Afterword
Four years, one month, and nineteen days ago, I published the first chapter of Keys to the Kingdom. I was a new KH fan at the time, had only really gotten into the series out of excitement for Kingdom Hearts 3. Which, I will openly admit, sorely disappointed me in terms of its story. As a conclusion for what the series had been building up so far, I felt like it seriously fell short of what I expected it to do. It gave little concern to most of its characters, while letting other characters (cough cough Xehanort) get off with doing horrible things completely scott free. The way it represented its Disney worlds (especially Tangled and Frozen) was some of the worst in the series and that's saying something for a series like KH. And then its ending, oh god, I hated KH3's ending so much. Which was why I wanted to fix it.
And ironically enough, that's exactly what Keys was at the start, a fix it fic. Don't get me wrong, I'd had the idea for a Soranort story in mind before KH3 came out, since I first played DDD and found out this was a "thing" in the KH fandom. But my frustration with KH3 kind of helped me flesh it out into the story you see today. In all honestly, Keys wouldn't exist without my spite toward KH3 and Tetsuya Nomura so. Thanks for that, I guess? (game still sucks tho i fucking hate it)
Anyway! Moving on from the spite to more pleasant matters. Keys really is something I'm so extremely proud of. The themes I got to explore, the story I got to tell, the journey I got to take Sora on in this story… it really was something special to me. I laughed, I cried, I yelled late into the night writing this fic. It was challenging, mentally, emotionally, sometimes even physically with the nights I would stay up working on it. I poured hours into planning, writing, editing, drawing (don't worry, I'll still be doing Keys art even now that its done!) and after all of that, and a million plus words, it's… finished. Complete. Wow. I… huh. Ok.
As hard as that is to believe, I know I never would have gotten this far without every last one of you who kept up with this story over the past four years. From the folks over on my discord who excitedly engaged in theorizing, fanart, and drabbles with me, to even just the silent readers leaving favorites and kudos and simply enjoying the story in their own quiet way. I can't thank all of you enough for pushing me and encouraging me to complete this. It wasn't always easy, it wasn't always fun, but it was always rewarding to see how you all would react to the insane (sometimes sadistic) shit I'd come up with next. So again, thank you, from the very bottom of my heart for taking this journey with me, Sora, and the rest of the Keys crew. You truly made it all worthwhile.
Now, you may be wondering, what's next? Well, I have confirmed on several platforms that Keys is indeed getting a sequel! It will be entitled One Sky, One Destiny, and will basically pick up where Keys left off (after a bit of a timeskip of course). With old and new foes rising up and a very unhappy Kingdom threatening to tear time itself apart, Sora and his friends have to travel the worlds again to try and find a way to stop it all and save everything (again lol). I already have a bunch of interesting plans in mind for this story, but I will warn that I'm planning on taking a… fairly substantial break from KH writing for a bit (going back to my roots in writing Legend of Zelda fics, so stay tuned for more on that if you're interested!). I do intend to write other smaller oneshots related to Keys in the near future so keep an eye out for those and for when One Sky, One Destiny finally drops… whenever!
And so… I believe that's… pretty much it. Once again, thank you so much for reading Keys, for leaving comments and kudos, for showing your support! I love you all and hope to see you along for the ride in my future projects! Signing off one last time (for Keys at least)... until next time!