#akuroku negative

[confession-of-the-heart]

re: outgrowing AkuRoku, I think the biggest thing is… how to phrase it… it’s not just the obvious age problem in and of itself, but rather that the way fans were reading into their interactions in KH2 (when it first blew up) ended up being completely off base?

That is, to say: AkuRoku is fundamentally completely out of character—for both Axel and Roxas alike. It’s based on a version of the characters that simply doesn’t have any basis in their actual selves, and so there is a major sense of “he would not fucking say that”-type incongruity whenever depictions of it are still encountered—again, age stuff notwithstanding. I’m not trying to make a moral argument here but a character based argument. I would actually also argue that part of this is also wrapped up in XemSai, which is also an outdated take on those respective characters for similar reasons.

There’s a whole web of character interactions and past fandom interpretations which were extremely popular for some time that just don’t have any basis in reality now, so to speak. To elaborate:

Back during the era that KH2 released in, people were going absolutely nuts running with headcanon-heavy interpretations of the characters based on an extremely limited scope of canonical knowledge about them. We knew basically nothing about anyone in the Organization circa KH2. Character ages weren’t necessarily as obvious back then, so a lot of people just sort of went with the popular narrative and assumed Axel was a teenager around Roxas’ age without really giving that idea any critical thought. People with shipping goggles glued to their faces further decided to interpret Axel and Roxas’ emotionally charged interactions in the same manner as they did characters like Sora and Riku.

Meanwhile, it’s not terribly apparent that Axel and Saïx have any connection beyond just working for the same group—and most people see a hot boss interacting with his hot right-hand man, and make a ship out of it.

If the series had stopped with KH2 and we never got any further information about them this would have been all well and good, but, well… then we got more context.

Basically, KH has a shipping meta, and the meta changed—bigtime.

Days comes out, and we get context that tells us Axel is hanging onto his relationship with Roxas and Xion as a way of coping with his deteriorating relationship with Saïx. We get to see what real homoerotic tension in KH looks like between Axel and Saïx; we find out that Saïx has no actual loyalty to or affection for Xemnas, and is in fact overly preoccupied with whatever Axel is doing to the point of being a massive harassing prick to him and his friends over it.

As for Roxas, it’s made strikingly obvious that Axel’s relationship with the kid is one of a mentor—a significant portion of Days is devoted to seeing Axel more-or-less raising Roxas, along with Xion, and explaining basic concepts to them in much the same manner as you would a young child. They’re both less than a year old, after all.

Some liken it more to a family-type relationship and say big-brother while others say dad-like, but no matter which way you shake it it’s very clear by days that the tension in Axel and Roxas’ relationship in KH2 is simply not romantic in any sense of the word. A lot of it actually lies in their relationship with Xion, whose presence had been erased by KH2’s time, but the psychological effect of her presence still lingered.

Add to this the context of BBS up through KH3 giving us a much more intimate and in-depth longstanding history between Axel and Saïx, and there you have it. The character development meta has effectively rendered AkuRoku obsolete as a ship.

So I don’t know if saying one has personally outgrown it is necessarily even “correct” so much as that the series itself thoroughly debunked the entire basis that people had for it in the first place. If you respect where the characters are now, outgrowing it is the natural response. The only people still hanging onto it at this point are by default hanging onto an OOC, even shallow, interpretation of the characters.

