crystal... crystal your mind is phenomenal oh my goodness!!! the yeonjun,, 🤭🥵 please oh god,, i read that as soon as i woke up and,, god i want to kiss your brain?!? — 🌸
no bc you really did the damn thing, the only reason why my mind is so phenomenal is bc you set the groundwork 😳😳 our joint slay!!! your brain deserves a big ol kiss too 🤭
What is it about Kingdom Hearts that seems to attract only gay men who are slutty on the internet AND very asexual women?
If you will indulge my galaxy brain take, I think a large part of the solidarity is due to the series long fixation on identity and memory. While this is more implicit in the first game ("a far off dream that's like a scattered memory"), it becomes direct with the introduction of nobodies and the mission to ultimately regain souls. While the series can get convoluted at times, the through line has consistently been: how do we define the self and how do we preserve our memory?
The older I get the more cognizant I am of my own hyperfixation to be 'understood' for a multitude of reasons, while also recognizing that it's ultimately outside of my control how others perceive me. Still, the series emphasizes that we can be a witness to the lives of others and as long as we keep remembering them we can keep them alive in some way. One of my favorite quotes comes in Birth by Sleep: "in other people's memory we can live forever". It's not so much about how we're remembered, but that we're remembered at all.
There's also the subject of identity itself which ends up more nebulous, intentionally so in how the series navigates it which rings true to reality. Who are we within society, other than a culmination of who we are to others? Obviously there are aspects of ourselves that only we can understand, but how we interface with the world does largely inform who we are. Nothing is less reliable than our own concept of ourselves, and what I love about Kingdom Hearts is how it anchors this in the belief that others can have in us.
To tie it back to your initial point, this level of affirmation is something 'slutty' gay men and asexual women are largely denied due to existing directly outside of social expectations for masculinity/femininity: men are meant to embody the male gaze, not desire it. Similarly, women are expected to fulfill some arbitrary purpose in reproduction by having children. Finding a community or even just one person who is willing to see us for who we truly are and not who they expect us to be can feel like a lifelong journey in acceptance.
Or maybe it's just a matter of two queens trying to maximize their joint slay. I guess we'll have to wait for Kingdom Hearts IV to find out!