False Bounty 
♫ Struggle Away ♫"Precious? Spare me! Ten seconds ago you didn't even know what it was!"
False Bounty
Welcome to the False Bounty. Here you will find my dearly beloved Kingdom Hearts scraps, as mentioned on both the Calm Bounty and Guarded Trove pages. The same philosophies and general 'unfinished' qualities apply here too. This page also includes Twittersonas relevant to others in the Kingdom Hearts fandom I am either friends with, was friends with, or was mutuals with/knew to some degree. They will not be named here. The content notice from the Entrance Hall applies somewhat. There is mild nudity, various ships, some innuendo and implications, sad stuff, mild body horror, and sexy outfits! Unless otherwise stated, the character is most aligned with whatever gender they were presented as having in canon. This applies regardless of the shape of their bodies, what genitalia they have, the presence of breasts, et cetera.
Please note that you need to click on an image in order to see the full version. This will open it in a new tab.
You can can also view select art at the Calm Bounty, although you probably viewed that first, and my more sexual, kinky, violent, and/or 'dark' pieces over at the Guarded Trove, although you probably viewed that second.
All art pages were initially sorted by update, with the most recently updated images at the top. However, once an image has been uploaded, it will remain in whatever position it is currently in, regardless of whether or not it is updated. All images instead have titles in their descriptions to make them easier to search for. New images will follow this rule: initially added in order of their most recent update when compared to other images being uploaded alongside them, then remaining in place even if they are updated.
All that said, have fun looking, and if you're not please do remember that the back button is always there to shut the door on what was bothering you! (Bottoms up; there's another typo!)
A friend made a typo regarding Sora which resulted in this image. It's lazy and rushed, and I experimented with a handful of things while making it. I haven't really been drawing much the past year or so. Also, I seem to struggle with chibis. I hope some measure of cuteness flows through anyway.
Silver didn't actually talk about anything, in the end. He self-censors a lot when it comes to personal things. He's sort of glad he didn't talk about the stuff he was going to talk about, really... Maybe I'll find someone other than myself to talk to about this stuff. (Please don't suggest therapy; for multiple reasons, do not do that). Still, it's a cute little replicanon for the art page!
The sketch variant! I also like it. The cuteness remains regardless of whether I add color to it or not. I love their silly expressions and the overall feeling of the piece. Axel's too-long limbs please me also. He should be a bit strange.
I like to draw Axel a little concave. This was meant to be a version of him from my 2000s High School AU. He plays with his lighter when he's stressed out and anxious. In the original draft I didn't have him smoking, but I wonder if I should?
Again, the pronoun is correct. I did a couple of transmasculine Kairis at once, if you've seen the one on the main page. As before, I wanted to imagine the conflict between his gender in this context, his desires, outside expectations, and his various feelings about the many aspects of his 'function'.
One day I hope I write the story this image is based on. A moudly, sweaty fic that has a film of grime over it. I really like Larxene and Naminé and think it would be fun to write a relationship full of suffering and strange interest between them. Other characters also involved.
I understand from a developer's angle why the Dream Eater-Riku links were a bit boring, but I wish we had more magical and interesting transformations for him. Also, I am a pervert. We must never forget how much that motivates me, haha. But I think him and the Dream Eaters merging with each other more fully would have been super cool...or cute, or sexy.
Part of the challenge of this page was occasionally including pictures that have absolutely nothing going on and never will. This picture of Riku crouching was meant to be something, but I just...never went anywhere with it. So while I have deleted a couple of nothing doodles, I've decided to keep this one up here. A picture of nothing going on at all, very unfinished.
These are 'twittersonas', although in the case of mine (the tiny guy on our right) he just became a standarized avatar. I really am a short person, and the individual the Leon-esque person is based on is quite tall. We're cute, I think.
The canon interactions between the original Riku and Repliku are few, and range from deeply violent to a melancholy sweet. I really like the idea of them together and comforting each other. I think there is affection best shared between them. I love their sadness and their bond.
