setsugekka

I sat and thought about this for a while, but I'm not sure if it meeeans anything... It certainly looks cool, though. So, you might've seen this already, but the official khux account just put out this statement on Twitter: "With a heavy heart" makes it sound like this was sooner than they expected... It's definitely sooner than I thought it'd be. I thought we'd have khux for at least the rest of the year. I'm shocked that they're already going to end khdr so shortly afterwards, too. That's........ I really have no words. I knew it wouldn't last, but it feels like it just got started. I don't know what's going to happen. I wonder if this is what it felt like when the players of Agito found out that the game was going to end before it was even close to reaching its proper ending. I know that Nomura said that the ending of khux had already been written long in advance... But I see an opportunity for some parallels here, I'm just saying. lol But yeah......... It's hard to imagine that the story of khdr will be complete. For the offline version, the announcement says "Story will be unlocked up to the ending", but I'm concerned that it'll be something rushed. I've mostly been ignoring playing khdr so far, so the offline mode will give me something to look forward to, but I'm kinda skeptical. What are you expecting most from the khux ending? Personally, I'm looking forward to finding out what's under the MoM's table. lol

Oh yeah, I thought it was really interesting that the preview of his character file was different from the one that was printed. The preview version had a lot of stuff that ended up being in Re:Mind, so maybe they thought they should change it up? Part of me is like "What if it MEANS something?" but I don't think it does. I think it was a matter of them wanting to publish a more intriguing, mysterious story. I'd have to find the original again, so I'm not sure if that's the same translation I saw before, but I know I saw a translation out there that had a lot of inaccuracies. Until I found the original, some of the stuff in the translation had me (and a lot of other people) assuming that Luxord was connected to the MoM somehow. I forget what it was exactly, but it was bogus. Anyway, I know that dffoo might not be related to anything, but I gotta mention that Jack just returned to NA! Now you can get him from his Lost Chapter whenever you want! ...But his special weapons are only available for a limited time, so if anybody wants him, now's the time. Here's his LD weapon, the Black Widow. ("Mukademaru", which is like "Centipede Blade".) See, that's the one with the eye in it... Very cool. I mentioned a few of the names of his moves on the first page of the thread. I sat and thought about "Piercing Gleam" for a while... It's not direct, but it's not a bad translation. You could interpret "Issen Toppa" as "breaking through in a flash" like a flash of lightning or a burst of light. It includes the kanji for sparkling/glittering/gleaming. For the move, he thrusts at the enemy, then cleaves upward. It's one of the best defense-lowering moves right now. He also has a move called "Lightning Flash" which actually has the same name as Quick Attack in Pokemon - "Denkou Sekka." Literally, it means "Lightning Speed." It also includes the kanji for "light", of course. For that move, he performs multiple quick, consecutive slashes. I haven't checked the Japanese on these yet, but he has some weapon affinity abilities called "Optimistic Heart" and "Heart and Soul." I'm just like... They gotta stop baiting me like this. lol We also got the official translation of the new scenes in his Lost Chapter. Slightly disappointed that one of my favorite lines just seems to be missing, but I enjoyed it overall. I like that they had Sherlotta refer to him as a "scoundrel." lol Cute word choice. Ace finally received LD and BT weapons in the JP version of the game. His LD is the Magician's Deck (JP: "Magician Card") and his BT is Crazy Eights (JP: "Wildcard") Feel free to look at the designs on both of those and decide for yourself whether they mean anything. His LD has the wings of the Vermilion Bird in the shape of a heart, and his BT looks like it has... a cross? an X? Interesting. This actually gives me a wild idea. This is a shot in the dark, but I've been wondering if Luxord's card has anything to do with Ace. Ventus is the one who's like Ace, so maybe it has something to do with Ventus? Or, perhaps, there's another character who's like Ventus but also more like Ace. Like how Yozora looks like Riku, but he's more like Noctis. idk, I'm just feeling something here. I gotta add something. Although these weapons existed in Type-0, they didn't have unique appearances before. Even if you got a new weapon, they'd all looked like the same default weapon. They finally got unique appearances in other games like dffoo and FFRK. So that's what makes me wonder... Are they making them look a certain way on purpose? Like, I REALLY wanna say that this is a coincidence, but also... Look at it. That's Trey's LD, Thanatos' Bow (JP: "Reaper's Bow") I'm just saying. Somebody at dffoo's gotta take responsibility for making me sound crazy.

It's getting late again and I had a doozy of a day, so I'm gonna have to remember to look into that again some other time. Whoops. Ah, this is something I've thought about with a friend. Put simply... We think that Xigbar is the new active leader. I mean, consider it... If Demyx is the MoM, how much work and fighting do you think he actually wants to do? None, right? The MoM has already shoved off most of the work onto other people. He might not even technically be a keyblade master anymore. (..........Was he ever, really? I have suspicions. lol How does someone who didn't have a master declare themselves to be one? That's sketchy.) Anyway, I think about this song every time I think about MoM and Luxu. Make sure the subs are on and enjoy. lol That it. That's their dynamic! Have I ever said what the emblem looks like to me? The Vermilion Bird emblem. I wandered around Scala ad Caelum for a long time looking for any symbols that looked familiar. This is the closest thing I saw to the Vermilion Bird. Could just be a coincidence. That might not even be a bird. lol But I think that's part of the same area where the Foretellers' emblems can be seen underneath during the fight with Xehanort. So that's a little sus. Also, just for fun... This is the Type-0 HD soundtrack. It's shaped like a book for no apparent reason. There's only one bluray disc in there. Very strong Book of Prophecies vibes, imo. Probably also a coincidence, but I enjoy it nonetheless. It's very cool looking. Speaking of the soundtrack... I know that Takeharu Ishimoto is the one who composed Vanitas's themes, but I can't listen to War: That Which Stands in the Way (the song from the first Agito XIII trailer) without also thinking of Vanitas. I love how the piano starts out sounding calm and then starts to become more chaotic. It never gets as chaotic as the piano in the MoM's theme, but you know I'm thinking about it. If we get to hear one Type-0 song recreated in KH, I hope it's Divine Fire. (It's just the shorter, more climactic arrangement of the theme, We Have Arrived.) The lyrics of Zero sound more relevant to KH, but I doubt that we'll ever hear that again. lol The rights are owned by Bump of Chicken's record label. ...Have I ever mentioned the lyrics to Zero, though? Ace's profile in Theatrhythm refers to Zero as a "lullaby": You know what a lullaby is. It's a song to put someone to sleep. He learned the song from Arecia. The part he sings in the game is this: Utakata (Ephemeral/Transience), the theme song for the cancelled sequel, had an allusion to Zero in its lyrics. ...Did I really never share this? I'll just give you my whole translation of it because there are some parts of it that really make me go "WAIT, HOLD ON. IS THIS ABOUT KINGDOM HEARTS NOW??" Apparently it was specifically written in archaic Japanese to have an "ancient" feeling. In specific, I believe that the line "The love song I play / I devote to the place beside you / Where I wish to continue sleeping" is referring to the ending of Type-0. Ace sings some of Zero to calm everyone down as they realize that they're going to die. Moments later, as Zero begins to play, Machina and Rem arrive too late and find everyone laying together... So, in this case, sleep was... a metaphor for death... JACK IS JUST HAVING A NICE NAP HERE WITH HIS FRIENDS. I feel like noting that FFXV and Type-0 end in a similar way with the main characters dying. (Well, just Noctis and Luna for FFXV. The others were fine. But we know how Yozora and Star Girl are doing. Not good.)

