For starters
(art by kra on deviantart)
I have found a ton of "Sora struggling with his
darkness" pictures, and yet I keep forgetting to post them. I know this
isn't necesarily fitting for the chapter but most of the other pictures are of
Vanitas and Sora, and even if I do tell you to pretend Vanitas is Shad, it doesn't
work because Shad has nothing to do with this chapter
Sorry, no video this time around. The picture takes
precedence, and this whole sequence is kind of special, so I don't want a
random video thrown in with it
if you wish, I WAS going to post the AMV "Can you hear me?" by
memoiri and you can go look it up (actually, you can just look up their
channel, it's currently the featured vid)
Why is this sequence so special?
Because, a) I can post my SoKai blog
and (the more important) b) I really do love this whole
"Kairi striving to find and save Sora" dynamic to my SoKai. Plus,
this whole sequence acurrately captures EVERYTHING about them
(I do have a similar sequence for Namiku, but sadly, it's
AU.)
Anyway
About the chapter
This started... actually, this chapter is the whole reason
why Sora even went to Agrabah. It started, oh gee, I was still in school when I
wrote this (don't ask how I remember that, I just got this vivid image of
sitting in my school's computer lab while writing this. That's really all I remember)
This chapter
Right here
The rough drafts of it were really short (they were written
in a journal. The longest thing I have ever written in a journal is that one
short story that wasn't even over 3000 words). And, actually, they started in
the last chapter.
They started with Kairi pausing because she had heard Sora's
footsteps as he ran away. (It was one of the few things I lost when swapping
over to the shopkeepers POV)
I'll have to post the original drafts
actually, I should probably just do a whole "extra"
chapter in ASAS with the rough drafts from this chapter and the previous one.
Actually, let me go post those so that I can actually talk
about this
Right
So, this was originally written entirely from Kairi's POV.
However, the way the chapters were split and information that you needed to
know demanded otherwise. However, I did manage to get in ALL the parts I
wanted. I knew when I first wrote this that I'd have to write the end from
Sora's POV, because I couldn't have you NOT know that Maleficent showed up
But I was disappointed, because I would lose this part that
only came from Kairi's POV
"She wished he would keep talking, so that she could
find him, hold him, tell him that whatever he was worried about didn't matter,
that all that mattered was--"
I really loved it for some reason
However, when writing the sequence/chapter that has become
affectionately known as "Hide and Seek" I managed to incorporate AND
expand upon that
"She wanted to see him. She wanted him to know that
everything was okay. She wanted to find him, then hug him hard, and he’d do
that stupid thing where he’d pick her up, squeeze the air out of her lungs, and
half scare her to death. Then she would call him silly, and tell him that he
was being an idiot for hiding, for avoiding her like he was. She’d tell him
that whatever he was worried about didn’t matter; all that mattered was—"
and I'm very very glad that I got to do that, because I
really love that. It's the way it's worded; I feel like there's so much
attatched emotionally to it (it's like Kairi's rant at the end of the Can't
Escape sequence)
Anyway (this is all in spurts of what crosses through my
head, and not exactly in any order)
Why is this sequence referred to as "Hide and
Seek"
Well, it comes from Kairi paralleling all this to a game of
hide and seek. The reason it turned into a label for this is because I put it
as my subject title in the email to magik, and it somehow just stuck. I wanted
to come up with a different chapter title for it, but I could never find one.
Hide and Seek just stuck.
It did
It's fitting, though.
Even Sora parallels it to a game like when they were kids
Though it's obviously more real than a
game.
Kairi learns that the hard way.
Sorry. I should leave that subject alone until the next
chapter, when it's brought up.
So, I will go on to say that I am EXTREMELY surprised that I
managed to squeeze so much out of the original drafts. When I started, I
honestly thought that I was going to have to recount all of
Kairi and Tifa being in Agrabah. It wasn't a lot, of course, but I didn't
really like the idea of having to break the action. I would've if I had to, but
I obviously didn't.
Because I quadrupled what I had. It went from 500 words to
2000. All because of the parallels to playing hide and seek
Well, and I elaborated more on Kairi searching than I think
I planned to.