Maybe some people hate that things changed. I do often see people talking about how they liked Axel better in CoM, or the Organization better in KH2–but KH has always been a series where the characters develop significantly and show different facets of themselves over time. Personally I’m much more energized by all the new material the series has given us since I first fell in love with it in the 2000s, and the way its characters have surprised me and become so much more fleshed out as people… but some people are more apt to cling to popular fanon and nostalgia until the day they die, I suppose. Well, they can do what they want.

~~~

[akurokuzine]

OPEN LETTER

For the sake of transparency, the AkuRoku Zine team would like to post this open letter to the fandom community in regards to the zine bundles and the mod teams’ choice regarding the PDF and why it isn’t included in the physical bundles.

To begin with, in the conception phases of the zine, there were only two mods with very limited experience. We were extremely wary of the fandom climate regarding our ship, considering how many hold it in a negative view. We initially wanted to only launch the zine as a PDF/Digital Zine, having it mostly be for-profit and basically have it be a test run for future projects involved.

With the outpouring of support from our initial Interest Check and finding our wonderful Mod Niko who is a Zine Mod Extraordinaire and has ample experience in running, shipping, and distributing zines, we felt more confident in making ‘Let’s Meet Again…’ a physical zine.

With moving towards a physical zine, we had to take additional precautions regarding our safety, so asides for the Mods remaining anonymous, we also purchased things like a P.O. Box and a VPN.

Even then, we were all still wary regarding how well the zine would do so we focused on keeping costs low regarding the bundle prices, offering the essential merch items, conservative stretch goal minimums, and a manga-sized zine (for cheaper shipping!). That being said, the project grew bigger and bigger and before we knew it we had a wonderful zine spanning over 100+ pages! In consideration of not wanting to short-change our contributors and wanting to account for the additional content and additional work the Digital Version will be, we decided to make the purchase of the Digital Zine separate. We also did our research, looking at zines from all sorts of fandoms and found that zine pre-orders oftentimes don’t include Digital Content with the physical bundles, which is why we decided to go down this route. 

Prior to the launch of Pre-Orders, the Mod team had considered discounts for the PDF with the purchase of physical bundles, but we weren’t 100% sure of it up until all the messages and concerns that have recently been brought up. Thus, we followed through with our plan of giving out discount codes for the PDF to anyone that purchases a physical zine, as we understand the costs involved can be as high as $88.13 USD for international orders (ouch)! Please keep an eye out for our emails, and especially check your spam and/or promotions tabs.

We hope with this explanation that the AkuRoku fandom understands our intentions and hopefully is less upset by our decisions! We again, thank you so much for your continued support and hope that we can double (maybe even triple!) our orders over the upcoming month.

[musicaltigresa]

*Deep Inhale*

Okay, so apparently there are people harrassing others for shipping AkuRoku. Also, this is gonna be a long post and kinda all over the place, so please forgive me for that.

Look, I get it. Everyone has their own opinions on ships, both positive and negative, but going around and harrassing people is NOT okay.

If you don't like a ship, don't actively look for it and just leave the people who ship it alone. Seriously, where has common sense and courtesy gone?

While I can definitely see why others think AkuRoku can be seen as pedophilia, you shouldn't go around parading it like it's fact. While Axel/Lea looks older, we actually don't know his exact age.

Also, and I know many jump to this, I'm not innocent of it either, just because two people are in a relationship does not mean that the main focus is sex. Relationships are not supposed to be that way.

I'll make Otayuri as an example. MANY people were being aggressive towards others for shipping it when Yuri was just a few years younger than Otabek. Hell, I made a post similar to this one on it. Otabek and Yuri have an amazing dynamic, which is why I started shipping them.

Like I said, I am not innocent of not falling into the fujoshi trap. I was there, but I've grown away from it.

Back to AkuRoku, just because someone ships them does NOT mean that they focus solely on the sexual aspect. Many just like their dynamic.

