When Sora First Woke Up In Quadratum He's Dizzy And Confused, Can Hardly Walk, And Then Strelitzia Finds

when sora first woke up in quadratum he's dizzy and confused, can hardly walk, and then strelitzia finds him as soon as he starts to lose consciousness and takes him home.

she takes care of him, lays him down on her soft couch and tries to get him as comfortable as possible. as she does this sora starts to somewhat wake up, but when he realizes his necklace is missing he starts panicking: his eyes grow wide, they were already wet with how exhausted he was and he can't exactly speak but he desperately tries to find it.

the ex-dandelion panics as well but quickly realizes why the boy was this distressed when he finally spots the crown pendant on a small table near the couch and pathetically reaches for it. strelitzia gives it back to him with no hesitation and sighs when he finally calms down, fainting again.

she doesn't bring it up later on, when sora's "better". after all, getting used to the city while also having his mind fogged up is really taking a toll on him.

when she does talk about it though, they're on sora's balcony. it's night and the stars aren't exactly visible but it's nice nonetheless.

"do you remember when you woke up here?"

sora blinks at her, surprised yet not annoyed by having their peaceful quiet interrupted.

"vaguely. i just remember the migraine i got – thanks again for looking after me, by the way."

the redhead shakes her head, then she continues, "no, it's okay, i wasn't bringing it up for that i just..."

she could sense sora was special, that he was there for a reason. another keyblade wielder suddenly spawning in her neighbourhood? that had to mean something, so she was going to try her best to help him remember.

"when i took you in," she continues, "i put you on the couch and i took off your jacket and shoes and also... your necklace."

she points at it, her gaze softening when the moonlight reflects its light on the silver crown. sora automatically follows her finger and looks at it too. he suddenly feels warm. safe. protected.

"you were so shaken when you realized it wasn't with you even for a moment. can you remember why is that?"

she's met with silence and wide eyes.

"what does this necklace mean to you, sora?"

and only for a moment, a comet can be seen away from them, travelling fast in the deep night sky then disappearing. they both quickly turn their heads to look at it.

strelitzia is so mesmerised by it that she almost forgets her question, but is reminded of it when she sees sora crying from the corner of her eyes.

"i don't know," he croaks, "i don't remember and it's making me go mad. i just – i just know that without it i–"

he reaches for it once again, with trembling hands, gulping as the cold metal meets his warm skin.

"i just don't feel safe without it," he simply states.

silence falls between them again, until strelitzia takes sora's free hand in hers.

"sounds like a very powerful lucky charm," she tries. luckily, sora laughs weakly.

"you could say that."

hi hello i hope you don't mind but Special Interest Infodump Mode has been activated please keep hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times-

this explanation comes to us courtesy of Dark Road! You know, that cutesy little mobile game where literally the whole cast except the two protagonists dies. This is on brand bc the explanation has it's own fridge horror levels to it if i think too hard about it tbh.

So, worlds have hearts. We've known this since KH1, seen what happens to a world that loses its heart, and how they can be affected. It's rarely been expounded on beyond that however, aside vague allusions to the titular Kingdom Hearts being/harboring the Heart of All Worlds.

(which has. other implications now that i think about it but that's stepping into theorising territory. im sorry im trying really hard to stay on track honest)

fast forward to Dark Road, where we have a bunch of kids venturing out into the worlds for the first time, and as such have to have things explained to them (and thus the audience). NOW i will note here that KH looooooves unreliable narrators and characters imparting incorrect information without knowing it, so there is always the possibility that this could later turn out to be wrong, but currently I see no reason this would be the case and thus for now i feel safe in taking their words at face value unless otherwise contradicted.

Why are there no people? Because each world is alive, and after the Keyblade War sundering THE World into MANY Worlds, each needed to recover and restore what was lost; life, time, movement.

This bit here is important, bc as a result

All of this is the direct result of the Keyblade War of old. Even after so much time, the bits of worlds are *still* recovering, and I do think there's something to be said about how like... the repition between worlds and their apparent stagnation often *stops* after Sora visits them. I don't think it's because Sora's special(tm), but rather just because of who he is; the Dark Road kids are told never to interfere, and as a result the worlds they visit that Sora also visits later are exactly the same to Sora as they were 80+ years before.

