Number XIII (Kingdom Hearts Soranort Quest)

I'm most interested in meeting Ansem and have Sora see what a depressed shell of his former self he's become after being his first big villain. But at the same time I think Sora would find controlling Heartless to be a viscerally disgusting experience given how some of them used to be people.

Youngnort's just an uninteresting dick and one of his prime self's biggest loyalists.

Marly has no reason to be loyal again and talking with him is a good step to having Sora found his own Organization within the Organization. But at the same time, I've never been a fan of the retcons to his character turning him into a Keyblade-wielding loving big brother who misses his sister when he and Larxene were just walking abuse metaphors in their original appearance who only wanted to take over the Organization for power's sake.

Ansem is the character I want to see the most and Youngnort the least but I think Sora wanting to control Heartless without much corraling is way out of character.

[X] Weapons training with Marluxia

Well, the irony of Sora willingly joining a coup with Marluxia this time could be really delicious. And Marly can learn how brainwashing Sora was a colossal waste of time last time given how if he didn't treat Namine like trash and just explained everything Sora would have probably helped him if he just explained everything.

[X] Heartless training with Ansem and the Riku Replica

If this is what was originally planned, then deviating from it could draw some unwanted attention. Not to mention learning how to control Heartless would be, despite how unpleasant it is, a useful skill to have.

[X] Weapons training with Marluxia

On the other hand, Marluxia is a consummate opportunist which makes him a viable ally. We do need to start gathering those.

The Zog said:

Youngnort's just an uninteresting dick and one of his prime self's biggest loyalists.

Marly has no reason to be loyal again and talking with him is a good step to having Sora found his own Organization within the Organization. But at the same time, I've never been a fan of the retcons to his character turning him into a Keyblade-wielding loving big brother who misses his sister when he and Larxene were just walking abuse metaphors in their original appearance who only wanted to take over the Organization for power's sake.

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To be honest, I wasn't really expecting anyone to vote for YX's thing. He's already been shown quite a lot in this, and so I expected people to vote for Sora to go interact with someone else. Still, I'm fine writing for whatever gets picked. As for the whole Lauriam thing, I'm rather new to the KH fandom, and I entered in 2023 with some knowledge of everything. What I'm saying is that I never knew Marluxia without also knowing about Lauriam, and so I don't really have an opinion on it. I do feel like they could've made more of a deliberate contrast out of it, like, "How'd he go from caring brother to manipulative abuser?" but idk.

Illune said:

To be honest, I wasn't really expecting anyone to vote for YX's thing. He's already been shown quite a lot in this, and so I expected people to vote for Sora to go interact with someone else. Still, I'm fine writing for whatever gets picked. As for the whole Lauriam thing, I'm rather new to the KH fandom, and I entered in 2023 with some knowledge of everything. What I'm saying is that I never knew Marluxia without also knowing about Lauriam, and so I don't really have an opinion on it. I do feel like they could've made more of a deliberate contrast out of it, like, "How'd he go from caring brother to manipulative abuser?" but idk.

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I've played Kingdom Hearts games all the way back since I and from that perspective it's pretty clear to me that many characters just have more things added on to them even if it makes little to no sense. The most common and most understandable was that in the context of I, Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, was clearly supposed to be the real Ansem the Wise. Though that retcon was well set up and foreshadowed in CoM with DiZ.

For a badly done retcon just look at the 13 Xehanort plan revealed in DDD. Reviewing the plot of II shows that it being the plan all along holds up under no form of scrutiny.

But for Marly when he was revealed to once have been a heroic Keyblade Master also revealed that he was recruited as an amnesiac so there's no connection to his past self to inform his actions in his original appearance. It doesn't help that they could have put more effort into elaborating on Marluxia's motives when he was the main villain, hint at more sympathetic reasons like distrust in Xemnas' promises or that his mentality as a Nobody made him too paranoid to trust anyone but in practice, he was just a power-hungry manipulator who just wanted to on top.

Illune said:

What do you choose?

[] Heartless training with Ansem and the Riku Replica
[] Magic practice with Young Xehanort
[] Weapons training with Marluxia
[] Write-in

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...I don't trust none of ya'll.

I'm honestly not sure if we can give up the Heartless training. It's just too valuable.
The ability to control an infinite army of darkness creatures would give us far more room to breathe, both because it stops them from attacking us, and because there's very little lost if we let any of them die, meaning we can sacrifice as many as we please.
It's not a good idea to just pass it up.

[X] Heartless training with Ansem and the Riku Replica

I hate voting for this. I hate voting to be around Ansem. I really do.
But we really could do with 'allies' that will work with us.

Edit: WAIT NEVERMIND BETTER IDEA

[X] Ask if Marluxia could teach you to control Nobodies instead. You merged with Roxas, and he controlled the Samurai Nobodies, so you might learn to do so quicker.

Rise Shine said:

...I don't trust none of ya'll.

I'm honestly not sure if we can give up the Heartless training. It's just too valuable.
The ability to control an infinite army of darkness creatures would give us far more room to breathe, both because it stops them from attacking us, and because there's very little lost if we let any of them die, meaning we can sacrifice as many as we please.
It's not a good idea to just pass it up.

[X] Heartless training with Ansem and the Riku Replica

I hate voting for this. I hate voting to be around Ansem. I really do.
But we really could do with 'allies' that will work with us.

