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rarsneezeswas thinking about how shadkai is once again maybe The most interesting dynamic in ftpverse despite soshad and riku+aerith being strong contenders. like aerith adopting repliku is unparalleled and sora dates his funny shadow clone IS a good one but shadkai. it's Simply.
((i want to infodump mostly LMAO here we go))
((also read ftpverse maybe))
tw: suicidal thoughts and attempt from one of the characters
so okay i have to explain who shad is first because he's a funny oc. let's get his name out of the way: shad is short for "sora's shadow" which is what he actually was known as for the whole whopping 400k of narrative in which he didn't have an actual name, but obviously in meta discussions i had to shorten it somehow. i swap between both at random when i'm posting about him nowadays. he can have two names its fine.
shad is what is known in univeres as a shadow - not, not like the heartless, shadow. like... "a manifestation of someone's darkness that exists purely to drag their 'host' into darkness or kill them trying". you know how the ansem sod that shows up in r/r is like. no one knows if that's really ansem or just what riku's darkness is choosing to manifest itself as, and you can technically read it either way? yeah that. that's a shadow.
(he looks "like vanitas" in that vanitas is just sora's face with black hair and golden eyes, and so is shad.)
this little brat is literally three weeks old and exists solely to drag sora into darkness - er, because in the kh1 portion of ftpverse it was a roleswap and sora's the one who fell in with maleficent and possessed by ansem and gave into darkness and so on. no, shad does not get a say in this, also. he thinks it's what he wants - and why shouldn't he! it's the purpose he was born for!!!!!! but boy does he have a lot of downtime between his plot mandated visits to sora...
but before we talk about why shad going to go visit kairi for funsies is significant, we need to talk about kairi
kairi is on destiny islands while sora is ???? traveling to fight his darkness???? and riku (repliku in this universe goes by riku) and namine (replica in this universe has been here since the end of installment 1; installment 2 is the kh1 portion. we did "com" first and "kh1" second) -- that was a long tangent. riku and namine are currently in castle oblivion helping head a replica? rebellion? it's a thing. riku doesn't even want to be there but he feels obligated and namine ended up there on accident and then had no reason to leave. ...other than to get kairi but that kept not happening due to increasingly stupid reasons, unfortunately.
back to kairi. kairi has spent the past three months alone on the island with only namine for company, and now has spent another month or so with No One for company because namine up and vanished. so she's alone and she's angry and she's bitter because like her friends probably didn't all ditch her but she sure is the only one left behind. AND!!!!!!! due to complicated world-separation magic that's on destiny islands, anyone who leaves destiny islands for a lengthy amount of time is slowly forgotten about by the population. kairi's managing to remember her friends just fine because of [insert heart connection bullshit that kh is so fond of here] - but no one else is. not her dad. not sora's parents. not even selphie, who is the only friend she hasn't managed to drive off. it's just her, alone, and no one even understands why she feels so alone because to them it's like sora and riku and namine never existed at all.
so kairi is alone and basically friendless
and shad is alone and bored and has never had a lengthy converastion with anyone who isn't sora and none of those conversations with sora or with anyone else have been, like, good converastions. it's just been him trying to do his job by trying to drive a wedge between sora and everyone else and also politely convince sora to return to darkness and if that doesn't work, fight him about it. or wahtever.
so, shad goes to talk to kairi.
maybe he wants more dirt on sora. maybe he wants to use her as leverage. maybe that's just waht he's telling himself.
because: weird ftpverse lore thing, but... shad's existence and connection with the realm of light is spotty, heavily dependent on his own power and/or how well someone else is at sensing magic bs. sora's the only one who can see and hear him 100% of the time. everyone else is hit or miss, on either the seeing or the hearing front. notable people who can see him: any of the villains because they're "steeped in darkness", cloud for similar reasons, and mickey becuase he's a trained keyblade master. (if aqua were around she'd probably be able to see him too, but she isn't here yet). aerith and leon are pretty consistent on hearing him but spotty on seeing him, cid and yuffie are mostly clueless. tifa can't See him, but she can get a general sense of Where he is because she can see a big blur of darkness. clsoe enough, you know?
so: kairi can't see him
and: he doesn't think kairi can hear him, becuase, why would she?
of course, having spent the first three weeks of his life alone in the realm of darkness (the only place he could manage corporeality for a while), he's gotten in the habit of thinking aloud. silence sucks, want to hear your own voice... don't expect anyone else to hear you, anyway.
yeah you know whwere this is going. he says something while he's trying to decide if he's going to snoop on kairi and she hears him. she still can't fucking see him, but she can hear him! and they can hold a converastion! and... sora's not here, you know? all of a sudden, shad finds, he's in a place where his universe-mandated purpose doesn't matter. and his identity doesn't matter. kairi can't see him, so she doesn't know what he looks like. he apparently sounds just different enough from sora that that's not ringing any bells, either. she has no idea who he is, or what his purpose is, and for that beautiful moment he exists as someone who isn't solely defined by being sora's shadow
of course, he's defined now as kairi's weird invisible friend who doesn't have a name
(in a perfect universe kairi would have given him a nickname and it would have stuck becuase she's stubborn, but i didn't think of that until after i'd finished dead inside. ftpverse but kairi gives kano his name and he keeps using it privately to himself would have been incredible but unfortuantely we don't live in that universe and i doubt there's ever going to be a draft two of ftpverse.)
but still: he isn't sora's shadow, here with kairi. he's just some guy.
kairi latches onto him, meanwhile, because he mentions sora by name (quickly fumbling to insist he only knows him in passing and has no connection to him, further divorcing himself from his identity) and kairi's desperate for any news and also currently living on an island where everyone but her has forgotten sora (and riku and namine) exist due to magic bullshit. so like. this is the first person she can talk to about her friends, and have said person retain the information for the next time they have a converastion. she's not.... alone anymore.
they keep meeting up. it's like, nothing about having an invisible friend ISN'T weird, but they can physically interact (nothing about shad's existence in the realm of light makes sense, but it's not supposed to - and he'd have to both become stronger and WANT to change it to like, well, change it) and they can talk and they start meeting up.... APPARENTLY daily according to the prose. holy shit. two lonely little kids indeed.
they don't talk about much with substance, but they don't need to. kairi needs an ear to listen that will actually remember her complaints. shad needs a place where he can be... someone else. someone who isn't sora's shadow.
and so now they're friends.
