Day / Ventus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unionoftheheart) wrote2011-11-13 01:33 pm
unionoftheheart) wrote2011-11-13 01:33 pm
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[OOC] Heart game write up!
So A Heart Happened
This is going to be a...partial writeup, I suppose. Juuust in case I ever run this heart again, which I would kind of love to with edits and updates if I have a chance, but yeah. There'll be a lot of "there was this thing that did stuff :3" just in case. (Also if I ever run this again, the first thing I am going to change is to bold every examinable/important area/item in each description.) But I'll explain most things that were actually seen/touched/etcetera.
OH AND OF COURSE this is just Ven's side! I was running some of Roxas' side of things, because I had the docs and all her notes and she was zonked, but. That's her write-up, not mine. :D
There were, overall, relatively few changes made in this heartgame, but those that were made were large and positive. This...wasn't a heart where you could make major changes simply by touching stuff. Moving items around could have various effects, some potentially hilarious, but with the exception of glass pieces, which were part of a major put-things-in-the-thing puzzle, none of that happened, so. Ven is somewhat resilient, very open, and likes sharing stuff! So touching things is usually like "yup, you felt that part of me, wheeee" in terms of effect. And there are some cases where I thought at first nothing happened, because it didn't fit in with my "okay A changes if somebody does B" plans, but once I went to do the writeup I was like, yeah, that might've done a bit of C.
There was a pretty obvious major puzzle! Pieces of glass, broken stained glass window. :D Some of you may have noticed that there were pieces of glass on Roxas' side too, and that will be fushigi mysteryyyyyy. Obviously, though, round green glass pieces with fleur-de-lis had the potential to restore Ven's access to the memories he lost during Vanitas' creation. (There's another way to do that too, but. :x) Which are clearly not gone entirely--Vanitas restored some in canon--but scattered. Putting them back in the platform basically means that at some point (a-assuming mods approve) I will write up a handful of headcanon memories for Ven's childhood (which we know nothing about in canon, to my knowledge) and stick them on his registry. Which is something I'd been debating whether to do for a while, so I figured I'd let the heartgame decide. \:D/ The memory puzzle was kind of pasted on yay at the last minute! Like. Thursday night. In a heart I'd been planning for months. So. Thank you guys for rolling with it!
As far as the other pieces of glass and the Unversed that might appear and drop them, well. :3 Almost any area except the safe home areas (Peridot and the Bedroom) had the potential for Unversed to appear. It only happened once in game because I realized that I can't run a quick combat thread to save my life and I got too distracted with trying to streamline people through what proved to be a very long puzzle. ;; And, y'know, I was being nice to Axel and Saïx and not jumping them with monsters when they were alone. :)
A-AND YES apparently I have no idea how to design a reasonably small heart. I AM SORRY SOB.
Ven's heart is kind of cracked and broken all over the place. Hence the cracks in the walls in every area, which served as universal exits. Going through one of those would basically have sent you tumbling through interspace to somewhere completely random and probably entertaining. Going through with a keyblade gets you the world map, which allows you to directly access some otherwise secret areas, and some other stuff.
Pretty much every area, to one extent or another, was suffused with almost blinding light and warmth. Because, well, heart of pure light! Over the whole of the heart, there were memory-play items for every memory Ven's received in Aather, as well as various threads and events in Aather. He has no privacy. Again, veeery open. One thing I will probably change on rewrite, if I run this again, is having more forced memory plays upon entering areas or so forth, because one of my intents with this heartgame was all the memory sharing, and that didn't happen as much as I'd hoped. But that's neither here nor there.
Ven's heart roughly has two levels, one mostly conscious and one mostly subconscious. Basically if it's a Land of Departure or Aather area, it's conscious, relatively low-trauma, and easily accessible. Keyblade Graveyard and Destiny Islands are the next layer down, and are mostly subconscious, potentially more traumatic, and harder to get to. And then of course the true heart. But we'll get to that later.
Onwards to specific areas!
The Forecourt
So this is the surface area of Ven's heart, what would be the landing point if this was a solo heart (with entrances to Roxas locked) or if people had landed on his side first. It is basically the social nexus, and also leads most places on the upper level. Also it contains the only direct two-way connection to Roxas' heart. There were other doors, but they were all one way. (Which is why you could get to Ven through Roxas' Forest but had to return through the City that Never Was, Riku.) As a general note, the doors in any Land of Departure area were creaky and sticky as a general indication of how comfortable he is talking about that particular issue with people. Going into the Great Hall, which is his ethical conflict issues, the doors are creaky; going back out into the Forecourt, they aren't. That sort of thing.
The Forecourt is his social and interpersonal nexus. The center of it was, of course, the tree covered with Wayfinders, one for each of his friends, each of which gives you a little burst of what he feels for that person. There were...about 80-90 on the tree and a few more scattered in the cracked pavement under the tree...though I only wrote up about thirty in advance. Sob so many. Various things could be done with them. Also the items on the pillars did stuff.