I thought about mentioning it before, but I thought you would've already heard about it. lol Remember my interpretation of KH:MoM being like a representation of the series as a whole piece composed by the MoM? I thought of Re:Mind being named that for a similar reason, like the coda was his direction to start over from that one place. Since we know that the MoM is, uh, familiar with the titles of the KH games for some reason, it kinda makes sense in a meta way. lol Who knows, maybe he literally came up with these titles and "KH:MoM" is actually supposed to be his signature. He placed his own name in the title... The sneaky bastard... I think I kind of suggested it when I mentioned the riplai preview book, but the title of that book "Re: [riplai]" is prooobably where the idea for Re:Mind's title came from? Since the book was focused on Versus XIII and Agito XIII at the very front of the book, I imagine "Re:Mind" was also a sneaky reference to the Fabula Nova Crystallis. It sounds like a weird stretch, but it also feels like the kind of weird stretch Nomura would make. lol I think there might've been something about that in the riplai book. I'll have to take a look tomorrow. (But I think somebody might've already translated the Versus XIII pages somewhere, so you can try to find that if you're really curious.)

Oh god! All of these keywords! TOGETHER!! There's so much going on here... Because of the fact that it uses the word "dive", a word we've seen associated with dreams in KH, this sounds like they're saying that fiction and dreams are the same thing - or at least something similar/related, like we've been assuming. Dreams aren't just things you have when you're asleep. Dreams can also be your aspirations and fantasies. It sounds like this is saying that you can also dive into those types of dreams and find new worlds, such as Quadratum. Alternatively: Cool. Final Fantasy worlds!

I thought about it, but no... Probably not, especially if she ignored Luxu's call. Cuz if that's right, then it seems like she's sticking to her own principles. Besides, unless there's a situation we're just totally unaware of, I don't know why she'd need to steal someone's whole identity. (I guess someone else could've forced it onto her, but that sounds a little too dark...) Ha... HA, I say! That can't stop me! I already feel pretty confident about Kingdom Hearts being like Etro's Gate. The unseen, far side of the moon is called "tsuki no uragawa." So when Kingdom Hearts appeared, he was looking at it from the other side! ......Maybe!

Well, like I said, Nomura probably just didn't have anything else to do with him, so he let him go. I wish Repliku could've stayed somewhere in the background, but getting rid of him would certainly mitigate the fans' demand to see more from him. I don't like it, but I get it. (But who knows, any character could reappear if Nomura wanted. It's that kind of series.) This actually just made me wonder if we're ever going to get to see what Yozora originally looked like... I can't imagine him looking any other way now. That's Yozora to me. lol But it seems like there must be someone else out there masquerading as him, right? So maybe Yozora will stay looking that way and the other person will be a villain...? I don't think it would be the MoM. Star Girl's appearance was also stolen, so there's gotta be another girl, too, right? idk, this is just what I imagine... The Foretellers reeeally don't strike me as villains. They seem like good guys who will come into conflict with Sora & Pals because their ideals will clash with each other. ("I'm right!" "No, I'M right!" That sort of thing.) If somebody actually STOLE Yozora's appearance, I don't think they could spin that as being "for the greater good" or anything. That sounds like some villainous stuff to me. lol There's probably a lot of new characters we haven't seen yet. That's kinda exciting, but it also makes me anxious because it just means that there's a lot we don't know and probably can't even guess about yet. Oh, don't worry. It's confusing to the people who only care about Agito and Type-0, too. lol The stuff involving the timeline didn't get explained really well in the games, so everybody's like "Uh... We think this is how it works...?" We pretend like we understand so we can sleep at night. I'm trying to figure out which line you mean. Ienzo says, "If it's not the light nor darkness on our side (our world), but rather a world on the other side--" I think he was quoting what Kairi heard from Xehanort, so it might sound a little weird out of context. "Uragawa" means reverse, other side, something's back side, behind, etc. You might have a point. The wording does make me feel a little differently about the meaning. Still, the implication is that the fictional world is something other than the realms of light and darkness that they're familiar with, so I think the localization had the right idea. It might not be the same as the emptiness, but it's definitely something new that may not adhere to light and darkness. (edit) I just thought about this word so hard and made myself wonder if this has anything to do with why "Back Cover" is called that... If I wanted someone to show me the back side of a book, I'd ask to see the "uragawa." (edit 2) The clock tower is literally on the "uragawa" of Scala ad Caelum. ...Now I'm just making jokes. lol Or am I?

Yeeeeah... You mean, why does he say that he can finally be his own person? Hmm... I take it to mean that the choice he made to give the replica to Namine was a choice that only he could've made, so that makes him unique as a person. And then he died. xfkjhgflk That's kind of a common trope. I've seen it, like, four or five times in FFIV. "I have to do this..." "But you're going to die!" "There's no other way. I'm the only one who can do it. Remember my sacrifice..." Bruh, they could've just made another replica... Come on... I assume it's because of non-linear time. There could have been another world line (or many world lines) where the war was currently taking place. It reminds me of how, in what was supposed to be the THIRD cycle of Agito, Arecia speaks as though she's already seen the Spiral repeat millions of times. Also, gotta love the whole "If y'all fail this time, I'm just straight-up ending the world for good" attitude. After that ending, that's when Tohno and Lean were sent off to basically do the same thing as Luxu. It sounds like Arecia had already seen ALL of the cycles, but she let Tohno and Lean traverse them in the hope of finding Agito in one of them. Unlike her, they're human, so they had the ability to notice things that she might've otherwise overlooked. I translated this one interview a while back. I think it's worth seeing: This is how we know that the Agito Player was going to become the true Agito, but the game was shut down before we got to see that happen. When they became Agito, it was going to change the future and overwrite the ending of Type-0 where Class Zero died. But it's hard to wrap my head around how that was going to work, exactly... The "light of the past" might be how KH interpreted it. In summary... Everything is still confusing. But at least having info like this makes me feel like I have an idea of what's going on. lol

Ohhhhh... idk, maybe he heard about it from them later? I actually took that to be a flashback for our benefit, not necessarily a memory he was having. lol I seriously didn't even think about it. But you could be right. Maybe we don't. Maybe there is no "normal." As a wise man once said... Maybe everyone's appearances are like the black box. The way Xigbar described it, it made it sound like it could look different to everyone who sees it. So maybe that's an idea that applies to more than just the box. I'd be kind of annoyed by that, though... I feel like that could be used as an excuse to change anyone's appearances and/or identities without explanation. ? Well, I think Sora was trying to be a little careful to protect the world order. That's why he quietly asked Donald about his magic. Even though he didn't think he looked like Yozora, he didn't want the toys to get too suspicious. If he kept insisting that he didn't look like him, that would've made things more difficult than they needed to be, so it was to his benefit to let them believe what they wanted. Oh yeah... ...Is Repliku just plain gone now? Has Riku taken his place? I kinda hate that. lol I think that might be what's going on, though... It's not like I expect KH to ever turn into an in-depth love story or anything, but I think some feelings could be implied. In this case, I feel like Repliku/Namine is what we were meant to expect, so it just feels WEIRD AND WRONG if Riku were to end up with Namine. Just when Repliku was seen as his own person... The real Riku steps in to take his place. Feels bad. Nomura probably doesn't have any further ideas for Repliku, though. But ugh, I'm like... Just give him his own replica body and then let him hang out at the Radiant Garden castle or something. He doesn't have to be in any scenes. lmao Just let him be a separate guy. ...But the way he faded away makes me think that he's dead now. RIP. ? I just really hate that trope where it's like "the girl's former love gave his blessing to the new guy before he died, so now it's fine if he dates her, so you shouldn't have any problem with it either, viewer! See, it's HONORABLE!" I'm not saying that she did it consciously or intentionally. More like, her coming into existence is what stole the Star Girl's appearance from her. But the Star Girl lost everything, even her name, so would that make her name "Namine"? lol Yeeeah, this feels unlikely... I think I was closer when I was assuming that there's another new girl who's supposed to be "Luna" who took her place. Still, the visual similarity between Riku/Namine and Noctis/Stella makes me raise an eyebrow... I wonder how "dreams" are supposed to factor into this. What if Yozora was "dreaming" of Sora in the same way that Xehanort was dreaming of Player, except Yozora actually had the ability to go into his dream to meet Sora...? That would give them a connection and possibly explain why Yozora ended up looking like someone Sora knows. Like, Yozora had his own appearance, but then that connection made him look like Riku when his form was stolen. So it's like how Zell, Roche, Gippal, Jack, Demyx, and MoM all look and feel similar, but they come from different games/worlds. They could be like parallel world versions of each other. Could still be like reincarnation in a way if the life experiences from one world get carried over to the next, like in Xehanort's case.