of course nothing can be that easy, can it. shad is still sora's shadow, and still has a job to do as sora's shadow. this includes, as the end of act 1 closes, shad manipulating kairi's heart extremely directly to make her convinced sora's a lost cause. ((she has no idea he did this. he didn't even do it while they were talking, he snuck into her dreams one night)) - WHICH. shad regrets the moment he's finished becuase he hurt kairi doing it, and kairi as act 2 starts snaps out of it and learns 1) that sora's shadow did that 2) fuck that guy. which starts the duality of kairi liking her invisible friend but hating sora's shadow. both of which are the same person.
it's probably a good thing they stop talking regularly at this point becuase kairi's not stupid she probably would have put two and two together was she interacting with him daily becuase that would definitely lead to her mentioning sora's shadow to shad himself and. he's not a very good liar. it's so funny he's actually like REALLY bad at it.
so yeah as act 2 kicks off: kairi finally gets off destiny islands and starts traveling with tifa (WHICH IS ALSO FUNNY. BECAUSE TIFA CAN 1) SEE SHAD 2) PUNCHED HIM THAT ONE TIME BECUAES HE ATTACKED CLOUD. SHE'S NEAR TOP OF LIST OF PPL HE DISLIKES) as she tries to hunt the missing sora down. this, understandably, makes it a lot harder to meet up daily with your invisible friend who, as far as you know, has no idea that you left. and he certainly shouldn't have any way of finding you. (shad actually doesn't at least so he doesn't have to play charades there. every time they meet after this is coincidental). which........ considering kairi has now seen namine and riku and know they're not dead and did willingly choose to split with them to travel with tifa.... she isn't exactly Past the point of needing shad to talk to anymore but she sure as hell isn't stuck in the bitter "my friends hate me and abandoned me and i'm so alone" rut either, so. he's just a weird, fond memory now. not that she isn't happy to see him agian, next time she does! but we'll get back to that.
because we're kind of skirting around the elephant in the room which is: sora's fucking missing, again. like the readers know exactly where he is, but no one else does. maleficent kidnapped him and is deliberately obscuring his trail AND the connection shad has to him. which, like, as far as shad knows should not have been possible and is REALLY jarring seeing as that every moment of his life up until that point he could always tell exactly where sora was, anywehre, in all of the worlds. and now he Can't.
so he's having a horrible time AND he can't even like, go hang out with kairi anymore. in the span of a week, he lost both sora and kairi. ....and gained a wolf familiar, but that's not the same.
shad becomes kind of single-minded about looking for sora. it's driving him insane that he doesn't know where sora is, and being without sora should like - give him the freedom to explore his life outside of his purpose, seeing as he literally can't fulfill his purpose??? but the only thing he ever wanted to do was spend time with kairi, and, again, he can't do that, either. as such begins the horrible spiral of oh i really am nothing without sora to define me and the subsequent self-disgust that follows. this POOR fucking boy.
what's this got to do with shadkai? oh yeah
chapters 124/125. which are the same scene from each of their povs because I DID THAT A FEW TIMES. FOR SOME REASON. usually shad was always one of the two pov characters too lksjLSMDFSMFmsdfm . anyway god. they meet up in agrabah by chance which is RIGHT before sora gets officially kidnapped and he and kairi have a converastion from like with a wall between them before maleficent grabs sora (who is obviously distracted) and leaves. rip sora. rip kairi. rip shad who has to deal with kairi being ":)!!! my friend!! :D!!!!" while he knows full well what he did to her a few weeks ago and is also coping poorly with sora being. out of his reach. it's just dead freaking noise in his head where sora USED to be and it's not a great feeling, man!!!!!!!!!
they end up bonding a bit over being trying to find someone important to them (ha) while kairi's blissfully unaware it's the same person and shad is uncomfortably aware it's the same person. and aware that each of them finding sora is like. mutually exclusive. because if he finds sora (and, does his job,) then she'll never see sora again. and if she finds sora..... well, good news, sora is found, bad news now he has to actively destroy his friendship with kairi just to get to sora, like he's supposed to. ....and then he might cease to exist. shad genuinely has no idea if he stops existing hte moment his job is complete or not. does he die, when sora dies? does he die, if sora returns to the darkness? is there anything left of him to enjoy life, ifhe wins???? So That's Not A Great Thought Either, you know!!!!!!!!!
kairi convinces him to pinky promise - that they'll both try their hardest to find who they're looking for, because they know their friend is trying their hardest, too. which is great! but, once again: they can't both find sora and both be happy. it doesn't work like that. kairi doesn't know this. shad can't tell her this. their whole friendship hinges on her not knowing who he actually is.
he leaves there in a hurry to go have a panic attack about this, understandably
and i desperately want to share prose on this lol
Kairi POV
and, slightly later, after Shad leaves in a rush
:) love it
Shad POV
:'') LOVE TO SEE IT
GOD!!!!
KAIRI'S IN HIS CORNER!!! KAIRI IS ROOTING FOR HIM!!!!!!!! SHE WOULDN'T BE DOING THAT IF SHSE KNEW WHO HE WAS AND WHO HE WAS LOOKING FOR AND WHY HE WAS LOOKING FOR HIM!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT DUALITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DRIVES ME BONKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT DRIVES SHAD BONKERS TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
like genuinely, i probably shouldn't say This is the juicest fucking scene in the whole fic, because the fic is 1mil long, but as much as aerith looking at repliku and going "man i really hate that this kid has no one in his corner. i guess i'm adopting him" is like, good, and as much as sora looking at shad after everything and going "no no you deserve a second chance too" is good. i just. there's so FREAKING much just in Shad's side of the pinky promise alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY'RE JUST SO JUICY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ok man i lost all steam for writing this funny infodump. girl help.
well ok forget segueing like, cleanly, into the next bit.
so we've got the facts of "kairi means a lot to shad" and "kairi is rooting for him even though if she knew who he was, she would not be doing that" AND. shad is slowly spiralling as he grapples with the fact he has no idea what to do with himself when he doesn't have sora, nor is he in any kind of position to start defining himself outside of sora
i think also this is the last time shad and kairi interact in dead inside part 2 (first and last.) tho im thinking about editing chapter 173 so they talk there instead of the scene that's already in place. STILL.
they don't see each other again for a while. plot happens. sora is found. the gang teams back up. organization 13 needs to be fought. and so on, and so on. shad is.... not here to help organization 13 or fight against organization 13, being his own neutral party. and becuase the last few months have been so shitty to him, he's just slowly plotting his suicide. he doesn't want to actually succeed at dragging sora into darkness because first of all he has no idea if he, himself will survive that. and second of all the thought of hurting sora again is not a great thought to him!!! he finds out he kind of likes sora a lot!!!!!!! maybe he's crushing on him!?!? he doesn't know how to cope with this and also can't turn to kairi for help becuase he can't get into contact with kairi and even if he could he would have to get her alone which, seeing as she's spending all her time around people who know him as sora's shadow, will be impossible.
so shad's at this conundrum, this corner, this dead end. he doesn't want to do his job, fulfill his purpose. but to not do his purpose... can he get away with that? will the universe let him? will the darkness let him? he wants to live - but he can't live with kairi, because he can't keep lying for that long, and he can't live with her as himself, either, becuase he knows she hates him as sora's shadow. he wants to leave her life without her puttign two and two together.
and like this is the shadkai post but to make an aside and address the elephant in the room
1) wanting to live with kairi isn't his only motivation. in fact it's barely a motivation in the text anymore becuase i went so hard on "OH HIM WANTING TO DIE BECUAES HE CAN'T BE WITH KAIRI IS SO STRAIGHT IT'S GROSS" that i oblitearted his relationship to kairi entirely in the second half of dead inside which i would. like to rectify if possible.
