i could help you make one. half of the chat use facebook accounts made just for it lol

Haha, Gramcognito is probably one of the most tsundere fanboys I've met. As much as he claims to be over something, he never really lets it go. I mean, he says that Bleach is an even bigger hopeless mess than KH, but he still cares enough about it to write a diddlying 10-paragraph analysis essay or two about it.
Sour as it may be, the caramel-drizzled, chocolate fudgey goodness underneath is just so darn good...!

My thoughts exactly. I have a thing for clever schemer types, and the most impressive ones are those who can craft rather complex plans on the fly. Even more impressive are the ones who can find a way to win even if their plans don't work 100%. They might not achieve their full goal, but they also are hardly in the losing position either.
Come to think, that popular manwha Tower of God has one such schemer, Khun, as one of the main protagonists. He's such a fun character to watch.

According to Nomura, yeah. I wouldn't put it past him to tell an Obi-Wan Truth though... thanks to the latest story update, that seemingly straightforward answer is starting to seem less and less straightforward.
I know the Japanese nicknames are basically cutesy suffixes attached to their regular names. Supposedly, the English equivalent would be "baby talk" names like Iwa or Acie. Definitely not very "doomy doomy," in any case.
Lol, if there's one way to be suspicious and threatening, it's responding to an accusation of treachery by pulling out a demonic sword that's been associated with the franchise Big Bad for years. =w=

I have no idea how you avoided that song for such a long time. Be glad you did, because my mom had no qualms about playing it when I was a kid... a lot...
I actually almost choked on my drink when I read that. Oh my goooood x'DDD

*cracks fingers Kaneki-style* Alright, time to get better at drawing KH stuff! I wanna see that for myself too! >

Heh, I don't hear that too often, but then again, I don't get out much in the nerd community.
I guess my preferences are more dependant on the genre and aesthetics rather than how light or dark the story is. That, and how much it can hold my imagination afterwards.

Oh yeah, pvp battling takes the whole system to a whole nother level. The fandom's taken to calling it "the metagame." It's organized into various tiers, each Pok?mon sorted into one by overall versatility and over-poweredness. Countless complex and often ingenious strategies that take advantage of every single attribute of each 'mon possible. It's anything BUT simple elemental rock-paper-scissors.
Pok?mon is a casual and hardcore experience at the same time.

Heh, life experience tends to refine almost anything. Still, I've been trying to educate myself about some of these things by reading books. As reliable as life experience can be, I wouldn't mind speeding it up a bit, because I've run into some real trouble before thanks to my bad people skills. >__>

hey sephy, how are ya?

by any chance, do you happen to be interested in joining our club? we have our own chat on FB messenger.

See, it's moments like these where I like to step back, remind myself that we're talking about a Disney-Square crossover fanfiction orchestrated by a shy artist that centers around a hero who beats back the forces of darkness with a giant key, and laugh for a solid five minutes.
The story might be an absurd mess, but I think I put up with it all because it's already absurd by its very nature. All the extra convolution is kinda like the whipped cream and cherry on the top; it's often non-essential fluff, and sometimes it actually gets in the way of what I'm trying to enjoy, but there's enough good stuff underneath that I don't mind sifting through it.
... Oh great, I forgot how food analogies make me all hungry even this late at night...

I can't say that I really like the whole "Xehanort knows pmuch everything, planned out everything, is behind everything" theme either. I've been leaning more towards the compromise that he's just really good at Xanatos Speed Chess; sure, he can plan out a lot in advance, but he's also adept at impromptu flexible scheming. So rather than having a million contingency plans from the get-go and predicting every single outcome, Xehanort's just really good at righting himself, readjusting his gears, and finding/taking advantage of every single opportunity if necessary.
I find that it makes the whole DDD time travel plot a bit easier to swallow, anyways.

I'm praying that the Coaty we saw in the trailer actually is that sassy most of the time. We've already got enough villains who've got the "doomy doom" thing down~

Gaaah, why are your what-if scenarios always so good?! Curse you and your overactive imagination!

Heh, Disney themselves made fun of the song's reputation in The Lion King. Not even an evil villain like Scar can stand it~
Y. Xeha: "This world is just... too small."
*cue war flashbacks*

Be sure and save those ideas in the off chance that you run into a good artist. Those deserve to be illustrated!

