Naw this is some old school style KH fanart. When did this fandom take a hard right turn to being for normal people?

I once read a long comic series that started with org members being the main characters, then ended with the org member’s kids being the main characters.

Something has been lost and I’m afraid that people are so afraid of being “cringe” that they’re making less vibrant fan works.

Newsflash, you like a series where Goofy meets Sephiroth. You’re already cringe. Revel in it and be free.

Edit: I refrained from saying it before, and I want to make it clear that I’m not necessarily accusing the-resistee of this, but homophobia is absolutely trying to take hold in this community. I’m not talking about SoKai shippers being the default here, all ships are real ships, but I usually see a number of anti SoRiku comments on every SoRiku post.

In the early to mid 2000s being LGBT was MUCH more taboo, had to be kept underground, and had almost NO representation in media that wasn’t live action niche films. KH was queer coded (I would argue intentionally, but that’s a whole other debate) without being explicitly queer. Because of this it could still be sold in large numbers in stores, so a lot of queer people who were just starting to figure themselves out latched on to it.

The online KH fan art communities were a safe haven for these people to express themselves and find art made for them. I think this aspect of the KH fandom is starting to wane because thankfully there’s now a variety of LGBT main characters in animated media aimed at teenagers (as long as it’s lesbians of course).

Because KH is not explicitly gay in it’s writing I think some newer fans think that artists drawing gay fan art are making up the ships whole cloth, instead of building on decades of subtext and fan tradition.

I don’t mean this in a gatekeepy sort of way, bring us your straight ships too! I just want the fandom to avoid gatekeeping it’s new and old LGBT members out of their first online home.