Riku (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
darknessinside) wrote2000-01-01 12:00 pm
darknessinside) wrote2000-01-01 12:00 pm
High Seas Extras
Riku head canon from early April 2014
Sooo I play a Riku who has kind of always been infatuated with Sora. Or obsessed with even. I dunno, fight me, they're my OTP and I don't care. :P
Started when they were kids and it was mostly just the two of them and Sora was this little dork who would willingly tag along after him always. They were quick to be best friends and that's never changed, even when other factors came into play.
Like, enter Kairi. Sometimes you read fics and such where Riku is like GLARE GLARE GLARE because she comes in and "steals" Sora but I don't think it's like that at all. Despite Riku being a tool in all of Kingdom Hearts 1, what was backing a lot of his actions was the fact that he WAS trying to save Kairi and was willing to do whatever it took to help her. So, come on, she's also one of his best friends and he cares about her deeply.
BUT.
As they got older on the island, and teen crushes and such started to come into play, I think there was probably a definite shift in Riku's emotions. Not so much that he was jealous of Kairi, but more that he just wanted to make sure he kept being the center of Sora's world, even if at the time there was no real motivation for it like EMOTIONS-wise, as in he didn't flat out have romantic~ feelings for Sora or anything, not then. It was more just a base level HE'S MINE kinda thing. So he had this tough guy thing going, this image where he was the cool older teenager Sora should want to be like and hang out with forever, etc etc. But Sora and Kairi, again, the teen crush thing, they're close friends and one of those pairs where anyone could tell they'd probably be more than that one day. So to kind of distract from that, you have Riku being a jerk and pointedly teasing Sora about it to make him AKSJDHAS and deny it and inevitably turn back to Riku. Like...NO, SHUT UP, I DON'T LIKE HER, LET'S GO PLAY BLITZBALL /BLUSH BLUSH.
It's all pigtail pulling.
And means Riku gets Sora's attention for another day.
As all this is happening you then have the actual game stuff going on, like Riku starting to feel claustrophobic on Destiny Islands and wanting to leave and probably kind of bulldozing Sora (and subsequently Kairi) into it as well.
SO THEN KINGDOM HEARTS HAPPENS.
And Riku's emotions skip straight from teasing-jerk-but-still-a-good-guy to WOW DOUCHEBAG as Maleficent turns up and starts messing with his heart and helps nurture the lurking Darkness there. All the negative aspects of Riku's infatuation/obsession then start growing and coming into play. He becomes bitter and jealous over Sora's new friends, he focuses on the fact that he's been "forgotten", he STILL tries to use Sora's feelings for Kairi as a means to attract Sora's attention back to himself, though this time the goal is to make Sora ditch the others and come with him to save Kairi, because Sora is ALWAYS supposed to be by Riku's side in the end, regardless of whatever else he's doing.
It doesn't work, obviously. Riku gets taken over by Darkness, he and Sora end up fighting, yadda yadda, all that.
Skip ahead to the end of Kingdom Hearts 2, after Riku spent entire other games working to bring Sora back and then helping him behind the scenes, and you have a much more mature Riku who's been through the Darkness and somehow managed to come out the other side not completely damaged, but also almost entirely different from how he was before. Gone is the Cool Kid act, replaced instead by a guilt-ridden emo guy who's reluctant to go home and own up to what he did. He's quieter, not as cocky anymore, and as such able to be more honest with himself and with Sora. They have that conversation on the beach, and he can admit to Sora that he was jealous of him, all that. Throw on your slash goggles and see whatever else you want to see, but for me I think Riku has basically come to terms with the fact that Sora is the most important person in his life and he probably would've been totally cool with sitting on that lonely beach for the rest of forever as long as the two of them were together.
Still not quite at a point where he's like OMG I LURVE YOU, but maybe getting there. Slowly. Friends first and forever, though.
High Seas
High Seas Riku is coming in juuuust on the tail end of that game. So, to be honest, he actually didn't mind being here too much at first. I think he probably hadn't gotten entirely comfortable being home yet, too much awkward and still feeling guilty and it's hard to just adjust back to the way life used to be. Plus he always had that urge to visit other worlds, though it's severely lessened after his tromp through the universe being an evil asshat, but anyway.
