Hi, I'm a KH fangirl. But what are my fandom preferences?

[letterblade]

So I was looking at the newbie post suggestion on kingdomhearts and realizing that what I wanted to say kind of went beyond the following:

Name: Letterblade (sometimes also known as wired_lizard, Arkady, or M'lah Sihfay)
Age: 27
How you got into the Kingdom Hearts games: Through my girlfriend mllelaurel squeeing about them. (She, in turn, osmosed through fic and fandom.)
Fave female char: ....see, this is where I stop and do something else, because I can never pick just one.

I love 'em all.

There are very, very rare occasions when I actively dislike a character (get me bitching about my fourteen-year-old Issues with Scott and Alex Summers someday), but that doesn't happen often. And not in this fandom. I <3 Kairi. :P I haven't actually played 358/2, but from the spoilers I gathered, I'm going to <3 Xion a lot.

I feel like I'm sort of obligated to answer Aqua to the above, especially given that I consistently type Squee by accident when I go to type her name, but I have a giant giggly-sadist-soft-spot for Larxene, and love Naminé, and so on...

And don't even ask who my favorite male character is, because then I'll be here all night.

(One thing I don't like about KH: the gender balance. Meh. But.)

So I think what's more relevant to say here is:

What canon are you familiar with?

I've played Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts II, re:Chain of Memories, and Birth by Sleep. I have seen some Final Mix cutscenes, but not all. I have moderately extensive spoilers on 358/2, and know jack-all about re:Coded except that it might be dangerous inside Riku. (Sora, sweetie, that's what latex gloves are for.) Need...DS...

Okay, you say you can't pick favorites, but is there anyone you especially love?

Bah. Everyone, I say! :P I have an enormous dorky love for Riku's Replica. (Perhaps because I'm also overfond of the Vorkosigan series, especially Mirror Dance, and there's something about pissy and incredibly fucked up determinator clones that gets to me?) I <3 Sora and want to squishie him always. Org-wise, I've been fascinated with nearly all of them at some point or another; currently Xigbar, Xaldin, and Saïx are eating my brain. As far as non-KH-original characters go, Mickey, Goofy, Aerith, Belle, and Maleficent are made of concentrated win. And Auron. Always Auron.

What about love less than the others?

I don't spend as much mental energy on most of the Xehanort-instances as I do on other characters, as straight-up (and often pompous) villains interest me less, but I don't dislike them. (This category mostly covers Master Xehanort, Xemnas, and "Ansem" Seeker of Daaaaaarkness! Apprentice Xehanort gets a more-interesting-than-the-rest pass due to his amnesia, especially in the context of one of his closest associates literally knowing more about him than he himself does--and, knowing Braig, probably not sharing, because he's a hilarious butt.)

But really, I'm going to be a butt and answer fandom!Zexion here. Emo uke = NO.

Yes, but what are your thoughts on yaoi?

So you might have guessed this from the above, but: those old-school seme/uke cliches and the conventions that come with them? I only do two things with them: subvert them or toss them aside. (Not lightly, but with great force.) Now, I don't want to get on a high horse and say "western-style slash" or whatever the fuck that is is superior, because frankly, I have found just as many OOC-schmoopy, top/bottom cliche-ridden fics following those conventions. IMHO? Fuck the conventions. The fic is about the characters and what they would do with each other. Overwriting characterization with pre-conceived notions of what topping means or how people love each other (or don't) leads to badfic. Or, at best, well-written any-two-guys wank material.

Not that there's anything wrong with wank material. :D But if it's fanfiction, I want fanfiction. :P

But this gets into terminology. Some people say yaoi and they mean a specific style and set of conventions. Some people say yaoi and they mean two guys (or more) getting it on. To which I say, echoing many a Tumblr, FUCK YEAH!

I consider myself to be a dedicated multi-shipper, though some of my fandom roots were in slash and I will always have a weakness for teh hawt buttsecks. M/M, M/F, F/F, threesomes, moresomes, rare pairings, fucked up pairings, soulcest, oh yeah, bring it on.

Welp, which of those do you like in this fandom?

Eheheheheh. :DDD

In no particular order, some pairings I like, like the idea of, or think would be nifty to write one day...

Sora/Riku/Kairi: OT3, oh yes. This is one of those true OT3 cases where any pairing on its own is just not as interesting. Sora/Kairi is too fluffy for my tastes. Sora/Riku hits a sweet spot of buttsecks, but just doesn't read as entirely stable to me without Kairi's presence. Riku/Kairi can be fascinating, but again, needs Sora to balance it. The three of them together, though, are kind of perfect. I haven't shipped an OT3 this hard since the Ninth Doctor. (Btdubs, Kairi tops.)