Relationships take time. And they don't have to be sexual. They can be romantic, keeping things PG before moving forward if they're ready for that step. And it can take years for that to happen fully. If memory serves, it's reccomended that couples should wait 2-4 years before trying to have sex, to give them time to be in each other's company and grow.

Really, those that call ships with a small age gap (my personal cap is 4, but I can make it 5 on occasion) pedophilia think that as soon as the couple is together they start having sex. It should take time to get to that point.

My point is that AkuRoku, when dealt with right, can be an awesome ship, moreso than it is already. And just because you don't like or support a ship does NOT give you the right to harrass people. That makes you look like an asshole. And, most importantly, these are FICTIONAL CHARACTERS.

Shipping is supposed to be fun and a way for people to come together and express themselves. Please, don't be the asshole that makes it worse for everyone else.

This post is probably gonna get major hate, but, y'know, I don't mind. I've stated my point and I feel a bit better now that I've made it clear.

Thank you for your time.

[birthbyfantasy]

Hey I wanted to try to answer why some ppl dont like the 'I dont ship but..' comments. Basically it boils down to the artist liking the ship a whole lot. Enough to sit down and make some art you know? And then someone comes along and kinda goes 'oh ew gross that ship. The technique is pretty tho' I mean after a lot of similar remarks it wears the artist down. If some1 doesn't ship but likes the style they can just say 'I rlly like this style' or 'wow! Nice shading' or smthng positive you know?

It depends on what you say tough. I can say “I don’t like this ship but [...]”, “I find this ship gross but [...]” or “I don’t ship it but [...]”. All of these are different, the first one is kinda negative, but personal; the second one is judging the ship itself and offends people who like it; and the third one is neutral, don’t ship it but enjoyable.

 I reblog any shippy fanart I see, being Soriku, Akuroku, Gladnis, Promptis, Akushi, etc etc etc and I myself don’t ship any of them. Not because I don’t like them together or find them gross, it just isn’t my jam (I’m not really a shippy person tbh).

I don’t mind them, I’m neutral about them, seeing them together doesn’t make me nor happy nor sad nor angry, but some art is really well done, or really cute (which even if I don’t ship them, it makes me happy), or pretty and I reblog it (and also so other people can enjoy them as well).

[im-me-he-says]

I tagged this for a reason for it to show up on your feed, it's a message to all the fandoms that I'm in, using VLD as an example

Please read it. BNHA, Kingdom hearts, She Ra and The Dragon prince fans.

Honestly they should have cancelled after season 6 aired I would have been fine with it

Now seeing anything VLD related just hurts me (especially Klance, Allura, Lance or Shiro)

I don't have any major gay ships except for Soriku anymore because frankly I'm scared of how they'll be handled by the company, how the fans will handle it and so many people are still so hateful and closed minded that the backlash will be too much.

I see so much hate on Soriku daily despite them being one of the most developed Friendships/Relationships in the games and it makes no sense to me, if you don't like it ignore because there's nothing inherently wrong about it.

My expectations are lower too, from shows, characters, companies and stories. Voltron had so much potential, a sexuality arc for Lance , kids learning how to take no for an answer from Allura and Lance, Strong friendship between Allura and Lance that didn't have to be romantic, Shiro and his fiance normalizing LGBTQ. JUST SO MANY GREAT REVOLUTIONARY TOPICS!

And Im not that attached to characters anymore other than kingdom hearts since it's been with me for longer and is literally my heart and soul, without it I would be nobody (ya see what I did there)

Voltron was a part of me and I loved it, the earlier seasons and fandom helped me through some issues I had with myself and when they did that it kinda broke me? Like I cried alot while on vacation and I was mad about it for a WHILE.

It negatively impacted me so much in that way that it scares me to be that attached and enjoy a show that much, hell it scares me to be attached to kingdom hearts, because if something happened to the literal franchise that defined who I am, I probably won't be the same person

But who knows? Maybe BNHA, She Ra and The Dragon Prince will pull me out of it, maybe Kingdom hearts will survive happy, maybe all those fandoms will get their fucking shit together and not be toxic.

It's literally the whole reason I'm so overly protective about Kingdom hearts and hate all the weird pedophilic ships (AkuRoku for example DONT @ ME IF YOU SUPPORT JUST DON'T INTERACT PLEASE).

General ship wars like in between Soriku and Sokai( BOTH ARE VALID YALL NEED TO STFU).