The two smaller trees with crystals flanking the portal dealt with some of his Feelings when it comes to friendship and relationships, and one had the potential to status people with several temporary emotional effects, as Axel and Saïx discovered when they got their Nobody asses stoned off of Ven's capacity for empathy. And then got adorable.
Said derpy Nobodies got some friendship and dere points here. :)
The Great Hall
So the Great Hall is the nexus of ethical conflict, as well as a few other things. The keyblade and practice dummies did things, of course, but the primary function of this area was the two warring NPCs. If people came closer to the fight, they'd notice that inlaid on the floor underneath then was Ven's tattoo: Peridot, the Keyblade, and how to reconcile them. I sort of realized late during the planning/writing process that having an area being almost entirely NPC-driven is maybe kind of dumbbbb but. At that point it was too late to change stuff.
The fight itself can be interrupted if someone physically intervenes--just yelling at them does nothing--at which point they will crankily drift apart and resume other NPC functions. At this particular point, it's difficult to negotiate an actual...ceasefire or anything like that. Ven is aware enough that there are some fundamental differences and that self-sacrifice is unacceptable to Peridot and so forth, so this inner conflict will pretty much always be going on, and Eraqus will pretty much always be hampered and losing. His bonds were actually much looser right now than they'd usually be, because Ven is still a little high off of Beauty's boss game, where he was actually able to make the choice he wanted and do what he perceived to be the right thing.
Eraqus is one of the core NPCs when it comes to Getting Information About Puzzles, and when not fighting he is all solemn and father and Jedi-like, and also rather exhausted. When fighting, he represents Ven's moral compass, which is mildly hampered by Peridot, and the core belief that killing people who don't 100% deserve it is wrong.
Terra has some basic puzzle information, but if he's not fighting, he mostly exists to hang with people, and possibly to appear somewhere as a vengeful defense mechanism if someone destroys something important. When fighting, he represents the willingness to protect loved ones at desperate cost and the idea that some losses are unacceptable.
This area also contains the only direct path between the upper level and the lower level: the portal behind the thrones, once unlocked, leads to the Keyblade Graveyard. It can be unlocked by any keyblade, PC or NPC, and Eraqus is almost guaranteed to unlock it for people if the fight is interrupted.
Josh won some respect and dere points for breaking up the fight and his conversation with Eraqus. Night also got a few during his brief conversation with Terra.
The Corridor
Sooo this was originally a spandrel sort of area that developed interestingly through planning and writing. It contained the Mirror of Perception and the Scales of Uselessness, or whatever you'd want to call them, and was basically the storage space for Ven's day-to-day interpersonal/mundane issues.
Actually looking in the mirror for a long while, without figuring out how to fix it, possibly reinforced his perception that most people think of him as a kid? But that's kind of his baseline to start with, so. Not sure there.
I honestly hadn't thought about what would be visible out the windows until Saïx went and poked his head out, and then I decided it would be cute if he could see Aqua and she could wave them over and talk with them. So that happened.
The Bedroom
This is a place with things in it. :3
The Ring
So while there were various other thingsss in this area, primarily what happened was NPC interaction. Aqua is a guardian knight here--hence the white horse--for there are things in this area that are core and precious to Ven's personality. I basically used her to set people on the memory restoration puzzle relatively (god this game went forever D:) early, since like the other major surface-area NPCs, she's pretty aware of it, though doesn't have as much info as Eraqus.
Josh and Saïx probably won some dere points for being helpers. :)
Peridot
So this was, unfortunately, one of the areas that I didn't plan quite as extensively and didn't make quite as interactive. One of those cases where there are Things that Mean Stuff, but relatively little that was changeable. Because once I realized that I wouldn't have any teammates in game, I figured this area wouldn't even see play.
And then of course it got involved in the last minute memory-restoration madness and Aqua sent people here, so there was a party in Peridot.
Beds were associated with teammates! Most of it should be pretty obvs. Ven's bed contained some memories--the ones that have most affected his opinions of his team relations, basically--and Josh happened to get the worst of them, go him. The hanging sword and axe were thingsss. Lucifer's bed was a broken-down mess because, well, yes. The five beds in between Ven's and Lucifer's each contained an item, symbolizing an aspect of Peridot and Ven's relationship with same, which he associates with that particular teammate. Whisper's bed had the copper heart sculpture: desire for friendship. Cassie the bloody bandages: understanding that Peridots get hurt a lot, if primarily emotionally, and ability to cope with that. Gil had the strawberries: love and nurturing. Lelouch had a sewing kit: learning and understanding. And Beatrice a bottle of wine: fun and adventure. And of course a general sense of devotion and tentative belonging pervades the area, because that's where Ven is on Peridot right now emotionally.