2) failed step one, fell in love with the boy you're supposed to drag into darkness or kill trying. but he hates himself for loving sora because it's so antithetical to what he is. he's supposed to, you know, drag sora back into darkness, and now hurting sora makes him want to puke???? he's coping very poorly and has absolutely no support system to help catch him during these trying times. so that's not helping either!
"and so the suicide?" yeah and so the suicide
er, the, forcing-sora-to-kill-him-because-he-literally-can't-kill-himself-yes-he-might-have-tried, suicide,
time to swing back to shadkai
so what prefaces the soshad final clash is a xaldin fight and xaldin's a dick and shoves kairi thru a dark corridor to get her out of the way. it's very contrived. but hte point of this is that shad ends up saving her. which is great! yay! he gets to say goodbye to her before he goes?!!? he's actually doing his damndest to leave her on the islands and get back to sora for his suicide but uh 1) kairi refuses to be left again 2) he's a pushover
and, the worst one: kairi has spent the past few months honing her ability as a princess of heart to really sense darkness, where it is, what it's doing, and so on.
and so she... can't see shad, now, but she is suddenly extremely aware that he is comprised of a fuck ton of darkness. which is a worrying thing to learn about your old friend you haven't talked to in a while!!!!! especially considering he is trying very hard to convince you to stay here while he goes back to sora??????????
she forces his hand by tackling him while he teleports and since he can't fucking lie to sora about this there's............... well there's a couple of options here but he doesn't take the smart one becuase he's a stupid baby who's barely 3 months old and has no support system so of COURSE he doesn't break down so that kairi and sora can help him. no no. what he does is pulls on the full of his strength and projects who he really is to kairi :')
secret's out! she hates him now!!!!
it might have landed a little softer had he not played up the act and 1) made it sound like he was really intending to hurt sora badly 2) thrown kairi across the room 3) called his wolf to drag her back to the islands for good this time. haha rip.
so congrats kairi!! that guy who was your only friend for a while there!!!! the only one you could be completely honest to and trust in hard times?????? sora's fucking shadow, who you only know by how poorly everyone in the hb gang + tifa spoke of him, and also by how he 180'd on you just now.
plot finishes up: kairi convinces the wolf to take her back to twtnw, hoping to still get to sora even if she has to go the long way but gets distracted by [NAMINE THING THAT HAPPENS THATS' VERY D ISTRACTING FOR SEVERAL REASONS AND WILL TAKE UP KAIRI'S ATTENTION FOR THE REST OF DEAD INSIDE, FRANKLY.]
and you know shad has sora kill him and sora begrudgingly agrees (he hates this a lot) (shad's not really giving him a choice tho) and then shad merges with sora :) this is nto what shad thought was giogn to happen but he's passed the fuck out and unconscious at hte bottom of sora's heart rn and sora is also very rapidly [DISTRACTED FIRST BY XEMNAS WHO WAS STILL ALIVE AND THEN BY THE NAMINE THING WHICH BY ALL ACCOUNTS ANYONE WOULD FIND VERY DISTRACTING AND UNDERSTANDABLY TAKE UP THE REST OF YOUR ATTENTION FOR THE REST OF DEAD INSIDE]
when they finally return home to destiny islands for a breather, sora admits to kairi that shad literally asked to die and kairi's....... like 1) that's bullshit 2) he still hrut you 3) what the fuck. and coping generally poorly with, you know. soomeone she genuinely considered her friend was lying about his identity this whole time and also apparently a horrible person.
(but was he? though??? was he really??????? how much of it was just an act? was he using her? was he as funny and lost and lonely as she htought he was??? she'll never know, now that he's dead)
He's Not Fucking Dead.
now we're in part 2 of hte shadkai dynamic which is: kairi coping with shad and sora bodysharing while sora's 100% on board with giving shad a chance and kairi's caught between "maybe he deserves it" vs "i litearlly cannot believe hte best of him anymore after he abused my trust and betrayed me like that". y'see, kairi's.... very bad at forgiveness, and very good at holding grudges. and, UNDERSTANDABLY, shad totally trampled all over her trust!!!!!!! becuase he thought sure he wouldn't live to see the consequences!!!!!!!! unfortunately!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
anyway god it's really hard to like... condense atr into something that feeles good for an infodump especially since i'm running out of steam and, like, the progression of their friendship healing happen in bursts and starts because it's very hard to consistently talk to someoen who is bodysharing with your best friend, and also is avoiding you, and also you would always choose to talk to sora over him, but...
sometimes shad's forced to interact with kairi becuase sora's too asleep to be at the front and. he knows kairi hates him now. but kairi's still the only person who isn't sora that he knows he can trust. and also knows he exists for a while there GOD.
okay god i just remembered theres this whole sequence where they're 1) trying to get their parents to hb so that they can talk to some adults about what hte fuck their kids just went through this past six months 2) this doesn't fucking work out for sora and his parents. god there's so much lore i actually don't want to touch but sora's parents stay home and sora, pissed that his star shard mysteriously broke on the day he needed it most, goes to vent his frustration by swimming 3) LEAVING KAIRI AND HER DAD WITH THE HB GANG TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHERE SORA IS (he's fine) AND WHAT THE FUCK TO DO NOW
and most importantly kairi slips the fuck up and mentiosn kano exists to them. oh yeah he's going by kano now. fuck does kairi suggest the name--- NOOO THE PROSE DOESN'T SAY. well anyway he's going by kano now and kairi accidentally lets slip that he's still totally alive and also bodysharing with sora much to the hb gang's confusion and horror becuase they've dealt iwth shadows before and only know shadows to be Bad Fucking News so that's not great to learn
and now kairi's in a position of having to defend kano - WHO SHE'S REALLY MAD AT - to the hb gang becuase she knows sora would be sad if she didn't, and sora's not here to do it, so it falls to her to. she's handlign it not well but god talk about juicy. you were friends with this guy and then he betrayed your trust and he's actually this potentially super harmful creature that's latched onto your best friend and your best friend SWEARS he's fine now and like you trust your best friend but this dude literally betrayed your trust BUT YOU KNOW DEEP DOWN HE'S JUST... LIKE... A STUPID TEEN LIKE YOU ARE.... COPING SO POORLY WITH THINGS HE'S HUGELY SUICIDAL AND ONLY WON'T ATTEMPT AGAIN BECAUSE HE WOULD HAVE TO KILL SORA TO KILL HIMSELF.....
