the cat stash

the strength of our hearts

Sometimes, all it takes to cut through the darkness is a connection.

A rewrite of the Kingdom Hearts series after KH2.

general fic info:

main playlist (yes I know it's insanely long at the moment, I'm going to condense it into a much shorter playlist sometime soon so it works better for the entire series.)

the word "rewrite" implies that I dislike KH as it is, which is very much not true. I just had a cool idea and wanted to rewrite the entire series to tell a new version of the story with my idea in mind.

there will be a total of 3 main fics in the series, with maybe one or two shorter ones to fill in the gaps. the first two main fics are already posted and I'm working on them at the same time to maintain continuity, as they are parallel stories and will eventually converge at the end of the first fic. these fics cover the entire story from the end of KH2 to just before the beginning of KH3, while the third fic will focus on KH3 and ReMind.

this story is heavily Soriku & Destiny Trio focused. not to say that the other characters and relationships aren't important, it's just that Sora, Riku, and Kairi are the heart of my story.

Soriku is a veeeeery slow burn in this series. but! it's for a good reason! I'm not going to leave you all hanging when it comes to their relationship and how it develops. it's going to be good, trust me!!

Kairi is aromantic. this is very important for her side of the story. of course, it's not all of who she is. but it affects every part of her life, and her being in the closet makes that much more difficult... and that's exactly what I want to explore in this series. :)

if I list a relationship in the tags, it will be explored in the fic. I won't tag relationships that aren't important to anyone's characterization or development at some point in the story. if I don't tag a major trio or friendship or something, that relationship is still present, it's just not given as much attention as the tagged relationships.

most of the KH3 arc of the story is inspired by Sleeping Realm theory and the posts I've made about that theory. many of the changes I've made for my fic serve the purpose of supporting the topics and themes the Sleeping Realm theory presents. thus, my series puts a lot of emphasis on love (in all of its forms), sacrifice, and the importance of memories.

the strongest theme in my story is that of finding yourself through connection. this is the core of every single character arc in the entire series. I didn't plan for this btw, it just sorta happened. but I really like this direction for KH's story, so it stuck. :)

there are content warnings in the chapter notes & on this post, but the series isn't nearly as upsetting as it sounds. the warnings are only there to tell you what to expect. I promise it isn't too bad, there's just a lot of heavy stuff in the subtext.

when KH4 releases, I'm going to continue this series with a fourth main fic. but I want to finish writing what I have planned so far before I start working on post-ReMind stuff.

WARNING: from this point on, this post contains a bunch of spoilers for future chapters of these fics. tread carefully! if you don't want too many spoilers, but you still want to know what my fic is about, just go directly to the series using the link above and read the tags there.

so for one. gender and orientation are basically completely irrelevant to 90% of the series. there are some cases where gender is made explicitly relevant (such as in Chain of Memories, where the use of a certain Japanese pronoun indicates that Sora's precious person can't be a girl). but for the most part, who you are and whom you love is not a major part of a KH character's development.

in general, it would seem that the message shown to us by the wider KH story is that love is love, hearts are hearts, and all that matters is that people keep trying to connect with each other, whatever form that may take. by that logic, homophobia and transphobia are simply not something that exists in this universe. there are instances of dehumanization of trans coded characters (see: Xion and Repliku), but it's more about them being Replicas than it is about their gender identity. and as for homophobia, there is no story reason for it to exist in the KH universe, because the message of KH is that there is strength in the bonds we share with others, no matter how strange or different these relationships may be.

that being said. I don't think the same can be applied to a-spec identities. I think there's a strong possibility that some forms of aphobia still exist in worlds like Destiny Islands.

here's my thought process. in general, KH shows us that friendship, family, and romantic relationships are equal in how important they are to the story. however, I suspect there is a chance that women and girls specifically are taught that romantic relationships are the most important. I can't point to anything explicit in the series to support this, but consider: the primary examples our girls have of strong relationships across the Disney worlds are romantic relationships. almost every Princess of Heart has a partner or potential love interest, and the only exceptions so far are Elsa and Alice (one of which is heavily queercoded, while the other is very young and therefore unlikely to be interested in relationships yet).

now, in Aqua, Naminé, and Xion's cases, they most likely do not have an immediate frame of reference for romantic relationships, so this idea doesn't necessarily apply to them. Aqua was raised alongside Terra and Ven in a secluded world and is taught to focus on her Keyblade wielder duties above all else. Naminé really only has Kairi's memories and whatever she saw in Sora and Riku's memories to look to, and nothing else. Xion spent her whole brief existence isolated in a cult with only occasional glimpses of romantic relationships for reference, and most of her time was spent with her best friends, so it's safe to say she already places more importance on platonic relationships than romantic ones. not to say that this can't change, just that she lived in a completely different environment, just as Naminé and Aqua did.

but then there's Kairi, who ended up on Destiny Islands at the age of five and only remembers the Islands as her home.

