The Kingdom Hearts Info Block.

They didn't even draw the Kingdom Key right.

Teaser trailer that's just wall-to-wall mobile tie-ins.

Tie-ins to the one that hasn't been playable in years. Tie-ins to the one that flopped before it even came out. Tie-ins to the one that never came out to begin with.

I'm fucking tired, boss.

Just stop.

I like how everyone's cute fanfic version of KH4 was, "Sora's living in the real world, working a joyless, dead-end job to make ends meet, leaning on Strelitzia, maybe slowly losing sight of who he used to be in the Other World, which is slowly beginning to feel more and more like a dream he can't really remember anymore. Eventually, Riku shows up to save him, tragic yaoi happens, and this serves as a very soft reset as Sora gets rebirthed back into the main KH timeline. New adventures await later on."

You know, something with themes. And feelings. And humanity.

Canon KH4: "Hey, do you remember thw guy from one cutscene at the very end of the excruciating pay-to-win gambling game that fully ended service five years ago (likely nearly ten, by the time this one comes out)? Well, here he fucking is, baby."

Readers will know my relationship with the series has been a little harried for the last decade-plus, but, I mean, like... That's the thing. It's been a long time. I'm a lot older now. I have other shit going on. I don't care anymore. I'm not holding a grudge. I'm not angry. I'm so content to value the good memories and just ignore the bad ones. They don't matter.

I clicked into this thinking, "Hey, this will be neat."

And then it was fucking this.

And here it is. Our first-ever (obvious) piece of Kingdom Hearts AI art.

Bad perspective.

Soulless faces.

Weird, sloppy edges.

Donald with a different number of fingers on each hand.

Clocktower rising up from nothing. Clouds cast in twilight layered over a perfectly blue sky.

This fucking 2020 DALL-E-looking thing.

I want to call it shit, but at least shit's a natural thing with tangible, positive functions in the world.

Cool. Rad. You love to see it. Good and fine and so fitting, honestly, for a thing I fell in love with because it felt earnest and vulnerable and crafted by a distinct creative vision.

But that's a very funny thing to have happen in that moment specifically.

why did Tumblr just turn into Twitter while I was typing a post about the compression of culture, the loss of history, and the changing tech throughout my lifetime.

why aren't you blue.

I like the fact that the PS5 is called the PS5.

Not just because it's clear on a consumer level, but because it speaks to something that I think video game culture isn't very good at keeping in mind: that video games are getting older.

If a kid has a Switch, they have a Switch, and it just is what it is, and God knows how long people have been making these things or how many other systems came before it.

If they have a Switch 2, they know there's at least been a Switch 1, and they might have that one, too.

If they have a PS5 or a PS4, there's no illusion. Or at least there's less illusion. There's some small aspect of collective memory built in there. A ten-year-old with a PS5 (it would have to be a very well-off ten-year-old, but bear with me; that's a different discussion) -- a ten-year-old with a PS5 has to imagine the concept of five generations of a thing. Which is a very big thing for a ten-year-old to be imagining, which is good and healthy and grounding.

When I was a kid, there was no single line of home consoles at the time that was five generations old.

I think a lot, lately, about what video gaming has to look like to a kid these days (I say that having no kids of my own).

And more broadly, I think about how much of my childhood culture has been disappeared and lumped into "the past," and what a contracting effect that has, compressing all history into a single blurry thing.

Which has always been that people do, but I'm old enough to see it personally now.

It feels especially relevant, as we have this whole generation, or multiple generations, of kids who grew up with microtransactions, with the modern surveillance state, with social media, with apps and iPads and smartphones. Soon we're going to have kids going into kindergarten with "ChatGPT" as part of their vocabulary. And it's just going to feel normal.

"Wasn't Ven's heart also grown, healed and recompleted during the four years between Vanitas' creation and the beginning of BBS by just bonding and connecting with Terra, Aqua and Eraqus?"

Pretty sure that was due to Sora filling in the empty space that Vanitas broke out from.

If there was any big message from DDD, it is probably something to do with what Joshua and DiZ were talking about in regards to how people become people via interacting with others and being seen + hearts can grow from anywhere due to this same principle. As in, not closing yourself away and preventing yourself from meeting others.

You know, "the world ends with you," as they say.

Broaden your horizons. Meet new people. Let others teach you new things.

Don't override the identities of others by trying to make 13 versions of yourself.

First grade stuff, really.

(I have no clue what KH3's big message was, though. "Even if you're separated from your loves ones, fate will bring you back together if you're supposed to be together"...?

a bit unrealistic, innit)

---

I would say Sora made Ven's heart whole again, but he was still in a super unstable, post-traumatic state, like a broken bone that's been set but hasn't fully healed yet.

Being too close to Vanitas ran the risk of ripping his heart in half again, hence the need for him stay a long, long way away with Eraqus, and, clearly, his memory was largely fucked, and his social skills/general awareness weren't great.

There's a very deliberate parallel to Roxas being "kind of a zombie" when he first joined the Organization.

I don't think they specifically nail down the idea that his time with T&A helped him heal as firmly as they do with Roxas and the other Nobodies, but at the same time, it sure didn't hurt.

Hey, it's me, another mod that remembered the login to this place. I never had a "Mod X"-styled name here though.

Anyway, idk if them growing new hearts [that somehow sublimate back into their original ones upon recompletion] is necessarily the most intuitive way of handling things...but the idea of Nobodies actually having hearts the whole time (or at least most of time) was definitely what they were going for from the start.

And them spelling it out in DDD was a "hey, thanks for finally confirming this thing we've all picked up on by this point" kind of moment.

As for norting them, you might be looking at things backwards. They weren't norted so they wouldn't grow new hearts, they were lied to about not having hearts so they could more easily be norted.

Everything Xemnas did with the Organization -- the new names, the uniform dress code, the insistence on them not having emotions -- was all to whittle away their senses of individuality and identity so that they could more easily imprint this new identity -- Xehanort's -- onto them.

Xemnas knew that growing new hearts was possible, so he did everything he could to prevent that. And even then, it mostly wasn't possible to prevent and he worked his way around what he could to the best of his ability.

Anyway, all of this is a long-winded way to say that, yes, I like the idea of Nobodies growing new hearts. Or at least, having been lied to about the hearts they already had. Since it was clear from the jump that the members of the Organization weren't anywhere near as heartless as they were claiming, even in CoM.

---

Oh, hey.

Yeah, this is, was, and really always will be one of the most thoughtful and affecting things in the entire series.

Your world falls apart, your stars blink out, your whole self is hollowed out, and you feel like nothing, but you just keep on living.

And through the quiet act of living, and especially the slow, steady process of living and talking and spending time with other people, making memories, building yourself back up from nothing, the empty space starts filling in. Not even on purpose. It just happens.

You rebuild, you sort yourself out, and the passing of the days becomes the beat of a heart, and the people around you give you the spark you need to find yourself.

Uhhhhhh, shit, I guess I need a new sign-off, if we're going to have at least two of us puttering around this place again.

Hm.

🟪

There we go. It's purple.

------

I shall be orange, then.

I can't imagine.

I look at my past self not even with disdain, but the way you would look at a dead bird on the sidewalk.

An Unintentional Narrative: Xehanort, Keybearer of Ruin

Interesting point of view.

It's always so fascinating to remember that Ansem being a Keyblade wielder was planted so clearly as far back as the first Final Mix.