Unnecessary character hate on Kairi( ITS NOT HER FAULT SHES WRITTEN THAT WAY OKAY I UNDERSTAND DISLIKING HER BUT STOP BEING TOXIC AND USING HER AS A REASON TO DEVALUE SOKAI), it hurts alot to see people fight on the one fandom I'm super attached to anymore.

Don't even get me started on the fucking ship hate in the BNHA fandom it's so crazy that it turned me into a multishipper because APPARENTLY I CANT HAVE OPINIONS ANYMORE JUST BECAUSE I THINK THAT BAKUDEKU IS AN OKAY SHIP, LITERALLY EVERY BAKUDEKU SHIPPER PORTRAYS THEM AS SLOWLY TRYING TO FIX THEIR RELATIONSHIP LET THEM BE.

Also that fandom has some weird discourse, all the gay ship shippers hate on straight ships and all the straight ship shippers hate on gay ships and I'm just done and so close to becoming anti shippers.

The She Ra and The Dragon prince fandoms are okay because they're literally the same as me, filled with broken hearted VLD survivors. I appreciate y'all tryna keep the peace PLEASE MAINTAIN IT YOURE LIKE THE ONLY NON TOXIC MAIN FANDOMS IM IN.

YOU GUYS ARE IN THIN FUCKING ICE IF YOU MESS UP THO I SAW SOMEONE ON INSTAGRAM SAYING THEY ALREADY SHIP CALLUM AND AARAVOS WHICH IS EW AND I WILL FIGHT YALL. ALSO RAYLA X CLAUDIA IS VALID OKAY.

IVE ALSO SEEN PEOPLE TRY AND SAY CATRADORAS ABUSIVE WHICH IS THE POINT OF THEIR DEVELOPMENT AND THE PEOPLE WHO SHIP THEM WANT THEM TO BE MUTUALLY HAPPY, THEY WERE BOTH ABUSED AND ARE FIGURING IT OUT, CATRA WORSE THAN ADORA. THEY OBVIOUSLY STILL CARE FOR EACH OTHER AND PPL JUST WANT SOFT GFS AT THE END OF THE SHOW.

It still to this day confuses me why the creators of VLD went that way IT WAS A SHOW FOR CHILDREN AND THEY KILLED THE MAIN WOC, TURNED LANCE INTO A DEAD CHARACTER HUNG UP ON HIS PAST AND KILLED SHIROS FIANCE JUST SO THEY COULD GET HIM A NEW INE WITH NO DEVELOPMENT TO MAKE UP FOR KILLING THE LAST ONE.

If you wanted gay rep you just had to keep him alive or go with Klance which you already have.

If you kept Adam alive and Allura alive also giving her proper development with Lance BOOM HAPPY ENDING EVERYONES HAPPY

But no. The creator or whatever even said that Alluras death in the 80s show traumatised her BUT SHE LET IT HAPPEN AND TRAUMATISED MORE KIDS. NOT TO MENTION THAT THEY ORIGINALLY PLANNED ON KILLING OFF EVERYONE

LIKE EXCUSE ME YOU ARE CREATORS OF A KIDS SHOW YOURE SUPPOSED TO GIVE KIDS HOPE AND JOY THAT THEY CAN DO SOMETHING GREAT! NOT TRAUMATISE THEM FOR LIFE.

So dear fandoms please get your shit together, don't interact to fight or start discourse because I'll just block you, I just don't want our communities to be toxic we need to maintain peace.

Like really would our fav characters be proud of what we're doing?

Would Deku, Sora, Bow or Ezran approve?

Ask yourself that question and do your research before you decide to fight someone over a ship, ship something illegal or start unnecessary hate.

Sorry for the explosive rant I just needed to get this out where people can see the anxiety is driving me insane

(saved under funniest_images_on_the_internet.jpg)

[cameoamalthea]

For the Salty Ask: 1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get? 5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you? and 14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

Answers below the cut for space

1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

Even if I don’t ship something, I enjoy hearing shippers explain what why they ship it. It’s nice to see what other people see, to see their love and enthusiasm, even if I don’t share their tastes. Some things aren’t my cup of tea or in my opinion weren’t done well enough to grab me. That said, if there’s one ship I just do not get it would have to be Terra and Ven.

It could be because I relate so much to Aqua, but I can’t help but see Ven as more the little brother in that Trio’s dynamics. Whereas I see the other trios as equals and groups of friends, the Wayfinder trio to me has more of a family dynamic and Aqua and Terra seem almost parental towards Ven. It also doesn’t help that my husband and I cosplay Terra and Aqua with my IRL little brother-in-law as Ven because my baby bro-in-law really fits the character. So to me Ven is too much of a little brother to Terra to picture it romanticly.

I don’t care if other people ship it. I understand the appeal of the ‘senpai notice me’ dynamic of younger guy/cool older guy you kind of hero worship and can see how some people might see Terra and Ven more like classmates in different grades at school than brothers. Especially if you relate to Ven and like the fantasy of being in love with this cool older guy you worship a little bit in that sort of way you do when you have a crush. Like I can get that, but I just don’t get that vibe from Terra and Ven personally.