Roxas/Axel: Along with the OT3, I consider this to be next-to-canon, and will default to assuming it in most circumstances. Or at least the desire for it; I often assume that they never got anywhere before their tragic ending, because that's, y'know, more tragic. Name order was deliberate, for to me, Roxas will always be the tiny deadpan cranky thing that inexplicably owns Axel's ass, and Axel would do any fucking thing ever for him and never admit that this kid is topping the hell out of him. (Roxas is another character where I get very cranky if people apply uke cliches. This doesn't mean he can never bottom ever; in fact, now I have this mental image of him demanding to bottom so he can prove he can take it harder than Axel.)

Larxene/Marluxia: So this falls into the personal canon category; I'm never going to assume it in the same way I assume the above two, but if I'm writing something, yeah, it's probably at least in the background. Again, name order, but that's not a surprise. :P The Marluxia in my head is a debonair manipulative bastard with a pretentious streak (he's a Nobody, it's practically contagious to the species) and masochistic tendency that has been honed to ridiculous heights by the adorable XII. (Yes, he's bi, but not gay, and always a manly-man in his own Marly way, even as he's pink and letting Larxene peg the hell out of him with something electrically conductive.) They're kind of a perfect villain couple: horrible to everyone in the world except (mostly) each other.

Zexion/Lexaeus: Again, personal canon. What I mentioned earlier about fandom-Zexion? Yeah, Lexaeus is owned by a tiny thing. (What is this, reverse height rule? Well, short people are scrappy. I should know.) Lexaeus reads to me as a still-waters-run-deep guy, not just intelligent, but probably one of the wiser members of the Org (as much as Nobodies can be said to be wise.) Which balances out the fact that Zexion wouldn't know wisdom if it bit him in the ass. Neither of them is loud, demonstrative, anything but very measured and private, but there's something undeniably there. And they will have tea together at the same time every day, and if one of them isn't there to share it, it's probably because he's, y'know, dead.

Kairi/Naminé: More personal canon. I have a major weakness for soul/self-cest pairings in general, and this is the one that I could see working pretty much unconditionally. And god damn is it cute!

Xemnas/Saïx: Yes, personal canon. No, not cute. This comes with a don't-know-all-of-358/2 disclaimer, 'cause from what I've heard of that, there may well be some conflicted loyalties there. And I don't buy Xemnas feeling any shred more than "useful tool, requires unusual maintenance, but the power trip involved is pleasant" towards Saïx. But twisty loyalty-conflicted power-driven control-issuey D/s (which is how I read this pairing), oh, yes. Saïx strikes me (with a banana) as a man who has a deep-set need for authority and structure and control, and wound up gravitating towards the ultimate local authority, Xemnas, even as he originally planned not to.

Heading out of the pairings-I-tend-to-assume-to-be-canon-in-anything-I-write section...

Replica/Riku: OH GOD I LOVE THIS PAIRING. Assuming you can pull it off without non-con. (I have no OMGshock issues with non-con. It just bores me.) There's just so. Much. Goddamn. Foo. Replica tops, and it's rough and painful and leaves Riku-shaped imprints in the walls, and Riku loves every second of it even if he won't admit it, and. Yeah. At least that's how it goes in my head. I'd be interested in seeing how it goes in your head, baby. (...I also need to not write fannish rambles at odd hours due to the WTF factor.)

Roxas/Sora: While we're on the self-cest parade, UNF. This is one of those pairings you have to do legwork on, because with canon events going as they did, I cannot easily see Roxas falling out into anything other than an uneasy sibling relationship with his don't-want-to-be-in-your-fucking-head-but-you're-cute-and-still-kind-of-important-to-me-fuck-it Other. And the sort of high-school or alternate reality AUs that make it easy generally leave me cold. (Yeah, I'm a bit of a canon whore.) But if that legwork is done, oh god, I have a major weakness for this pairing. (Ventus may also factor into it at some point. Selfcest threesome. I saw a prompt on the kinkmeme that's more than a year old for that, and I kind of want to fill it just because.)

Sora/Ventus: ...okay, the more I think about it, the more I've decided that this would be only about the adorkablest thing ever.