trying to justify your own feelings of anger (VALID AS THEY ARE) while also trying to talk the adults down from being hugely concerned that this is a massive problem is just Such a fucking place to be stuck in
AND. that scene also has her nearly slip that kano loves sora (WHICH NEITHER OF THEM WANTED ANYONE KNOWING ABOUT) so imagine the guilt of spilling not one but nearly two secrets of your best friend's and that-guy-you-were-friends-with-but-you're-mixed-on ot the adults who most definitely LEAST needed to hear those secrets. she's lucky riku intervenes but now riku's also in on the secret much to everyone's dismay
GOD those were just juicy chapters. those are also the chapters where shad and riku get into a screaming match so strong that riku deadass picks shad-through-sora up off the ground to dangle him (ALL WHILE. MASSIVELY SPEWING DARKNESS. BECUASE HE HAS A MEDICAL CONDITION NOW) (THE MEDICAL CONDITION IS ALSO TECHNICALLY SHAD'S FAULT BUT I DON'T THINK ANY OF HTEM KNOW THAT, NOT EVEN SHAD) (BUT LMAO) (like it's also vexen's fault for programming the data faulty but shad didn't help matters when he poured a fuck ton of extra darkness into riku for laugsh.) (GOD i love ftpverse)
anyway where was i. other than drinking i love my kids juice. did you know i love my kids?
genuinely i don't know how to segue from that into anything else. there's a lot of other good shadkai moments in atr (LOVE shad immediately goign to kairi while sora's dissociating so hard he shoved shad to the front and kairi just like wow. ok. wow. now i have to confront you don't suck and also how much you really do care about sora) but
i tweeted once that i felt like shadkai carries some of the most emotionally heavy scenes in the fic - WHICH IS PROBABLY UNTRUE. THERE ARE A MILLION WORDS. AND I MIGHT BE DOING AERTIH AND RIKU A DISSERVICE - but g od. i am thinking about the atr converastion where they finally talk things out.
"were you ever my friend or were you just using me?" / "i wans't using you. i mean i did use you but i--" / "were we friends?" / "yeah. yeah i think so."
them :)
and god that reminds me of smth i was thinking last night while trying to fall asleep like. kairi was deadass shad's First friend. and his Only friend for a while. the only perosn who thought positively of him. WHICH DID YES HINGE ON HER NOT KNOWING WHO HE WAS but still.
long before sora even changed his mind about shad, kairi was there cracking stupid jokes with an invisible stranger who by all rights she shouldn't interact with but kept indulging anyway. long before sora ever said "i'd like to be" , kairi said "see you tomorrow?"
she was his first friend. clenches fist. and he was the only one she could have a real converastion with for htat period of her life.
ALSO LIKE. DRIVING ME BONKERS. HE WAS THE ONLY PERSON SHE COULD BE TOTALLY HONEST ABOUT HER WORRIES WITH. THE ONLY PERSON IN THAT PERIOD SHE COULD BE 100% HERSELF AROUND. AND YET THEIR RELATIONSHIP HINGED!!!!!!! ON HIM NEVER BEING HONSET ABOUT WHO HE WAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DRIVES ME FREAKIGN BONKERS.
she was his first friend!!!!!!!!!!! she was in his corner before anyone else ever was!!!!!!!!!
and it was a lie, yes, it hinged on a lie, but that doesn't make that any less VALUABLE, does it? to a kid who's literally born of the darkness, born just a few months ago - he never had anyone else treat him like that. doesn't that still mean something? that her feelings were real, and that how they touched him were just as real???
[shakes the chain of memories symbolism in front of you]
they simply are so good and they drive me freakign bonkers.
and i have written almost no postgame content lmao i literally finished atr and then just put ftpveres down (LIKE. IM VALID.) but i think fondly about shadkai a lot. i think they work things out, and i think they mean a lot to each other. i think kairi is the first person shad goes to who isn't sora. maybe she's hte first person he goes to, even excluding sora, sometimes. he knows. she's always in his corner.
and he's still the only person out of all her friends who truly understand how terrible those months she spent alone were. he understands how much she was suffering. he understands what it is like to be that lonely!!!! obviously the relationship is mutual in other ways but i'm having difficulty putting words to how. what kano does for kairi.
but maybe it's just about mutually bullying each other to be better people. kairi, because she knows shad can be a good person - she saw it, before anyone else did, saw what he was like when unrestrained by any definitions imposed upon him. and shad, because he knows a lot of kairi's kneejerk bitterness comes from a place that he understands better than anyone else really can. and also he likes her. and wants to be good to her like she was good to him.
i think. im at the end of my thing
but 1) shadkai drives me freaking bonkers
2) sometimes a polycule can be you, your boyfriend, and the girl you're both platonically dating
shadkai :)
oh yeah art. i do not have a lot of art of They but i have two very good ones
kairi voice do it for the vine
also this one which 1) they're matching :)
2) n sora doodle to kano's left which makes it look like kairi's teasing him about his crush. ideal.
LAST ONE. BECAUSE I LIKE THEM.
anyway i simply think that They. thank you for your time
((i want to infodump mostly LMAO here we go))
((also read ftpverse maybe))
tw: suicidal thoughts and attempt from one of the characters
so okay i have to explain who shad is first because he's a funny oc. let's get his name out of the way: shad is short for "sora's shadow" which is what he actually was known as for the whole whopping 400k of narrative in which he didn't have an actual name, but obviously in meta discussions i had to shorten it somehow. i swap between both at random when i'm posting about him nowadays. he can have two names its fine.
shad is what is known in univeres as a shadow - not, not like the heartless, shadow. like... "a manifestation of someone's darkness that exists purely to drag their 'host' into darkness or kill them trying". you know how the ansem sod that shows up in r/r is like. no one knows if that's really ansem or just what riku's darkness is choosing to manifest itself as, and you can technically read it either way? yeah that. that's a shadow.