I think whenever you consume media you’re seeing it with your own eyes and what you get is your own version of the characters through the lens of your interpretation and experiences and where you are when you experience the media. No two people have the same version of a character in their head when they think about a character, and that’s great because it means there’s so many ways to enjoy something or interpret it. For me, the way I see it, this ship is not something I see personally.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

Not really, I’m more likely to start shipping something because of fandom than stop. I may not like a pairing, but I can appreciate beautiful art work and if a fanfic sells the pairing I can see it the way it’s told in that story and then suddenly it works.

There are some fandoms I just didn’t get into. I tend to avoid fandoms where there is a lot of negativity. So like I really shipped Poe and Finn after TFA. I thought they had a lot of chemistry and I might have gotten really really into it. However, the amount of negativity in the tags and hate on other ships or telling people who they have to ship with who for moral reasons. It just really turned me away from joining the fandom at all, so I’m not really actively shipping it that much.

I’m lucky I found my fandoms before tumblr, otherwise I might never have gotten into fandoms at all. My first fanfics were Death Note and I can imagine teenage me being yelled at for liking problematic characters and power dynamics and hating myself.

That said, even within my fandoms, I feel like I might not multiship as much because some shippers hate people who ship characters with other characters or see the characters differently. I ship Isa/Lea (Axel/Saix), and I ship Akuroku and I ship AkuRokuShi and AkuShi and RokuShi, but there are AkuSai shippers who don’t like Akuroku shippers and Akuroku shippers who don’t like anything to do with Xion. That’s fine. But when it’s ‘if you disagree with me then you’re wrong and we can’t be friends’ then there isn’t really room to enjoy the things you do agree on together.

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

The Kingdom Hearts fandom is great! It’s full of amazing talented people from all sorts of backgrounds who do all sorts of amazing work. Fan music, fanfic, fan art, fan clothing designs, planning fan meet ups or cosplaying, I love all of it. It’s great that so many people love this series and these characters and just all of it so much!

People say the KH fandom was annoying back in 2005-2008 ish, and yeah, but like, we were teenagers. Teenagers tend to be annoying. But we were teenagers who were having fun and being creative. Yes, there were bad jokes and poor fanon characterizations, but it was self expression. Who we were and who we saw ourselves in and our fantasies and dreams or doubts. It was fun and I think having fun is good, being silly or stupid or obnoxious is part of growing up. Then you learn to tone it down, but I don’t think you should ever let go of the importance of fun.

I just hope that if KH gets more popular again it doesn’t become too negative. I mean, I practically minored in feminist theory and I appreciate critiquing popular culture, but I can’t stand hate and fandom policing.

You shouldn’t hate someone because they interpret a work of fiction differently than you or see different dynamics between characters. Especially in something as convoluted as KH that’s ongoing and full of retcons, let people interpret the story how they want and enjoy what they get out of it.

[confession-of-the-heart]

When I was younger, I shipped Akuroku (Axel x Roxas) ike many people in the early 2000s. But now that I’m older, I just… can’t see the appeal?

Idk if it’s the Lea x Isa stuff or the noticable age gap (ignoring the whole “Roxas is a few days old” thing lol) but unlike some other ships, I’ve definitely outgrown this one

~~~

[confession-of-the-heart]

I shipped Akuroku before I got into Kingdom Hearts, having only known of them from a list video made by the YouTube channel Outside Xtra about heartbreaking boss fights that included Roxas's KH2 boss fight and the cutscene that followed. Then I actually got into the series and the age gap immediately killed that ship for me.

~~~

[confession-of-the-heart]

Akuroku makes no canonical sense, they don’t act like they have feelings for each other, and last I checked it wasn’t a sign of romantic attraction to (checks notes) care for your friends and desire their safety.

~~~

[confession-of-the-heart]

alright I was thinking about this, since there have been asks about akuroku and people are (rightfully) pointing out that the ship is pedophilic

I want this blog to be a place to post any and all kh confessions, however I also don’t support the shipping of adult and minor characters. So I’m just trying to find a good middle ground I guess. I dunno, please share your thoughts <3

Also apologies for the crappy answers for this I couldn’t think of good ways to phrase a lot of these…