Why, hello there Internet

It is the year 2026, and after roughly 247 years of no particular news or new installments, Nomuras has dropped a new KHIV trailer with the rightful confidence of Beyonce.

I am very much elated to have a gentle assurance that KHIV has not been forgotten and continues to make steady progress towards the beleaguering state of existing, however I find very little in the trailer in question to be particularly shocking or overly dissectable (I say with resounding confidence many paragraphs before this document reaches 3k works).

Which is, all things considered, a good thing. A gentle easing in back into the deep pool of what the fuck that surely awaits us with subsequent updates. I was not met with a dizzying smorgasbord of new content of which I would have to rush to struggle to shovel down my gullet without being able to savor. Rather, it is as if Nomura quietly knocked on my door, left a single plate of warm, comforting and familiar food outside it, and left for me to be able to reacquaint myself with something I had been deprived of at my own leisurely pace.

I am sure my blazé indifferent and unimpressed reactions will give a distinct impression of arrogance. Rest assured I am perfectly aware of my sin, and that at least half of it is borne of a determined commitment to the bit.

In the words of Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, one who knows nothing can understand nothing. So I implore anyone who finds themselves motivated by curiosity to look into Dark Road and UX, as their narratives will unquestionably be included in IV, and this trailer is fraught with references to them. I myself have been so entrenched in lore so obscure for so long, to say nothing of the literal years that have passed, I truly have no sense for what is or isn't common knowledge. I expect to misidentify some things and apologize, but still wish to do my best to provide summaries of relevant parts for those looking for them. Though again perhaps… not in this post. Consistently at any rate.

The first time I watched the trailer, the only thing I particularly retained was confirmation of Xehanort’s continued inclusion in the cast. Which, frankly, should not be surprising in any sense. I have written the fan fic of the exact scene shown and so have dozens of others. Deep in my heart I know firmly that Xehanort has been stated by Nomura to be his favorite more than once, that Dark Road clearly indicated its elements being further involved with the grander plot, and so there was no real reason to fear Xehanort would be written out of the narrative for a paltry forced sense of bookends on a stated saga.

Yet, after listening to countless whining complaints bemoaning his continued involvement, trying to cancel him, and insisting that there was No Way he could Possibly continue to be involved because “the Xehanort saga was ended with III”, the cocophany of a thousand echoing banshees screaming at once downed out the voice of reason, and I lamented and feared for the potential loss of one of my favorite characters as the full intricacies and nuances of his story seemed destined to fade into obscurity misunderstood by those who had skipped tertiary installments or seemed to lack general critical thinking skills.

Tho those who find his return regrettable, all that I have to say is:

HA

Because clearly, I am a mature adult.

But that being said there is nothing particularly surprising about Xehanort's confirmed appearance, as personally relieving as it is. Though, given the track record of the franchise repeatedly obscuring the faces of characters and giving them ridiculous definitive titles like “unknown” or “mysterious boy”, the rather straightforwardness of the reveal is extremely appreciated.

For those who may be blissfully unaware, the image of Xehanort in the exact jacket he is shown in, with an umbrella even, was first revealed as a single promotional artwork by Nomura now years ago without any further context or explanation. It did spark the assumption that this was his Quadratum attire and he would be appearing in IV, but this was, as stated above, contested by others.

For those reading this post because you’re fans of my writing on AO3, know that I sit giddily with the blatant queer coding of the scene and gesture. For those who may be unaware, sharing umbrellas have a distinct romantic implication in Japan.

That being said, in all seriousness, I do expect Xehanort to become an ally, uneasy or otherwise. There is very little to go on and the full scope of speculation and imagining I will save for the aforementioned website. That being said, being familiar with the events of Dark Road, many other aspects of the trailer seem to indicate our son will not be having a good time.

The trailer opens with a woman in an organization coat narrating, in essence, how heartless came to arrive in the current world. Or World, or world line if anyone remembers any of these specific indicators/differentiates in terms from secret reports. World as in big boy different dimension/plane of existence/time line, not just, “normal” KH gummiship dark corridor world.