I enjoy a bit of Left 4 Dead 2 now and then, and eventually I crossed it over with KH. I like to engage with a more emotional side of the zombie experience, so it fits well enough. For the curious, the Survivors are: Kairi, Repliku, Xion, and Ven. The Special Infected are Boomer!Sora, Hunter!Riku, Witch!Naminé, Smoker!Axel (pictured here :D), Jockey!Vanitas, and then I can never remember who’s the Charger and who’s the Tank between Roxas and Terra.
This one is obviously very unfinished, but I’m also quite fond of it. I like the colors and the general feeling. I’m not cozy-oriented, yet there is a pleasant feeling here. I do wish I’d done a little better with Kairi’s slumped-on-a-beanie body, though. Funnily enough, I think this picture used to be flipped, but I got so used to it this way around that I can't imagine it mirrored.
The brief flashes of the relationship between the original Riku and the Riku Replica are moving to me, even if it includes one of the most memed on scenes in all KH. I love the idea of them together and comforting each other. They’re my favorite characters in the series, after all. They’re sad, but cute.
There isn’t too much to say for this one. We’ve just got some more sad Rikus and Replikus. I think the colors are pretty; it’s nice to work with blues and purples. Are there any colors that are bad to work with, though? I don’t think so. Riku and Repliku would look lovely and sad regardless.
I wish I hadn’t messed up Sora’s chin [ETA: made very minor edit] otherwise I probably would have put this in the Calm Bounty. Such a tricky angle! ‘Male’ school uniforms show up in Re:Coded and UX, which annoys me, because I love the idea of the skirt as unisex. It feels appropriate for a tropical place especially, and I think I managed to capture the feeling of it being casual clothing here. I like the emotions I captured between the Destiny + Beach Brawl trios too!
The nicer version of this is on the main page, but I’m still attached to aspects of the sketch that I wanted to post it too. There’s a bit more distance, a ghostly wispyness to her here. I like that a lot for her. She has the feeling of a morning fog.
I was very fortunate to receive a hand-me-down art tablet around this time, one of the sort I could never afford under other circumstances. The first thing I doodled was this Riku, which isn’t super impressive, but leaves me feeling fond nonetheless. He’s probably looking at Sora, but it could be anyone who thinks he’s beautiful. There’s a wistfulness…
I enjoy Axel, but don’t draw him enough. He’s surprisingly tricky to capture, although I think if I leaned into more dramatic angles, sharpness, and concave qualities I could create my own version. I think the bodies I draw are softer, so I have to be more ‘harsh’ if I want to draw Axel in my own style. His smile here is sweet, though, even with its smirking quality.
My third, and at this time final, attempt to draw a Kingdom Hearts avatar. I mostly abandoned the curls and instead gave him a Sora-like design. For reasons, this works better. I think there’s the barest hint of heart iconography in the very middle bangs. The painted quality allowed me to better capture his crystal body and sheer clothes. He’s actually quite a sad guy, and far more manipulative than expected due to his objectifying circumstances.
.jpg "this one is a little closer to what i wanted for the character but a bit too young and bit too cute, maybe even a little bland if i'm honest, but i also care about him")
My second go at the Kingdom Hearts avatar. Again, there’s the attempt to capture heart iconography in the curls. I think he looks too young here, although the cuteness is more what I was after. Because this one isn’t a painting, the crystalline body and the sheer dress are lost. He’s also far too cheerful.
This is partially inspired by one particular Japanese artist who depicted Sora and Roxas as conjoined twins a few times. I really liked the concept, and wanted to doodle it. I wanted to depict them as being affectionate with each other. I wasn't especially satisfied with the end result, but that's okay. I still like the idea.
I always enjoy thinking about Sora, Riku, and Kairi’s lives on Destiny Island. It’s fun to contemplate, especially since I adore the Islands themselves. Definitely one of my favorite worlds. I was trying to come up with intermediate designs for the trio; something between their teeny-tiny and teenage looks.
I’m not sure how I feel about the previous lineart versus the sketch, so both are included. The lineart is unfinished, and feels a bit odd in places, but there are elements I like. The sketch feels cohesive, albeit that’s partially just because it’s ‘finished’. I suppose it doesn’t matter so much, since you have both!