I learned of FF's existence through KH, and for a while, I knew it as "that one franchise where Cloud and the Moogles came from," or "the reason why SE is taking forever to get anything done."
While there are a lot of nerds around, most of them aren't really interested in what I like, ie fantasy that ranges from "kiddy" stuff like Pok?mon to the swords-and-sorcery stuff from The Elder Scrolls. Almost none of my friends are into stuff like KH or JRPGs in general, come to think.

Not quite in the thousands yet. As of Gen VI, there were exactly 721, not counting all the alternate formes and Mega Evolutions. With Sun and Moon upcoming, I'd say they'll be numbering somewhere in the 800's soon.
I'm pretty sure I remember that much only because I got into this when there were only about 300 Pokemon, and it's been more of a slow accumulation of info than anything. I'm okay with the decisions to make the game more accessible (or "easier," in some people's opinions) because the sheer amount of moves, type combos, and a hundred other factors is really daunting for newcomers.

I'm not gonna lie, the main reason why I'm an honest person is because I'm generally bad at reading people and not very considerate of others' feelings. As much as I prefer to keep things simple and to-the-point, spending time around places like this have made me realize that you need some finesse if you want to keep a fun and interesting debate going.

Oh, I don't think it would be a stretch to say that at all. Especially after reading Drazon's retrospective, I believe we can pinpoint the exact moment the story split every which way: the reveal that Ansem was not actually Ansem. At the time, it really didn't occur to me just how much this plot point affected the story, but now...That moment, alongside Castle Oblivion to a lesser extent, is the main reason why we've been spent over three games trying to pick up and clarify the mess that it left behind.
... Well, in other words, it introduced Xehanort, which changed is still changing everything. Heh.

Yeah, and your fic goes to show that the breadcrumbs for DDD were all right there in Re:Coded. Even though you set up the plot before DDD was even a thing, you still managed to pick up on this theme of using the pain of all those people in Sora's heart against him. Granted, in your story, that's being exploited as more of a means to sideline the heroes than anything, but it's still neat how spot-on that was.

lol, that's a mouthful. But you know what, if this actually turns out to be a bad guy trio, I'm gonna call them that. partially because I'm not sure if I'll be able to take them seriously anyways
Eh, iirc, before Days was completely outlined, Nomura wanted Roxas to ditch the Org "because of a girl." I don't really mind Xion, but I've sometimes turned the idea over in my head, trying to figure out a story where Roxas meets someone (who doesn't even necessarily have to be female) from outside the Org, maybe in Twilight Town, and starts developing a heart in earnest because of those encounters. I think the main reason why I'm still even thinking about it is because of that one KH fic of Audo's. It was a sort of Days AU that used Wall-e's world and... feels... it left an impression. xD

My mom made my family go on the Small World ride when we went to Disney World last year. I was able to just barely maintain my sanity by imagining the ride as Xehanort's villain origin story. The guy doesn't like small worlds for a reason. =w=

I wish I was better at drawing, because this sounds like comic gold. x'D

Although people would sometimes be kind of nosy, I mostly lucked out with my classmates. As far as I can tell, we all mostly leave eachother alone and mind our own business. It also helps that there's a significant number of "nerds" too, so those kinds of interests aren't frowned upon or considered particularly unusual. Heck, one of my best friends is a big ol' football player who spends a lot of time working out, but he can still talk your ear off about video games and anime.

Pok?mon is pretty much the only other obsession of mine that's on par with Kingdom Hearts. I've been into it since I was six, and I've managed to keep track of the moves, mechanics, and monsters over the years. Hundreds of tidbits of information. Give me a basic description of any 'mon and I could probably tell you its name, its typing, the kinds of moves it learns, sometimes even its evolution requirements... I'm kind of wishing that my memory was as good when it came to "useful" things like math during school...
The useless egg Pok?mon is called "Togepi" by the way. =w=

If there's one thing that I don't really like about the group of friends I've made on here, it's got to be the petty drama that pops up every now and then. I've never had more than a group of 2-3 friends all my life, so dealing with the stupid underhandedness and lack of basic communication that seems to be common for most other groups is a new thing for me. Can't say that I feel like I've been missing much. All it does is leave me feeling tired and kind of angry. Brutal honesty might get some feelings hurt but it's a lot less troublesome than the ridiculous squaredance most people seem to favor. -.-

It might've laid the groundwork, but the kudzu plot didn't really start growing until KHII. For a game limited to a console like the GBA and with the scope of a claustrophobic castle, CoM did a nice job with expanding the series' scope a little bit for bigger things... but those things didn't have to go here, there, and everywhere like they did in 2.