Before bothering to double check voice actors- the trailer is in Japanese and I am already unfamiliar with the foretellers’ English voices all things considered. (Or well. Matt Mercer and Travis do cause something of a mere cat head turn reaction, but that isn't the point) The only real options for the woman's identity are Ava or Strelitzia. Which given we a) see stelitzia cloakless later and the trailer so she's accounted for and b) previous material saw Luxehabreigibar pointedly stating Ava was absent because she was off somewhere else, it seems to be a resounding case of one plus one equals two. Or perhaps more accurately the somewhat confusing notion that 0.99 repeating plus 0.99 repeating equals two, because 0.99 repeating is equal to one, as unintuitive as that sounds. (This is real math, I promise)

I am largely unsurprised by this technical drop of new information because it was something I have literally been waiting to happen since the end of III. I have written my share of fic and intricate kh themed DND campaigns featuring Ava holding some ominous, dramatic narrative pushing role literally running around in the obligatory coat because it just makes sense (they came from MoM after all, She’s also his apprentice and he himself is also there). While I was prepared to be incorrect, it was much more a prediction or theory I had than something I would consider a head canon.

And having now listened to the voices back to back, it is fairly unmistakably Ava.

What she actually says is arguably much more interesting. It is, in all technicality, the introduction of new metaphysics. But at the same time, it's not ground breaking. It is again more of a simple assurance or confirmation of something highly suspected, rather than the flashbang of something shocking and entirely new.

She asserts that there was no Darkness or Light in their specific metaphysical concepts as known in the KH universe in this new World, and implies the concepts were brought with them and grew to something recognizably similar to heartless but perhaps fundamentally different.

This serves a wonderful narrative purpose of giving us a potential newish enemy base- though they do by and large appear very similar to pure blood heartless. Just like everything else in the new setting, grittier and edgier.

But it also serves as the confirmation that the setting in and I've itself is a new place. What this simple statement has done is take the hypothetical “something could have started here long long ago” off the table. It puts its involvement in the greater timeline squarely after certain events. This implication is one of the only really strong theory feeding elements of the new trailer. It means that, for characters we know have been fighting amongst light and darkness for a very long time, this place isn't some secret origin point. It is not, say, like Radiant Garden which has a long history of relevant events hidden away for us to learn. And it implies certain aspects of the place are meant to be new and taken more at face value.

That being said. You know. Our boy Luxord rolling in looking his finest in HD. We know he has some kind of ties to this place and even could be “from” it. My point in the above is more that, even if this locale is tied to MoMs backstory in some counts, it is unlikely he is “from” here, and things like the Thirteen Darknesses from the UX finale/Darkroad are certainly not, as Darkness with a capital D did not go here until keyblade wielders wash up and brought their metaphysics with them. But well, this is all relative to MoM’s timeline, so technically speaking in the grand scheme of things the place could have been relevant for “a while” from someone like Sora’s perspective.

The trailer then consists of a few quick teasery clips and some early game play footage. We don't have a UI or anything, but we have some cool reaction command style attack animations being showcased. They show Sora keyblade surfing on gold, glowy keyblades similar to attacks seen in the keyblade graveyard. Which has Implications.

What are those implications? Something something KHUX something key kids something look Strelitzia is Right There it's not even surprising at this point. It's just. Symmetrical story telling.

The cutscene-esque cuts include shot of Luxord, Strelitzia, Xehanort, Donald and Goofy, a hooded figure that is presumably MoM, Hermod, and… *looks at smudged writing on hand* fuckin uh… Vali.

The last two names many may have no recognition of, because they are from Dark Road. Even I had to look up Vali’s name, as I fairly quickly recognized “hey isn't that the one ninja kid” but he had so little screen time I never quite learned his name.

Technically it is subjective to assert the identities of these characters. But as we have learned, if it quacks like Marluxia and looks like Marluxia, it's fucking Marluxia and Nomura was being fecitious when he said “laurium is laurium” and no one knows how to take a damned joke. Admittedly the boy presumed Hermod in 3D resembles is 2D sprite less, but the cut, parting, and fall of his hair all rather specifically matches. Neither are wearing the exact same clothes, but what of their outfits we see have similar elements and styles, just adjusted to match the modern setting.

Vali is fairly unmistakable. Besides his spiky layered hair cut being much more distinct, there's the, you know, ninja mask. In a GREAT twist of irony in the KH franchise, a character’s face being covered has made them immediately and distinctly recognizable.