On the issues side: Dirty windows were how dark/dangerous he perceived that person as being in Aather: slightly gray for willing to shank people in games, grayer still for malevolent but contained by understanding that it could upset Peridot (hi Beato), and grayer still for, well, Lucifer. Bloody floors were how much harm/murder that person had caused in the past, to his knowledge. The blood was completely dry because he is honestly past the point of giving much of a crap about that; he's aware of it, it's there, but he's not letting it bother him. The high ceiling and slightly outsized beds were his lingering unease that his team perceives him as a child. The murmuring voices were his sense of being left out and not belonging, but they weren't nearly as frustrating as they would've been before his thread with Lelouch in Goldie's game; again, just kind of there and lingering.
There were a few other thingsss in this area, but yes.
Axel flopping on Whisper's bed probably associated him somewhat with Peridot. Which...honestly, it wouldn't be the worst team for him, I don't think, playercest aside.
The crystal on the door giving a blast of deredot was a completely spur-of-the-moment decision: it was originally just a not-active symbol of the fact that he kind of loves his team right now and is actually starting to feel like he belongs and is accepted. (THANKS, LELOUCH! <3 I honestly would feel more guilty about not building in more ways to affect his team issues, except for the fact that there has been major positive movement in that direction recently. This area would've looked pretty different a while ago.) Buuut I decided to make it a feelings share when Axel poked it, for the lolz, and then that turned into a Thing. At least touching it didn't status you with the phrase "cat party" repeating in your head over and over.I CONSIDERED IT.
Ven's consciousness would normally not be that active during a heartgame; his true heart has only half a stained glass window, after all, and is not all-knowing. But touching him in the warm fuzzy feelings is a very quick way to get his attention in a good way, because Ven runs on warm fuzzy feelings, and some part of him pretty much went here, that's actually just a little piece of it, and warped them to the empathy tree in the Forecourt. Also because OOC I thought it would be entertaining. Good gamerunner decisions, I guess?
And of course there was a memory piece here! Because Peridot is where he regains memories. (Also the shards are Peridot-green, but that's canon, that's the color of that part of his station. :D) It's the only one on the conscious level, and pretty much the easiest to get.
Keyblade Graveyard
So this was the core subconscious area and basically a repository of Bad Shit, but also the gateway to the true heart. Because much as Ven is a generally kind and fluffy person, the people he's very closest to are the people he's bonded with over negative things. Whether growing up training as comrades in arms for a dangerous job, fighting side by side, or hugging out bad memories received in Aather, this kid trauma-bonds like whoa.
The net was a thing full of thingsss. Going out of the canyon took you into the graveyard proper, which was where you could pick up keyblades and access the true heart. Anyone can wield a keyblade in Ven's heart (and I had one picked out for everyone who signed up), which would boost your power, let you unlock trueheart, let you use the world map, and generally be awesome. And, of course, it was also Vanitas' home turf.
Vanitas is the major subconscious NPC and can appear in any area down here except the true heart. He will troll, bossfight, and generally be a major pain in the ass. Yes, Riku and the others saw Vanitas' true face despite the fact that Ven hasn't remembered him being unmasked yet. :x
Changesss...obviously there was Vanitas-shanking! Which netted you a memory shard, for reasons which are pretty obvious if you know canon, and which got major admiration and dere points for all involved, as well as a love of dango because Ferris is special. And probably also an increased sense of safety and security and trust that his friends can handle Vanitas so he doesn't have to die, I belatedly realize while putting the final touches on the write-up, so that's nice. :D Riku's interactions with Vanitas pretty much left Ven with wow Riku is stupid and also a douchebag but mostly stupid, which was then consciously reinforced by Josh telling him about it.
Also, yes, Mickey is the failsafe that prevents people from actually dying in Ven's heart. Ven's heart loves you, yes, you! He just also has a lot of dangerous memories and combat and so forth, which means his heart can be kind of physically brutal (just ask Josh), but he has Mickey to save and heal people for him. This is indiscriminate; if Vanitas had actually made a move on him, rather than thinking he was too funny to kill, Mickey would've saved Riku, and Riku is Ven's least favorite person in Aather right now. But it's Ven, it's not like he wouldn't save Riku from monsters if he wandered by in real life.
Anyone with a keyblade can access trueheart! If people were really derp about that, Mickey would probably have showed up to help. He's perhaps the only NPC with full range through subconscious and conscious domains, as a result of his function as guardian of the heart spelunkers, and he's fairly knowledgeable about stuff.
Major negative CR--essentially Lucifer or Riku, the people Ven doesn't trust as far as he can throw them with his teeth--would've been able to open the heartgate, but rather than falling into the true heart, they would've been shunted through interspace and dropped something random. Unless they had some thingsss. But generally, Ven's true heart is pretty open, and the only key you need is the big one you just pulled out of the ground.
Destiny Islands
This is a very small, simple area that pretty much exists to house an NPC. Well, there's also that lock but whatever. :3
Baby Sora lives here! He is not a psychological construct/figment NPC so much as a tiny scrap of Sora's light, left in Ven from when he rebuilt his heart at birth. Because Sora is so fucking jesus that he saved a guy as an infant, god, KH. Anyway. The other NPCs aren't really aware of him; true heart will be if somebody interacts with him. He is not really aware of his name or identity himself, just that he's a little piece of light left from somebody who healed Ven. (Ven was able to put together that he was Sora from Josh's description + Riku's memory share.)