Also, at first, it was just him and Sora here.
Which is never a bad thing.
I try to play him as a quieter guy than he might have been a year or two ago, but ready to take action and get the job done because fighting and sparring and swordplay has always been something he's good at and enjoys. And with Sora, there's been this constant attempt to fit himself back into the role he used to have with the other boy, and he's always kind of switching between teasing (though hopefully it's more lighthearted now >.>) and being more serious and I think just trying to be nicer all around. He's still the older maybe-not-quite-as-cool teen, and while the jerk persona is still lurking around sometimes, MOSTLY he just wants to be someone Sora looks up to in a positive way. Not necessarily because he wants the constant attention anymore, but because Sora is just that important to him and he wants to be important to Sora.
He really wants to be important to Sora.
And he knows that he is, but there's still always this underlying guilt because of his still pretty recent actions, and there's definitely still the struggle with Darkness and coming to terms with the fact that it's a part of him. But he's trying!! He's TRYING to be a better guy, to be like Sora is, to make up for what he did to Destiny Islands and everything else.
Sora, of course, being Sora, made friends like two seconds after showing up in this world, and that's just not the kind of guy Riku is so he more or less just tagged along and joined the Spades and side-eyed Natsuno because wtf vampire, and he was pretty sure for awhile there that Sora was accidentally going to let himself get sucked dry because he's a durp and too eager to be helpful.
But even with their crew of eleventy billion, Riku was always focused on Sora and used the time when it was just the two of them here to ease back into their FOREVER BFF roles.
Kairi showing up was excellent, though. Because Kairi. Because she's always been one of his best friends and he hadn't really seen her in a loooong time and it's nice having her here, even if it's worrying at the same time.
Cue Halloween happening and EVERYTHING CHANGES.
Sora dying basically wrecked Riku. Completely. And he very nearly just succumbed to the Darkness again. Because a world without Sora isn't one he really wants to be in and he was a giant huge mess the first few days.
Enter Natsuno...who, turns out, is not a bad guy or an evil vampire and is somehow more emo and depressed about life than Riku is when his best friend just died, god. But Natsuno has his reasons, of course, Riku just didn't know them at the time.
BUT NATSUNO HELPED. He pulled Riku out of his funk a bit and distracted him from what was happening. Which made him someone important in Riku's life, and someone who he really appreciated.
Sora coming back was about the time that Riku finally figured things out. It was more than just relief he was alive and pure joy that he had this critically important person in his life back. Everything he was feeling kind of coalesced into a big ball of overwhelming EMOTION, with the realization that the thought of a life without Sora actually broke his heart and hurt because that's basically the love of his life right there and always has been. And always will be.
The proooblem was that...while he knows he's important to Sora, he was pretty sure it was a different kind of important. Because rewind back to childhood crushes, they're not so "childhood" anymore and at this point have had the chance to mature. Even if both Kairi and Sora themselves hadn't figured it out, Riku did. Or ASSUMED he did. He figured they were end game, as it were.
And since this was still a Riku who was working out how to make up for his past actions and fit himself back into the role of Sora's best friend who ISN'T a total dick, he kept alllll of that to himself. He didn't want to mess things up, or throw another wrench into their friendship, or make things weird or awkward. He'd just lost Sora once, he couldn't risk losing him again. Not when this was something he could keep a lid on.
Also, again, Sora and Kairi. They were supposed to be together, so what chance did he have?
Then, you know, this being RP and character development being dependent on CR and all that, when Sora wasn't around much due to being on hiatus, the Riku and Natsuno threads kind of exploded. XD
The thing with Riku and Natsuno was a friendship that turned into more, partly because Riku was making a conscientious effort to lock up his emotions regarding Sora and move on to someone else, but also because he legitimately liked Natsuno. He really did, and it wasn't a matter of him being a substitute or a second choice or anything like that, he was honestly at a point where he didn't WANT to make Sora an option, or have him be someone he was pining over. It had kind of been cemented in his brain that anything with Sora was never going to happen and he couldn't sit around wanting something he was never going to have, so he just cut off that line of thought altogether.
