Just some mini-rants

[dorked]

Riku. Most of the time he's characterized as one of the following:

- a sex god and ultimate seme
- A brooding angst bag with no sense of humor
- a total jerk to anyone who isn't Sora, sometimes even Sora

Comments

[hcb_chibi]

Totally agree with you. Riku is almost as much of a caring doof as Sora is, he just hides it.
I've read one fic where Axel spelling things actually fit, and he didn't do it that much in the first place.
...that's all I've got to say. General agreement in your direction.

[dorked]

Exactly! Riku definitely cares. Why else would he go to such great lengths for Kairi in KH1, and to such great lengths for Sora in KH2? A bit arrogant, sure, but he's definitely not a careless prick who only wants "SORA-KUN <333". ...I mean really.

It can work, it's just not something I see him doing all the time. o.o;

[eewitsanne]

Oh. My. Goodness. RIKU. I HATE how EVERYBODY makes him. so. damn. ANGSTY. Riku is not ANGSTY, dammit. He is reserved and snide. Sniiiiiiiiide. With a *slight* touch of social awkwardness. Gaaaaaah. Gah. *tries to shove angry fangril back into her cage*

[dorked]

Word. So much word!

He definitely has that social awkwardness, particularly in KH2, since he didn't strike me as quite as awkward in KH1. More importantly, I like to think of him as one who keeps most of his feelings hidden. Riku... would not be the sort to cry ~*tears of despair*~.

[userfriendly_x]

okay, zexion using slang and cursing? what? isn't he supposed to be like, the politest one in the organization who disapproves when people arrive and don't say hello? yeesh. even when xigbar is bugging the hell out of him in that added scene in final mix, zexion's quite polite about telling him to piss off.

[dorked]

I know, right? x-x But I've seen Zexions in fic and RP use coarse language and slang before, which...makes no sense.

[naiku]

Thank you for the Riku wake-up-call, because so many people are kind of. Argh. e__e He's a sarcastic, but caring guy. Who, despite looking like a wrestler and about three years older than Sora, has gone through about the same experiences teenager-wise. B| Geezus.

[dorked]

You're welcome. And yeah, really. I can't even begin to fathom how some people get the idea that Riku's a jerk who hates the world. ...other than KH1, maybe, but a lot of the fandom doesn't seem to care for KH1 as much, from what I've seen.

...not that they pay attention to characterization much at all. .-.

[naiku]

He might hate the world if something bad happens to him, but that's a normal teenager reaction. :| And true, most people are going for the CoM and KH2 versions of him, as far as I know. And a jerk, uhum. :|; I do believe he left that behind after KH1.

... yeah. ._.;

[pearlblade]

I'd like to wrestling Riku. XD <3

[kokanshu]

Riku is a dick in KH1, and it's not Maleficent's doing. He's a dick at the beginning of the game, and it's his dickiness that she takes advantage of. But he gets over it - unfortunately the process of his maturity is a bit more 'oh fuck, I almost screwed over the whole universe plus my best friends' and less 'wow, I've been a dick', but that doesn't negate the fact that he was a dick. Nor does it mean that he was a dick through and through - some of the biggest dickheads I've ever met are usually like that because they've got some ridiculously dorky soft side that they're attempting to hide. I'd say Riku goes in that category.

That said, some dicks are just plain dicks.

[levikitty]

I agree with this. Riku's terrible attitude in KH1 made me hate him with a passion. All Maleficent did was give him a nudge here and there, which is still manipulation, but not nearly on the scale that people implies it was.

[dorked]

He was still a bit of a brat in KH1, but it wasn't really until he started working with Mal that he got really jerkish, though. Around his friends he did do a lot of teasing, sure, and generally wasn't near as friendly as Sora, but he didn't strike me as that brutal until mid-game, when he was so easily tricked into thinking Sora had replaced him and Kairi. But eh, guess it all boils down to interpretation.

But I'd definitely agree about the whole hiding any sort of soft side deal. Riku, in general, seems to keep a lot of things to himself (e.g. : jealousy).

[kokanshu]

Midway through the game he went from being a dick to being a bad guy. But it was his attitude at the beginning of KH1 that Maleficent - hell, the darkness took advantage of. Okay so we don't really know all of this 100% until the end of KH2, where he admits to Sora that he was jealous (and, iirc, that he was the one who opened that damn door), but add it all together and you still get your stereotypical high school dick. Would he have grown up, continuing to be like that, if they hadn't gone on their epic adventures? Possibly. That would be an interesting AU, I think, showing him as he was (but older) and then putting him through the 'real life' ringer to get end-of-KH2 Riku.

And dicks can have friends. That's not really part of it. In fact, most of the time, they inexplicably do have friends, usually leading people to question those friends and them playing it off with 'ah, he's not always like that'. In fact, I seem to recall there's a scene like that with Sora, Donald and Goofy, after one of the encounters with Riku in KH1.