Yeah, as you fanfic has shown.
As much as I've enjoyed some of the fics around here, I have to wonder how well they would translate into an actual video game. I have no experience with this sort of specific thing, but like pretty much everyone else, I know what works in a written story doesn't always work in... anything else.

Ehhh. I hope not. That trio idea sounds ridiculous. *continues to hope for a Y. Xehanort-Y. Eraqus-Kairi's Grandma trio that is only slightly less ridiculous*

Yeah, while I'd say that the limited set of shortcut options in KH1 and II would force you to choose wisely and think more carefully, the menu system itself is more of an example of what doesn't work when you combine "action" with "rpg." Those menus would've been perfectly fine if the battle system was turn-based or ATB like in the FF's, but when your survival depends on darting about and dodging... well, I think it's the main reason why most casual players barely use magic aside from Curaga, let alone even touch the summons.

Ugh, Ice Cream Beat. That wasn't as bad as KHII Atlantica, but I'm going to have to live with the fact that I couldn't progress through a game for some time because of a mini-game playing to the tune of "It's a Small World."
IT'S A SMALL WORLD WALLED ME IN A VIDEO GAME. H O W

*immediately pictures a scene just like that, only during the Big Damn Heroes moment in the throne room at the end of DDD*
It would've been so beautiful... TuT

People rarely asked me stuff like that about clothing. I was mostly pestered with questions about why I still played Pok?mon, because it'd already run its popularity course by the time I'd really gotten into it. Most of those interactions ended something like "I like it, what's it to you, now stop bothering me." Ironically, people became more tolerant of hobbies like that as we all got older. It became more socially acceptable for a high schooler to be playing those games than it was for a 3rd grader.
Joke's on everyone now, though, since the whole freaking world is playing Pok?mon again. =w=

Really, if it doesn't interest me, I won't keep track of it. Not just with fashion trends or whatever either... I'm pretty much completely out of the social loop at school. tbh I think it's a blessing because it looks like it's full of nothing but trivialities and drama. Stuff that I really, really hate.
Speaking of which, some petty drama might've been the reason why I activated invisible mode. Might've. It could've also been on whim, and either way, it looks like I just kinda forgot to switch it off. No real reason to either, so... xD
By the way, what does *ggg* mean? You use it a lot.

Makes sense. KH1 and CoM were both pretty tight and solid as far as their stories go, and both kept a smaller scale that's been really expanded ever since.

I see what you mean. I can understand why this particular plot point really bothered a lot of people, since unlike me, they had years beforehand to dwell on all these plots that just suddenly got demoted to "failed experiment/contingency plan." Heh, and from what I've heard, the plot of a video game often exists to justify the gameplay, not the other way around, so I can't say I'd be too surprised if the 7vs13 thing really was created just so we can have a final boss extravaganza at the end of 3.

Oh... I never thought of it that way before, and those are all very good points. o_0 It would've been nice if the game had implied something like that, rather than leaving open the possibility that it was due to negligence, like so many people have come to believe now.

Urgh, glad that I don't feel the need to 100% every game I play, because I hate luck-based challenges with a passion.

There're definitely other elements that will be mixed in. Fragmentary Passage has the Spellweaver command style and shotlocks incorporated into its gameplay, doesn't it? I'd imagine that the basic battle system will feel a lot like II, but it'll keep some of the more flashy and advanced techniques one would usually see in the handhelds as shortcuttable commands, along with a somewhat nerfed version of flo-mo.

Oh yeah, even before leaping into the fight like a badass, Kairi made her entrance by clobbering Xigbar's face with a Strike Raid. God, just remembering moments like those make me feel so... happy. 8D
Get Goldpanner to translate it into Japanese! *flips table*

Will do. I really want to find out now.

You sound a bit like me. I've always just done my own thing regardless of what others were doing or thinking, for as long as I can remember. And if I happen to jump onto something trendy (I think Attack On Titan or Tokyo Ghoul was the last time that happened), I usually dive into it because a friend recommended it to me, and I don't find out it has a massive following until much later. Sometimes I miss the hype train by several years.

I find it amusing yet kind of frightening that the Dept. of Defense here is operated by a bunch of distractible weebs. xD