Reply to thread: "Axel and Roxas...GAY?!"

First and foremost, hello. This thread is a reply to the thread entitled "Axel and Roxas...GAY?!" (kh-3. net/forums/ kingdom-hearts-2/15 16-axel-r oxas-gay .ht ml) (spaces inserted...) The reason for said reply is because I was offended by some of the things posted on that thread, which included implied homophobia (I am not homosexual/lesbian, to clear up a stereotype) and stating that "yaoi fangirls" have no life. And please note that the discussion will focus on male/male relationships, because the reply is to a thread where the discussion is about Axel and Roxas.

To get to a summarized respose, please scroll down. Thank you.

I ask: what is the set definition of a yaoi fangirl? In this thread, the definition I will be basing the term "yaoi fangirl" on will be: yaoi fangirl, (n.) A female who strongly supports male/male relationships. Although the term "yaoi" has taken on a more broad definiton (yaoi is a Japanese slang term used to describe manga, books, fanfiction, online fiction, etc where the main pairing/couple involves two males in a sexual relationship. So whereas I confess my penchant for yaoi, I would pick shounen-ai (noun; literally "boylove." This may include sexual themes as well, but it usually focuses on a more innocent, sweet element. For example, yaoi frequently features bondage, et cetera, while shounen-ai focuses more on cuddling, confessing, and overall fluff.

And allow me to introduce myself, to help whoever reads this understand my viewpoint; I am a young teenage female, Korean, whose specialities are drowning, burning food, and being unable to keep her overly strong opinions to herself. I am a shameless closet megalomaniac, and the term my sister would use to describe me would be know-it-all.

Please note that none of this is intended to be offensive; if you are, I apologize beforehand. Also, please note that the aim of this post is to not change or degrade your opinion, but to a) show a viewpoint; b)reply to the responses made in the thread linked above; c)and reply to the original poster (OP) of said thread.

The responses will be broken down in parts.

1) I am offended by the implied view that homosexual relationships are "gross":
I ask you, Kingdom Hearts characters aside: why is it seen as disgusting if two men are in love with each other? Oh, I will stifle my inner fangirl and say that, yes, there are cheating, lying bastards that are gay. There are criminals who are gay. There are depressed ones, and happy ones, and sad ones. But most importantly, isnt it the same with heterosexual people (abbreviated "hets," for lack of better term)? There are lying, cheating straight men and women. There are hets who are depressed, happy, and sad. In essence, there are no differences between homosexual and heterosexual human beings: we all love, we all hate, we all have our flaws and personality differences. And if women = men, then isn't woman + woman = man + man = woman + man?

Of course, your viewpoint that homosexual relationships are immoral, wrong, or unnatural (I will refrain from calling it homophobia, even if by nature it is) is completely understandable. I had been homophobic until a summer day in my sixth grade year. I was waiting for a bus that would take me home because it was unnaturally hot and humid for my lovely little Wonderland-esque seaside town when one teenaged boy waited along with me after a while. He wasn't particularly attractive, and had a heaviness about him that suggested being bullied--he had multiple bruises up and down his arm, and was texting someone. Around five minutes later, another boy arrived, significantly less attractive than the plain boy who arrived first.

I didn't hear the words exchanged due to my new iPod, but they began holding hands.

And I was replused beyond words, to the point I contemplated walking twenty minutes home. But the weather completely disagreed and despised my anti-heat nature, so I chose to stay. Yet I eyed the two teenage boys with something like disgusted curiosity.

But then I saw something remarkable. The boy who arrived first, the one who had clearly been bullied at school... Well, his entire face changed. The heaviness was gone. He was smiling like someone who had just won the lottery, and was chatting amiably with his boyfriend (?), and I noticed how they were playing with each other's fingers.

I realized that everyone had the complete right to be that happy, and that everyone had the right to love someone. I realized that no one deserved to be bullied, picked on, be called names for something they couldn't control.

The point of this tale was to illustrate a first-hand encounter with homosexuality that was not, in any circumstance, immoral or wrong. A common belief seems to be that homosexual men are flamboyant, fashionable, talk like teenyboppers, and cheat on all their partners. This is not the case, and this was evidence to support it.

So please, please do not view something in a negative way while not illustrating (or maybe not having) a valid reason. I had no vaild reason to back up my now-dead homophobia other than a religion I really didn't know much about that I found rather conflicting with my own personal beliefs later in the years. I completely understand if you have an aversion to gay men because you are not used to seeing them; I did grow up in a hippie town with the largest openly gay population in the world (or was it the USA?), and differences in the environment cannot be helped.

2) The statement that yaoi fangirls (or, in this case, the people who believe that Axel and Roxas were in some kind of relationship) "have no life," is a "lunatic," and are "less intelligent."
I'll keep it short this time: please do not insult someone's beliefs just because they differ from yours. Pointing out holes in the Axel/Roxas relationship theory in a civil manner is something you have every single right to do; insulting the believers is rude and offensive. It is the same as if the believers say that the people who don't believe in the pairing have no lives, are lunatics, and are less intelligent. There are opinions that could cause problems (ie sexism, ageism, homophobia, etc), but believing that two (as much as it pains me to say this, because I absolutely adore the KH boys and girls) fictional (/wince) characters were in a relationship does not cause the human rights activists to charge into action.