We can see his keyblade. It does not resemble anything I immediately recognized or could think to check but I do admit to it having been some years and lacking confidence it is truly a new design. In Dark Road they students all use the same blade, which is very similar to but distinct from Starlight. What we see Vali wielding does not match it exactly, but has clear matching elements. What tiny blurry glimpse of the tip we see has the same “hollow” cut out design, and the base hexagonal shape of the hilt is the same. But it is dark blueish and blackish metal and appears to have the eye on the center of the hilt associated with dark keyblades, implying it may be a corrupted form of it.

Which if you haven't played Dark Road amounts to a very long “new potential bad guy” and if you have you're…. Probably staring off into the middle distance solemnly taking compounding emotional damage at the implication.

The inclusion of these two characters in the trailer serve as a gentle warning that Dark Road is required reading and will not be glossed over. Like anything in the franchise every possible installment will be interwoven to full capacity. I would like to hope we will get an easier to digest format for the narrative covered in it, but I'm also aware it was in fact very dark and got away with a fair bit due to the incredibly stylized and kawaii art style dampening the horrors. So.

For those who have not played or read through Dark Road and do not want to have to page through it in its entirety for whatever reason, (though, I do want to note it's much shorter and more straight forward than other ‘side’ content, certainly than UX, and reads like a short visual novel, if it's just a barrier to entry issue holding you back) the relevant points are that these two characters are very very dead, in ways that were very traumatizing for Xehanort and Eraqus, and were their friends. And they were murdered by a True Darkness, a concept introduced in UX I don't want to have to delve into its entirety here but… *gestures vaguely* super mega ultra heartless grandpapi. Anti princess of heart. literally darkness itself personified. (Actually one of them might have been offed by Luxehabreigibar but that isn't relevant, technically speaking >>)

The expression on Hermod's face is, frankly, quite villainy. It should be noted that this expression is incredibly unlike anything he has in Dark Road, and that that is not a result of the limitation of the art style given other characters who very much do make such malevolent fuck boi expressions. It is a square enix game, so the assumption would be that he is either possessed or corrupted in some capacity. Dark Road’s narrative was built around an instance of sort of both of these happening at once, so… yeah.

The thirteen Darknesses were all formless beings, so them using the pile of corpses that were Xhenort and Eraqus’s tragic dead friends as their meat puppets certainly checks out. But that is truly just conjecture.

Oh and in the words of my lovely spouse “all characters should be assumed to be Luxehabraigibar until proven otherwise.” Fair.

Luxord and Stelitzia are here! I don't really know what to say about that. We knew? Already? Luxord is technically a hard confirm? It's been so long I had to check to see if we actually officially knew that, but we didn't! So, that's a nice, rather generous admission instead of a continuing will he won't he. More and more ramping and piling up pointing to him being here. But it was enough it is not surprising. I do remember we saw Strelitzia in the previous trailer, so that isn't new. Her talking to someone in an org coat is, but now that could be MoM, Luxehabreigibar, or Ava.

Donald and Goofy we see surrounded by blue fire, which is the natural continuation of the scene where they went to talk to Hades. Which is still. We really. Have… Donald Duck and Goofy going to the Grecian God of the Dead to commit some kind of ritual suicide that will transport them to the same dimension of afterlife Sora is running around in. It's Goofy FUCKING dies on fucking steroids.

(I am sure it will be presented in a much more Disney friendly way, but the implication at all is still…????? Alrighty then.)

And last, but certainly not least, brings us to the One Thing That Did Surprise me. Our one slap in the face of wet fish in this trailer, a nugget left insidiously not directly noticeable yet in the form of a very stark once you see it, you can't unsee it flavor of oh shit.

It is time to address the Dark Side sized elephant in the room-

Why the JIMINY FUCKING CHRISTMAS DOES IT LOOK LIKE ERAQUS IS A DARK SIDE???

Admittedly I did not even notice this little bit of character coding until I tried to take a screenshot for the purpose of questioning why the design so deeply resembled an eva unit. But then I noticed the telltale squiggly lock of stylized bangs hanging in front of the dark side's face. The only other character it could possibly be emulating is Kakyoin from JoJo's bizarre adventure. (It… does have a hole in its torso, after all…)

The single hair noodle that I almost didn't even notice was a staggering shock. I saved this part for last for comic timing and effect, but also in hopes I would have time to process better. Unfortunately I still find my gobs being thoroughly smacked.