Which moments are you thinking of? I thought his dream flashbacks only showed scenes that included Player. ..................As crazy as that sounds, I wonder if you're right. Here's the original: Here, Goofy straight-up says that Yozora looks like Riku. lol So the trio definitely all agree that Sora doesn't look like Yozora... The wording is still just vague enough where I'm not sure if they meant that the others see him differently because of Donald's magic, though. The important thing is that the toys do seem to see Sora as looking like Yozora, not just similar. I don't know if we're supposed to read more into it, but I assumed that he was acting like that because he thought Yozora looked cool and he enjoyed the fact that the others thought he looked like that kind of guy. But what if it is deeper than that...? What is Riku's connection to Yozora...? He was the one Yozora was watching from a distance in his dreams. I've seen people say that they think the Star Girl looks like an older version of Namine in the Verum Rex commercial. I dunno if Namine is going to end up being Riku's love interest or anything, but he was the one who went to pick her up at the end of KH3, so maybe there's a connection there... Namine was a star in the Final World like that Star Girl, too... Wait, who took the Star Girl's form? ......We never found out why Namine looks different from Kairi, did we? Wuh-oh. One of the things that confuses me the most is... If the real Yozora doesn't look the way he's supposed to, then why does the version of him on the Verum Rex boxart look the same way he does? Is it just a matter of perception? Did the boxart also change to look the way he currently does? I wonder if Sora and Riku are swapped around somehow. We already know that Riku was the one who was actually destined to receive the keyblade, but it went to Sora instead because Riku fell to darkness at the beginning of KH1. That's one of the things Xemnas even reiterated in that scene in The Grid... (edit) As I sit and think about this, the less sense it makes. lol Does it even feel fair to think that Namine "took everything" from the Star Girl? I know it would've been beyond her control if something like that happened, but does the girl really deserve more pressure like that after everything she's already been through? kjhgjgh Hopefully that's not right.

Dang, good question... I really wanna find out what's going to happen with Player. Some of the things Xehanort knows could've come from his dreams, but some could've been things the MoM told him. I'm not sure if/how he could've had personal experience with the fictional world unless he realized that that's what Game Central Station was from his dreams. GCS was connected to Daybreak Town "from the outside", so maybe he realized that there are places outside that the pod could theoretically reach if it went too far...? I told you, I'm dense sometimes, so I'm not sure I know what you're getting at. lol Are you suggesting that Sora could be a replica of Yozora or something? ...Wait, that is what you mean, isn't it? Hmmmmm... But I'm not sure it would explain everything. Regardless, it's a thought worth having. I just thought about this so hard and I'm still so confused... I think it might benefit us if we try to go back to thinking of Verum Rex as being some kind of metaphor for Versus XIII. Versus XIII was turned into FFXV. The Noctis of FFXV is very different from the one in Versus. In a way, you could say that Noctis's heart was replaced by that of another. The Nameless Star says that her name and form were taken from her, and that's what happened to Stella when she was completely replaced by Luna. idk if it makes it any clearer, but in Japanese, the Nameless Star says "His form was taken from him, too. The one who exists now houses a different heart." The way that Sora sees Yozora might be correct. In other words, we see what's right. That would explain why he still looks the same as what's on the Verum Rex boxart. Sora doesn't seem like the one who took Yozora's place, right? I'm not sure how that would make sense. But Hamm and Rex think he looks like Yozora!! So what's up with that? HRRRRRNGH, MY BRAIN IS TRYING SO HARD... It certainly seems possible that Sora could have unknowingly replaced someone... *stares at Demyx* ...How are we supposed to balance the similarities that Sora has with MoM-Demyx and Yozora??? Remember how I said that it felt like Demyx could've been the main character of his own story during the first visit to the Underworld in KH2? I can actually see him being the REAL Sora. But then that doesn't explain why Hamm and Rex saw Sora as Yozora at all. So either I'm really wrong somewhere or I'm not looking at something the right way... The visual parallels between Sora and Yozora are the strongest, so idk if I should be thinking about the MoM at all. (edit) Yeah, maybe I should just ignore MoM. That line from the novel where Yozora was wondering if his thoughts actually belonged to Sora is... strong. idk exactly what it means, but that sounds like some seriously strong evidence of SOMETHING connecting them as people.

Ansem the Wise is the one who was quickly able to conclude that Sora must have been sent to the fictional world... Maybe something like that was at the back of his mind because of whatever he saw in Subject X's memories? Based on the way he acted, it gave me the feeling that he learned something that he thought the world would be better off not knowing. Oh, that's a good question... RIIIGHT... Yozora said that his current appearance isn't normally how he looks, too... Hmmmm... Ugh, it feels like we're so close to something here. If Yozora had originally looked more like Sora, though, wouldn't he have acted surprised by how Sora looks? Hm. I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if Yozora's "original form" looked a bit more like Sora. Maybe he ended up looking more like Riku because of Sora's connection to him somehow...? Oh riiight, it was Hamm who said he looked like Yozora first... I think I figured out the thought process here. Rex had trouble coming up with Yozora's name because Sora doesn't look like him. Hamm apparently saw something about him that made him think of Yozora, so then Rex saw it, too. Whatever that similarity was, it might've been SO strong that it caused Rex to think of Sora as Yozora. Depending on how this whole thing works, maybe he even literally saw him as Yozora. It's hard to wrap my brain around it since it seems like all these worlds - including Toy Box - should be part of the same universe. But I think the world of Toy Story is supposed to take place in OUR world, or, at least, a version of our world where toys can come to life when people aren't looking. lol Point is, it's the closest thing to our REAL reality. Ha, I hadn't thought about that... I think it's just meant to visually represent the characters. Sora meets Yozora at night... It's just fitting. There's ways you could read into it, but there's no way to prove that my reading would be correct. For instance, as Sora walks deeper into the night, you could say that he's walking into Yozora's territory and leaving his own (the daytime). Day and night are always separate... How could they ever exist at the same time? What would happen? Kinda poetic. A little spooky, even. It's like Sora's figuratively encountering a side of himself (or maybe literally another version of him) that he didn't know existed. With a name like "Yozora", it's hard not to think about how he's supposed to be like and unlike Sora. I listened to it again in Japanese... "This isn't what I really look like, so why did you call me Yozora? Why did you call yourself Sora?" Wow, that sure gives a different impression. kfhgdfk THEY GOTTA STOP DOING THIS. Yozora said ソラを名を乗っている NOT ソラの名!! Is this like what happened with Rex and Hamm...? Apparently Yozora doesn't look like himself, yet Sora was able to call him by what seems to be the correct name. I think he must've asked about Sora's name for a similar reason. Maybe he expected Sora to look different... D........ Do you think their appearances are switched around? So Yozora should look like Sora and Sora should look like Yozora? In that case... Hamm and Rex would've been correct... That sounds so weird, but... Considering the fact that these two were "destined to meet" and how their names make them sound like mirror images of each other... Uhhhhhh... idk, I just feel like we're close. These two are connected. Somehow. (edit) I just saw this thread on twitter about Yozora's appearance which kind of goes in the same direction my thoughts were going in, but they make some bolder assertions. I hadn't thought about it until now. lol But it could be because Luna was sitting together with Noctis on the throne at the end of FFXV. At the last moment, they share a kiss and then close their eyes: This whole time, the throne was the world's most obvious Noctis reference and I was just like Huh, I Guess That's Neat! smh... I'm dense sometimes. I don't know if this is going to be important, but it's good to consider everything! Lightning is also shown in a similar pose as Noctis in the old marketing for the XIII series. Then, from FFXIII-2... Here she is, crystalized on Etro's throne in Valhalla. So, idk if Nomura just wanted to reuse the idea of two similar characters who belong on thrones... Or if we should expect to see Lightning show up. lol Their encounter in Dissidia NT was pretty amusing. (Aaand I'm still thinking about the NT display in Toy Box...)