Edit: WAIT NEVERMIND BETTER IDEA

[X] Ask if Marluxia could teach you to control Nobodies instead. You merged with Roxas, and he controlled the Samurai Nobodies, so you might learn to do so quicker.

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I think Ansem is actually one of the best to be around. His characterization in III was that he was just tired of everything and being brought back again and again and I think Sora would pick up on that and be able to subvert him if only for him to want to try something different. The problem is that it makes no sense for Sora to want to start with him because he has no way to know all of this.

The Zog said:

I think Ansem is actually one of the best to be around. His characterization in III was that he was just tired of everything and being brought back again and again and I think Sora would pick up on that and be able to subvert him if only for him to want to try something different. The problem is that it makes no sense for Sora to want to start with him because he has no way to know all of this.

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Thing is, while Ansem is that way right now, Repliku isn't.
Right now, Replica Riku is still in his 'darkness is the shit' mode, and Sora would be far more focused on the walking recreation of his best friends worst moment, than he is on Ansem, and I don't trust Repliku to not try and make Sora think that the Darkness is a good idea, so that he and Sora can be the 'real ones' because they both use Darkness. I don't think Sora needs that at all right now.

I think the write-in idea I had is a better option, though.
Controllable minions without, or at least less-likely to involve, using Darkness.

The Zog said:

The problem is that it makes no sense for Sora to want to start with him because he has no way to know all of this.

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Ah yes, dramatic irony. I'm enjoying using it in this quest, as there's so much that Sora doesn't know/isn't being told. It's especially fun when I write a bit where Sora doesn't remember the events of CoM and is like, huh, don't know much about this Marluxia character...wait, I killed him? Go figure.

He now has a bit more information thanks to Roxas, but of course, that's based on Roxas's own perceptions, with feelings and biases included. I had something planned for each Heart Hotel "guest" to advise Sora on according to their experiences.

[X] Weapons training with Marluxia

Also, QM did not just call it Heart Hotel, oh my god.

AbyssRay said:

Also, QM did not just call it Heart Hotel, oh my god.

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hehehe

I must confess that I'm on Tumblr waaaaaaay too much. I like to write KH shitposts and fanfic ideas (and stuff for other fandoms, of course). Here's one such shitpost (based on My Immortal) that made me take 20d20 psychic damage just writing it:

"Hi my name is Ansem Seeker of Dark'ness Xehanort's Heartless and I have long silverish white hair with three spikes at the top that reaches below my shoulders and amber yellow eyes like orbs of paopu fruit but dark and a lot of people tell me I look like Terra (AN: if u haven't played bbs get da hell out of here!). I'm not related to Sephiroth but I wish I was because he's a major fucking hottie. I'm a Heartless but I still look like a human. I have warm brown skin. I'm also a seeker of darkness, and I work in a group called the Real Organization XIII in the Keyblade Graveyard where I'm one of the higher-ups. I was a final boss once (in case you couldn't tell) and I've got the Heartless Symbol on my chest. I love the Accessory Shop and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a white shirt unbuttoned except for at the bottom and a thick black coat with armored shoulders that went down to my knees. I also was wearing black pants and wide-flared white gloves buttoned on the sides. I was walking around the Keyblade Graveyard. It was finally night so it was dark out, which I was very happy about. The Guardians of Light stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them."

There, now you all can take 20d20 psychic damage as well.

Illune said:

I must confess that I'm on Tumblr waaaaaaay too much. I like to write KH shitposts and fanfic ideas (and stuff for other fandoms, of course). Here's one such shitpost (based on My Immortal) that made me take 20d20 psychic damage just writing it:

WHITE NOISE

There, now you all can take 20d20 psychic damage as well.

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Sorry, I think my brain just rejected the intake of this information. But somehow, I don't think that's a bad thing in this situation.

Illune said:

hehehe

I must confess that I'm on Tumblr waaaaaaay too much. I like to write KH shitposts and fanfic ideas (and stuff for other fandoms, of course). Here's one such shitpost (based on My Immortal) that made me take 20d20 psychic damage just writing it:

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My god why are you casting such curses on our minds lol?

But honestly I only play the first parts of KH2 and liked Roxas much but then I saw the depth of Deep Lore that I would have to dive into to understand things and decided it wasn't worth the effort.

I only know things by osmosis, so I'm not very interested or know anything about Ventus and Xion compared to Roxas and Sora himself.

Rise Shine said:

Sorry, I think my brain just rejected the intake of this information.

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Good, now you don't have to take any psychic damage

Azais said:

but then I saw the depth of Deep Lore that I would have to dive into to understand things and decided it wasn't worth the effort.

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Yeah, there's a lot of Lore in the KH series, and basically every game assumes you've played the games released before it. Even the mobile game is important... I can understand why you wouldn't want to get into all that. I never thought I'd get into KH, to be honest. The premise seemed too weird. But then I started watching out-of-context KH quote videos, and then I watched some LPs to understand the quotes, and I read some KH fics just because of their interesting-looking synopses, and eventually I started writing crack, like, "What's the worst that could happen?"

And then I eventually gave up on any pretense that I wasn't a fan, started writing non-crack KH fanfics, and...well, here we are.

I think the point I really realized I was a fan was when my best friend got me a set of tiny Keyblades for my last birthday (probably since I was talking about KH so much when we were hanging out lol).