Axel/Sora: I have a major so-wrong-yet-so-hot soft spot for this pairing. Aiii. (Also, someday I may manage to manage to write a Roxas/Axel/Sora threesome.) Again, legwork is necessary, because it's hard to fit believably into CoM or KHII pre-death, and if this is a resurrected Axel, Roxas' head would pretty much explode at the identity issues of Axel going for his Somebody, and then he would kill him in the face and the Axel/Sora squishiness wouldn't happen. But. Alternate timeline, or addressing Roxas' issues and dealing with them in some way or another? Oh yeah.

Replica/Naminé: Yup, I'm aware that it's incredibly emotionally screwy, given that she's headfucked him repeatedly and more-or-less killed him once--but given the context and reasons, she's not abusive by personality, just in a horrible position. I LIKE those issues. Especially given that I'm pretty sure they bother her much more than they bother him. Because he's taken this artificial attachment to her and made it real, made it a part of his own identity, because something had to be real, and Naminé was the best thing in his life. (And given what she did to him, that's just sad; but yeah, his life sucks just that hard.) What he felt was real; that was such a theme in CoM. I could see it as tragically unrequited, given that Naminé would probably view him with a bizarre mix of pity, fondness, and grief, which may not necessarily translate into anything close to love. But I could also see it happening. I mean, okay, either Replica survives Oblivion or you resurrect him in order to get very far, but whatevs. Alternate timelines are fun.

Aqua/Kairi: After BbS, I kind of want to see this. A lot. Preferably along with Kairi busting her out of the World of Darkness, epic Keyblade training, and threats to put leashes on both their sets of dumbasses after all the trouble they get into. "...and then he got possessed." "Oh, gods, you have one too! So did mine."

Though if we're going into pairings I'd like to see at some point, the list will go on forever.

I will also gladly pair Xigbar or Demyx with pretty much anybody feasible, because I find Xigbar's pointy-toothed messed-up face and dirty-old-man 'tude immensely compelling, and because I have a very distinct head-Demyx who is kind of a slut. (Neither hapless uke nor the dark!Demyx that occasionally emerges as a counterpoint to that in various fic. More the carefree go-as-he-wills sort that likes intense sensation to prove he exists, loves the ladies but makes really good use of the "mostly" in his "straight," isn't above using his body to get in or out of what he wants, and will whine and scamper and drown your ass in water clones if you push him too far.)

I wrote a KH random pairing generator in Ruby on Rails once, and someday I need to sift through my notes on hilarious and/or awesome shit it generated and post them. Including the threesome in which Luxord ruins everybody's childhood ever.

Maybe someday I will write Zexion/Demyx the way I would write it.

I need to finish with this section now.

Okay, yeah, multi-shipper. Any pairings you don't like?

Roxas/Naminé: They had no chemistry and canon just sort of randomly threw it at us with no warning. (Not explicitly; one of the joys of KH shipping is that nothing is text, ever, leaving us with mounds of subtext to play with how we like.) That's enough for me to dislike a pairing. What sends me into active hate is that it's a massive insult to, oh, everything Roxas is and has experienced up until this point. He's just been psychologically tortured, robbed of his body and independent existence, and stuffed inside some (lovable) dumbass' head, partially because somebody else considered him a part of Sora and not a person in his own right (hello, identity issues), where he was left helpless to watch his best friend die. Is he then going to turn around and hook up with a girl who was partially responsible for said head-stuffing, and who's told him to his face that he doesn't have a right to exist, simply because their Somebodies have a thing for each other?

FUCK NO.

Don't take this as Naminé bashing; I love the adorable little mess she is. She did not exactly get off on the right foot with Roxas--nor did she with the Replica, and I could see the parallels. I bet she can see the parallels, too; in fact, I could see her wanting this a lot. Because to Naminé, dating your Somebody's boyfriend's Other would seem right, and on a subconscious level, it would be a second chance to expiate herself after the mess with the Replica. But the only way I could possibly ever buy it on Roxas' end, at least under canon circumstances, is if he's getting a heavy subconscious draw of Xion. And even though it seems on the surface to be a saner pairing, I think it would trainwreck both faster and more irrevocably than Replica/Naminé.

Speaking of Naminé pairings--I'm just picky with her, I swear--

Marluxia/Naminé IF it is in any way romantic or cute: A world of NO.

Any random tidbits of your personal fanon you think are entertaining?

...so since I'm making up these questions, I get to ask questions I want to answer. Lemmesee...

Yup, Luxord has a Prince Albert.

Near the end of his brief life, when he has acquired a small degree of cope, the Replica will refer to Vexen as "mom." In about the tone of a fifteen-year-old who's just been grounded.