*nods*... Hmm... Yeah, that is a possibility. But if that were the case, I wish Melody of Memory could've told us that. Apprentice Nort should've said something like "With this machine, which I built from a subject's memories..." lol Ohhh... Okay, I can see that making sense. Not sure if true, but satisfies my brain for the moment. I don't think we should think of it as "Yozora's dream." When he's asleep, I think he just goes to the dream, like a separate place of its own like a sleeping world. I'm not sure if it's the same as a sleeping world or just a "world of dreams." tbh, it would make sense to me if both the Age of Fairytales (Agito) and Quadratum (Versus) are sleeping worlds because both of those games were "consumed by darkness" so to speak. In any case, it might be impossible for us to correctly figure out the specifics for now, but it seems like a safe bet to assume that it's a place that exists whether Yozora's dreaming or not. Whoooooooa, whaaaaaaat... Whaaaaaat...? This reminds me of something I've had at the back of my mind... The fact that Rex actually mistook Sora for Yozora despite the fact that he doesn't look like him. What's up with that? Everybody with eyes agrees that Yozora looks more like Riku. So what is it about Sora that made Rex mix them up? How is Sora connected to Yozora in a way that would make Rex think that they're the same? Like you mentioned, Yozora's journal entry said that he was destined to meet Sora... Could it be because they were both made by the same creator...? No thought seems too ridiculous to me anymore. lol The Verum Rex displays in Toy Box actually said "Square-Enix" on them, right? Well, Kingdom Hearts is also a Square-Enix game. Maybe it's like when I saw Terra for the first time and thought "Is that Zack from FF7?" But why would Yozora question if the voice in his head was Sora's...? That almost makes them sound like the same person. It's a bit different, but it's a similar situation to what Xehanort was experiencing with his dreams about Player. Both situations make me wonder if it's reincarnation. Hm... I'm not sure why he looks so much like Riku, but do you think maybe it IS the same type of situation as Xehanort/Player? Yozora seems so different from Sora, though... But I guess that doesn't really matter. Player also seemed different from Xehanort. Hm. That's concerning. lol (edit) Now that I'm thinking about it, I realized that Sora's Ultimate Form looks like Noctis's Armiger where all the swords spin around him... wtf... How many other things are there that are like this? I'm sure I must've noticed that before, but I probably just wrote it off as a similar gameplay idea because they're both by SE. (edit 2) Wait, there IS more! Is this the reason for the "true/false king" stuff? Sora has always had the throne and crown imagery associated with him, but so does Noctis since he was an actual prince... Maybe when Brain used it, it did the same thing that it did for Maleficent? But just the first step. So it brought him back to the "real world" but didn't travel through time. Maybe. I just get the feeling that the machine went wonky and did something kinda different for everyone.

Hmmm... I'm just not totally convinced it was him. I sort of feel like it could've been there to begin with. Heaven knows we don't know how it was there AND also in Radiant Garden castle in the future. The machine seems like something that's just part of the world by default... But since Darkness knew things about how it was built, that does seem to indicate that he was around to see its construction. That makes me think it could've been the MoM simply due to Darkness's connection to him, but idk... God, I keep forgetting about that... That just doesn't make any sense to me, though. If he won the fight, he would've still been in the Final World, right? So then Kairi and Riku should've been able to find him. I feel like the ending where Sora gets crystalized makes more sense as the real ending based on what we've seen. There's also the fact that Yozora says something like "So I guess my powers weren't needed after all" if Sora wins, which just seems like a waste. lol I suppose it's possible that both endings could be true, but I don't know how. Thoughts? If the "Sora wins" ending is also true, how do you think that would work/make sense? Okay, actually, I have another interpretation. Even though the opening scene looks similar to the ending where Sora wins and stands there in the Final World, maybe the part where he actually says/thinks the line came from before that? In other words, it's not part of the Re:Mind ending, just the KH3 ending from before he met Yozora. (The fact that there are two endings is still sus to me, though.) I think we already figured this one out. lol At least where Marluxia and Larxene are concerned, it's because he was looking for his friends. That's why Nomura also mentioned how Xemnas was searching for Ventus inside Castle Oblivion. Aaand I'm sure that had something to do with the hunt for Subject X, too. But Luxord and Demyx remain mysterious... Especially Luxord. I can come up with a number of ways for Xehanort to have stumbled upon Demyx, assuming that he's the MoM, but what about Luxord...? Since Xehanort knew about the fictional world, maybe he knew of a way to access that side... Hm. Until recently, I was thinking that Luxord may have come to their world by his own choice, but if Xehanort chose them solely based on whether he thought they were connected to the age of fairytales, then, uh... ??? Big confusion. On a related note... (I hope I haven't mentioned this one yet. It's wild.) There's a room in The Castle That Never Was that's called "The Hall of Empty Melodies." What a pertinent-sounding name, right? It's the place where you fight Xigbar. It also has this interesting motif on the walls... Those look like white doves on the left and right. Then there are at least six wings in the middle. Not sure what the black symbols are meant to be. They reminded me of Xigbar's arrow guns, but they're the wrong shape. Kingdom Hearts can be seen from this angle. On the other side of the room, it looks like there are some black wing things above the door and some more of those black symbols. Then above that, a very large Nobody emblem is surrounded by three wings on each side like a seraph. The motifs have a wierdly holy vibe to them. I'll admit... I've read many fanfics in my day... There have been a few that portrayed this room as the place where Demyx would play his sitar for the acoustics. It does kinda look like it could've been a stage. Actually, I've even wondered if this room is where we were originally meant to fight Demyx, but I don't know if there's any truth in that idea. So yeah. One of my ideas is that they found Demyx there, and that's why that room is known as the Hall of Empty Melodies. btw, if you wanna explore any area from KH and KH2 from any angle, there's this cool site. Hm... It seems like she should have left. Last time we saw her, she had just fought off Lauriam and entered the pod. The pod took her out of the data world and brought her to the real world version of the same room. It didn't do any time traveling. Darkness told her that she would need to get into the pod again to return to her own time. Although we didn't SEE her get back in the pod, I assume she did. Darkness hasn't mentioned the box to her at all, right? Sooo... If she actually traveled back to the future, then that means that she must've learned about the box from someone else. I guess it's possible that we'll see another scene that takes place right before she gets back in the pod. Someone else might've come to talk to her...? But I find that kinda unlikely. I feel like Darkness would've waited there to make sure that she was leaving, seeing as how he seemed so determined to control her actions. Anyway, take note of the fact that she had to return to the real world first and then get BACK in the pod to go to the future. That makes me think that the union leaders might've gotten into the pods and accidentally sent themselves to the future without going back to the real world first. Darkness said that the machine wasn't "versatile enough" to handle sending someone to the real world AND the future at the same time. So that's another way the leaders could've lost their memories. By using the machine improperly, it messed them up. Maybe. IN ANY CASE, the gives me the impression that we're going to see how she found out. I sure hope so, since that's something I've really wanted to know. Remember our whole confusion over "the dingbat in black"? lol It's probably from the same line Xemnas said in the Japanese version. I think I mentioned it before, but it's unclear whether he meant that he was looking for multiple wielders or just one. The line is totally vague. That's probably why the localization came up with that "keyblade legacy" thing because that sounds equally vague. lol Yeah... I really can't tell... But maybe he really was talking about one specific person. If he DID mean one specific wielder, then... It's not just me, right? My first thought is that he means the MoM. ...But as I've said before, the MoM seems to be the first thought when it comes to most mysteries. lol He's just a mysterious guy! (edit) Man, I forgot what the "I've been having these strange thoughts" line sounded like in Japanese... tfw everything was a video game from the start...