He's a fairly quiet little piece of himself, and chills around on the island guarding a memory shard. He'll appear to somebody he trusts to put it back where it belongs, and ask very cutely. He might also appear just to say hi and love on people, because throwing tiny cute thing at people is always fun.
And yeah, poor Riku was looking in the wrong heart for Sora all along. YOUR SORA IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE though meeting Roxas' forgiveness figment was honestly much better for him anyway. I would've tried to get him here if he spent more time in Ven's heart, but I didn't have the chance.
Josh won yet more dere points for talking to Sora here, especially since he was already working on the puzzle and didn't need to be talked into it.
The Badlands
This is a place with things in it. 8)
World Map
IT'S A WORLD MAP WHADDYA WANT.
Yup. Simple. Land of Departure lands you in the Forecourt, Aather lands you in the Ring, the other two worlds land you where it says on the tin. Twilight Town is, unsurprisingly, another way back into Roxas. It is also totally okay to zoom around on your glider for a bit going WHEEEEEE that is one of the functions of this area. :) This is not technically part of the conscious or subconscious domains, it's just...there...but I put it down near the bottom because whatever.
The distant worlds are memory shares. Technically that's a spoiler but fuck it.
As mentioned, you access this by going through an interspace crack with a keyblade. Riku could've gotten it from the start, of course, without having to pick one up. (Now I kind of want to see what Way to the Dawn looks like as a keyblade glider. :D)
Also blowing Ryner's mind with this was fun. :D
Station of Awakening - True Heart
Yup, it's a true heart. And the center of the major puzzle in the game. There was a broken platform and holes for glass and it did stuff. :D At end of game, it looked like this.
The doves carried people back up to the Keyblade Graveyard, and loved on you if you paid attention to them IDK. True Heart himself isn't physically present--though he kind of ghosted a bit at the end due to the restoration that was done--and speaks to people in the fushigi mysteryyyy KH typewriter voice, mostly just to love on them, although I let him help locate memory shards. (Mostly because I wanted an excuse to have people meet tiny Sora.) BUT YES: puzzle piece placement, typewriter voice, and ALL THE LOVE AND DERE EVER. What true heart is for. :D Also falling into it gets you a memory share of his dream of first meeting Sora if you haven't seen that memory already, which I belatedly gave to Ryner. >.>
Obviously Josh and Ryner both got dere points for getting here, and Josh got even more for restoring the memory access he did. Three-quarters was honestly more than I expected to happen for a last-minute major puzzle, especially with only one party working on it and a major bossfight to get through. (S-sob running fights.) It will basically mean that in an IC week or two, he'll get a handful of (headcanon) childhood memories on his registry, and probably some more trickling in with time. All four shards would've meant an immediate restoration! Which would've been more work right now for me, so hey. Only one would've been like...he'd get a few back over a long while. Like for me OOC, three-quarters is the best balance because it means I can pad out his registry nicely over time without worrying about making All The Headcanons Right Now.
SO IN CONCLUSION:
+ Childhood memories unlocked at some point soonish!
+100 dere/respect/admiration for Josh, god I love you so much right now.
+50 dere/admiration for Night.
+30 dere/admiration for Ferris.
+20 love of dango.
+20 sense of general safety and security.
+20 trust in friends to take care of Vanitas so I don't have to suicide or die horribly.
+15 dere/friendship for Isa.
+10 dere/friendship for Lea.
+10 wow Riku is so dumb it hurts.
+5 Lea is kind of Peridot maybe.
+5 most people think of me as a kid.
He also got the following consciously from getting the everything-that-happened story from Josh:
+ Wow Roxas and I really are connected.
+ Sora was the one who saved me when I was eleven and I still have a bit of his light inside me.
+ I guess this means Sora is an awesome guy, yay!
+30 dere for Sora.
+10 wow Riku is so dumb it hurts.
QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/WHATEVERS WELCOME! I will gladly c/p Wayfinder descriptions forever. :)
This is going to be a...partial writeup, I suppose. Juuust in case I ever run this heart again, which I would kind of love to with edits and updates if I have a chance, but yeah. There'll be a lot of "there was this thing that did stuff :3" just in case. (Also if I ever run this again, the first thing I am going to change is to bold every examinable/important area/item in each description.) But I'll explain most things that were actually seen/touched/etcetera.
OH AND OF COURSE this is just Ven's side! I was running some of Roxas' side of things, because I had the docs and all her notes and she was zonked, but. That's her write-up, not mine. :D
There were, overall, relatively few changes made in this heartgame, but those that were made were large and positive. This...wasn't a heart where you could make major changes simply by touching stuff. Moving items around could have various effects, some potentially hilarious, but with the exception of glass pieces, which were part of a major put-things-in-the-thing puzzle, none of that happened, so. Ven is somewhat resilient, very open, and likes sharing stuff! So touching things is usually like "yup, you felt that part of me, wheeee" in terms of effect. And there are some cases where I thought at first nothing happened, because it didn't fit in with my "okay A changes if somebody does B" plans, but once I went to do the writeup I was like, yeah, that might've done a bit of C.
