sora >>> midge: warm and friendly! definitely a mom friend. he actually can't get too much of a bead on her when it comes to age or time period, the latter because he's just not observant and the former because he never went to college and was never exposed to People In Their Twenties with folks other than Dante and Arlene and other Locke City KH folks
He's been a police intern for the past, hm, year and a half? and before that he'd just graduated from high school and gotten kicked out by his mom because Skyler knew they couldn't go to college (a decision that, for once, Sora agreed with). So, like, people in their twenties? Sort of a mystery.
sora's been, like, a superpowered adolescent for longer than thirty years at this point, so on one hand, he's had a LOT of life experience? but on the other hand he hasn't really been able to just... be... friends with someone as an adult. In his life. Ever.
so on one hand, Yes Midge Maisel Is A Mom Friend, but on the other hand, he may just start treating her as an adult friend because he's never considered himself an adult and doesn't really know how
there's a bit of a wall there that he's never gonna actually think about unless it bothers her and she points it out because he has only one strategy with human relationships and that is to be as soft and open as possible and hope something good comes out of it and if something does not Beat The Shit Out Of Them Until Friendship Happens
he thinks she's a sweet lady, though! she's hilarious and sharp in a way he doesn't really know how to be and he just kind of chalks it up to her being cool and educated in a way he sort of doesn't have the fucks to be
when he figures out that Sora's kind of emotionally fragile here and could probably be convinced to die for him he'll probably get around to, uh, making his life miserable
𝐔𝐍𝐄𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐎𝐘𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓
sora >>> hana COOL. so cool! and, like, actually around the same age at least physically, but he feels like she's so brave and so passionate about life that she could probably be a keyblade wielder no sweat
he kind of worries that she'll be lost at the end of the month because she's been stuck in her cabin all this time (which has been getting VERY WORRYINGLY EMPTY BTW holy shit) and will probably invite her to come stay at the landmark with him so he can get her plugged in in the same way he is!
he has absolutely no idea that riku's been taking care of her too and kind of thinks that there must have been a lot of long stretches where she's just seen no one and that sort of breaks his heart don't be lonely soldier girl......
lots of admiration for her though! she has a lot of practical combat experience that he only really has in memory - in practice he was mostly sort of an amateur guerilla magician and punch person in Locke City - so he's really invested in trying to get her back in her element here :>
bucky caught sora at an EXTREMELY weird moment in his life where he'd been alone in a lot of ways that he hasn't been able to think about until now? so that + being way too similar + sora being a friendship gremlin = whew this has gone quickly in a very short amount of time
so uh, first, sora is going to be friends with the soldier for LIFE, and there is literally zero ways you could convince him not to die for them, which is both heartwarming and not a LITTLE alarming???? like if he was in at all a better situation he'd probably be able to look at things objectively and go "hey maybe i should calm down somewhat"
but right now a lot has been going on in a very short amount of time and he was very much telling them the truth in the armory when he said he didn't really know who to talk to
he knooooooows that he can't just rely on them being patient with him forever and needs to like, uh, spreading around his emotional needs elsewhere, and that's where february's going to go, probably? just like easing his other friends into the "guess what my brain is as fucked as HELL, can i have a hug even if you don't get it" category of friendship
and he super 100% means it when he says he's not bright enough to understand why being a weapon precludes the soldier from having a heart? sora sees all the evidence of a heart there and is just sort of waiting for the soldier to put themselves back together and wants to be there for them if they have doubts about that
he knows that there are a lot of things that he just can't feel or work out for them (he has had a long track record of feeling other people's feelings for them and lord mercy it SUCKS) so that makes him feel a little helpless... but he also knows that it's perfectly possible to grow a heart out of nothing and in his opinion as long as no one tries anything
sora has such a broad definition of what constitutes a "person" lmao he will continue to be friends with bucky and consider them a person no matter how they end up changing or growing :>b
H they should but hana's going to have to get past the "hey i shouldn't ever make a girl cry or feel sorry for me because i'm a strong dude" wall bc that's the only reason why sora doesn't really want to talk about himself
honestly they might just need to fight it out bc the respect is there but sora may just straight up forget that she's a soldier girl in a LOT of ways and needs to remember "oh she can handle a lot herself" too LOL
:> i'm excited about them starting to work on a new mech at least?? i want them to hang out and for her to be really cool so he can be like... yeah.... she's so capable.............. how cool................... I Am Worth This Friendship
uh tbh sora still thinks rosi is cool and may perhaps think that he may be too good for him despite everything? skyler is a completely different person but he is so hard to explain that sora's planning on just telling rosi that he's a split personality and apologizing without actually getting into who he is because he doesn't want to waste his time