Hm... Good question. If they lacked mediums, maybe that's what caused the memory loss for them? But then, I feel like the whole thing shouldn't have worked at all if they didn't have a medium like Maleficent did... Weird. btw, this concept REALLY reminds me of something from Type-0. After Kurasame dies, everyone forgets he existed. (As is always the case because of the Crystal erasing memories of the dead.) Kazusa, his closest friend, was left with a feeling that something was missing. After digging around, he discovered that Kurasame had been his friend. Kazusa is a scientist, so he started conducting an experiment to bring Kurasame back from the dead. He determined that what you'd need is a thing that belonged to the person (a medium) and people's memories of the person. He realized that even if everyone's memories of Kurasame were erased, he couldn't be erased completely. Everyone had different experiences with him that affected them in many different ways, so there was always a trace of him left behind. He had Naghi (a student from Class Ninth, the secret agent group) go out to retrieve one of Kurasame's eyes from his corpse in the battlefield. He used that to extract a few of Kurasame's own memories, then it's implied that he also somehow extracted memories from Class Zero and other people around the school. He succeeds in bringing Kurasame back, but he faded away almost immediately without even speaking. Aaand that's where that side story ended! *YELLS* tbh, the pods strike me as something Kazusa would've come up with. I'm so curious about that machine. I hope we find out who made it. Remember what Tabata said about Cid Aulstyne? Even though he's what you'd think of as the "villain" of Type-0, he isn't someone you can necessarily call a villain because his actions weren't based on good or evil. From the perspective of the people in Milites, he's their hero. There are no good guys or bad guys in Type-0, just people who are doing what they have to in order to survive and protect the people they care about. Agito XIII and Versus XIII seem like they were going to be stories where there was no true good or evil. Which brings me back to what Trey said in Agito about light and darkness being "synonymous" in their world... Nice, nice... Remember my idea about how Xehanort's role was to become a formidable obstacle for Sora to overcome so that he could become the savior of the world? Part of that role would probably include "fattening Sora up" so to speak. lol Gotta make him stronger so he stands a chance. Xigbar seemed to be doing the same thing. Oh yeah, you mentioned that and then I forgot to look it up. lol Do you mean the symbol on their head/helmet pieces? At first, I didn't think it looked too similar, but when I look at it next to the Unversed symbol, it really does look close. Hm... Not sure if it's just a similar style or if it's actually related. I'll keep it at the back of my mind.

Apparently her body was able to be reassembled because the fairies remembered her. Very strange, now that I think about it... Like, why should it work like that? She technically DIED, but she was able to come back just because the fairies thought about her? It's almost like the fairies knew something that everybody else doesn't. lol Remember, they were like "No, don't think about her!" Back when it was just KH2, I figured it was a ~magical Maleficent thing~ like how saying "Bloody Mary" a number of times in front of a mirror in the dark is supposed to summon a ghost. Darkness made it sound like anybody can do that, though. Unless I'm missing something, this seems weird. *also stares at Nomura* I knew that the dive to the heart and Final World were supposed to be within reach of each other because of what Chirithy told Sora. That tutorial scene seemed like it was supposed to be like the one from KH1 where Sora makes the choice that determines your stats and then he gets attacked by a Darkside. I forget if I said, but one of my first assumptions was that the new Darkside (and the wave) appeared due to the fact that Sora dived too deep with the Power of Waking and ended up in that abyss YMX was talking about. The wave took him from the dive to the heart over to the Final World... I feel like that wave has a will of its own (or is following someone's will *side-eyes the MoM*), so I figure it did that for a reason. Remember, Ansem the Wise described the fictional world in the same way that Terra described the nothingness, as being neither darkness nor light. So the Darkside could've also been in the Final World because they were close to the fictional world at that point. Just based on what we've gathered so far, it seems like "emptiness" and "fiction" could be connected, at least in the sense that they're both things that aren't darkness or light. Doesn't necessarily make them the same thing, but I can't say that it's impossible. Maybe it's referring to Sora's current situation, but I find the sound of Yozora's predicament a lot more precarious. The star girl said that his heart had been replaced by another's. That's some spooky-sounding shit. So, "they can take your heart" sounds like Yozora to me. "Cut you loose from all you know" sounds like Sora. But then what's "they can take your world" referring to? This is probably totally wrong, but a part of me had wondered... If the MoM was literally supposed to be JACK (the KH equivalent, at least), then what if he came from a different game, like Agito, that had been permanently shut down? I questioned why the world of KH would seem so similar if it was a different world/new game, but maybe it's NOT. What if it's ALL Agito's sleeping world???? idk... *stares into space* The fact that he uses water and music, two pertinent symbols... Very sus.