Upon checking the first IV trailer again, I found that the ominous squiggle has been there from the onset, yet I truly have no memory of anyone drawing any sort of attention to it, myself included. It could be a simple matter that the context of standing beside Hermod, Vali, and Xehanort himself paints the feature in a much more specific and character tied light. It could also be that after KHIII I promptly burrowed under a rock and refused to speak to other humans for the next 7 years.

But whatever the case, we're here now, and I find myself unable to undraw the parallel. It could be a coincidence and simply a new part of the general design, but the way the back of its head also looks decidedly more hair-like continues to decidedly point towards a terrible, terrible, bad end scenario.

It is perhaps unsurprising Eraqus wound up this way when one sits down to consider the how simply because there are actually a large number of possibilities. My mind jumps first to the dramatic narrative juxtaposition that would be created by the most “darkness racist” character succumbing to darkness borne of his hatred of darkness, but there is no real guarantee of that. He could have simply been captured, thrown himself in the line of fire and wound up corrupted in ways more similar to aqua, heroically attempted to take on the darkness meant for another, it could be something ripped from him and not him himself, so on and so forth. The actual answer to that question will likely set a fair amount of the time and themes for this installment for the franchise. The nuances of Eraqus’ complicated relationship with darkness in Dark Road would be a lot to get into here, given how long this already is, and would still only amount to more speculation, but certainly make the idea of Eraqus Flavored Darkside make perfect narrative sense.

Rather, I would draw attention to a detail everyone will surely remember, which is the poetic narrative symmetry of Eraqus having a Darkside when the first one was produced from Sora’s own shadow.

I think also, it is because I am not of an age demographic where the problem is I am "too old" or the main issue is "it's unfamiliar and I don't know how". There are resources for older people, and also those older people have peers that are also not engaging with social media and using the same older models of communication. It's really weird for a millennial to try and explain they don't really have an Instagram and to talk to them to please give them something more direct at least like a discord, or preferably an email.

I also often try to explain it's not a matter of not knowing how to use the website interface, but the social rules of the platform, which most people don't consciously think about. I think, most ND people would understand, but I have ran into road blocks there too, which gets very discouraging and makes it harder to ask for help. When I was able to use tumblr regularly, I remember the very specific and clear unspoken rules of things like "don't tag this sort of thing" or "especially tag this" or "this kind of comment you add to a post but this goes in your tags". even the readmore bar I put in is an artifact of a rule I no longer know if it's a common consideration, about making it easier to scroll past long posts. I see things where people say "it's bad to interact with an old post of someone on insta" and like. I have no idea. I don't know what I am or am not supposed to do there so I get scared and simply don't.

Even this post, it's something I have been wanting to make and articulate for... More than 6 months at this point? I have made some others in that time I think, but this particularly I had a hard time figuring out how to even approach or talk about. The severity of the aversion flares sometimes, and it's been like that.

I think also... I am just a very wordy person. I am not good at being concise, and one thing I do know is most platforms reward or require conciseness, but then I become too engrossed in not being able to speak true to my own words and give up.

I can't imagine I'm truly the only person to experience this. So I hope this is comforting to anyone else who may have similar issues. I would love to talk to you.

Tumblr of course, is soupy in its nature in general, so it is a lot more approachable, and if nothing else it certainly feels less "wrong" to try and follow outdated rules here then go somewhere blind. And I can be as long winded as I want and let people choose to scroll past it instead of not being given the option...

I couldn't figure out why exactly someone's response to hearing my town name being 'oh it must be so hard for a gay/pagan/disabled/[whatever relevant minority]' person to live in that town huh :(' was so viscerally upsetting.

All I had was 1) it seemed really fucking weird someone from a town 15 minutes over seemed to think there was some major difference like homie we all live in the same middle of nowhere what? And 2) I've never been harassed in my little town. I moved to this little town bc it's rural but it's a very aggressively blue state and I was fleeing a politically divisive area where hate crimes were a real threat. The town is diverse and I see a biracial lesbian couple at the beach all the time they seem just as safe and happy.