There was a pretty obvious major puzzle! Pieces of glass, broken stained glass window. :D Some of you may have noticed that there were pieces of glass on Roxas' side too, and that will be fushigi mysteryyyyyy. Obviously, though, round green glass pieces with fleur-de-lis had the potential to restore Ven's access to the memories he lost during Vanitas' creation. (There's another way to do that too, but. :x) Which are clearly not gone entirely--Vanitas restored some in canon--but scattered. Putting them back in the platform basically means that at some point (a-assuming mods approve) I will write up a handful of headcanon memories for Ven's childhood (which we know nothing about in canon, to my knowledge) and stick them on his registry. Which is something I'd been debating whether to do for a while, so I figured I'd let the heartgame decide. \:D/ The memory puzzle was kind of pasted on yay at the last minute! Like. Thursday night. In a heart I'd been planning for months. So. Thank you guys for rolling with it!
As far as the other pieces of glass and the Unversed that might appear and drop them, well. :3 Almost any area except the safe home areas (Peridot and the Bedroom) had the potential for Unversed to appear. It only happened once in game because I realized that I can't run a quick combat thread to save my life and I got too distracted with trying to streamline people through what proved to be a very long puzzle. ;; And, y'know, I was being nice to Axel and Saïx and not jumping them with monsters when they were alone. :)
A-AND YES apparently I have no idea how to design a reasonably small heart. I AM SORRY SOB.
Ven's heart is kind of cracked and broken all over the place. Hence the cracks in the walls in every area, which served as universal exits. Going through one of those would basically have sent you tumbling through interspace to somewhere completely random and probably entertaining. Going through with a keyblade gets you the world map, which allows you to directly access some otherwise secret areas, and some other stuff.
Pretty much every area, to one extent or another, was suffused with almost blinding light and warmth. Because, well, heart of pure light! Over the whole of the heart, there were memory-play items for every memory Ven's received in Aather, as well as various threads and events in Aather. He has no privacy. Again, veeery open. One thing I will probably change on rewrite, if I run this again, is having more forced memory plays upon entering areas or so forth, because one of my intents with this heartgame was all the memory sharing, and that didn't happen as much as I'd hoped. But that's neither here nor there.
Ven's heart roughly has two levels, one mostly conscious and one mostly subconscious. Basically if it's a Land of Departure or Aather area, it's conscious, relatively low-trauma, and easily accessible. Keyblade Graveyard and Destiny Islands are the next layer down, and are mostly subconscious, potentially more traumatic, and harder to get to. And then of course the true heart. But we'll get to that later.
Onwards to specific areas!
The Forecourt
So this is the surface area of Ven's heart, what would be the landing point if this was a solo heart (with entrances to Roxas locked) or if people had landed on his side first. It is basically the social nexus, and also leads most places on the upper level. Also it contains the only direct two-way connection to Roxas' heart. There were other doors, but they were all one way. (Which is why you could get to Ven through Roxas' Forest but had to return through the City that Never Was, Riku.) As a general note, the doors in any Land of Departure area were creaky and sticky as a general indication of how comfortable he is talking about that particular issue with people. Going into the Great Hall, which is his ethical conflict issues, the doors are creaky; going back out into the Forecourt, they aren't. That sort of thing.
The Forecourt is his social and interpersonal nexus. The center of it was, of course, the tree covered with Wayfinders, one for each of his friends, each of which gives you a little burst of what he feels for that person. There were...about 80-90 on the tree and a few more scattered in the cracked pavement under the tree...though I only wrote up about thirty in advance. Sob so many. Various things could be done with them. Also the items on the pillars did stuff.
The two smaller trees with crystals flanking the portal dealt with some of his Feelings when it comes to friendship and relationships, and one had the potential to status people with several temporary emotional effects, as Axel and Saïx discovered when they got their Nobody asses stoned off of Ven's capacity for empathy. And then got adorable.
Said derpy Nobodies got some friendship and dere points here. :)
The Great Hall
So the Great Hall is the nexus of ethical conflict, as well as a few other things. The keyblade and practice dummies did things, of course, but the primary function of this area was the two warring NPCs. If people came closer to the fight, they'd notice that inlaid on the floor underneath then was Ven's tattoo: Peridot, the Keyblade, and how to reconcile them. I sort of realized late during the planning/writing process that having an area being almost entirely NPC-driven is maybe kind of dumbbbb but. At that point it was too late to change stuff.
The fight itself can be interrupted if someone physically intervenes--just yelling at them does nothing--at which point they will crankily drift apart and resume other NPC functions. At this particular point, it's difficult to negotiate an actual...ceasefire or anything like that. Ven is aware enough that there are some fundamental differences and that self-sacrifice is unacceptable to Peridot and so forth, so this inner conflict will pretty much always be going on, and Eraqus will pretty much always be hampered and losing. His bonds were actually much looser right now than they'd usually be, because Ven is still a little high off of Beauty's boss game, where he was actually able to make the choice he wanted and do what he perceived to be the right thing.