(he looks "like vanitas" in that vanitas is just sora's face with black hair and golden eyes, and so is shad.)
this little brat is literally three weeks old and exists solely to drag sora into darkness - er, because in the kh1 portion of ftpverse it was a roleswap and sora's the one who fell in with maleficent and possessed by ansem and gave into darkness and so on. no, shad does not get a say in this, also. he thinks it's what he wants - and why shouldn't he! it's the purpose he was born for!!!!!! but boy does he have a lot of downtime between his plot mandated visits to sora...
but before we talk about why shad going to go visit kairi for funsies is significant, we need to talk about kairi
kairi is on destiny islands while sora is ???? traveling to fight his darkness???? and riku (repliku in this universe goes by riku) and namine (replica in this universe has been here since the end of installment 1; installment 2 is the kh1 portion. we did "com" first and "kh1" second) -- that was a long tangent. riku and namine are currently in castle oblivion helping head a replica? rebellion? it's a thing. riku doesn't even want to be there but he feels obligated and namine ended up there on accident and then had no reason to leave. ...other than to get kairi but that kept not happening due to increasingly stupid reasons, unfortunately.
back to kairi. kairi has spent the past three months alone on the island with only namine for company, and now has spent another month or so with No One for company because namine up and vanished. so she's alone and she's angry and she's bitter because like her friends probably didn't all ditch her but she sure is the only one left behind. AND!!!!!!! due to complicated world-separation magic that's on destiny islands, anyone who leaves destiny islands for a lengthy amount of time is slowly forgotten about by the population. kairi's managing to remember her friends just fine because of [insert heart connection bullshit that kh is so fond of here] - but no one else is. not her dad. not sora's parents. not even selphie, who is the only friend she hasn't managed to drive off. it's just her, alone, and no one even understands why she feels so alone because to them it's like sora and riku and namine never existed at all.
so kairi is alone and basically friendless
and shad is alone and bored and has never had a lengthy converastion with anyone who isn't sora and none of those conversations with sora or with anyone else have been, like, good converastions. it's just been him trying to do his job by trying to drive a wedge between sora and everyone else and also politely convince sora to return to darkness and if that doesn't work, fight him about it. or wahtever.
so, shad goes to talk to kairi.
maybe he wants more dirt on sora. maybe he wants to use her as leverage. maybe that's just waht he's telling himself.
because: weird ftpverse lore thing, but... shad's existence and connection with the realm of light is spotty, heavily dependent on his own power and/or how well someone else is at sensing magic bs. sora's the only one who can see and hear him 100% of the time. everyone else is hit or miss, on either the seeing or the hearing front. notable people who can see him: any of the villains because they're "steeped in darkness", cloud for similar reasons, and mickey becuase he's a trained keyblade master. (if aqua were around she'd probably be able to see him too, but she isn't here yet). aerith and leon are pretty consistent on hearing him but spotty on seeing him, cid and yuffie are mostly clueless. tifa can't See him, but she can get a general sense of Where he is because she can see a big blur of darkness. clsoe enough, you know?
so: kairi can't see him
and: he doesn't think kairi can hear him, becuase, why would she?
of course, having spent the first three weeks of his life alone in the realm of darkness (the only place he could manage corporeality for a while), he's gotten in the habit of thinking aloud. silence sucks, want to hear your own voice... don't expect anyone else to hear you, anyway.
yeah you know whwere this is going. he says something while he's trying to decide if he's going to snoop on kairi and she hears him. she still can't fucking see him, but she can hear him! and they can hold a converastion! and... sora's not here, you know? all of a sudden, shad finds, he's in a place where his universe-mandated purpose doesn't matter. and his identity doesn't matter. kairi can't see him, so she doesn't know what he looks like. he apparently sounds just different enough from sora that that's not ringing any bells, either. she has no idea who he is, or what his purpose is, and for that beautiful moment he exists as someone who isn't solely defined by being sora's shadow
of course, he's defined now as kairi's weird invisible friend who doesn't have a name
(in a perfect universe kairi would have given him a nickname and it would have stuck becuase she's stubborn, but i didn't think of that until after i'd finished dead inside. ftpverse but kairi gives kano his name and he keeps using it privately to himself would have been incredible but unfortuantely we don't live in that universe and i doubt there's ever going to be a draft two of ftpverse.)
but still: he isn't sora's shadow, here with kairi. he's just some guy.
kairi latches onto him, meanwhile, because he mentions sora by name (quickly fumbling to insist he only knows him in passing and has no connection to him, further divorcing himself from his identity) and kairi's desperate for any news and also currently living on an island where everyone but her has forgotten sora (and riku and namine) exist due to magic bullshit. so like. this is the first person she can talk to about her friends, and have said person retain the information for the next time they have a converastion. she's not.... alone anymore.
they keep meeting up. it's like, nothing about having an invisible friend ISN'T weird, but they can physically interact (nothing about shad's existence in the realm of light makes sense, but it's not supposed to - and he'd have to both become stronger and WANT to change it to like, well, change it) and they can talk and they start meeting up.... APPARENTLY daily according to the prose. holy shit. two lonely little kids indeed.
they don't talk about much with substance, but they don't need to. kairi needs an ear to listen that will actually remember her complaints. shad needs a place where he can be... someone else. someone who isn't sora's shadow.
and so now they're friends.
of course nothing can be that easy, can it. shad is still sora's shadow, and still has a job to do as sora's shadow. this includes, as the end of act 1 closes, shad manipulating kairi's heart extremely directly to make her convinced sora's a lost cause. ((she has no idea he did this. he didn't even do it while they were talking, he snuck into her dreams one night)) - WHICH. shad regrets the moment he's finished becuase he hurt kairi doing it, and kairi as act 2 starts snaps out of it and learns 1) that sora's shadow did that 2) fuck that guy. which starts the duality of kairi liking her invisible friend but hating sora's shadow. both of which are the same person.
it's probably a good thing they stop talking regularly at this point becuase kairi's not stupid she probably would have put two and two together was she interacting with him daily becuase that would definitely lead to her mentioning sora's shadow to shad himself and. he's not a very good liar. it's so funny he's actually like REALLY bad at it.
