#this is just straight up unfiltered word vomit about my special little guy

[sleepy-moron]

Super messy kingdom hearts feelings

Riku is genuinely one of my favorite characters in any piece of media full stop, and it’s really hard for most people to understand why I love him so much. To a lot of people who only really played kh 1 and 2, Riku is just a kind of generic rival character, and for a lot of fans of the whole series he’s one of the best characters in the franchise but nothing particularly special in the grand scheme of all media ever.

I think understanding that Riku is deeply in love with Sora is essential to understanding what makes Riku such a wonderful character. There is so much more to him as a character, but his primary motivation has always been deeply intertwined with his love for Sora, and that’s not something you can ignore.

Riku speaks to a very specific experience that most people probably have not had, but if you do relate to it he becomes so special and important. So I’ve got to get a bit personal here to properly articulate what I mean.

When I was younger, I was best friends with one of my neighbors. We had been friends for years and spent a lot of time with each other. Then, a new kid our age moved into the neighborhood, and my best friend was suddenly spending all their time with another person. I had a lot of very strong feelings about this, to the point I would feel physically sick from it all. I didn’t understand what I was feeling or why I felt it so strongly, I just knew it hurt and I hated it.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that I am very much not straight and had a massive crush on my best friend when all this was happening. I was jealous, sad, angry, guilty, and legitimately disgusted with myself and my friend. Our friendship was never really the same after that. On top of all this I was also dealing with undiagnosed mental illness as a kid, so I was basically just an emotional wreck pretending everything was normal for a few years.

I also watched my dad and brother play a lot of kingdom hearts as a young kid. I didn’t really understand the games but I was entranced by them despite this. Flash forward quite a few years to right before kh3 came out, and I decided to start watching people play through all the games so I could actually understand what the story was. I had by this point mostly finished having a sexuality crisis and was starting to deal with the unaddressed feelings I still kept locked up.

And then I got to see Riku in all his messy emotional gay coded glory, and it just resonated with me in a way I didn’t know I wanted or needed. Watching this kid feel all these messy and ugly things that he couldn’t really understand and lashing out because of it, to get to see him atone for his mistakes and begin the long journey to not only forgive himself but also accept himself and all the things he felt, it was just so emotionally significant for me. I had never really thought about what it would be like to see this part of my life reflected by a character, but once I had it I was just overwhelmed with how strongly I connected to the Mickey Mouse anime games.

I finally had the time to watch the 6 hour Riku is gay and why it matters video the other day, and it emotionally destroyed me all over again. I don’t think I’ll ever really stop being emotional about Riku, sometimes you just consume a piece of media at the right time and it just stays with you forever. That’s really why he’s so special to me, I happened to get to fully see his character at the right time for him to be so important to me in a way very few characters are.

#Merlin yells about kingdom hearts #soriku #(well soriku is implied…sorta) #listen I was in my feelings and have not proofread this #this is just straight up unfiltered word vomit about my special little guy #riku kingdom hearts