Eraqus is one of the core NPCs when it comes to Getting Information About Puzzles, and when not fighting he is all solemn and father and Jedi-like, and also rather exhausted. When fighting, he represents Ven's moral compass, which is mildly hampered by Peridot, and the core belief that killing people who don't 100% deserve it is wrong.
Terra has some basic puzzle information, but if he's not fighting, he mostly exists to hang with people, and possibly to appear somewhere as a vengeful defense mechanism if someone destroys something important. When fighting, he represents the willingness to protect loved ones at desperate cost and the idea that some losses are unacceptable.
This area also contains the only direct path between the upper level and the lower level: the portal behind the thrones, once unlocked, leads to the Keyblade Graveyard. It can be unlocked by any keyblade, PC or NPC, and Eraqus is almost guaranteed to unlock it for people if the fight is interrupted.
Josh won some respect and dere points for breaking up the fight and his conversation with Eraqus. Night also got a few during his brief conversation with Terra.
The Corridor
Sooo this was originally a spandrel sort of area that developed interestingly through planning and writing. It contained the Mirror of Perception and the Scales of Uselessness, or whatever you'd want to call them, and was basically the storage space for Ven's day-to-day interpersonal/mundane issues.
Actually looking in the mirror for a long while, without figuring out how to fix it, possibly reinforced his perception that most people think of him as a kid? But that's kind of his baseline to start with, so. Not sure there.
I honestly hadn't thought about what would be visible out the windows until Saïx went and poked his head out, and then I decided it would be cute if he could see Aqua and she could wave them over and talk with them. So that happened.
The Bedroom
This is a place with things in it. :3
The Ring
So while there were various other thingsss in this area, primarily what happened was NPC interaction. Aqua is a guardian knight here--hence the white horse--for there are things in this area that are core and precious to Ven's personality. I basically used her to set people on the memory restoration puzzle relatively (god this game went forever D:) early, since like the other major surface-area NPCs, she's pretty aware of it, though doesn't have as much info as Eraqus.
Josh and Saïx probably won some dere points for being helpers. :)
Peridot
So this was, unfortunately, one of the areas that I didn't plan quite as extensively and didn't make quite as interactive. One of those cases where there are Things that Mean Stuff, but relatively little that was changeable. Because once I realized that I wouldn't have any teammates in game, I figured this area wouldn't even see play.
And then of course it got involved in the last minute memory-restoration madness and Aqua sent people here, so there was a party in Peridot.
Beds were associated with teammates! Most of it should be pretty obvs. Ven's bed contained some memories--the ones that have most affected his opinions of his team relations, basically--and Josh happened to get the worst of them, go him. The hanging sword and axe were thingsss. Lucifer's bed was a broken-down mess because, well, yes. The five beds in between Ven's and Lucifer's each contained an item, symbolizing an aspect of Peridot and Ven's relationship with same, which he associates with that particular teammate. Whisper's bed had the copper heart sculpture: desire for friendship. Cassie the bloody bandages: understanding that Peridots get hurt a lot, if primarily emotionally, and ability to cope with that. Gil had the strawberries: love and nurturing. Lelouch had a sewing kit: learning and understanding. And Beatrice a bottle of wine: fun and adventure. And of course a general sense of devotion and tentative belonging pervades the area, because that's where Ven is on Peridot right now emotionally.
On the issues side: Dirty windows were how dark/dangerous he perceived that person as being in Aather: slightly gray for willing to shank people in games, grayer still for malevolent but contained by understanding that it could upset Peridot (hi Beato), and grayer still for, well, Lucifer. Bloody floors were how much harm/murder that person had caused in the past, to his knowledge. The blood was completely dry because he is honestly past the point of giving much of a crap about that; he's aware of it, it's there, but he's not letting it bother him. The high ceiling and slightly outsized beds were his lingering unease that his team perceives him as a child. The murmuring voices were his sense of being left out and not belonging, but they weren't nearly as frustrating as they would've been before his thread with Lelouch in Goldie's game; again, just kind of there and lingering.
There were a few other thingsss in this area, but yes.
Axel flopping on Whisper's bed probably associated him somewhat with Peridot. Which...honestly, it wouldn't be the worst team for him, I don't think, playercest aside.
The crystal on the door giving a blast of deredot was a completely spur-of-the-moment decision: it was originally just a not-active symbol of the fact that he kind of loves his team right now and is actually starting to feel like he belongs and is accepted. (THANKS, LELOUCH! <3 I honestly would feel more guilty about not building in more ways to affect his team issues, except for the fact that there has been major positive movement in that direction recently. This area would've looked pretty different a while ago.) Buuut I decided to make it a feelings share when Axel poked it, for the lolz, and then that turned into a Thing. At least touching it didn't status you with the phrase "cat party" repeating in your head over and over.