so yeah as act 2 kicks off: kairi finally gets off destiny islands and starts traveling with tifa (WHICH IS ALSO FUNNY. BECAUSE TIFA CAN 1) SEE SHAD 2) PUNCHED HIM THAT ONE TIME BECUAES HE ATTACKED CLOUD. SHE'S NEAR TOP OF LIST OF PPL HE DISLIKES) as she tries to hunt the missing sora down. this, understandably, makes it a lot harder to meet up daily with your invisible friend who, as far as you know, has no idea that you left. and he certainly shouldn't have any way of finding you. (shad actually doesn't at least so he doesn't have to play charades there. every time they meet after this is coincidental). which........ considering kairi has now seen namine and riku and know they're not dead and did willingly choose to split with them to travel with tifa.... she isn't exactly Past the point of needing shad to talk to anymore but she sure as hell isn't stuck in the bitter "my friends hate me and abandoned me and i'm so alone" rut either, so. he's just a weird, fond memory now. not that she isn't happy to see him agian, next time she does! but we'll get back to that.
because we're kind of skirting around the elephant in the room which is: sora's fucking missing, again. like the readers know exactly where he is, but no one else does. maleficent kidnapped him and is deliberately obscuring his trail AND the connection shad has to him. which, like, as far as shad knows should not have been possible and is REALLY jarring seeing as that every moment of his life up until that point he could always tell exactly where sora was, anywehre, in all of the worlds. and now he Can't.
so he's having a horrible time AND he can't even like, go hang out with kairi anymore. in the span of a week, he lost both sora and kairi. ....and gained a wolf familiar, but that's not the same.
shad becomes kind of single-minded about looking for sora. it's driving him insane that he doesn't know where sora is, and being without sora should like - give him the freedom to explore his life outside of his purpose, seeing as he literally can't fulfill his purpose??? but the only thing he ever wanted to do was spend time with kairi, and, again, he can't do that, either. as such begins the horrible spiral of oh i really am nothing without sora to define me and the subsequent self-disgust that follows. this POOR fucking boy.
what's this got to do with shadkai? oh yeah
chapters 124/125. which are the same scene from each of their povs because I DID THAT A FEW TIMES. FOR SOME REASON. usually shad was always one of the two pov characters too lksjLSMDFSMFmsdfm . anyway god. they meet up in agrabah by chance which is RIGHT before sora gets officially kidnapped and he and kairi have a converastion from like with a wall between them before maleficent grabs sora (who is obviously distracted) and leaves. rip sora. rip kairi. rip shad who has to deal with kairi being ":)!!! my friend!! :D!!!!" while he knows full well what he did to her a few weeks ago and is also coping poorly with sora being. out of his reach. it's just dead freaking noise in his head where sora USED to be and it's not a great feeling, man!!!!!!!!!
they end up bonding a bit over being trying to find someone important to them (ha) while kairi's blissfully unaware it's the same person and shad is uncomfortably aware it's the same person. and aware that each of them finding sora is like. mutually exclusive. because if he finds sora (and, does his job,) then she'll never see sora again. and if she finds sora..... well, good news, sora is found, bad news now he has to actively destroy his friendship with kairi just to get to sora, like he's supposed to. ....and then he might cease to exist. shad genuinely has no idea if he stops existing hte moment his job is complete or not. does he die, when sora dies? does he die, if sora returns to the darkness? is there anything left of him to enjoy life, ifhe wins???? So That's Not A Great Thought Either, you know!!!!!!!!!
kairi convinces him to pinky promise - that they'll both try their hardest to find who they're looking for, because they know their friend is trying their hardest, too. which is great! but, once again: they can't both find sora and both be happy. it doesn't work like that. kairi doesn't know this. shad can't tell her this. their whole friendship hinges on her not knowing who he actually is.
he leaves there in a hurry to go have a panic attack about this, understandably
and i desperately want to share prose on this lol
Kairi POV
Kairi held a hand out to him, pinky extended.
"Huh?"
"You know how pinky promises work, right?" Kairi asked.
"I mean-"
"Well, let's promise," she said. "Promise that we'll both find who we're looking for—or at least that we'll try our hardest. Because we know there's someone else out there trying their hardest too."
and, slightly later, after Shad leaves in a rush
"Well, you're looking a lot better," Tifa remarked. She looked pleasantly surprised.
Kairi grinned.
"I feel a lot better," she said, wiggling her pinky.
Everything was going to be okay.
They'd promised.
:) love it
Shad POV
He eyed her extended pinky nervously, heart pounding in his chest.
He really shouldn't…
But…
He hooked his pinky around hers, and squeezed, went through all the other motions that went with a pinky promise. His stomach roiled like he was going to be sick.
We'll both find who we're looking for.
We'll try our best, because someone else out there is too.
Everything will be okay.
He jolted away from her, like he'd been burned.
What had he been thinking!?
"I- I need to go," he stammered, shoving off from the ground and staggering to his feet. He couldn't believe himself. "I- I need to. Um." But there was no excuse, he had no excuse, he was going to be sick, so he just…
He flashed away, to a familiar place, falling hands and knees into cold black sand that was familiar and a comfort but that he hardly even registered.
Frantic, desperate laughter tore from his chest.
He pressed a hand to his face, gasping for air.
What had he just done?
"A promise- a pinky promise," the words came out between his laughs and gasps, and he pulled at his hair, chest tight. "That we'd both find- that we'd—"
But they couldn't both find who they were looking for, because they were looking for the same person. If she found Sora, then he'd have to take him from her. And if he found Sora, she'd never see him—see either of them—again!
Everything will be okay.
Caught somewhere between laughing and crying, he fell backwards into the sand.
:'') LOVE TO SEE IT
GOD!!!!
KAIRI'S IN HIS CORNER!!! KAIRI IS ROOTING FOR HIM!!!!!!!! SHE WOULDN'T BE DOING THAT IF SHSE KNEW WHO HE WAS AND WHO HE WAS LOOKING FOR AND WHY HE WAS LOOKING FOR HIM!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT DUALITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DRIVES ME BONKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT DRIVES SHAD BONKERS TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
like genuinely, i probably shouldn't say This is the juicest fucking scene in the whole fic, because the fic is 1mil long, but as much as aerith looking at repliku and going "man i really hate that this kid has no one in his corner. i guess i'm adopting him" is like, good, and as much as sora looking at shad after everything and going "no no you deserve a second chance too" is good. i just. there's so FREAKING much just in Shad's side of the pinky promise alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY'RE JUST SO JUICY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ok man i lost all steam for writing this funny infodump. girl help.
well ok forget segueing like, cleanly, into the next bit.
so we've got the facts of "kairi means a lot to shad" and "kairi is rooting for him even though if she knew who he was, she would not be doing that" AND. shad is slowly spiralling as he grapples with the fact he has no idea what to do with himself when he doesn't have sora, nor is he in any kind of position to start defining himself outside of sora
i think also this is the last time shad and kairi interact in dead inside part 2 (first and last.) tho im thinking about editing chapter 173 so they talk there instead of the scene that's already in place. STILL.
