#title lore

Title Origin for Tell Me verse:

Focused on the title of the first fic, "Tell Me that I'm Real."

That title comes from the lyrics of 'I've been looking for somebody/to tell me that I'm real' from the song "Wanted" by OneRepublic, which came out as a song when I was first writing Tell Me and really inspired me for what I wanted the fic to be about.

Which is, a Self-Insert that was deeply connected to the characters of the story of Kingdom Hearts, whose existence would by nature change that story.

Because Ruse is a Riku Replica, and Riku Replica is always struggling with being considered real by everyone else around them. Ruse wants to be real, but at the same time struggles with that for herself because she knows she doesn't fit, doesn't belong to this story.

The music video of "Wanted," the strings variation on it, also inspired me to make Ruse more music and dance focused when it came to her fighting. Mostly because that video has ballet dancers in it and there's some meta out there about how Riku fights kind of like a ballet dancer and how Aqua definitely takes after one in her movement.

"Tell Me that I'm Real" was the first actually cohesive Self-Insert I really wrote, and I'd like to think I did a pretty good job with it.

Title Origin for 'seeing eyes fare in the dark':

Okay, this one is also a lyric riff, off of 'see the eyes fare in the dark/as they glow' from "White Nights" by Oh Land.

Music video is very trippy, the song very much seems to be about dreams, both of those suit Radiant Nightmare who is of Dreams and lives in them.

I focused on the mention of 'eyes in the dark' because I knew I wanted it be to focused on Sylver's Fear of being trapped in Pontos' Abyss, as a mechanism for another Nightmare (in the shape of Radiant Nightmare) to slip through.

How would Imu's cuteness aggression attack over Dragon even look?

can I ask the meaning of the names of the au's Back to Garden and Older than Despair?

Well, someone needs to repair those clawmarks in the walls and furniture. Imu is simply too dignified to let that show visibly otherwise.

Title Origin for Back to the Garden:

Well, I admit to listening to "the fruits" by Paris Paloma at the time, which is a very Dragon x Imu coded song for me. Lot of Christian religious imagery in it, and in that mythology, the Garden of Eden is seen as a place of innocence.

And aren't younger people usually seen as more innocent than their elders? Couldn't deaging be a way to become more innocent, or to, ahem, go back to the Garden of Eden?

Title Origin for Older than Despair:

Fuck Gaiman and all that, but the imagery of the 'oldest game' that Dream plays in The Sandman comic series has stuck with me alongside the imagery of Pandora's Box overall.

That what wins the game isn't despair, what's at the bottom of Pandora's Box isn't the world's evils. It's hope.

Whatever Ginny and Dragon go through, whatever terrible things await them, the root of this AU is HOPE.

Title effects are kinda like compulsions, huh? I didn't think about it like that...

Anyways yeah! Hero has them too! The Hero is a title just like The Dark Lord is :)

In our title lore, those are both part of a power scale of sorts. A handful of titles that have similar traits, but with varying levels of strength and slightly different effects. The Hero is the level under The Chosen One on one side of the scale. The equivalent under The Dark Lord would be The Villain!

The scale is sorta based on traits, tropes and stereotypes typical of those titles in media. Heroes and Chosen Ones, along with Protagonists (the lowest level of the scale as of right now), generally speaking, tend to be heroic types that oppose injustice and protect other stick figures. They have a strong sense of morality, and are usually very self assured and determined to achieve their goals.

Hero themselves is effected by their title a lot more than Lord is, for a few different reasons. One reason being that they're much physically younger and less experienced. Their title is kinda all they have to inform their personality and worldview, whereas Lord, being a full grown adult, has more (simulated) life experience to draw from.

As of now though, they've got some vibes of a little kid's cartoon hero more than anything. They've got the sense of justice, but they can't practically apply it all that much as of now. They're probably prone to bringing home injured animals they found outside and begging Lord to let them keep them and take care of them. If they saw another kid being bullied, they'd come to their aid, even if they had no chance against the bully in question. Things like that.