Maybe that line was just messed up. lol The Grid is considered a sleeping world. I don't know if the residents of The Grid are capable of dreaming, but the world was certainly asleep. I should probably rewatch all the cutscenes from that world, regardless. In that world, that's when Riku started questioning the significance of portals. That's ultimately what led to him realizing that Xehanort was going to try to escape from them with a portal in KH3. Until then, we'd only seen those pink/red portals in sleeping worlds. Again, I'm also totally not willing to forget the fact that Xehanort's body flickered in and out like static in Scala ad Caelum and also when he met Kairi in the Final World. It feels like that could mean that everything in the present could be a dream (the portals) AND data (the glitching.) Interesting. It seems to be the world they were sent to, which is the same as the one in khux... (Right? When you question it, it makes me question it. LOL) Which is the data Daybreak Town. As always, I had to listen to the JP version again to make sure it was the same. It's a little more specific. "You will re-experience the things you've already experienced, as if you're in a world in a dream." I mean, that's literally what she says, but a better translation would probably be "a dreaming world." (yume no naka no sekai) Events repeat within sleeping worlds, soooooo... I think we can preeeetty safely conclude that current Daybreak Town of khux is data AND a dream at this point, right? How does that work? Don't look at me. Not sure. lol It's definitely easy to read into a line like that... That was a pretty interesting metaphor. Once again, I checked the Japanese... It doesn't sound as provocative. In other words, it doesn't make me think about the black box. lol Xemnas just advises him to re-check what's inside of him to be sure it belongs to him. (No mention of boxes. He just uses the word for "vessel" again.) ALTHOUGH, everything he said about how data can be manipulated and copied, and how there's no way for Sora to be certain that he isn't just a copy of someone... That's the real shit. Really makes me think... We don't know how Player became Xehanort... I'm not going to say that he's a "copy", but I definitely felt something when I saw the imagery of Sora standing among a dozen copies of himself. If you apply what Xemnas said to Xehanort, it feels really different, doesn't it? It's almost like he could've been talking about himself. The thought has probably gone through his mind before - something like "If that person in my dreams was me, then has this happened before? Have there been OTHER me's? Am I just a blueprint of someone who's existed hundreds of times before?" If he had a suspicion that Sora was, say, Ephemer or something, that could've been an attempt to make Sora think about who he was. But idk. That's just one interpretation. This would even be a really easy way to explain Demyx. If everything is data, the MoM could theoretically manipulate himself. He could change his appearance at will and alter his memory. That's one way to explain his line to YMX about how he could be anything. Xemnas also says "However, for (someone) digital, no matter how many memories are piled up, feelings/emotions will never sprout." Weird. Weird for him to say that. Tron had a heart, right? All of the characters in The Grid also seem to act as though they have real feelings. Xehanort and Sora certainly have feelings. Later, they even talk about how everyone in the Organization apparently were able to feel because they began to grow hearts despite being Nobodies. *STARES AT DEMYX* HEY, BUDDY......... ARE YOU MADE OF ONES AND ZEROES?? (edit) I just suddenly remembered how before KH3, Nomura said that people should play Re:Coded because it would be important. So that reminded me that even the data versions of Sora and Riku had feelings! Like, come on, Xemnas. The whole idea that "data can't feel" seems ridiculous from all angles unless there's some other reason for why he said that. ........Or maybe it's just a garbage line, idk. I'm thinking about the new Darkside and getting excited again. lol Well, I think it was supposed to be referring to the beginning of KH2 where Kairi was struggling to remember Sora after the memory of him was "scattered", so to speak. But who knows, all these things could always get repurposed and find new meanings. You had a lot of good finds here. Much to think about. The Grid was definitely chosen for a reason...

INTERESTING... YOU'RE RIGHT... Maybe they were trying to create their own version of Daybreak Town, a world that can connect to all other worlds...? Yeah, it seems like you can. It's just wild to think that there could be a data world in a dream world... I think we're on the right track! Just seeing the fact that it had quotation marks around it in the JP version was enough to assure me that we weren't making something out of nothing. (There's a lot of kanji I have to look up. I understand Japanese by ear, but I'm still not the best at reading it. lol I think kanji's a bit easier when you realize that a lot of words are compounds, though. You start knowing what to look for after a while. Also, I just really love words.) Oh yeah! I remember when I first heard that, that was my first thought. If anyone would be aware that they're in a game, it'd be him. I just realized that I somehow went this entire thread without mentioning something I found really interesting about Jack. From his profile in Type-0's Rubicus: The word that interests me here is "stoicism." In a number of his Japanese profiles, they call him "stoic", actually using the English word. I assume they're referring to Stoic philosophy. The wikipedia page is a bit dense and inaccessible, so here's a video that puts it all into perspective. It's basically about accepting the things you can't change and being happy in your current condition, enjoying the present for what it is without worrying about what may come in the future. In its everyday use, "stoic" means "a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining." There's this whole scene in Type-0 that works as an example. Everyone was getting depressed about how bad the situation had gotten, but Jack convinced them that there was no use in wasting their time worrying. "If we stay positive, we can picture a brighter future!" seems to be his trademark quote. I feel like the MoM's conversation with Ira is the best example of the MoM adhering to the same philosophy.

I've been playing FFIV for the first time recently and I've been kinda amazed at how much of it seems like it could've inspired KH1. I just got done playing the part with the Tower of Babil which is obviously based on the Tower of Babel. Scala ad Caelum, "stairway to the sky", is a reference to the Tower of Babel as well. Golbez used the tower to summon a massive machine from the moon. (...Kingdom Hearts? lol) FFIV is really old, so I can't say it has the greatest use of symbolism. I have more faith in whatever KH is going to do with it. All I know is that the Tower of Babel is usually used as a symbol of humanity's hubris. The tower was built higher and higher so people could see God in heaven. A thought has passed through my mind before... Have you ever noticed that Scala kinda looks like the Final World? It almost looks like it was built there or was meant to resemble it. I'm sure that's not just a coincidence, but I wonder why it's like that... I actually hadn't read hers yet. Personally, I think this line is more concerning: WITHIN SLEEP? Is she saying that the data Daybreak Town WAS also a dream like we've been wondering? I don't think she ever went into any of the sleeping worlds in DDD. She was just there to take Minnie hostage for the B plot. lol The word "mark" makes me think she's talking about the X. We're probably overthinking it because we already noticed it there. So maybe that line was just meant to draw the average player's attention to it, like "Hey, if you hadn't noticed, there's an X and some writing on that box!" The meaning is still as mysterious as before. Now for something different... I know that Nomura thinks about the kanji he uses, so I suddenly got curious about the words we've heard YMX use. I know of a handful of words that mean "empty" that include the kanji for "sky." I just thought for sure that if Nomura intended for the "abyss" or "emptiness" to have a personal connection to Sora, he would've used a word like "kuukyo" (空虚, void) or "kokuu" (虚空, empty space), but it seems like that's actually not the case. It's so weird because those words are literally just... Look at them. It's the same two kanji and you just make them trade places. Would've been perfect... Kinda gives me the impression that he intentionally swerved around them to avoid the association to Sora. The word that YMX used for "emptiness" was "kyomu" (虚無, nothingness). You can also use it to make the word "kyomukan" which is a sense or feeling of emptiness. As Xehanort was walking through the darkness, he could feel people's negative thoughts and feelings. So something more frightening than those feelings would be to feel nothing at all. ...It sounds really good and poetic, so I hope that's right. lol It's basically where my thoughts already were since I'm always staring directly at Demyx. (Can't let him out of my sight.) Just a note, but when YMX says the line in JP khdr, the word is even in quotation marks to signify that it's an important word of interest. Good to know. I was actually thinking about Jack's Power of Ignorance first. The kanji for "ignorance" can also be used to make the word "unenlightened." Vewwy intewesting.

It almost sounds like what I'd expect an ultimate version of the X-blade to be called or something. idk... I get the feeling it's going to be one of those things where Nomura comes up with a weird reason for why it says that and we'll just be like "Sure... I guess it could mean that..." There are many ways to interpret the word "super" and I wouldn't put it past him to go with something that pushes it. For instance, interpreting it like super->above->sky->Final World->Quadratum. lmao TWO CAN PLAY THIS GAME, NOMURA. You know how Luxu responded with "But why?" when the MoM apparently whispered what was in the box? I just sat here thinking about his Japanese line for a while, trying to see if I could get anything else out of it, but... Nope. It's more or less the same. lol *sigh* Please, Nomura... We need a little more info for this one... I got really confused for a second because I was like "Wait, but that's not in the epilogue..." That scene occurred right before the "light from the past" showed up to help Sora, right? I think it was just meant to symbolize the various wielders from the past who suddenly appeared like that.

