super delighted to finally post my piece for the @kairizine! it was such a pleasure being a part of this zine <3

before the storm

they grew up so fast

Kingdom Hearts is the Homestuck of videogames. It’s too long, too complicated, and anytime anybody tries to explain it to me I black out.

Extended zodiac as organization 13 members

I will kill you in the real fucking world.

Crying Kairi Week from Twitter

casual vs diehard kingdom hearts fans watching new trailers

I was catching up on Steven universe

how the Kingdom Hearts series was made

(with full apologies to Tetsuya Nomura who I’m sure is a lovely person)

KINGDOM HEARTS 1

Nomura: thank you so much for meeting me, I know how valuable your time is

Disney lawyers: the pleasure’s all ours, sir. you said you had a business proposal about how to profitably combine some of our intellectual properties with your Final Fantasy series?

Nomura: yes [pulls out laptop] ok so I wrote this crossover fic

CHAIN OF MEMORIES

Nomura: okay team that first game was pretty good but we’re gonna have to step it up. how about we make like, a card-based battle system in this one?

Staff: sir is that a yugioh card falling out of your sleeve

Nomura: also for the storyline I want to introduce a bunch of new characters who are all plotting amongst each other for mysterious reasons and then have them all die violent deaths

Staff: sir have you been reading Game of Thrones

Staff: sir

KINGDOM HEARTS 2

Nomura: ok let’s do everything we did in the first game but EVEN MORE BETTER

Staff: sir are you sure you sent this through QC? the plot is kind of…I mean the tutorial mode stars a different character and is 3 hours long?

Nomura: also use the triangle button a lot, that one’s my fave

Staff: this doesn’t really wrap up the story very well?

Nomura: triangle button

358/2 DAYS

Nomura: look it’s really not THAT weird

Staff: sir we’re just not sure you can make a game about existential angst that ends with a child goading her best friend into assisting with her suicide? we’re working with disney here

Nomura: legal said it was ok as long as I never do it again

BIRTH BY SLEEP

Staff: sir I thought you said we couldn’t make any more games about dead children

Nomura: none of them die. one becomes a comatose vegetable, one is damned to wander hell for eternity, and one is possessed by a sociopath and loses his mind

Staff: how did you—

Nomura: none of them die, legal couldn’t touch it

RE:CODED

Nomura: remake the cell phone thing as a game

Staff: what? why? I thought we were supposed to—

Nomura: [scribbling furiously] make the phone game. stall for time. I am Planning

DREAM DROP DISTANCE

Nomura: [sets posterboard down] and THAT’S the whole plot so far

Staff: but that doesn’t even…make any…oh god. Oh god. there are hints about these things in the past FOUR games. how many drugs are you on??

Nomura: yes

KH CHI

Nomura: you know, I’ve always wanted to make a KH MMO…

Staff: what?? but that would be so much work to update and maintain

Nomura: don’t worry, we’ll keep it really simple, it’ll be a piece of cake. we won’t even release it outside of japan

UNCHAINED X

Staff: YOU SAID WE WOULDN’T RELEASE CHI OUTSIDE OF JAPAN

Nomura: we’re not. we’re remaking it as a cell phone game–

Staff: WE ALREADY MADE AND THEN REMADE A CELL PHONE GAME

Nomura: –and releasing that outside of japan. also we’re gonna keep updating it concurrently with the original browser game, because of reasons.

Staff: you promised…..you’d keep it simple….

Nomura: well i accidentally a lot of plot so

2.8 PROLOGUE FINAL CHAPTER

Staff: sir this is. this is literally not even a real game. it’s a game remake and a random movie and a half-game you wanted to make like five years ago. how did you get this approved when we’re supposed to be making kh3

Nomura: oh it was pretty easy, i just explained the idea to the president the same way I just did to you guys

Staff: and he said yes???

Nomura: well he signed the budget request while crying and saying ‘please just go away’