he knows better than to, like, put rosi on a pedestal, but he's INCREDIBLY capable in a way a keyblade master or one of the community leaders back in locke city is and sora is perfectly aware he's a goober who probably shouldn't have as many superpowers as he does
he wants to stay on good terms with rosi and if he can be there for him in any way rosi will find that sora will be there any time he needs him but sora is of the opinion that he's embarrassed himself enough in front of rosi and he should probably get to being useful around beacon
(HE WILL ALSO BE REPAIRING WHATEVER'S BROKEN IN THE BAR.... he knows he didn't do it but it's not like skyler 1. can do it and 2. would care? skyler's actually cleaned up a mess that wasn't his fault - he's done it a HELL of a lot, actually - so sora figures that it's his turn to cover for skyler)
Aw Sora. It's okay. There's really not a lot of people who dump their issues on Buck, so its almost a nice change from being the most difficult one in the relationship?? xD he absolutely doesn't see it as uneven but if Sora ever brought that up they could talk it out
sora just wants this to be equal and like sora 100% gets it and knows they're on the same page when it comes to their brain shit but also sora has not had a hug in uuuuuuuh Months and he knows that he needs other friends than them
i think the only people who he was quote unquote allowed to hug back in locke city were ari and holly and he wasn't really able to see ari as much after skyler got kicked out and holly is her own girl with her own life uou
i still constantly laugh at the fact that he was falling headlong into crushes with every single girl who could kick his ass but never ended up dating any of them because they were way too cool for him
qq sora is so tempted every SINGLE day but he knows.... he Knows....... and hopes that him being able to just exude love and give blankets are about the same thing uou
i think the longest it took for sora to warm up to someone he actually ended up liking a lot was jack sparrow and that was because jack was an absolute dick to him when they first met
ɪᴍ ʙᴀʙᴀꜱʜᴏᴏᴋ
sora >>> rhys - fond! a fellow cyborg bud. he kind of feels bad that death sort of severed rhys from the thing that gave him purpose in life, but it's hard for sora to relate since he's too stupid to understand the full consequences of death besides the part where he'll never see his friends again
he would like to be a good friend to rhys! maybe they can like, do some cyborg stuff together? see if sora can get some maintenance done? finally figure out that the spike in his head gives people the power to gaslight him without meaning to
anyway, sora knows better than to think that he can magically give rhys self-confidence or a new purpose, but he's definitely up for being there for him until he figures out what he wants to do now that he's dead! support buddy!
all joking aside sora's really down with how chill jason is and how he just straight up sat down and accepted that he's kind of weird and that was super cool with him? and sora could absolutely, definitely, 100% use someone who is super chill with him being whoever at the moment
he thinks jason is really, intensely normal in a way that he misses a lot? which is sort of weird when jason basically grew up in God Camp but like, there's a sense that he had a community around him and that he knows how a normal human relationship works which, while that isn't too special in and of itself...
sora just came from a place where the person whose body he snatched made an incredibly successful effort to alienate, bully, and tear down everyone he knew - to the point where sora has about 16 and some change years worth of memories spent in friendships that were intensely toxic/
he doesn't think about it in these terms, but jason is the first guy friend around his age and maturity level he's had in about two years - and that's his friend, not skyler's friend, not someone who knew his face as The School Bully
sora >>> maes FATHER. i'm being super facetious lmao he's a solid guy. skyler had sort of a grumpy cadre of older dad types who tried to reassure him that he had redeeming qualities and maes reminds him of them, if only because he has the same goofy dad vibe
sora doesn't exactly need a cadre of grumpy dad types because he knows that he is not at skyler's level of fuckupery, but it's good to know that that energy is there in beacon in case he needs help or advice
sora remembers skyler's stuff as well as skyler himself would, and because their hearts were constructed pretty much dead on top of each other, their feelings for the same people tend to be about the same too
they did a lot of work to keep all of that separate, neither of them wanted that, but it just got too hard uou both of them ended up liking a lot of the same people in a lot of the same ways and even for the same reasons? it's when sora started liking the people that skyler did for the exact same reasons skyler did -
that is, he remembered and emotionally felt for them in ways skyler had cultivated and grown the relationship - that they realized that they couldn't keep it up anymore
so when skyler eventually went to sleep, sora was actually in a pretty good way to pretend he was skyler for a long while? he understood how to act like skyler, at least superficially, and ironically, skyler had pushed away enough people that most people didn't really notice the switch
holly, in ste canon, does notice this right away! i don't think we've arranged anything for kotetsu and sora but if skyler was still staying with him at the time i'd expect that sora would be absolutely unable to keep up the charade for very long LOL