This is from a very specific AU of mine in which Riku gets pregnant after escaping a version of Destiny Islands (Ansem SoD’s the father). Axel and Terra are his neighbors in a poor apartment complex (both dealing with extremely painful circumstances, at least one of them also transmasc). It feels hot and grimy, but also they’re a trio that care about each other a lot. I like their companionship. The picture doesn’t have much going on, though.
This was a gift for a friend to cheer them on, featuring little avatars of us (they were originally twittersonas)! I wanted to capture things they like—the color orange, Sora, Vivi, traditional art, especially watercolors, cuteness—and create something to lift their spirits. I dunno how effective it was, but I think it’s a fun picture of us anyway.
Technically an OC, and technically not an OC. This was my first crack at an avatar for Kingdom Hearts itself. I use he/they/it for them. Originally I wanted heart iconography, and was trying to capture that in the hair curls. It didn’t really work out, and I’m mostly unhappy with this look. He’s also meant to look a little younger.
Repliku is always breaking. I think I wanted to capture the idea of him ‘shattering’ here. His life is such a fragile thing, and his sense of self is a sharp-edged mess from how he’s been treated. I have mixed feelings about depicting him crying, though. I think he (and Riku) don’t really cry on-screen, which makes the build toward any possible tears more evocative. (I say this, as if I don’t love the fact Ven cries often and obviously, ahhh…)
There was a period of time where I was into the Cats musical; primarily the 1998 video version. Of course, that meant I had to draw some of the KH cast with Cats-like designs. They’re a bit same-y, but otherwise I think they’re somewhat adorable. Imagine the Cats-type antics they could get up to.
There’s a worse version below. Anyhow, this is based on a concept of an entranced Kairi being lured in dangerously by Kingdom Hearts itself. It sort of wanted to hide her to protect itself, or be close to her, or something like that. There’s various reasons, it’s meant to be ambiguous. I like to explore the relationship she has with Kingdom Hearts. It feels complicated.
And again, another broken Repliku. I really do doodle that sort of thing a lot. I should draw more hurt Riku to balance things out, as I also love him and seeing him struggle. But there’s something very special about the Repliku imagery to me, even in my weakest drawings. Ah…
In the Calm Bounty, you can see a couple of versions of Appletun!Riku. I wanted to draw him here with Absol!Riku, Absol being one of my favorite Pokémon to combine him with. I like to think that they’re good friends, hehe.
Not too much to say that wasn’t said on the main art page. There’s a second, unfinished Riku design here though! There’s something a little more...horny about it, I guess. Maybe I should’ve focused on that one, instead of trying to give him a Halloween Town look!
Just a couple of sad Rikus or Replikus cuddling up together. Sometimes things are stressful and you just have to do a little doodle of cute boys. They’re so sad, but at least they have each other.
This is partially inspired by a KH ‘shoe gender’ art piece in which Roxas and Xion swapped their boots. Here Riku and Roxas’s fight has been set aside so that Riku can wear some cute boots. They’ve sort of relaxed into each other’s company, almost. Tippy tappy, makes me happy~!
Unfortunately, this vintage shoujo MS paint parody didn’t turn out quite so well. I rushed it, and thus didn’t give it the attention it needed to flourish. Ah, well, here it is anywhere! Riku being sparkly and dramatic, although he could certainly use more sparkles!
In the words of Britney Spears and her various lyricists, let me break the ice! Vexen has one of the more brutal deaths by the standards of KH, doesn’t he? Whatever the case, I really like both him and Axel, and thought it would be fun to doodle something to explore some of their dynamic in (Re:)CoM. I like the feeling of the piece.
There are some subtle differences in this earlier doodle of Wicked Witch!Riku. The lack of a bow on the dress changes the look a little bit. I think I just enjoy offering these ‘even-more-in-development’ type pictures too. I should probably use this space to ramble more about the concept, ah!
Back in the day, I had a picture full of ‘twittersonas’. I just thought it was a fun way to come up with avatars for people I was mutuals with. I stopped doing it after a while, which is a bit sad, since some of my longest twitter friendships came after my last update on this picture. Still, it’s a snap shot in time.