Well, he follow it up with "I'm a Lost Master." If his name is "Superbia", I think YMX might have immediately recognized him as one of those ancient masters who mysteriously disappeared, which is why he looked surprised. I think it makes sense for it to be a name he would've heard. ...But if that's the case, I'm not sure it would still be necessary to hide it from us?? If he said "Superbia" why would that still be a secret when it feels so obvious?? idk... Maybe the game's treating us like we're stupid. lol "Bet you haven't guessed what his name is!" Alternatively, it IS something like "Mexdy" and it would've made it way too obvious who he is now. Personally, that part just annoys me. It feels like it was there just to tease us and I don't find that cute. ? Stop yanking my chain!! The main things to take away from the X are all the things Xehanort said about it in BBS. We know that all that stuff is for sure. If there's an additional meaning, I'd bet it's the most obvious one, which is how both X's are used as a symbol to represent the word "Christ." (Like in "x-mas", short for "Christmas.") So, yeah, it means death and endings like Xehanort said, but it could also represent the savior at the same time. KH also referred to it as the "recusant's sigil." "Recusant" is an old word for someone who would refuse to attend church. In Japanese, the word is "heresy." A heretic is a person who holds beliefs that go against the teachings of a faith and/or renounces the faith's beliefs. So, if the MoM has an X in his name, and if we combine everything we know... That could be some Antichrist shit. I think I can see how the MoM could be considered a heretic. He's supposed to be light, but he holds some contrary believes and does some things that don't seem very light-worthy. As for "cross"... Yep! People use "X" to mean "cross." It's like how the X in "Capcom x Namco" is said as "cross" because it's a crossover game. If I had to guess, I'd assume that it's called "Union Cross" because wielders from other unions were allowed to intermingle and participate together instead of being totally separate like before. So they're intersecting. Like a crossroads. Crossing paths. Now that I'm thinking about it... All things considered, I feel like it would be weird (or maybe just a shame) if the MoM didn't have an X in his name. lol (Doesn't have to be in his original name or whatever, just as long as he has an X in his name at some point.)

I'm not sure who the "him" is that Xehanort's character file is referring to... I wish I could see the original line. There doesn't seem to be any context for it... There are a lot of things that seem conflicting in hindsight. Especially things involving Vanitas. It feels weird that Xehanort would end up HURTING all of his friends even though they were the people he supposedly wanted to see again. Demyx working against Xehanort might also seem strange at first, but I think it makes sense when you think about it... Everyone was meant to play a role. Good and bad don't really exist. They're all like actors. Xehanort had to play the part of the villain. For this act, Demyx (MoM) became "one of the good guys" who would help take down the darkness. The MoM had to guide Xehanort toward becoming the villain for things to work, but everything was to defeat the darkness. The character file makes it sound like the MoM is the one who told him about Ventus and how to separate the darkness from his heart. I think it's probably a safe bet that he's also the one who taught him how to swap bodies and stuff. Well, like I mentioned before, the original line didn't say "not what you hear" at all. It wasn't about comparing senses. The more I think about it, the more I hate that translation since it sounds like the opposite of the line from Xigbar's character file about how you shouldn't trust the outward appearance of things... His name probably isn't "Light." We have a theme going already, so it was probably "Superbia" like what's on the box. I say "was" because I don't think that's still his name, like how Luxu became "Braig" and "Xigbar." This is REALLY specific, so I don't know if this could be possible, but I LOVE this idea... I think Demyx's name could be "Melody", but spelled like "Mexdy." It's because there's another Greek X, chi-rho (⳩). ”Lo” and “ro” are the same in Japanese. It’s the ロ in メロディ (melody). A friend pointed out that it also looks like the musical notation of Sprechgesang: It has the exact same symbolic meaning as X (chi). So I'm just saying... Nomura... Feel free to steal my idea. lol It would be funny if "Melody of Memory" didn't just shorten to "MoM" but also LITERALLY INCLUDED HIS NAME. In any case... I just find it kinda sus that Demyx's name seems like it could've been made from the word "melody" to start with.

Yeh. The middle colors are the brightest in each. I moved Demyx's up to be of equal saturation (top left) and the color looks nearly the same, just sliightly greener. At their darkest, they're a nearly identical blue. Nobody considers Final Fantasy Awakening canon (Although... It's questionable whether SE and Tabata consider it canon. They seemed to approve of it and even considered it a "follow-up" to Agito. lmao) BUT... That said, Jack had a sword called the "Serrated Ghostblade" which bears some similarity to the YMX blade. (omg, if the YMX blade is called "Ghostblade", I'd lose my shit. That's such a cool name.) As a katana, that thing makes NO sense. As a keyblade, though? Sure. In both screenshots, he's technically even holding it the right way for a keyblade because the teeth aren't on the side he would strike with. (edit) OH, if I'm going to mention stuff like this that probably doesn't really mean anything but still makes me go "WOWOWOWOW", then have a look at Jack's LD weapon from ddffoo: The Gazing Eye now comes in yellow! I was amused to see that Sephiroth's BT weapon also has a golden eye for some reason. Both are katanas. idk if that really meeeans anything, but... Jack's lost chapter does compare him to Sephiroth, so that's also kinda... (Cloud implies that Jack's way of killing seems meaningless and makes him sound scarier than Sephiroth. Love it.) It's weird that the eye in Sephiroth's sword is gold and not the color of the Gazing Eye, all things considered... omg, MoM is Sephiroth! ...Just kidding. But, like... *stares into the camera* ?????????? Literally, why doesn't anyone ever talk about Sephiroth when they talk about the Gazing Eye? He's got the... He wants to change destiny, and he... *gestures* His EYES. Look, he's NOT the MoM, but he IS a darkness boy! I legitimately forgot about the new seven hearts. It's like the Disney stuff just disappears from my brain. Okay, so I guess I just missed that then... My bad. You right. Thanks for clearing up my confusion. (I can't believe I forgot that. LOL) I'm just shaking my head and laughing a little like I'm losing my mind. It's so funny because it feels like they told us more about the waypoint stuff than most other things in khux so far, AND YET... We still can't be sure of how it exactly works. This is true suffering. Oh, I actually hadn't watched that yet! Thank you for reminding me. I actually still had to watch a few of the older parts from Game Central Station. Hm. Oh wow... The fact that Ralph and Felix explain what it means to "go Turbo" is interesting to me, seeing as how it sounds EXACTLY LIKE WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT. ("He was jealous of how popular this new game was, so he must've jumped in to take it over. Because of that, a glitch came out, and he caused not only both games, but himself, to be broken... forever.") Turbo describes Player, a supposed fellow virus, as "a stranger from the outside." HMM... I've always thought that Brain would be a foreign element in the world's destiny because of the game referring to him as a virus, but is this implying that he's... "from the outside"? What would that mean...? Is it just that he's from a different world line? Or is it because Daybreak Town is part of a whole different game (khx)? I'm not sure if that's implying more than I already figured.