Kairi will find Aqua and bust her out of the World of Darkness, because if Kairi isn't an active Keyblade master at some point after the events of KHII, I will probably actually be sufficiently motivated to write angry letters.

I kind of have this whole psychological history for Saïx worked out in my head that may or may not be 358/2-jossed, and I will admit, as a shorthand to describing it, that it was kind of inspired by video-camera-boy and his father in American Beauty. Raised by a very strict ex-military father, instilled with military discipline and control and reliance upon authority even as he was smart enough to realize something was wrong (helped by his happy-go-lucky best friend pointing out that something is wrong if your dad beats you like that), left with a core of deep-seated rage and violence that mostly sat comfortably under layers of strict control, but sometimes burst out in moments of terrible temper. Stuck close to Lea and swore he would never turn into his father, but then they lost their hearts, and without positive emotions to balance him, slowly and surely, he did. I swear I'm not the sort of person who's like ANGSTY ABUSIVE BACKGROUND for every character I work with, but it really seems to fit with Saïx.

And while I'm being Freudian. Axel's dad? Special forces, will never tell you straight-up if he's retired or not, crazy and perpetually drunk old fart who had a by-blow with a hot circus chick and raised the kid on pop tarts, the television, explosives, and a metric fuckton of sheer dumb luck that Lea was made of rubber (like himself) and wasn't horribly traumatized by a life that could turn social workers green. 'Cause, yeah, in my mind, Lea's dad is and will always be Reno, who mis-spelled Lee on the paperwork because he was drunk, disappears for days on mysterious missions and comes back with Uncle Rude--oops, Mr. Bubbles--for Lea to climb on. And, much like his best friend, Lea grew up into his dad, only in Isa's case that's a tragedy, and in Lea's case that's more, um, sex farce.

I am, however, capable of setting this personal canon aside to enjoy Axel/Reno fics. I swear I didn't have this much of a twincest thing before this fandom.

Back to non-Freudian personal canon: Isa loved dogs. Especially big, wild-looking dogs. Wolfhounds, rottweilers, that sort of thing. He always felt a kinship with them, and was very good with them--both with getting them to behave, and with wrassling and snuggling with them on the floor. Saïx...will not be unkind to them.

More demented fuzzy fanon: The one living thing in the worlds that Larxene will never hurt is a cat. "It's a tiny, adorable, badass predator--it's a little me! How could I do anything but love it? Oh, kitty, kitty, pretty kitty, you so soft and silky, would you like to dismember a mouse for me? Would you like to shred something...?"

Also, I firmly believe that Larxene kept one of the little black Heartless as a pet for a while, feeding it on fake hearts she stole from Vexen's lab, and named it Expie. Kind of like naming a fish Sushi.

When Ienzo was tiny, he would pout up at the tallest person in range to reach books for him. Or pick him up so he could reach the top shelf. Which was how Aeleus, stolid palace guard, wound up carrying him around on his shoulders.

Sora has a ridiculous oral fixation, both in and out of sexytiems, and will randomly chew on people's clothing if he's sleeping with them in the literal sense. He'll also snore, drool, sprawl over everything, steal the blankets, wrap around people like a koala, and talk in his sleep. ("Mrrmmmphl, Donald, balls, grab the balls, you need 'em mor'n me...") But he's so cute and snuggly that Riku and Kairi will deal with all of it. Possibly by smacking him with pillows.

Riku, by contrast, sleeps in a little ball, dead silent and still, and wakes up fully alert and combat-ready at the slightest provocation. He'll learn to screen out Sora-noises for his own sanity, and hasn't drawn his Keyblade at nothing since his first week back.

I will probably continue to tinhat that Ansem the Wise (? it's a good title to distinguish him from the Seeker of Daaaaaarkness!, but he's really not a very wise man. Clever, yes; wise, no.) is Kairi's actual father unless directly contradicted by canon. Making her a blood princess, whatevs. What interests me is the direct and personal connection this gives her to Ansem's very two-edged legacy. Yup, he's a genius, and not, in the end, a bad guy (unless you ask Roxas.) But he fucked up, immensely, repeatedly, in one case in a way that directly impacted some of those closest to her. It'll be interesting for her to deal with.

What do you like to read in fic?

Good writing, good characterization. Nobodies who read like Nobodies, and not slightly (or not at all) maladjusted humans. In-canon, though I love alternate timelines or what-ifs or resurrection fics. (Yay for resurrecting Axel! I can be iffy on resurrection fics in other canons, but death is such a revolving door in KH that I don't give a damn.) Crossovers, especially given that KH is one bit crossover itself, make me squee if they're well done. (And if it's with another canon that I know; it rarely has the same impact if it isn't. But that's not the fic's problem.)

