Rar plays Birth By Sleep (FM)

Two non-chapter commentaries in a row? No waaayyyy

Update wise:

Nothing's Fair Rewrite is going smooth....ly. It could be going better, I suppose, but I've got 20 chapters, 42k words, and am probably 2/3 of the way done, or somewhere in there.

As for All that Remains, part 1 of my favorite sequence is up and underway---can't say when the next one will be posted, seeing as me and magik have to post at roughly the same time, but I promise!! It's coming.

((It's being delayed largely because magik is moving again and may not have a lot of time to update for a little bit.))

Maybe I'll try and get some ASAS stuff done, like I promised when we went on "hiatus"---that, or I really need to get more character profiles up *cough*


If you missed the last post on here, be sure to check it out! Trust me!

Now, have a Terra mix I'm pretty proud of, and then we'll talk Birth by Sleep!

strong as earth from rarmaster on 8tracks Radio.

(tracklist) (art source) (inspired by this Terra mix, and this one)


You can get a full playthrough of BBS on my tumblr, here, but I'll cover the highlights below!



My mom watched pretty much the full thing, which was really nice!! Birth By Sleep is high up on my favorite KH game list, and it's nice to not have it "vaguely explained thing I play on my PSP" to her aymore

She also had some funny (and/or deep) commentary, and while I couldn't possibly cover all of it, here is some I remember

• when fighting Terranort (as Terra) it sounded like he was saying "churro!" which descended into a "HE'S ONLY ANGRY BECAUSE HE WANTS A CHURRO" sorta thing
• She was Really Into Terra and Aqua's stories, and avidly watched me beat the game!!
• She's not fond of Xehanort which, yanno, is a good thing

WELL OKAY THAT WASN'T A LOT BUT

Having her watch me play was a Really Nice experience, and I'm glad I got to share it with her. 

My little sister also started up Birth By Sleep, and has gotten pretty far!! The only reason she hasn't gotten farther is we were doing Aqua at the same time and having her finish a world literally right before I did was..... not..... fun.....

Some semi-FtPverse related things!

(aka "things I had declared FtPverse canon which turned out to be KH canon that I didn't remember")

• Ven can fly! And no, not just in Neverland! He can earn the "Superglide" ability which is, basically, everything-but-flying 

((He surrounds himself w/ wind and glides all over the place, the only thing he can't do is change his height while "flying"))

And, while, this isn't immediately relevant to FtPverse at the moment, I'm very glad to have discovered it!! I was going to play up Ven's wind-affinity more, and knowing that flight is actually canon and not something I'm pulling because I feel like that is really nice!
(don't get me wrong, I would've done it anyway when it came down to it, but knowing my word alone isn't the only thing backing it is nice)

• Sensing light/darkness levels in a person is A Thing, and Aqua is quite adept at it!

Tbh, I'm pretty sure I was aware of this before now, but it was very nice to be playing Aqua's story and have her do it at every other turn. It was also nice that Ven and Terra seem incapable of it.

(And that Eraqus and Mickey are capable of it---though I'd still like to think Aqua's is an innate ability and Eraqus's Mickey's come from years of training. Yen Sid and Xehanort probably have the ability for similar reasons.)

A highlight was definitely at the end of Neverland when Aqua does a full 180 and is like "I SENSE DARKNESS, TIME TO FIGHT IT"

Also, while this is less canon and more implied, I'd been writing Aqua with the ability to sense magic cast previously in an area (varying on how strong and how recent the magic was), and it seems fairly plausible. Or, that is, she sees Riku and is like "someone passed the Keyblade to him".

• This isn't related to FtPverse, but is a fun theory: Aka, "Terra can see the future/through time/is clairvoyant"

While the most referenced example of this is when he's talking to Riku and Riku goes *poof* YMX *poof* teen Riku

It also happens when he first visits the Badlands--he sees a couple flashes of their final battle in the Keyblade Graveyard against Xehanort

I also speculated that, perhaps, it's feelings more than images for him (translated into images so us players will understand), which make the "visions" harder to make sense of

And, perhaps it only happens the first time he comes in contact with someone/someplace/something, which is why it never came up frequently enough for him to try and master (I mean, he rarely left the Land of Departure, after all)

Some people have chalked this up to "time travel bs", but I'd like to think it's just him being clairvoyant. Perhaps it was his clairvoyance that made Eraqus choose him to be a Keyblade Wielder (though that doesn't explain why he never mastered it), and perhaps it was Aqua's innate ability to sense light/darkness/magic that made her a candidate

"What about Ven??" Xehanort wanted him to create the X-blade. That's it. That's all.

Anyway, now I'm gonna talk about the Secret Episode and wrap this up, so if you don't want "spoilers" for the Secret Episode, don't continue reading, I guess!

The Secret Episode was really fun!! It wasn't much more than "Aqua fights a near continuous stream of Heartless", but it was really fun!!!

The final boss wasn't that hard, either! I forget the thing's name, but I killed it in one try! (Heartless beforehand dropping a shitton of EXP might have done it, I went up ten levels at least.)

Also of note: the Secret Episode starts with "CONGRATULATIONS HAVE A MAP" the moment gameplay starts and it. makes me laugh.

Who drew a map of the Realm of Darkness??

Did Aqua draw it?

Please consider.