they don't see each other again for a while. plot happens. sora is found. the gang teams back up. organization 13 needs to be fought. and so on, and so on. shad is.... not here to help organization 13 or fight against organization 13, being his own neutral party. and becuase the last few months have been so shitty to him, he's just slowly plotting his suicide. he doesn't want to actually succeed at dragging sora into darkness because first of all he has no idea if he, himself will survive that. and second of all the thought of hurting sora again is not a great thought to him!!! he finds out he kind of likes sora a lot!!!!!!! maybe he's crushing on him!?!? he doesn't know how to cope with this and also can't turn to kairi for help becuase he can't get into contact with kairi and even if he could he would have to get her alone which, seeing as she's spending all her time around people who know him as sora's shadow, will be impossible.
so shad's at this conundrum, this corner, this dead end. he doesn't want to do his job, fulfill his purpose. but to not do his purpose... can he get away with that? will the universe let him? will the darkness let him? he wants to live - but he can't live with kairi, because he can't keep lying for that long, and he can't live with her as himself, either, becuase he knows she hates him as sora's shadow. he wants to leave her life without her puttign two and two together.
and like this is the shadkai post but to make an aside and address the elephant in the room
1) wanting to live with kairi isn't his only motivation. in fact it's barely a motivation in the text anymore becuase i went so hard on "OH HIM WANTING TO DIE BECUAES HE CAN'T BE WITH KAIRI IS SO STRAIGHT IT'S GROSS" that i oblitearted his relationship to kairi entirely in the second half of dead inside which i would. like to rectify if possible.
2) failed step one, fell in love with the boy you're supposed to drag into darkness or kill trying. but he hates himself for loving sora because it's so antithetical to what he is. he's supposed to, you know, drag sora back into darkness, and now hurting sora makes him want to puke???? he's coping very poorly and has absolutely no support system to help catch him during these trying times. so that's not helping either!
"and so the suicide?" yeah and so the suicide
er, the, forcing-sora-to-kill-him-because-he-literally-can't-kill-himself-yes-he-might-have-tried, suicide,
time to swing back to shadkai
so what prefaces the soshad final clash is a xaldin fight and xaldin's a dick and shoves kairi thru a dark corridor to get her out of the way. it's very contrived. but hte point of this is that shad ends up saving her. which is great! yay! he gets to say goodbye to her before he goes?!!? he's actually doing his damndest to leave her on the islands and get back to sora for his suicide but uh 1) kairi refuses to be left again 2) he's a pushover
and, the worst one: kairi has spent the past few months honing her ability as a princess of heart to really sense darkness, where it is, what it's doing, and so on.
and so she... can't see shad, now, but she is suddenly extremely aware that he is comprised of a fuck ton of darkness. which is a worrying thing to learn about your old friend you haven't talked to in a while!!!!! especially considering he is trying very hard to convince you to stay here while he goes back to sora??????????
she forces his hand by tackling him while he teleports and since he can't fucking lie to sora about this there's............... well there's a couple of options here but he doesn't take the smart one becuase he's a stupid baby who's barely 3 months old and has no support system so of COURSE he doesn't break down so that kairi and sora can help him. no no. what he does is pulls on the full of his strength and projects who he really is to kairi :')
secret's out! she hates him now!!!!
it might have landed a little softer had he not played up the act and 1) made it sound like he was really intending to hurt sora badly 2) thrown kairi across the room 3) called his wolf to drag her back to the islands for good this time. haha rip.
so congrats kairi!! that guy who was your only friend for a while there!!!! the only one you could be completely honest to and trust in hard times?????? sora's fucking shadow, who you only know by how poorly everyone in the hb gang + tifa spoke of him, and also by how he 180'd on you just now.
plot finishes up: kairi convinces the wolf to take her back to twtnw, hoping to still get to sora even if she has to go the long way but gets distracted by [NAMINE THING THAT HAPPENS THATS' VERY D ISTRACTING FOR SEVERAL REASONS AND WILL TAKE UP KAIRI'S ATTENTION FOR THE REST OF DEAD INSIDE, FRANKLY.]
and you know shad has sora kill him and sora begrudgingly agrees (he hates this a lot) (shad's not really giving him a choice tho) and then shad merges with sora :) this is nto what shad thought was giogn to happen but he's passed the fuck out and unconscious at hte bottom of sora's heart rn and sora is also very rapidly [DISTRACTED FIRST BY XEMNAS WHO WAS STILL ALIVE AND THEN BY THE NAMINE THING WHICH BY ALL ACCOUNTS ANYONE WOULD FIND VERY DISTRACTING AND UNDERSTANDABLY TAKE UP THE REST OF YOUR ATTENTION FOR THE REST OF DEAD INSIDE]
when they finally return home to destiny islands for a breather, sora admits to kairi that shad literally asked to die and kairi's....... like 1) that's bullshit 2) he still hrut you 3) what the fuck. and coping generally poorly with, you know. soomeone she genuinely considered her friend was lying about his identity this whole time and also apparently a horrible person.
(but was he? though??? was he really??????? how much of it was just an act? was he using her? was he as funny and lost and lonely as she htought he was??? she'll never know, now that he's dead)
He's Not Fucking Dead.
now we're in part 2 of hte shadkai dynamic which is: kairi coping with shad and sora bodysharing while sora's 100% on board with giving shad a chance and kairi's caught between "maybe he deserves it" vs "i litearlly cannot believe hte best of him anymore after he abused my trust and betrayed me like that". y'see, kairi's.... very bad at forgiveness, and very good at holding grudges. and, UNDERSTANDABLY, shad totally trampled all over her trust!!!!!!! becuase he thought sure he wouldn't live to see the consequences!!!!!!!! unfortunately!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
anyway god it's really hard to like... condense atr into something that feeles good for an infodump especially since i'm running out of steam and, like, the progression of their friendship healing happen in bursts and starts because it's very hard to consistently talk to someoen who is bodysharing with your best friend, and also is avoiding you, and also you would always choose to talk to sora over him, but...
sometimes shad's forced to interact with kairi becuase sora's too asleep to be at the front and. he knows kairi hates him now. but kairi's still the only person who isn't sora that he knows he can trust. and also knows he exists for a while there GOD.