(please remember that it wasn't the belief that Roxas and Namine, Axel and Larxene is the "canon" pairing that broke my heart and made my blood boil; nay, it was the general rudeness)

3) Response to the OP -- why I believe that Axel/Roxas could work.
Before I forget and slap myself later on: There is no direct evidence they have a romantic relationship, but there is no direct evidence that they weren't, either. Tetsuya Nomura has stated in multiple interviews that the pairings are completely up to the eyes of the fan: if you're a fan of Kairi/Sora, you have evidence. If you are a fan of Sora/Riku, you have evidence, too. I think that Tetsuya Nomura intentionally included all sorts of hints hinting at all kinds of relationships to give the fans some creative freedom to help expand the fandom--because really, the larger the fandom you like is, the happier one usually is.

Next, imagine this (please excuse me for any errors I made in the following; I did not play the actual Kingdom Hearts games, but i have seen as many cutscenes as I could get my hands on): you open your eyes, and you don't know who, what, or where you are. You're picked up to be part of this Organization whose goal is to become complete. You don't know anything. And then this freaky-red haired man is the first that you begin to maybe trust. Okay. Maybe following that, it budded into friendship, the friendship that many can only dream of having, a friendship with bonds so strong that you'd die for your friend. But maybe--just maybe--it became more than that. Oh, I don't mean that romantic relationships mean more than friendship. It was simply a saying that I used because a better saying could not be immediately remembered.

I support Axel/Roxas because it could have worked, had events worked out differently. Roxas is (I pull this from wikipedia and the Twilight Town cutscenes I saw, from Day 1 to Day 3) loyal, a bit aloof, takes a while to trust, wants to be normal, curious, and vicious. He's typically seen as more intelligent than Sora, and views friendship as something not to be messed around with (also a trait Sora shares). Axel is (again, from wikipedia) gets a little too friendly too quickly, loyal, but also vicious; he's called a pyromaniac in an endearing fashion from fans. In the Axel/Roxas pairings, he's seen as the one that makes the physical advances that Roxas shoots down. Picture it: Axel walks over to Roxas, who is deep it thought. He grins at him, and pushed him playfully, and locks him in a headlock. A cry of irritation bubbles from Roxas's lips, and Axel laughs and musses up his hair before pecking him on the cheek, all on that high tower (name forgotten, whoops) that they had eaten countless sea-salt ice cream bars with Xion on (as a side note, I adore Xion, I really do. I really wish she had more cutscenes, and that she was a complete being, because I really think she deserves it).

Can you see that happening? Because I sure can; maybe it's because I've read too muh fanfiction and admired too many pieces of fanart (speaking of which, I bow down to Nijuuni and illbewaiting, two wonderful artists on deviantart, and the.israel.project107 and sarehptar, two insanely great writers on fanfiction dot net), but maybe--just maybe--it's because we saw how they act around each other (KH cutscenes, I love you. We can get married and make KH super-long "cutscenes" where everyone ends up happy instead of the semi-tragicness of KH. You can arrange a honeymoon to Twilight Town where we can stalk Hayner, Pence, and Olette, right? <3).

Maybe Roxas and Namine are meant to be. Alright, if it makes them happy. Maybe Larxene and Axel are meant to be (I use Larxene multiple times because she seems to be the most-picked fandom wifey of Axel). Alright, if it makes them happy. There was the theory that Roxas and Namine had spent too little time for a relationship to have developed, and that fans only say that it is canon (no pairings in Kingdom Hearts is canon, from what I can see, because Tetsuya Nomura is godly that way) because they believe Kairi and Sora are "canon," and that therefore, Namine and Roxas love each other only because Kairi and Sora does. Now, I don't believe this, because Roxas is different from Sora--Nobodies are not exactly the same as their Somebodies/Others. Another theory that supports the Axel/Roxas pairing is that it makes no sense for a toughened, social Nobody (Axel) that seems to be friendly with more than one other member of the Organization to suddenly choose to turn his back on the Organization for one friend of multiple he has. I personally found this rather weak, because he does try to destroy Roxas (cutscene...). But from what I saw (in another cutscene), he willingly sacrificed himself to see Roxas (I'm talking about that pretty kickass explosion thing he did that killed that...what, several million Dusks? I mean, seriously--I'm pretty sure it would have taken a very long time to kill all those Dusks if it hadn't been for Axel's choice)... Why?

And of course, the dialogue where Axel says that Roxas made him feel like he had a heart, that he was the ONLY one he liked, that he would miss him if he left... Well, this is the strongest evidence for Axel/Roxas (also called AkuRoku, from Akuseru and Rokusas, the Japanese pronounciation for their names), and he certainly did act according as well.

Summarized:
1. Please do not insult people for their viewpoint. Pointing out holes and defending your view? Fine. But saying they have no lives, that they are unintelligent, that they are sick in the head and lunatics... Please, refrain from such statements.
2. Please try to accept that homosexual relationships are just the same as heterosexual relationships. One is not "more right," "more wrong," or "disgusting."
3. I support Axel/Roxas because it could have happened (...and I confess that the other reason is because the thought of Roxas being annoyed and Axel laughing at him for that while hugging him is cute, hee hee), and no pairing is "wrong" (I say belatedly that even the Zexion/Demyx pairing is seen as completely possible. For the reasons why, please Google and read Dualshine's Dissertation on Zemyx. It is very insightful).
4. I was not in any way attempting to be offensive.
5. Please, please, please point out holes and forgive the overall unorganizedness of this post. Points may be unclear or muddled; if so, please ask me.

Lastly, thank you for taking the time to read this, and I sincerely hope some kind of discussion can be begun.