Or tried to.
And being with Natsuno made it easier to do that, because they got along really well and he enjoyed being with him and also, you know, teenage boy getting a little action, that definitely wasn't a bad thing. He liked the guy. Quite a bit.
But this is when I throw things in like...before Riku and Natsuno even started dating, Riku had told Natsuno something like: "Yeah, complicated feelings about your best friend, I know how that is." And when Riku told Sora about his new relationship, there was a part of him that was kind of hoping Sora would be upset about it or...something other than OH OKAY, THAT'S COOL. 8Db
BUT NO, he seemed to take it really well and not mind at all and that made Riku a bit like: /huff huff pout.
And then later when he was at the hot springs with Natsuno he even let the disappointment bleed through just a little that Sora was "totally and completely fine with it, hmph".
They were only together for about two months so Riku never really got to a point where he'd say he was in love with Natsuno, and actually he was a little surprised that Natsuno cared THAT MUCH about him, because he's an idiot and to be honest, he doesn't have the same self-confidence that he used to and just doesn't really view himself as a guy who someone COULD love that easily. Because of everything that he did.
He's still got all that guilt and stuff going on.
Anyway, Valentine's Day rolled around and changed everything again. Because Sora kissed him before Riku knew the candy was the reason behind it, and that one single move shattered every wall Riku had put up. Riku kissed back, then kissed him again even after finding out about the candy, but Sora returned it and that right there gave him the one thing that ruined any chance he had at keeping an emotionally safe distance between them: H O P E.
And then that just snowballed into a thousand other things. Hope that maybe Sora COULD return his feelings made it painfully obvious that, at that time, being with Natsuno wasn't going to work out. From his point of view, it wasn't fair to keep being with Natsuno when he now thought he had a chance at being with someone else, like, that's just kind of asshole-ish. Though things with Sora were and still are definitely kind of murky, but Riku's been taking the time to sort through all his emoootions and stuff again and figure out what he wants to do, what risks are worth taking, should he tell him or shouldn't he, etc etc.
...Of course, the bad part about this is that while he was still with Natsuno, he told Kairi she shouldn't wait to tell "whoever she liked (duh it's Sora)" about how she felt. Because this world is unpredictable and you should go for things when you have the chance and LOLLL HELLO HYPOCRITE. But he felt he was speaking from experience, what with Sora dying before he himself had figured things out. And also this was before Valentine's Day.
They had another conversation after the Riku/Natsuno break-up where he still encouraged her to just tell Sora already, while at the same time dodging questions about the "other person" he was in love with -- even though Natsuno told like ten different people, which Riku wasn't too pleased about, but Kairi wasn't one he gave a name to. That was Riku being a dolt, but it was nearly a month later after Valentine's Day and he and Sora still hadn't cleared things up between them so he was just...at a weird place. And not knowing what to think. And, despite everything, still pretty sure that Sora and Kairi were meant to be~ etc etc.
Theeeen Kairi died. And in a crazy thread that took a zillion different turns, Riku FINALLYYY told Sora how he felt at what was probably the worst possible time ever, but that's just kind of how the thread went, lol. Shit happens. 8|
But it meant he effectively sniped Kairi and orz. /headdesk
Sora told him he had feelings for both of them, for Riku and Kairi, so Riku almost immediately started locking up his emotions again. Or trying to. Self-preservation at its finest, and STILL thinking he knows what's best for the two of them (Sora and Kairi), and that's that they should be together. Or will be together in the end anyway, regardless of where Riku stands in all that.
He's already made up his mind that he's not bringing it up again. When he told Sora, he also told him that he wasn't expecting anything in return, that Sora could "do what he wanted" with the confession, and he meant that. He wasn't trying to pressure him into anything, he was more just finally coming clean with him. So he's not going to push, and he's not going to make Sora come back to him with any kind of answer. If any continuation conversation about all that is going to happen, it's not going to be Riku who initiates it. HE WILL BE PATIENT.