But when Sora visits the same world only a short time after his first visit, things CHANGE. Hercules' story moves forward, Simba is having a crisis about being king, Jack Skellington has learned his lesson about Christmas and is on to new shenanigans. And that's only in kh2! in kh3 we see Twilight Town fill with people, barren Olympus expands into a full town (and there's more there too with BBS and how the Wayfinder Trio may have been Olympus' start towards restoring itself completely, and Sora's later arrival more speeding things along)

my point here is *connections*, which is a consistant and overarching theme of the series. Empty worlds are baby worlds, still healing and restoring from being broken away from the rest, and what helps along that healing? Being connected to others.

Which is to say that the keyblade weilder's doctrine of 'do not interfere' while most certainly well-intentioned (as Dark Road also points out, one persons darkness is anothers light, and morality is not a solid truth across worlds, so interfering is risky at best and dangerous at worst), the flip side to this is that without being connected, without that ''interferance'', the world's restoration stagnates and struggles. It will still get there eventually (the Tangled world seems to be doing alright for example), but chances are it might've been a little easier/faster if someone had done a little interfering.

tldr keyblade war broke the worlds and reset them all to zero. As the worlds heal time stops until it's People finally pop back into existance and their stories can resume. And that's how the invisible crowds in early kh games are canon.

Reblog if you like Sonic Characters:

Sonic | Amy Rose | Silver | Blaze | Knuckles | Cream | Tails | Super Sonic | Rouge | Espio

Riku's Tears and Sora's Guilt

KH1 Ending / KH2 Intro

I cannot begin to express just how much of a conscious decision this change was. Do you guys know what game came in between these two? COM did. And what did Sora say to Namine in COM?

What did he spend most of COM feeling guilty over?

Causing "Namine" to leave the islands. Forgetting her.

It's why Sora falls to his knees in front of Riku as if begging for forgiveness when they reunite.

Oh, and he does NOT want to admit this either.

He's inhaling copium so bad in Arendelle (which isn't working, mind you) after making a pretty obvious show of his fears. That there's more to why Riku fell to darkness than what he's been told.

He doesn't even look nor sound like he fully believes what he's saying to Anna or himself.

Which, by the way, was a response to this dialogue from Anna:

Sound familiar? "Did I do something? Was it my fault?"

Interesting how they chose a COM character that guilt tripped Sora previously for this world too.

I mean...does the way Sora describes the door scene even make sense? "Disappeared"? "Pushed me away"? Why don't we just say what actually happened here? Riku and Mickey were doomed to be stuck in the lore equivalent of hell with little actual hope of getting out and Riku was crying because he was scared and lost everything.

And a part of Sora blames himself for this. It doesn't have to be rational on his part but the fact that there IS a reason Riku would be crying because of Sora doesn't really help him.

I mean, how is Sora supposed to take Riku's last words in KH1? Sounded pretty final and like Riku didn't expect anything more. And he didn't. He figured Sora would be fine on the islands with Kairi and without him. He still probably doesn't know why Sora ended up in Castle Oblivion in the first place.

It's not like SORA remembers considering he gets so turned around in COM that he forgets the very reason he came. To find Riku.

Riku's probably going to bawl his eyes out because of Sora in KH4 and all this guilt he's been repressing is going to come hurdling back if this game is going to go a similar route as COM did.

Only this time Sora won't be able to bury any of it.

This interaction <3

I know Sonic Prime played this music in an earlier episode of the last batch, but WHY DOES IT SOUND EARALY SIMILAR TO “HIS WORLD”FROM SONIC 06??!!

It mostly has the pitch of 06’s first cutscene, but my point still stands. The string’s melody is what I’m talking about.

It’s also the fact that Game!Sonic dies in 06 before the time reverses back to normal. Then Prime!Sonic almost dies in this show. The music makes his sacrifice more impactful. I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but I think Prime’s music doesn’t get enough attention anyways so here’s one way to appreciate it.