#3 - I Signed Up For This Stupid Newsletter & All I Got Was Kingdom Hearts Nonsense
AKA "i'mma let you finish but riku is my favorite character of all time"
PROLOGUE
Happy April, everyone! Sorry this newsletter is a week late. I’m fresh off taking a full week off work for my birthday, during which I mostly slept and relaxed. No writing. No chores. No stress. It was an incredibly relaxing and healing time for me, full of laughs with my family, movies with my best friend, and so much joy. It feels like I have a whole new perspective on life just from taking some time off, and I can’t tell you how great that feels. I hope you’ve all been similarly taking care of yourselves! We only get one life and alas sometimes it’s on us to find those little things that bring us joy in a choatic world.
During my week off, I read all of Belle Morte by Bella Higgin in a night, but I really want to talk about The Witchery by S. Isabelle, which I’m currently reading. It takes place at a magic school, where four witches and two mundane boys work together to break a curse on their witchy town. I’m in love with the worldbuilding and the magic system, the character dynamics and the shifting points of view, so expect to hear me cheer loudly for this book as we get closer to its on-sale date.
Three seasons of Project Runway are back on Hulu, so instead of watching anything on my considerable list — Our Flag Means Death, the rest of Arcane, the rest of Inventing Anna — I’ve been watching Tim Gunn build these designers up so that Nina Garcia can cut them right back down. I even got my cousin into it; she went from playing her Switch while the show was on to being all, “I don’t think the pattern flatters this model.” I couldn’t be more proud.
And, of course, I have been listening to Chlöe’s “Treat Me” on loop, and not just because she dropped the steamy music video for it on my birthday. I’m really, really digging Chlöe’s rise to solo fame while still doting on and cheering on her sister, Halle, who is about to get that Disney bag with The Little Mermaid. As a longtime fan of Chloe x Halle, I’m so proud of what the girls are accomplishing. But also Chlöe is just. So hot. Such a great dancer. What a singer. I hope she and Normani do a track together.
But let’s get to the real meat of this newsletter: video games.
CHAPTER 1: POP CULTURE MOMENT OF THE MONTH
On Sunday, there was a Kingdom Hearts presentation, and pretty much everyone was like, “DID YOU SEE?” Because Kingdom Hearts has been my personality since I was fourteen years old. It’s going to inspire my first tattoo, once I find an artist in my area and budget who can ink dark skin. It’s the fandom I wrote the most fanfiction for, the game that my best friend and I replay at least once a year, and, in fact, the very first video game I ever beat.
I was going to separate the pop culture of the month section and the section where I talk about writing, but I think in this case one ties into the other. People always talk about how consuming other media can help refill the creative well when you’ve hit a wall with your writing, and sometimes that works for me and sometimes it doesn’t. But Kingdom Hearts is a game I keep coming back to for more than just the nostalgia (and more than just the plot — because honestly I couldn’t explain the plot to you if you offered me a million dollars).
This is a game that taught me so much about character development and relationship writing. It taught me the importance of showing instead of telling, because even though we were told that Sora and Kairi are the main couple of the game, we are shown the rise and fall, the depth and development, of Sora and Riku’s relationship instead. (So, as you might imagine, I am a Sora/Riku fan. With respect to Kairi. They did her so dirty.) It taught me to love complicated worldbuilding and magic systems — and also to know when the simple answer is the best one. Remember when there was only one Keyblade Master and if Riku wanted a keyblade he’d have to take Sora’s? Because they sure don’t.
It taught me about kindness — Sora’s main trait, the one that carries him through every challenge in every world, is that he is kind, and this inherent kindness helps him make the friends that come through for him when he needs them most. Riku, the brooding, aloof character, has to learn to be as kind as Sora in order to achieve true strength. Kairi fell in love with Sora instead of Riku because of that kindness. This game builds a world where kindness matters. Where it’s strength and power. Where it’s something to aspire to, without allowing yourself to be taken advantage of.
Most of all, I credit this game with what debatable skill I currently have in writing, because I cut my teeth on Kingdom Hearts fanfiction. No, I will never tell you my username, or what my fics were, just know that there were a lot of them across a couple of different usernames and they were all Soriku fics. I found my voice with the help of kind reviewers who followed along with my stories, who complimented my ability to keep the characters in character, and who were very much not afraid to tell me when I was messing up.
So much of the things I like to read (fantasy), write (character-driven stories), and explore (queer relationships and queerplatonic friendships) were first introduced to me by Kingdom Hearts. It’s incredible that I now know so many writers who love the game, when I felt on an island alone in my love before. Pun not intended.
So as we look forward to Kingdom Hearts IV and Missing Link — or as you wish I would shut up about this game because it looks dumb and you’re never going to play it — I hope that if anything you take away from my newsletter the same thing I took away from the series: kindness is a strength.
CHAPTER 2: GET IN LOSERS, WE’RE WRITING ADULT
OK, I lied, I do have one short thing to say about writing. Since I moved on from #SecretWIP, I’ve been bouncing around projects, trying to figure out what to focus on. Currently, I’m drafting an Adult Fantasy Retelling, because I want to try and write something for an adult audience and I want to try and write some steamy scenes. Most of the adult fantasy I read isn’t of the steamy variety, but I decided to just go for it to challenge myself.
My friends make fun of me a lot for being an idea factory. I tend to have a lot of them, near constantly, and then flesh them out, and then never write them. So, for me, the really important thing when doing a new project is to find a way to challenge myself. I’m very proud of the voice I’ve developed as an author to this point, but I don’t think this is the zenith of what I can achieve with words, you know? I always want to try and do something new, or surprising, or hard. I want to grow my skills with every project, to be a writer whose book two is leagues better than their book one, and whose book three is ten times better than them both.
Hence, right now — in between reading my #AMM mentee’s revised manuscript and hiding from all the friends I promised to do manuscript reading for — I’m trying hard to really push myself to do more and go deeper with this project. But I’m also throwing in things that I love: Caribbean Diaspora worldbuilding, complicated magic systems, ~hot people doing bad things~, sarcastic protagonists, and magical beasts.
I can’t say too much about the plot or anything yet, but I’m having a really good time and my agent is super excited. And until I can say something, please enjoy the moodboard above. (All pictures sourced from Pinterest; please don’t sue me, all you will get is some cat hair and a paperclip.) Speaking of cats…
CHAPTER 3: LOOK AT MY CAT!!!
As you may know, I adopted a shelter cat in December 2021, who I named Sora Mittens. One time, I snapped a picture of her while she was yawning, and she looked so much like that lion that roars at the beginning of MGM works that I giggled and kept the photo. And now I’m sharing it with you all. Look at all those teeth!
CHAPTER 4: SHOUT-OUT SECTION
This newsletter is dedicated to Elba Luz, mostly because Elba asked me to feature her. Though she did not, in fact, send me her best selfie to put in this newsletter, I’m still featuring her because I love her so, so much. Elba has never not made me smile. Her energy, her laughter, her sparkling personality — some people are just, like, bright stars in the world, and Elba most certainly is one of those stars for me.
I absolutely can’t wait for her to read this section and be embarassed.
EPILOGUE
I still have no idea what to tell you to expect from this newsletter going forward. This has just become my place to thought dump, really, but it’s gonna be May soon enough and I’m sure I will have some good boy band nostalgia to go with that theme. Until next time!