Side note: Riku isn't actually gay despite being head-over-heels for Sora and dating Natsuno. If Sora was a girl, he would've felt the same about her. He's more about personalities, and is attracted to that.
Sooo I play a Riku who has kind of always been infatuated with Sora. Or obsessed with even. I dunno, fight me, they're my OTP and I don't care. :P
Started when they were kids and it was mostly just the two of them and Sora was this little dork who would willingly tag along after him always. They were quick to be best friends and that's never changed, even when other factors came into play.
Like, enter Kairi. Sometimes you read fics and such where Riku is like GLARE GLARE GLARE because she comes in and "steals" Sora but I don't think it's like that at all. Despite Riku being a tool in all of Kingdom Hearts 1, what was backing a lot of his actions was the fact that he WAS trying to save Kairi and was willing to do whatever it took to help her. So, come on, she's also one of his best friends and he cares about her deeply.
BUT.
As they got older on the island, and teen crushes and such started to come into play, I think there was probably a definite shift in Riku's emotions. Not so much that he was jealous of Kairi, but more that he just wanted to make sure he kept being the center of Sora's world, even if at the time there was no real motivation for it like EMOTIONS-wise, as in he didn't flat out have romantic~ feelings for Sora or anything, not then. It was more just a base level HE'S MINE kinda thing. So he had this tough guy thing going, this image where he was the cool older teenager Sora should want to be like and hang out with forever, etc etc. But Sora and Kairi, again, the teen crush thing, they're close friends and one of those pairs where anyone could tell they'd probably be more than that one day. So to kind of distract from that, you have Riku being a jerk and pointedly teasing Sora about it to make him AKSJDHAS and deny it and inevitably turn back to Riku. Like...NO, SHUT UP, I DON'T LIKE HER, LET'S GO PLAY BLITZBALL /BLUSH BLUSH.
It's all pigtail pulling.
And means Riku gets Sora's attention for another day.
As all this is happening you then have the actual game stuff going on, like Riku starting to feel claustrophobic on Destiny Islands and wanting to leave and probably kind of bulldozing Sora (and subsequently Kairi) into it as well.
SO THEN KINGDOM HEARTS HAPPENS.
And Riku's emotions skip straight from teasing-jerk-but-still-a-good-guy to WOW DOUCHEBAG as Maleficent turns up and starts messing with his heart and helps nurture the lurking Darkness there. All the negative aspects of Riku's infatuation/obsession then start growing and coming into play. He becomes bitter and jealous over Sora's new friends, he focuses on the fact that he's been "forgotten", he STILL tries to use Sora's feelings for Kairi as a means to attract Sora's attention back to himself, though this time the goal is to make Sora ditch the others and come with him to save Kairi, because Sora is ALWAYS supposed to be by Riku's side in the end, regardless of whatever else he's doing.
It doesn't work, obviously. Riku gets taken over by Darkness, he and Sora end up fighting, yadda yadda, all that.
Skip ahead to the end of Kingdom Hearts 2, after Riku spent entire other games working to bring Sora back and then helping him behind the scenes, and you have a much more mature Riku who's been through the Darkness and somehow managed to come out the other side not completely damaged, but also almost entirely different from how he was before. Gone is the Cool Kid act, replaced instead by a guilt-ridden emo guy who's reluctant to go home and own up to what he did. He's quieter, not as cocky anymore, and as such able to be more honest with himself and with Sora. They have that conversation on the beach, and he can admit to Sora that he was jealous of him, all that. Throw on your slash goggles and see whatever else you want to see, but for me I think Riku has basically come to terms with the fact that Sora is the most important person in his life and he probably would've been totally cool with sitting on that lonely beach for the rest of forever as long as the two of them were together.
Still not quite at a point where he's like OMG I LURVE YOU, but maybe getting there. Slowly. Friends first and forever, though.
High Seas
High Seas Riku is coming in juuuust on the tail end of that game. So, to be honest, he actually didn't mind being here too much at first. I think he probably hadn't gotten entirely comfortable being home yet, too much awkward and still feeling guilty and it's hard to just adjust back to the way life used to be. Plus he always had that urge to visit other worlds, though it's severely lessened after his tromp through the universe being an evil asshat, but anyway.