I'm a canon whore, not a canon nazi. I'll read any pairing and like it if you make me buy it. (Possibly even Roxas/Naminé. :P) I like teh pr0n. I have no problems with characters manwhoring it up if it's at all believable that they manwhore it up. Mmm, manwhoring. Anyways.

Well-written kink, incorporated with the characterization, will always make me ridiculously happy. And by that, I mean activities or power dynamics that would fall under the spectrum of BDSM as practiced by people in real life. Because I'm a RL kinkster myself. (Okay, so not all RL kinksters are perfect. I just read a very interesting article analyzing role essentialism (amongst other things), which is pretty much the RL equivalent of the seme/uke cliches ranted about above. But I'm going to stop now, because I could spin off into a whole different meta-ramble about BDSM in fanfiction. Which I might someday, if I have the energy.)

Humor mixed with either sex or angst will make both 2394729834 times better.

Harukami, reversed_hymnal, and Laylah are probably my favorite writers in this fandom that I've encountered so far.

What don't you like to read?

As I mentioned above, non-con* and alternate realities leave me cold, but I'll at least give them a poke if the writing's good or the pairing's interesting. High school AUs bore me out of my wits, and in general, I don't really get the point of real-world these-characters-are-normal-humans stories.

( * So I think I need to try to codify what I mean when I say that non-con bores me. Emotionally screwy manipulative dub-con, or blackmail sex, or just plain old bad-idea-sex can all be awesome. But I was buzzing through the KH kink meme (or one of them) recently, and egad, there's a lot of just straight-up violent rape. To the point where some people felt the need to note "consensual" on their requests. And...ehhh. It's not that it squicks me or that I have moral objections to it (well, rapist!Demyx leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but that's mostly because my head!Demyx is so distinctive), but. Meh. What can I say? I'm a canon whore, and I'm a psychological realism whore, and most kink meme non-con was neither. It means a lot more if there's at least some degree of consent or interest.)

(Of course now, knowing how my mind works, I'll probably take it upon myself to write a full-out non-con fic that wouldn't bore me, but would instead strike the right balance of sick train-wreck fascination and horror. Would have to be Larxene/Replica. Probably from Naminé's POV. Hmmm. On the other hand, it wouldn't be non-con for the sheer purpose of "here's character A and character B doing stuff," which is mostly the point of kinkmeme non-con, so it's kind of a different genre.)

Pr0n involving KHI or CoM era Sora leaves me slightly squicked, though not egregiously so. Which is a really fucking weird mental distinction, because it's not like he's had that much time to mature between then and KHII, given that he was, yanno, unconscious. But in KHI he reads as a kid, and in KHII he's actually starting to read as a teenager, at least to me. Maybe it's Roxas' influence.

The two things that will make me back-button out of a fic faster than weeping cocks, though, are fandom nicknames (Rox; Zexy for the love of all that is holy; if you use Lex, I just assume you can't spell his full name; the only one I will consider okay is Marly in the context of somebody mocking him) and Nobodies displaying genuine and WAFFy affection.

Yeah, I'm a picky bitch. :/

Yup, you are. Shall we end this on a positive note?

I know now, without a doubt, Kingdom Hearts is SQUEE!

Comments

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

Post the random pairing generator results! Not enough people's lives have been ruined yet!

[wired-lizard.livejournal.com]

Need to take a bit to compile them first. :P But yeah. Brain-break FTW!!

[lisefrac.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling I would really enjoy reading this post for a fandom I was familiar with... but I think I just enjoy reading people's thoughts on yaoi :)

[wired-lizard.livejournal.com]

I kind of have the opinion that every interview should include "yes, but what are your thoughts on yaoi?" The less context, the better. XD

[rain-herself.livejournal.com]

Link article on role essentialism?

[wired-lizard.livejournal.com]

*digs through shadesong*

Here (http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/domism-role-essentialism-and-sexism-intersectionality-in-the-bdsm-scene/). 'Twas a really interesting article. :D

[rain-herself.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It was.

[nevacaruso.livejournal.com]

I also found this v. interesting even though I only understood about half of it. Especially the personal canon on Sora (so cuuuuuute) and Riku (so aaaaangsty) and Larxene and the kitten, and your Thoughts on what makes various pairings work.

I have a major weakness for soul/self-cest pairings in general

"We share everything... just like you and I, Lucy!"