But adding in Kairi's thoughts and doubts certainly helped
(She has doubts. You would too if you went looking for
someone you cared about, and you found them, but they hid from you and you had
no clue why)
And expanding on the stuff from Sora's POV helped, too.
His conflictions about being found: the wanting to be found,
and yet not wanting to face Kairi. The wanting to see Kairi, but not have to
worry about the uncertainties that came with it.
And his darkness doesn't help matters
I didn't specify that it was doing anything in this chapter,
but we all know it was. He wouldn't have run at the end if it wasn't.
and then:
"Was it really this easy to apologize?"
Gosh that line hurts my heart. Because it's hope-- but you
know what's coming next, and you know that it doesn't work like you hope it
will. Or, for me it's that way, at least.
And that play
That play.
"It was Tidus's line next, wasn't it?"
(I know I'm a bit out of order, but... meh)
Some of you seem very surprised that this play meant so much
to them. But this play - the whole concept of it meaning so much, anyway - is
very close to me. Very accurate to my childhood. I can relate to Sora, relate
to the fact that this play was his life.
Because his father had taken him to see the play plenty of
times before the school actually performed it (see previous post on the Can't
Escape sequence for details on that). He knew that play by heart. All of his
games, with Kairi being a princess and him being her knight, probably had their
bases in that play. And then the school put on the play, and then Kairi knew
about it, and they could expand upon it now that she knew too--
it's very much like my own childhood.
Me, magik, and a friend of ours and The Game. It was
basically Harry Potter and then we added on all these other things on top of it
until it wasn't Harry Potter anymore, and I'm sure that's what Sora did with
that play.
Our base was Harry Potter. And then we expanded on the magic
in it, and added our own characters, and just kept adding and adding until it
was something of our own creation. Of course, there were still traces of Harry
Potter. There were spells and wands and potions. There was Malfoy family, and there
was a Draco. There was a Voldemort (who was frequently called
"Voldy-darling" I believe) and-
"Junior!"
The Game was my life. It really was. I still remember the
Pond, the dragons, the Dragon Realm, the Beast Realm, the day we first
"discovered" the Beasts, living on Mars, and that... whatever it was
that could freeze time, the anti-grav rooms, that whole "cage" I had
set up for my "pet snakes". I remember the capes, the realms, the
fake weddings, the traveling, that universe when magik and Voldemort were
siblings-
I could go on.
The Game meant a lot to me. It was my childhood.
And even when it wasn't The Game--
I did live my life like I was in a fairytale. Every second
of my life was a daydream. (Of course, it stopped being that way a few years
ago, and that's when I really started writing. I wanted to keep the fairytale,
but I couldn't run around a playground and call myself by a different name
anymore because there was no playground and I was in high school and high
schoolers don't do stuff like that)
It's only implied that Sora had a thing for fairytales in
canon
But that's what he did in my universe.
He lived his life like a fairytale.
And that could possibly even add on to the reasons why he
fell into darkness. Riku showed up and Sora couldn't hold onto his fairytale
anymore.
And let me tell you, when your fairytale is ripped from your hands, life can
get rough. I personally spent quite some time in this state of almost
depression at the beginning of 7th grade when my fairytales stopped. It wasn't
anything serious, but it was about that time that I started losing touch with
my sixty some odd characters. I couldn't just throw them around (I don't
quite know what I mean by that, but it's not literal) and have fun like I
used to, and things actually felt kind of dark.
They got better, of course. I could substitute my fairytale
with writing, and that helped a ton
I'm beginning to think Sora substituted his fairytale for
darkness.
Of course, Sora's circumstances were completely different.
For him, his fairytale was real. Except Riku was living it.
Hence the jealousy
Hence accepting the darkness to become stronger (and bring
himself to his fairytale faster)
...
Sorry
I know that was a really big emotional spew
I'd go back to the chapter
but all that's left is hating Maleficent and having to stop
writing periodically because I just couldn't stand her (even though she only
had two lines...)
So...
expect the SoKai blog tomorrow. I don't want to spam you
with it tonight, nor do I really have time to write it tonight...
lol I still don't have that Namiku blog written
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