Also, at first, it was just him and Sora here.
Which is never a bad thing.
I try to play him as a quieter guy than he might have been a year or two ago, but ready to take action and get the job done because fighting and sparring and swordplay has always been something he's good at and enjoys. And with Sora, there's been this constant attempt to fit himself back into the role he used to have with the other boy, and he's always kind of switching between teasing (though hopefully it's more lighthearted now >.>) and being more serious and I think just trying to be nicer all around. He's still the older maybe-not-quite-as-cool teen, and while the jerk persona is still lurking around sometimes, MOSTLY he just wants to be someone Sora looks up to in a positive way. Not necessarily because he wants the constant attention anymore, but because Sora is just that important to him and he wants to be important to Sora.
He really wants to be important to Sora.
And he knows that he is, but there's still always this underlying guilt because of his still pretty recent actions, and there's definitely still the struggle with Darkness and coming to terms with the fact that it's a part of him. But he's trying!! He's TRYING to be a better guy, to be like Sora is, to make up for what he did to Destiny Islands and everything else.
Sora, of course, being Sora, made friends like two seconds after showing up in this world, and that's just not the kind of guy Riku is so he more or less just tagged along and joined the Spades and side-eyed Natsuno because wtf vampire, and he was pretty sure for awhile there that Sora was accidentally going to let himself get sucked dry because he's a durp and too eager to be helpful.
But even with their crew of eleventy billion, Riku was always focused on Sora and used the time when it was just the two of them here to ease back into their FOREVER BFF roles.
Kairi showing up was excellent, though. Because Kairi. Because she's always been one of his best friends and he hadn't really seen her in a loooong time and it's nice having her here, even if it's worrying at the same time.
Cue Halloween happening and EVERYTHING CHANGES.
Sora dying basically wrecked Riku. Completely. And he very nearly just succumbed to the Darkness again. Because a world without Sora isn't one he really wants to be in and he was a giant huge mess the first few days.
Enter Natsuno...who, turns out, is not a bad guy or an evil vampire and is somehow more emo and depressed about life than Riku is when his best friend just died, god. But Natsuno has his reasons, of course, Riku just didn't know them at the time.
BUT NATSUNO HELPED. He pulled Riku out of his funk a bit and distracted him from what was happening. Which made him someone important in Riku's life, and someone who he really appreciated.
Sora coming back was about the time that Riku finally figured things out. It was more than just relief he was alive and pure joy that he had this critically important person in his life back. Everything he was feeling kind of coalesced into a big ball of overwhelming EMOTION, with the realization that the thought of a life without Sora actually broke his heart and hurt because that's basically the love of his life right there and always has been. And always will be.
The proooblem was that...while he knows he's important to Sora, he was pretty sure it was a different kind of important. Because rewind back to childhood crushes, they're not so "childhood" anymore and at this point have had the chance to mature. Even if both Kairi and Sora themselves hadn't figured it out, Riku did. Or ASSUMED he did. He figured they were end game, as it were.
And since this was still a Riku who was working out how to make up for his past actions and fit himself back into the role of Sora's best friend who ISN'T a total dick, he kept alllll of that to himself. He didn't want to mess things up, or throw another wrench into their friendship, or make things weird or awkward. He'd just lost Sora once, he couldn't risk losing him again. Not when this was something he could keep a lid on.
Also, again, Sora and Kairi. They were supposed to be together, so what chance did he have?
Then, you know, this being RP and character development being dependent on CR and all that, when Sora wasn't around much due to being on hiatus, the Riku and Natsuno threads kind of exploded. XD
The thing with Riku and Natsuno was a friendship that turned into more, partly because Riku was making a conscientious effort to lock up his emotions regarding Sora and move on to someone else, but also because he legitimately liked Natsuno. He really did, and it wasn't a matter of him being a substitute or a second choice or anything like that, he was honestly at a point where he didn't WANT to make Sora an option, or have him be someone he was pining over. It had kind of been cemented in his brain that anything with Sora was never going to happen and he couldn't sit around wanting something he was never going to have, so he just cut off that line of thought altogether.