I've been thinking about what the culture of Destiny Islands is like for a while now. in general, my headcanons are that they are based on Okinawa (totally not because I have a strong attachment to that place after I visited it as a kid lol) and therefore Japanese/Okinawan culture is my frame of reference for how I'm writing about what it was like to grow up on Destiny Islands. I'm not super well educated on this subject yet, but I will say that I'm aware of how women and girls are expected to act in East Asian cultures, and what I know supports the idea that young girls are taught to prioritize romantic relationships. applying that to Kairi and her childhood on Destiny Islands gave me this idea:

Kairi is aromantic. however, she has yet to realize it because she was raised by adults who believe romantic love is the most important part of a woman's life. her internalized aphobia becomes especially apparent when she meets all these happy couples across the Disney worlds. all of these princesses have partners and have found true love, and all Kairi can think is that she'll never have that, and that's devastating to her. but what she doesn't realize is that she doesn't need Sora to reciprocate her feelings. it's in part because she never had romantic feelings for him in the first place, but the main reason why she doesn't need to be loved romantically is that she truly doesn't need to have a romantic partner to be fulfilled. her journey across the worlds becomes one of introspection and self discovery, in which she meets so many people who love each other in so many different ways, and from them she learns that her worth doesn't come from finding true love. she already has everything she needs: her best friends, and all of these people she's gotten close to on her journey. all she ever wanted was to have a home that wouldn't leave her; what she never realized was that this home doesn't have to be with a romantic partner.

that Kairi "fan" who was being aphobic to me in one of my vent posts has a ton of posts and reblogs and comments about how much they think Nomura hates Kairi. then when they get called out for making all of their "proof" up or being bigoted, they never respond and just. pretend they don't see it.

on top of that, this person is utterly convinced that Riku's EN VA also hates Kairi just because he's been... checks notes... making jokes about Riku being jealous of Kairi every now and then on his KH1 streams?? this has to be satire oh my god.

listen. to my fellow Kairi fans on this site. I'm sorry you feel upset about Kairi's treatment in the series. believe me, I feel the same way. half of the reason why I'm writing my fic series is to give her a better story. hell, I even believe in the insane KHUX worldline theory for KH3 just because it gives Kairi more of a role in the story & explains why she's so helpless in the Keyblade Graveyard in a way that isn't misogynistic.

but frankly, when you have to reach this hard to make a point, you need to recognize that you are creating a much worse version of reality and trying to drag everyone else into it with you. by commenting everywhere about how much you think KH, Nomura, David Gallagher, aromantic Kairi headcanon havers, and so on hate this specific character, you're only making everyone else miserable with you. you're making yourself feel worse by focusing so hard on all the things you wanted but didn't get from the series.

when you're upset with media for misogynistic choices, whether it's just perceived or actually there, the best thing you can do is talk about it. this is true. but all you're doing by complaining on and on about it and finding more reasons to be upset is, well, creating a hellhole of hate and misery for yourself. that is not what fandom is meant to be. when you notice a pattern of misogyny in a story, but you still clearly love the story, you know what you do?

you analyze. you write. you draw. you create. you make up your own version and share it with other fans, because that is what fandom was made for.

there comes a point where you become so disillusioned with a story that you have to take a step back, and maybe consider what you want it to mean to you now that you feel this way about it. do you still love it enough to talk about it and hang out with other fans? or are you only in the fandom to tell people how much you hate the series you're supposedly a fan of? you may think you're only hating on one part of it, but the moment you take your complaints to the level of being about the creator or other people involved in the creation of that story, you are really not a fan anymore. you are allowed to like something and dislike the creator, yes. but if the only thing you post about or interact with for months at a time is vent/rant posts about this thing you supposedly love, you're not actually being a fan anymore. you're making fandom a worse place by refusing to either create fanwork that helps alleviate the anger, or move on and find works that don't upset you this much.

criticism is different from endless hate. you're allowed to criticize the things you love. but if criticism is all you ever do in fandom, are you really a fan?

1: I am aromantic. you are claiming that a headcanon I have for a character that matches my own identity is proof that I hate that character. yes, I have a question for you: ARE YOU STUPID???

2: aromantic people are capable of growing and thriving. we are not stagnant simply because we do not want romantic relationships. what the FUCK is wrong with you?

3: why did you even need to say this? just to be an asshole? just to make someone feel like they don't deserve to have headcanons for characters that relate to their identity? you're so attached to a ship that you're saying incredibly queerphobic shit to someone you don't even know. you are acting like a terrible person.