As mentioned in the hover text, I don’t necessarily find art explicitly made for venting a particular emotion to be effective. I do think it can possibly temporarily ‘vent’ some things, but never quite so straight forward. Not for me, anyway. But I did get a cute Riku/Repliku out of my efforts, so I can’t be upset that drawing isn’t a cure-all (nothing is).
Sleepovers! I obviously didn’t end up finishing this piece, but I really like combining KH with sleepovers. They’re a source of fun and drama, and it’s amusing to imagine the characters hanging out like that. I like to imagine Kairi and Riku doing each other’s hair, and we get a bit of competitive fun with Sora and Riku. I wish I’d at least got Tidus (and Wakka) in properly; I would’ve been alright with that.
A smaller alternate to the other sleepover picture. Originally Sora was just sort of snuggling up to Riku, which is very cute in my opinion, but didn’t entirely fit the concept I had in my head. Still, it’s sweet, so here it is! I should revisit the sleepover concept at some point, ah...
Just some more little doodles for the ‘toon au’. There’s not much going on here, although I’m happy to have got a Roxas in there. Sora looks very cute kicking his legs on the log there, and Roxas’s heart is beating hard! Meanwhile Riku has his face in his hands (as the cartoonist, embarrassed by his own napkin-doodle creations; he’s not pictured).
For me, there’s something appealing about the scratchy lines of this sketch. I think it emphasizes Riku’s depression and struggle a little better (at least using relatively conventional visual language, which I think is fun to ignore sometimes). I really love this AU, even if I never actually wrote anything for it except for rambling twitter threads.
I liked this picture so much I included it three times! But actually, I do think this sketchier version has an edge perhaps lacking in the tidier versions. Something about his eyes, and his features, and his body, and their lines. His body feels like it’s falling apart.
Imagining Kairi having her own Fantasia quest is a lot of fun. Since hers feels sort of separate from Riku and Sora’s, I thought it might be fun to take inspiration from Fantasia 2000 instead of the original. The Firebird Suite felt appropriate. It’s just a very loose doodle, though, so doesn’t quite capture the grandeur.
I’m so annoyed with myself for not giving Riku his face and hair. This picture might’ve been nice enough to put in the Calm Bounty if I had. But alas, I quit working on it so we really only have a very cute Sora to look at. That’s not so bad! They make nice fairies, I think.
Sora’s relationship with Tron is one of my favorites, especially when it comes to characters bound to their Disney world. I felt properly sad in KH3D when he had to fight Rinzler and then couldn’t save him. Due to the odd situation, with KH3D’s worlds being ‘sleeping’, I end up wondering just what happened to the actual Tron.
Here’s a slightly different version of the Sora and Tron picture. I did have the actual sculpture in mind when doodling this, albeit I don’t know if I used it much for reference. I probably should have! The picture overall is a bit clunky, although I could probably have put at least one version in the Calm Bounty, hmmm.
Riku in pink! I just really wanted to paint a pink Riku, so this is what came of it. He’s actually got some sparkle to him, and I think he looks rather pretty. There’s something a bit delicate about him here, but that’s fine. I’m enjoying it.
Oh boy, this is one of the most embarrassing to post. Just a really terrible quick doodle I did. The description of what’s going on is attached to the slightly better version located above. But I wanted to post this for comparison, I guess. This was very rushed.
As mentioned under What They See (One) in the Calm Bounty, these are very unfinished. This one is Kairi with imagined younger versions of Sora and Riku, but they never became anything other than vague fleshy blobs. Still, I like the idea of her on the beach with her sleeping boys in her lap; she’s been sleeping too, in a way.
The final part of this series, we get KHII Riku’s perspective (from which he is removed) of two scenes in the game. The one in which he helps Kairi escape from Axel via a portal, and the one in which he encounters Sora in the snow in Land of Dragons. Riku’s picture contrasts because he has more information about the other two throughout the game, but also because he removes himself from the vision (in part, because he’s in the Ansem SoD body). It’s a bit sad.