okay god i just remembered theres this whole sequence where they're 1) trying to get their parents to hb so that they can talk to some adults about what hte fuck their kids just went through this past six months 2) this doesn't fucking work out for sora and his parents. god there's so much lore i actually don't want to touch but sora's parents stay home and sora, pissed that his star shard mysteriously broke on the day he needed it most, goes to vent his frustration by swimming 3) LEAVING KAIRI AND HER DAD WITH THE HB GANG TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHERE SORA IS (he's fine) AND WHAT THE FUCK TO DO NOW
and most importantly kairi slips the fuck up and mentiosn kano exists to them. oh yeah he's going by kano now. fuck does kairi suggest the name--- NOOO THE PROSE DOESN'T SAY. well anyway he's going by kano now and kairi accidentally lets slip that he's still totally alive and also bodysharing with sora much to the hb gang's confusion and horror becuase they've dealt iwth shadows before and only know shadows to be Bad Fucking News so that's not great to learn
and now kairi's in a position of having to defend kano - WHO SHE'S REALLY MAD AT - to the hb gang becuase she knows sora would be sad if she didn't, and sora's not here to do it, so it falls to her to. she's handlign it not well but god talk about juicy. you were friends with this guy and then he betrayed your trust and he's actually this potentially super harmful creature that's latched onto your best friend and your best friend SWEARS he's fine now and like you trust your best friend but this dude literally betrayed your trust BUT YOU KNOW DEEP DOWN HE'S JUST... LIKE... A STUPID TEEN LIKE YOU ARE.... COPING SO POORLY WITH THINGS HE'S HUGELY SUICIDAL AND ONLY WON'T ATTEMPT AGAIN BECAUSE HE WOULD HAVE TO KILL SORA TO KILL HIMSELF.....
trying to justify your own feelings of anger (VALID AS THEY ARE) while also trying to talk the adults down from being hugely concerned that this is a massive problem is just Such a fucking place to be stuck in
AND. that scene also has her nearly slip that kano loves sora (WHICH NEITHER OF THEM WANTED ANYONE KNOWING ABOUT) so imagine the guilt of spilling not one but nearly two secrets of your best friend's and that-guy-you-were-friends-with-but-you're-mixed-on ot the adults who most definitely LEAST needed to hear those secrets. she's lucky riku intervenes but now riku's also in on the secret much to everyone's dismay
GOD those were just juicy chapters. those are also the chapters where shad and riku get into a screaming match so strong that riku deadass picks shad-through-sora up off the ground to dangle him (ALL WHILE. MASSIVELY SPEWING DARKNESS. BECUASE HE HAS A MEDICAL CONDITION NOW) (THE MEDICAL CONDITION IS ALSO TECHNICALLY SHAD'S FAULT BUT I DON'T THINK ANY OF HTEM KNOW THAT, NOT EVEN SHAD) (BUT LMAO) (like it's also vexen's fault for programming the data faulty but shad didn't help matters when he poured a fuck ton of extra darkness into riku for laugsh.) (GOD i love ftpverse)
anyway where was i. other than drinking i love my kids juice. did you know i love my kids?
genuinely i don't know how to segue from that into anything else. there's a lot of other good shadkai moments in atr (LOVE shad immediately goign to kairi while sora's dissociating so hard he shoved shad to the front and kairi just like wow. ok. wow. now i have to confront you don't suck and also how much you really do care about sora) but
i tweeted once that i felt like shadkai carries some of the most emotionally heavy scenes in the fic - WHICH IS PROBABLY UNTRUE. THERE ARE A MILLION WORDS. AND I MIGHT BE DOING AERTIH AND RIKU A DISSERVICE - but g od. i am thinking about the atr converastion where they finally talk things out.
"were you ever my friend or were you just using me?" / "i wans't using you. i mean i did use you but i--" / "were we friends?" / "yeah. yeah i think so."
them :)
and god that reminds me of smth i was thinking last night while trying to fall asleep like. kairi was deadass shad's First friend. and his Only friend for a while. the only perosn who thought positively of him. WHICH DID YES HINGE ON HER NOT KNOWING WHO HE WAS but still.
long before sora even changed his mind about shad, kairi was there cracking stupid jokes with an invisible stranger who by all rights she shouldn't interact with but kept indulging anyway. long before sora ever said "i'd like to be" , kairi said "see you tomorrow?"
she was his first friend. clenches fist. and he was the only one she could have a real converastion with for htat period of her life.
ALSO LIKE. DRIVING ME BONKERS. HE WAS THE ONLY PERSON SHE COULD BE TOTALLY HONEST ABOUT HER WORRIES WITH. THE ONLY PERSON IN THAT PERIOD SHE COULD BE 100% HERSELF AROUND. AND YET THEIR RELATIONSHIP HINGED!!!!!!! ON HIM NEVER BEING HONSET ABOUT WHO HE WAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DRIVES ME FREAKIGN BONKERS.
she was his first friend!!!!!!!!!!! she was in his corner before anyone else ever was!!!!!!!!!
and it was a lie, yes, it hinged on a lie, but that doesn't make that any less VALUABLE, does it? to a kid who's literally born of the darkness, born just a few months ago - he never had anyone else treat him like that. doesn't that still mean something? that her feelings were real, and that how they touched him were just as real???
[shakes the chain of memories symbolism in front of you]
they simply are so good and they drive me freakign bonkers.
and i have written almost no postgame content lmao i literally finished atr and then just put ftpveres down (LIKE. IM VALID.) but i think fondly about shadkai a lot. i think they work things out, and i think they mean a lot to each other. i think kairi is the first person shad goes to who isn't sora. maybe she's hte first person he goes to, even excluding sora, sometimes. he knows. she's always in his corner.
and he's still the only person out of all her friends who truly understand how terrible those months she spent alone were. he understands how much she was suffering. he understands what it is like to be that lonely!!!! obviously the relationship is mutual in other ways but i'm having difficulty putting words to how. what kano does for kairi.
but maybe it's just about mutually bullying each other to be better people. kairi, because she knows shad can be a good person - she saw it, before anyone else did, saw what he was like when unrestrained by any definitions imposed upon him. and shad, because he knows a lot of kairi's kneejerk bitterness comes from a place that he understands better than anyone else really can. and also he likes her. and wants to be good to her like she was good to him.
i think. im at the end of my thing
but 1) shadkai drives me freaking bonkers
2) sometimes a polycule can be you, your boyfriend, and the girl you're both platonically dating
shadkai :)
oh yeah art. i do not have a lot of art of They but i have two very good ones
kairi voice do it for the vine
also this one which 1) they're matching :)
2) n sora doodle to kano's left which makes it look like kairi's teasing him about his crush. ideal.
LAST ONE. BECAUSE I LIKE THEM.
anyway i simply think that They. thank you for your time
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