anyway, the point was to set up that... sora loves kotetsu in the same ways that skyler does, probably? except he knows that he's not skyler, so he knows that he has to establish something new with kotetsu in order to make this not weird LOL
but there are a lot of feelings that would p much stay the same? he's really happy and grateful that kotetsu came along for him, he thinks he's goofy and responsible and beats himself up too much
i'd say sora would be much more honest about like... how much it means to him that kotetsu never gives up? skyler is and may always be too emotionally constipated to Have A Feel but sora is 100% into trying to make up for whatever hurt skyler dished out and uuuuh skyler did do his share of lashing out at kotetsu lOL
and yeah i feel like kotetsu would notice fairly soon that something was off, since the whole Shitty Teen thing was the bit he related to right off the bat
like the exact energy of kotetsu walking into the room and the entire kitchen is covered in flour and sora is covered in flour and he's like "i can explain"
but yeah it’d be interesting cause at one point they were like “well worst case scenario there’s always leaving town” and like. with soraskyler the split is so pronounced that’d imply “sora” being killed if they did that
I feel like with kotetsu he didn’t really get a lot of existential despair so much as “man this guy is so much More than i ever could be, im not a hero im just some guy”
i never really thought abt the fact that sora would die if he'd chosen to leave locke for good and now i'm like extra fucked up because that is an Option that he and skyler probably discussed and sora would have had to very gently argue for his life
especially with all the stuff that happened in STE like paul ben and jack sears and that one girl candy who was kidnapped by the police and disappeared without a trace
kotetsu............bby............................. skyler would have been like bullshit if ur useless then this entire world is shit!!!!!! lets go get mcdonalds so you stop being like this
8') there's a section of the app for itn that asks why you want to app your character into itn's setting and i was like "i never got to rp out late-stage sora-skyler merge and i think that would be fun" and i was right but also ALL OF MY PORES ARE CRYING
skyler doesn't know how to handle depression!! fuck!! he doesn't even know how to handle his depression!!!! what the fuck is he supposed to do if one of his favorite adults is fucked up about himself???
the reality is that he's actually a really supportive person who tries to see the best in people just like sora but he just doesn't do it because he Did Not Have Good Friends Who Supported That Behavior
no but for real kotetsu would let him stay with him and like, wait for skyler to be comfortable that he was Always Welcome but then he’d prob be like listen,,,
asldjks skyler unfortunately intellectually understands that kotetsu has been through the shit he's been through and arguably worse he's just Stubborn and a coward actually
also im thinking about our qrow thread now and it’ll be interesting when the Bonding gears up cause the big difference between him and STE kotetsu would be like
STE kotetsu tries to steer him to the right path, meanwhile qrow like. wouldn’t, necessarily? he’s more like the guy whose like well this is a bad idea but you’ve clearly made up your mind soooooo im here to make sure u don’t die
skyler >>> drunkle - he's glad he has one (1) ally here in weird alternate dimension pirate land but DAMN if it isn't weird to suddenly have to just. Rely On Someone He Just Met
qrow seems like a normal human being, which is like, not bad in his book, but it's not like there's an instant connection there either? he's being very careful not to scare this weird adult off
it's not like he's smart enough to use qrow for like a nefarious purpose or anything but he's very much like a nervous cat - if qrow does something that sets his alarm off, he's gonna scatter
but on the other hand, if qrow doesn't, it's not as though he'll just cut and run - outside of being an ally who doesn't want to fuck him over on sight, like a pirate apparently, he just seems like. Normal
skyler is deeply suspicious of normal but it's not like the possibility of normal, non-manipulative people is completely alien to him. he just doesn't feel like he's an exceptional person? and only exceptional people deserve exceptional circumstances like acquaintances with basic human courtesy
.... that's all i got man uou skyler just wants to burn down this ship but he can't because he'd drown and he's hoping this weird bird guy has a third option
when he was skyler’s age he was sent to magical monster hunting boarding school to learn how to kill huntsmen but then he got a case of honey nut feelios and became the mask and now he’s inner circle of the guy running the school he was trying to infiltrate
and uh he'll probably try to beat the shit out of qrow afterward because he's bad at feelings and destroying qrow in order to get rid of the feelings is perfectly sensible afterward right
SKYLER'S JUST LIKE LOOK CHIEF IN THREE MONTHS IM GONNA BE EIGHTEEN AND I HAVE NO INTENTION OF CAHNGING OR BECOMING A BITCH WITH GOOD TASTE IN NINETY DAYS SO IT LITERALLY DOESN'T MAKE A DIFFERENCE JUST DO THE DAMN THING
honestly he's gonna be so bitter when the bloodlust kicks in cause its like aefenglom turns off his actual literal curse for a couple months only to replace it with a different one
january: i'm almost over you fool
me: ?!
that i understand better how to get them involvedsora: ... you sure did work hard on that! i'm sorry 8'(
finally figure out that the spike in his head gives people the power to gaslight him without meaning toqrow: no make better friends
skyler: bitch YOU ARE MY BETTER FRIEND COME THE FUCK BACK