As mentioned elsewhere, I’m not super fond of this lineart, but I wanted to include it anyway. Donkey!Riku sort of carries the image, I have to say. He’s so cute, it doesn’t matter that my skills are lacking. ^^;
Another doodle based on an actual scene from my HS au. I can’t decide if I’m capitalizing AU so you can have both versions used randomly. Anyhow, Roxas makes an amusing discovery; that Axel wears rainbow toe socks. It’s a silly moment, but I love it. Their relationship is cute. Maybe one day I’ll get back to writing it (it was over two hundred thousand words when I stopped, ah…).
It’s a bit of a fail, for me, but I did want to draw Riku underwater. The original KH’s opening sequence with him beneath the waves is really magical to me. I’ll always remember a geocities shrine from back in the day that was talking about how all the water symbolism was underlying Sora and Riku’s sexual feelings for each other. I’m not sure I share that vision, but I agree that Riku underwater is sexy and that Sora and Riku fucking is fun! And in the context of an old geocities shrine, a little passion project, I think it was cute.
As is obvious, I like to play a little with gender and body, especially with transmasculinity. I also think Riku’s original outfit has a binder-like quality, and so I wanted to actually transform it into a binder. Sora ended up joining in, and I think they look pretty good here! They’re happy together, at least.
This obviously didn’t go anywhere, but I wanted to explore a concept with Sora being ‘worshipped’ by Roxas and Riku. There’s a fun dynamic there, in their complex and contrasting relationships with him. A number of fics make good use of this. I also think I was inspired by various AUs and pictures people were making with Sora as a sort of icon or spiritual presence.
This was a twittersona I did for a friend. The design was simple, but I liked the feeling of a red-purple sparkly dusk floating out of a Dark Coat. I think they’re call Organization XIII coats/uniforms more often, but they’re not the only ones who use them. I could probably do a better job on the dusk effect today, but overall, it’s neat. I remember the friend liking it at the time!
This is replicanon/silver/me, originally my twittersona but now my avatar everywhere for this part of me. I really like him. I think the statue-type features are cool and feel appropriate for a Castle Oblivion creature. This image lacks some of the details that become common later, and I dump the quill, but it’s still a good one, I think.
I don’t really draw the ‘masked’ variant of replicanon/silver/me often. I guess that’s because the actual images of Riku and Riku Replica I use sort of ‘count’ for that aspect of my presentation. But when I do draw him, I get art of Riku and Riku Replica as well. Score.
This is associated with a song I encountered in the Kingdom Hearts Stupid Files (remember those, heh). I won’t link the song here for various reasons, but it made me think about a distressed and possessive Riku embracing the Shadow Sora inside Monstro. The Shadow Sora is another cool concept. The original KH has so many… I like the emotions.
I had an idea in which Nobodies were more ‘creaturely’ (a term I don’t know if I like, but am using). Axel had spider-like features, and all of them had masks of some kind. This was an interpretation of a boss fight using said concept, with an enormous spider Axel versus a tiny bird-angel Roxas. I think this sort of Axel is very cool...and also lets me engage in even greater gap moé with him.
I remember when I first encountered Anti-Sora as a teenager playing KHII for the first time. I was in Halloween Town and suddenly transformed into a shadowy version of Sora. It was so exciting and cool, I didn’t even realize it was supposed to be a punishment for overusing Drive Forms, haha! He’s so playful!
I have an extensive amount of KH OCs, but they’re all for me, and at this time I’ve mostly put them aside to explore other things. I do have a lot of fond memories, though. This one is based on a very old doodle I did when I was perhaps thirteen or so. I think this character is pretty cool, but I didn’t get very far with the image.
If I’m honest, I also think there’s plenty to like here, beyond just being a fan of amateur art. There’s various interesting ideas, as well as alternates to other pieces located in the Calm Bounty. All in all, I think it’s worth posting. If you’ve reached the bottom of this page, maybe you agree? If not, you should’ve left and saved your time for other things!
If you happened to spot any typos that weren’t just me being very creative with punctuation, please feel free to let me know via the Castle Oblivion Lounge or Letterbox links. That’s obviously not required, but it is an option. You can also just send me your thoughts on a particular piece, if you want. If you don’t want to, that’s fine too!
Credit
♢ RSS ♢