Today I had someone hear the name of my town before any other minority statistics about me and just say "oh that place is becoming a pretty dangerous area huh."

For me, who grew up being pulled between very poor and affluent areas, who had lived both as a child and adult in places rich white people called dangerous and places that were legitimately dangerous, I was much more equipped to handle this statement. I knew what this meant and why it made me angry.

What has changed about my town in recent years? It became more diverse and more poor people are moving there. It's full of low income black and mixed race families. They're building and expanding a trailer park- shitty but affordable housing! I also moved here 1) right around when 'stated becoming unsafe apparently and 2) because I was literally too poor to live anywhere else.

Because of the previous comments quantifiers, I always assumed the comment was because of a number of dangerous radical right wing individuals. 'it must be hard to be gay/pagan there', to me, the implication is that the people must there for be racist or ignorant. And that was confusing, because yes it is a rural area, it's the 'purple' part of a blue state, I pass trump flags and feel bad. But I pass trump flags and feel bed... Everywhere, in the whole county. A road trip through 3 nearby states doesn't change this. A trip to the city doesn't change this. There were those flags and confederate flag where I lived before. At least there aren't confederate flags here. Also, here I- and no one I have met- has never experienced a violent hate crime for being a minority. The only harassment I have experienced regarding a minority group I am a part of is at doctors offices which are all in the city and have nothing to do with my town.

And that's the other thing. It's not someone from a real big city saying this. It's someone who lives 15 miles away. It's someone who is a 10-20 minute drive out. It always was so confusing because 'wow you backwater town must be so much worse and different than this one right next to it!!' it's not? One of these comments came from someone from a part of the greater area I live that had been the one and only time I had experienced a kind of actual homophobic comment, which was more confusing.

I've looked back and every person who has made a comment like this has been a well off, older white person. And I've come to the conclusion that this has been so upsetting because besides just... Saying something shitty that's objectively classist for no reason unprompted, they are masking it with an overture of allyship about a different, more palatable for them minority. That's not a supportive comment, that's fear mongering? It made me feel crazy.

The other problem is the word 'safe' losing meaning in this context. I didn't feel 'safe' where I lived before because of being shot at. Because of loud, angry, people coming to my door to harass me. What people mean by 'not safe' here, I learned by the same fucker I talked to yesterday, is 'someone broke into my small dick white boy pick up truck I have for no reason because I work an office job and live in an apartment in the one(1) city shaped part of the greater area. How dare my suburban white status symbol be Blemished. They took all my charger cables and my key fob, it didn't even make sense :((((('

You know getting robbed sucks but that is. Not a measure of safety. Petty theft is considered a non violent crime....

(like first of all breaking into cars? I wanna say 50% of the time especially if it is a more affluent area it happens anyway because of entitled teenage kids. My car got broken into more time in my inlaws white collar suburban fucking 600k housing gentry town than it did in a place colloquially called 'hoodbridge'. This is because teenage hoodlums are less likely to try and apply Robinhood logic to their crimes, because they are crimes happening for shenaniganry and not to pay bills. The real problem is knowing that I have. LAID EYES ON. The white children breaking into cars in that nice neighborhood and people will. Still. Blame the 2 latinix families.)

I live in a state of abject fear constantly, because I live in a world where it is a real fact that a lot of people want to see me dead for what I am. People think trans people deserve to die. People think poc individuals deserve to die. People think that because I am disabled I deserve to die. And yeah, those people are scum and Nazis, but they have power right now. In other parts of the world and the country I live in now. And there were a lot of them and they were 'loud and proud' about it where I lived before. So I did not feel safe because I had been targets of attacks and harassment and I fled to a different state, to a quiet farm where I had physical distance from others instead of worrying if 100 yards down the street there was a house full of people who think I deserved to die. And there are some scary people in town hypothetically, because I see flags, but they aren't empowered here. They aren't in the street spouting their hate, they aren't coming up to me in the grocery store and making a scene. I've even seen people push back against them, flags get taken down, breaker people point out to them their being loudly political in a public, unrelated space was making people uncomfortable and they put their shit away.

But I am told now that where I live is unsafe. It is unsafe, apparently, because I live here.