In the case of the Gazing Eye, I really have no idea. In some scenes, it looks dark blue. In other scenes (such as in the intense light of the keyblade graveyard), it looks bright green. The one in the YMX blade is also a totally different color. Since there have been so many variations, it seems unreliable to me. Personally, I enjoy how Demyx's eyes and the Gazing Eye in the YMX keyblade are the same shade. But I also don't think it's valid proof of anything. lol I think I already mentioned how the YMX blade looks like a Type-0 themed keyblade to me. Didn't I? Maybe. I'm sad that the clock on the keyblade only goes to 12, though. lol I don't think so. I just listened to Xehanort's speech again from after he lost to Sora, and it sounded like all he wanted to do was start the world over again. His plan didn't seem any different from what happened in the past when the world ended and started over. His plan wasn't to plunge the world into darkness. He said he wanted to start it over so it could be "pure and bright" again. Hm... Well, Xehanort couldn't have reforged the X-blade if all of the guardians of light died before they could clash against the thirteen darknesses. Without the X-blade, he wouldn't have been able to summon Kingdom Hearts, right? If he couldn't summon Kingdom Hearts, I'm not sure he would've been able to restart the world. .........But I don't think that would automatically cause the world to end in eternal darkness. There were still other characters out there who were full of light!! The guardians of light weren't the ONLY light in the world!! lmao IS THIS A PLOT HOLE? Nomura, please explain. This one's actually making me kinda mad. If it's all a game, then I understand why the world would've ended in eternal darkness -- the game couldn't continue without the main characters. So... Let's just hope it has a simple explanation like that. I don't even care if I'm right. I just want it to make sense. lol I think it's all going to be subjective and up to them to determine for themselves. Everybody in the KH world thinks that they're real, but I bet that Yozora thinks that he's real, too. How is he NOT real? What makes his world "fictional"? In the Toy Box world, Buzz keeps acting like it's impossible for Sora to understand what they're going through because Sora's "from a video game." On the surface, it's because they mixed Sora up with Yozora, but I think the game was probably trying to tell us more with those lines. From their perspective, Sora was just as fictional as Yozora. Similarly, why are the toys "real"? They're TOYS! They shouldn't be "alive" at all! So yeah. I think that's why they specifically chose Toy Story. Yeah, see. The whole memory thing is painfully confusing. For a second, I thought you might've been onto something with Lauriam having his memories before becoming a Nobody, but... I dunno. The wording of the character file seems intentionally ambiguous again. I'm also wondering what's going on with Demyx and Luxord's memories. It's hard to tell if Demyx is actually suffering from amnesia or not. He seemed unsure about why he joined the Organization, but maybe that's all it was. Maybe he was just confused because he hadn't been confident in his reason. Same for Luxord - we may not have ever heard him talk about his past, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he had amnesia. On the other hand, if he had to travel from the fictional world to the real world, it seems like there could've been an opportunity there for him to lose his memories. It's so hard to tell... If I had to bet, though, I think I'd bet that those two were both suffering from some level of amnesia, like becoming a Nobody was the same for them as receiving a minor concussion or something. lmao At least we know that Elrena "remembered" enough about Lauriam to keep following him. There was an interview where Nomura made it sound like part of her remembered him even if it wasn't in her conscious memories. Her character file seemed to support that. Subject X also had some of her own memories still. Even though she could barely remember anything, she knew that she had been separated from her friends. And it seems like lab crew were able to extract even more from her with their memory research, so that seems to indicate that their memories are still in them somewhere even if they can't consciously bring them to mind. Despite how much khux tried to explain it, the "waypoint" stuff with Maleficent is still confusing to me. It's just a weirdass concept... Why did any of that have to work that way?? There's gotta be more to that machine that they haven't told us yet. The whole thing with Maleficent seemed necessary so that the dandelions' bodies would be intact upon arrival in the future. I'm not sure it had anything to do with their memories. But still, that doesn't answer the question. We know that becoming Nobodies wasn't what made them lose their memories, seeing as how Ventus and Skuld weren't Nobodies and they also had amnesia. So it seems like it had something to do with their mode of travel. That's why I was wondering if it was connected to the timeline I proposed. Basically, Maleficent may have been able to ensure that their bodies made it, but maybe they lost their memories simply due to the fact that they didn't belong at that part of the game. It's making me think of certain glitches, like Yuffie warping in FFVII. You can exploit how the game's memory functions to warp yourself to just about any location in the game as long as you get a game over and then reload from a save in a specific location. The video shows how you can use it to miraculously raise Aerith from the dead. But when you perform or exploit glitches, it usually leads to some strange things happening because glitches aren't supposed to happen. Are you familiar with how to encounter Missingno in Pokemon Red and Blue? You can get a lot of awesome Pokemon with that glitch, but it'll also permanently mess up your PC boxes because the game doesn't know what to do with the glitched Pokemon. Glitches are things that already exist in the game and occur when certain actions are performed. It seems like Game Central Station being connected to Data Daybreak Town caused glitches, but maybe that wasn't the last we'd hear of glitches... After all, it seems kind of weird that they made a big deal about that and then dropped the topic... HMMMMMMMM. SUSPICIOUS. Let's not forget about Brain referring to himself as a "virus." ALSO SUSPICIOUS. People who are like "Kingdom Hearts really isn't that confusing if you pay attention ha ha" apparently aren't paying attention enough to realize HOW CONFUSING IT IS.

See, that's the thing. That's one of the reasons why I don't think it's originally the MoM's own power. I could see it being a power that came from Darkness when they made their truce because it seems like the Gazing Eye appears on keyblades that have a connection to darkness. Alternatively, years ago, I was thinking that it could have been inherited by the keyblades from master to pupil. For instance, that would've explained why one of Terra's had it because he chose to follow Xehanort, Riku's might've had it because he was under the control of Ansem SoD, etc. It seemed like it was appearing on the keyblade of anyone who was connected in some way to Xehanort/the No Name. I thought it would've also worked for Vanitas, thinking of Xehanort as his master, but now we know that Vanitas is also probably Darkness (or some version of Darkness), so that makes me feel unsure of that idea... Maybe it's still possible, idk. Oh yeah, whichever one it was. I can't keep those titles straight. lol I just went and rewatched it. I forgot how many pages were in there throughout the whole opening. It's definitely gotta be an allusion to the Book of Prophecies like you said in your post. I think we could've always gleaned that much from it, but now that we're thinking about what's real or fictional, it's like... Does it mean that they're LITERALLY characters from a story? From OUR perspective, they definitely are. I just wanna know if we're supposed to be thinking about it that deeply. Just how meta is it supposed to be? Which reminds me... When I was working on my "video game theory" before Re:Mind, I tried to think of "Kingdom Hearts" as the title of the series, not just the heart in the sky. During this one exchange in Back Cover, it sounds like they're talking about the game itself. This was a little hard because the video I was watching didn't have the text in Japanese, so it's just based on what I heard. lol Pretty sure this is all correct, though. I meeean... Why are they talking about Kingdom Hearts disappearing at all? It never disappeared. I don't think that was even a threat. Ever. Unless... they're talking about Kingdom Hearts, the game. We know what happens in Wreck-It Ralph when a game gets shut down in the arcade. The residents have to take refuge somewhere else, otherwise they'll basically die, right? Their world is over at that point. Imagine if the series ended after KH3. If everything has been part of a video game world, then their world would have come to an end. Forever. Like the MoM told Luxu, everything was to defeat the darkness, so it makes it seem like everything was planned out to change that ending so that the series would continue - so Kingdom Hearts wouldn't "disappear". Like, I just think that there's a difference between the world ending (like what happens after the keyblade war in the past) and the world ending in ETERNAL DARKNESS. The question is, why was that keyblade war going to be the one to end the world forever? Another thing I considered with my theory was the possibility that the timeline actually follows the release order of the games, meaning that khx isn't necessarily "the past" in the way we'd think normally. When the union leaders used the pods, maybe they were actually moving themselves to a different game in the series, from khx to BBS. Of course, this is also another way to explain what Xigbar meant about non-linear time. Have we ever found out why the union leaders lost their memories when they used the pods? I feel like it could have ssssomething to do with this. idk, I think this all sounds plausible, but it's still confusing... Still, gonna keep it there at the back of my mind. Becoming unchained = reincarnation confirmed?? lol idk (But MAYBE...)