Ven's consciousness would normally not be that active during a heartgame; his true heart has only half a stained glass window, after all, and is not all-knowing. But touching him in the warm fuzzy feelings is a very quick way to get his attention in a good way, because Ven runs on warm fuzzy feelings, and some part of him pretty much went here, that's actually just a little piece of it, and warped them to the empathy tree in the Forecourt. Also because OOC I thought it would be entertaining. Good gamerunner decisions, I guess?
And of course there was a memory piece here! Because Peridot is where he regains memories. (Also the shards are Peridot-green, but that's canon, that's the color of that part of his station. :D) It's the only one on the conscious level, and pretty much the easiest to get.
Keyblade Graveyard
So this was the core subconscious area and basically a repository of Bad Shit, but also the gateway to the true heart. Because much as Ven is a generally kind and fluffy person, the people he's very closest to are the people he's bonded with over negative things. Whether growing up training as comrades in arms for a dangerous job, fighting side by side, or hugging out bad memories received in Aather, this kid trauma-bonds like whoa.
The net was a thing full of thingsss. Going out of the canyon took you into the graveyard proper, which was where you could pick up keyblades and access the true heart. Anyone can wield a keyblade in Ven's heart (and I had one picked out for everyone who signed up), which would boost your power, let you unlock trueheart, let you use the world map, and generally be awesome. And, of course, it was also Vanitas' home turf.
Vanitas is the major subconscious NPC and can appear in any area down here except the true heart. He will troll, bossfight, and generally be a major pain in the ass. Yes, Riku and the others saw Vanitas' true face despite the fact that Ven hasn't remembered him being unmasked yet. :x
Changesss...obviously there was Vanitas-shanking! Which netted you a memory shard, for reasons which are pretty obvious if you know canon, and which got major admiration and dere points for all involved, as well as a love of dango because Ferris is special. And probably also an increased sense of safety and security and trust that his friends can handle Vanitas so he doesn't have to die, I belatedly realize while putting the final touches on the write-up, so that's nice. :D Riku's interactions with Vanitas pretty much left Ven with wow Riku is stupid and also a douchebag but mostly stupid, which was then consciously reinforced by Josh telling him about it.
Also, yes, Mickey is the failsafe that prevents people from actually dying in Ven's heart. Ven's heart loves you, yes, you! He just also has a lot of dangerous memories and combat and so forth, which means his heart can be kind of physically brutal (just ask Josh), but he has Mickey to save and heal people for him. This is indiscriminate; if Vanitas had actually made a move on him, rather than thinking he was too funny to kill, Mickey would've saved Riku, and Riku is Ven's least favorite person in Aather right now. But it's Ven, it's not like he wouldn't save Riku from monsters if he wandered by in real life.
Anyone with a keyblade can access trueheart! If people were really derp about that, Mickey would probably have showed up to help. He's perhaps the only NPC with full range through subconscious and conscious domains, as a result of his function as guardian of the heart spelunkers, and he's fairly knowledgeable about stuff.
Major negative CR--essentially Lucifer or Riku, the people Ven doesn't trust as far as he can throw them with his teeth--would've been able to open the heartgate, but rather than falling into the true heart, they would've been shunted through interspace and dropped something random. Unless they had some thingsss. But generally, Ven's true heart is pretty open, and the only key you need is the big one you just pulled out of the ground.
Destiny Islands
This is a very small, simple area that pretty much exists to house an NPC. Well, there's also that lock but whatever. :3
Baby Sora lives here! He is not a psychological construct/figment NPC so much as a tiny scrap of Sora's light, left in Ven from when he rebuilt his heart at birth. Because Sora is so fucking jesus that he saved a guy as an infant, god, KH. Anyway. The other NPCs aren't really aware of him; true heart will be if somebody interacts with him. He is not really aware of his name or identity himself, just that he's a little piece of light left from somebody who healed Ven. (Ven was able to put together that he was Sora from Josh's description + Riku's memory share.)
He's a fairly quiet little piece of himself, and chills around on the island guarding a memory shard. He'll appear to somebody he trusts to put it back where it belongs, and ask very cutely. He might also appear just to say hi and love on people, because throwing tiny cute thing at people is always fun.
And yeah, poor Riku was looking in the wrong heart for Sora all along. YOUR SORA IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE though meeting Roxas' forgiveness figment was honestly much better for him anyway. I would've tried to get him here if he spent more time in Ven's heart, but I didn't have the chance.
Josh won yet more dere points for talking to Sora here, especially since he was already working on the puzzle and didn't need to be talked into it.
The Badlands
This is a place with things in it. 8)
World Map
IT'S A WORLD MAP WHADDYA WANT.
Yup. Simple. Land of Departure lands you in the Forecourt, Aather lands you in the Ring, the other two worlds land you where it says on the tin. Twilight Town is, unsurprisingly, another way back into Roxas. It is also totally okay to zoom around on your glider for a bit going WHEEEEEE that is one of the functions of this area. :) This is not technically part of the conscious or subconscious domains, it's just...there...but I put it down near the bottom because whatever.