Or tried to.
And being with Natsuno made it easier to do that, because they got along really well and he enjoyed being with him and also, you know, teenage boy getting a little action, that definitely wasn't a bad thing. He liked the guy. Quite a bit.
But this is when I throw things in like...before Riku and Natsuno even started dating, Riku had told Natsuno something like: "Yeah, complicated feelings about your best friend, I know how that is." And when Riku told Sora about his new relationship, there was a part of him that was kind of hoping Sora would be upset about it or...something other than OH OKAY, THAT'S COOL. 8Db
BUT NO, he seemed to take it really well and not mind at all and that made Riku a bit like: /huff huff pout.
And then later when he was at the hot springs with Natsuno he even let the disappointment bleed through just a little that Sora was "totally and completely fine with it, hmph".
They were only together for about two months so Riku never really got to a point where he'd say he was in love with Natsuno, and actually he was a little surprised that Natsuno cared THAT MUCH about him, because he's an idiot and to be honest, he doesn't have the same self-confidence that he used to and just doesn't really view himself as a guy who someone COULD love that easily. Because of everything that he did.
He's still got all that guilt and stuff going on.
Anyway, Valentine's Day rolled around and changed everything again. Because Sora kissed him before Riku knew the candy was the reason behind it, and that one single move shattered every wall Riku had put up. Riku kissed back, then kissed him again even after finding out about the candy, but Sora returned it and that right there gave him the one thing that ruined any chance he had at keeping an emotionally safe distance between them: H O P E.
And then that just snowballed into a thousand other things. Hope that maybe Sora COULD return his feelings made it painfully obvious that, at that time, being with Natsuno wasn't going to work out. From his point of view, it wasn't fair to keep being with Natsuno when he now thought he had a chance at being with someone else, like, that's just kind of asshole-ish. Though things with Sora were and still are definitely kind of murky, but Riku's been taking the time to sort through all his emoootions and stuff again and figure out what he wants to do, what risks are worth taking, should he tell him or shouldn't he, etc etc.
...Of course, the bad part about this is that while he was still with Natsuno, he told Kairi she shouldn't wait to tell "whoever she liked (duh it's Sora)" about how she felt. Because this world is unpredictable and you should go for things when you have the chance and LOLLL HELLO HYPOCRITE. But he felt he was speaking from experience, what with Sora dying before he himself had figured things out. And also this was before Valentine's Day.
They had another conversation after the Riku/Natsuno break-up where he still encouraged her to just tell Sora already, while at the same time dodging questions about the "other person" he was in love with -- even though Natsuno told like ten different people, which Riku wasn't too pleased about, but Kairi wasn't one he gave a name to. That was Riku being a dolt, but it was nearly a month later after Valentine's Day and he and Sora still hadn't cleared things up between them so he was just...at a weird place. And not knowing what to think. And, despite everything, still pretty sure that Sora and Kairi were meant to be~ etc etc.
Theeeen Kairi died. And in a crazy thread that took a zillion different turns, Riku FINALLYYY told Sora how he felt at what was probably the worst possible time ever, but that's just kind of how the thread went, lol. Shit happens. 8|
But it meant he effectively sniped Kairi and orz. /headdesk
Sora told him he had feelings for both of them, for Riku and Kairi, so Riku almost immediately started locking up his emotions again. Or trying to. Self-preservation at its finest, and STILL thinking he knows what's best for the two of them (Sora and Kairi), and that's that they should be together. Or will be together in the end anyway, regardless of where Riku stands in all that.
He's already made up his mind that he's not bringing it up again. When he told Sora, he also told him that he wasn't expecting anything in return, that Sora could "do what he wanted" with the confession, and he meant that. He wasn't trying to pressure him into anything, he was more just finally coming clean with him. So he's not going to push, and he's not going to make Sora come back to him with any kind of answer. If any continuation conversation about all that is going to happen, it's not going to be Riku who initiates it. HE WILL BE PATIENT.
Side note: Riku isn't actually gay despite being head-over-heels for Sora and dating Natsuno. If Sora was a girl, he would've felt the same about her. He's more about personalities, and is attracted to that.