The distant worlds are memory shares. Technically that's a spoiler but fuck it.
As mentioned, you access this by going through an interspace crack with a keyblade. Riku could've gotten it from the start, of course, without having to pick one up. (Now I kind of want to see what Way to the Dawn looks like as a keyblade glider. :D)
Also blowing Ryner's mind with this was fun. :D
Station of Awakening - True Heart
Yup, it's a true heart. And the center of the major puzzle in the game. There was a broken platform and holes for glass and it did stuff. :D At end of game, it looked like this.
The doves carried people back up to the Keyblade Graveyard, and loved on you if you paid attention to them IDK. True Heart himself isn't physically present--though he kind of ghosted a bit at the end due to the restoration that was done--and speaks to people in the fushigi mysteryyyy KH typewriter voice, mostly just to love on them, although I let him help locate memory shards. (Mostly because I wanted an excuse to have people meet tiny Sora.) BUT YES: puzzle piece placement, typewriter voice, and ALL THE LOVE AND DERE EVER. What true heart is for. :D Also falling into it gets you a memory share of his dream of first meeting Sora if you haven't seen that memory already, which I belatedly gave to Ryner. >.>
Obviously Josh and Ryner both got dere points for getting here, and Josh got even more for restoring the memory access he did. Three-quarters was honestly more than I expected to happen for a last-minute major puzzle, especially with only one party working on it and a major bossfight to get through. (S-sob running fights.) It will basically mean that in an IC week or two, he'll get a handful of (headcanon) childhood memories on his registry, and probably some more trickling in with time. All four shards would've meant an immediate restoration! Which would've been more work right now for me, so hey. Only one would've been like...he'd get a few back over a long while. Like for me OOC, three-quarters is the best balance because it means I can pad out his registry nicely over time without worrying about making All The Headcanons Right Now.
SO IN CONCLUSION:
+ Childhood memories unlocked at some point soonish!
+100 dere/respect/admiration for Josh, god I love you so much right now.
+50 dere/admiration for Night.
+30 dere/admiration for Ferris.
+20 love of dango.
+20 sense of general safety and security.
+20 trust in friends to take care of Vanitas so I don't have to suicide or die horribly.
+15 dere/friendship for Isa.
+10 dere/friendship for Lea.
+10 wow Riku is so dumb it hurts.
+5 Lea is kind of Peridot maybe.
+5 most people think of me as a kid.
He also got the following consciously from getting the everything-that-happened story from Josh:
+ Wow Roxas and I really are connected.
+ Sora was the one who saved me when I was eleven and I still have a bit of his light inside me.
+ I guess this means Sora is an awesome guy, yay!
+30 dere for Sora.
+10 wow Riku is so dumb it hurts.
QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/WHATEVERS WELCOME! I will gladly c/p Wayfinder descriptions forever. :)
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(Ven picked up a bunch of reciprocal dere points with Josh for just...existing and having his heart the way he does, especially in the true heart. So much love for boyfriend.)
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Josh's Wayfinder lives very, very high up on the tree. Large, shimmering orange metal that seems to be almost alive, on a Tiger's Eye ribbon. This charm glows with a warm, pinkish light. You feel almost overwhelming love, trust, and companionship, along with utter comfort and a tingling sense of adventure.
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....awwww.
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<333
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We were talking in TEchan about how Ferris could be overwhelmed with potential teasing material if three or more people brought SOs home.
<333
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...except then teasing would take second place to the catfight between Ven and Riku. Sigh.
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Clearly Lark needs to have Zack over so she can sleep in his hair, and would that actually cover all of TE besides Ferris? Then we can get enough people without bringing RIku into it. :P
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<3
...mmm, personal satisfaction. :D
Did getting the visceral memory share of the Terra and Eraqus Incident change his view of those events at all? EXCUSE ME WHILE I PELT YOU WITH QUESTIONS BUT I am always curious. :)
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It...didn't really? I mean, he already kind of had Ven's perspective on it, so even though experiencing it was kind of painful it just kind of confirmed for him that, god, if they had just TALKED TO EACH OTHER...yeah. Mostly it made him want to give Ven more hugs. And it influenced his decision to stop the fight in the next section, because, seriously, guys. Quit that.
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...I am kind of stupidly tempted to send you the descrips for the unvisited areas even though I want to run again.
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...where by party we mean people clinging to each other and Ferris mocking us all.
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To be fair, Raven tied him to a chair.
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...c-clearly I need to jump that post when I am not typing on my phone while dealing with beaurocracy.
Peridot may seem like the most BDSM team but honestly, TE may take the cake in that department. I guess we can blame Ferris.
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And Mitchell, he was the one who got us started on the tying-people-to-chairs thing.
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...and yeah, Mitchell gets his share of blame. To be fair, Ven might need a stint in the cooldown chair when he gets certain signegs (which I have now unlocked)...
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