HollyHeights Application
Dec. 7th, 2012 02:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
predestinyOOC INFORMATION
Player: Myth
Age: 22
Personal Journal:mythril
Contact Info: michikokale (AIM)
Other Characters: N/A
IC INFORMATION
Characters Name: Riku
Age: 5
Canon: Kingdom Hearts
Canon Point: End of ‘Where the Heart Goes’, from Birth by Sleep
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Orientation: Asexual? He’s far too young to know and has not indicated incontrovertible interest in either sex in canon.
History:
I heard once there was a kid who left for good.
Appearance:
Personality:
Riku: Yeah. I wanna be strong one day. Like that kid who left. He went to the outside world-- I bet he's really strong now. I know it's out there somewhere--the strength that I need.
Terra: Strength for what?
Riku: To protect the things that matter. You know, like my friends.
~Five year old Riku and Terra in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.
Player: Myth
Age: 22
Personal Journal:
mythrilContact Info: michikokale (AIM)
Other Characters: N/A
IC INFORMATION
Characters Name: Riku
Age: 5
Canon: Kingdom Hearts
Canon Point: End of ‘Where the Heart Goes’, from Birth by Sleep
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Orientation: Asexual? He’s far too young to know and has not indicated incontrovertible interest in either sex in canon.
History:
I heard once there was a kid who left for good.
Appearance:
Personality:
Riku: Yeah. I wanna be strong one day. Like that kid who left. He went to the outside world-- I bet he's really strong now. I know it's out there somewhere--the strength that I need.
Terra: Strength for what?
Riku: To protect the things that matter. You know, like my friends.
~Five year old Riku and Terra in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.
Overall Personality: Prodigal Destiny; Knight of the Ashes (Riku throughout the Games/Ages)
If there is one single thing that is at the core of Riku’s identity, it is to be strong. But strength to Riku is not just any brute force, but the strength of a protector, a knight and guardian.
It comes as no surprise then that he values his friends highly, likely influencing the shape his goal has taken. One can’t be a protector without someone or something to protect.
His goals throughout the Kingdom Hearts series are notably always about his friends and finding strength to help or protect them. While he may exchange blows and bruises, using his physical strength freely, his dedication to his precious people is paramount. Nothing, not even the possession of his body by the Seeker of Darkness, nor the threat of permanently losing his body, physical harm, or wandering the Darkness forever—has ever stopped him from making sure a close friend is safe and whole. When it really matters, Riku will sacrifice himself as many times as he has to, proving his dedication throughout the series by coming to both his friends’ rescue time and time again, whether from kidnappers, an enemy’s laser blade, or the very depths of Sleep.
That isn’t to say that Riku is limited only to his friends, however. At heart, Riku has a generous spirit, tempered by a levelheaded awareness of what must be done. He might deny the suspicious, too-knowing entity asking for unspecified favors, but he will lend a helping hand to a girl being chased by monsters, a puppet and his Conscience, led astray, or to a fatherless son in a digital world, trying to set things to right. He shows compassion for others, as when he talked to rather than abducted Xion, tried to get DiZ to give Roxas one day at the beach, and returned all the Nobody’s mementos to Sora.
From that one motivation to seek a protector’s strength spirals Riku’s entire outward identity. Riku’s mannerisms, appearance, and behavior all project someone who is strong: confidently cool, cockily collected, and responsibly levelheaded. Nearly everyone on the Islands looks up to him, admiring his physical strength and ability. Wakka even goes so far as to say to leave things to Riku and everything will be fine. (As it turns out, he’s wrong, then absolutely right in the end.)
While Riku isn’t too cold to get angry, drop snarky comments, or tease his friends mercilessly as boys do, he has always been far calmer and sharper than many others of his age. In Dream Drop Distance, Joshua remarks on this trait: “Bravo, Riku, why can’t Sora be this quick on the uptake?” At the tender age of five, he was able to pinpoint that the stranger on the beach was from another world and advise said best friend to listen for someone who was crying from the stars in the sky- a remarkably philosophical comment from someone in kindergarten. As his best friend, Sora remarks, “You say some really weird stuff sometimes
The philosophical and open-mindedly curious outlook doesn’t seem to ever leave Riku. He daydreams of other worlds, posing the question, “I’ve always wondered why we’re here on this island. If there are any other worlds out there, why did we end up on this one?” in the start of Kingdom Hearts, influencing his friends into coming up with the plan of making a raft. He even applies it to himself, on occasion, with his tongue in cheek admittance during 358/2 Days that “Fair enough. You could say I’m the biggest Nobody of them all.” He was a dreamer who wanted to see other worlds, broaden his horizons, and venture fearlessly into the unknown—at least until that ended badly enough to make him doubt it.
Unlike other daydreamers, however, Riku acts upon his dreams. He takes the initiative, seizing each and every opportunity with a resourcefulness few can match and a determination that turns even weaknesses into strength. It takes a special person to be claimed by the Darkness and yet resist and struggle through it each waking moment, who voluntarily locks himself into the realm of Darkness and chooses to suffer and work his way up a castle alone and against all odds, only to take on a new difficult mission to help his best friend get his memories back, stalking an evil organization for almost a year. As Riku himself says in his limit break battle cry: “As if I’d ever give up!”
On top of that, Riku genuinely wants to better himself- in some ways, he even wanted to be perfect. If he was going to get protect anything, after all, he had to get stronger- be the best. As a result, he constantly challenges himself and his own worth, ending up with a competitive streak a mile wide. He’ll rarely back down from a challenge or fight, whether if it’s a friendly race across the island or tests of will and courage, choosing to confront rather than run away from his trials and never shirking the burden, only accepting and besting it- a trait he carries with him throughout all the games.
But the self-same goal that drives him to become stronger belies a deep-set insecurity. Early on in Kingdom Hearts, it becomes clear that Riku needs to be needed. Without the assurance of his own worth, he tends to easily distrust and loathe himself and become very easily jealous when his position is being threatened. This distrust, jealousy, and general darkness in his heart was what Maleficent used in order to manipulate him—or at least, tried to. Feeling abandoned, unvalued, and betrayed, particularly when it seemed like Sora might be stronger and thus no longer in need of him, was also what led him mock Sora for having a Keyblade that turned out to be willed to him.
At the end of KH II, he outright admits that he was jealous of Sora’s ease in following his heart, and always thought that he had to be better at him ‘at stuff’ in order to compensate, possibly, to be worth being a friend. It’s a burden he carries with him straight into his Mark of Mastery exam. In sharp contrast to Sora, who is confident in their abilities, Riku humbly accepts the exam, desperate to prove himself exactly how far he’s come and that he is worthy of the Keyblade that had rejected him once and had fought so hard to earn. The exam became a means to test himself and prove that he had mastered his own Darkness, once and for all.
Riku’s emotional insecurity does not depend on the presence of his friends, however, (or even friends in general) so much as the assurance that they are still his friends and that they are inside each other’s hearts, as King Mickey proved to him by remaining his sole and steadfast friend all throughout Riku’s journey through Castle Oblivion.
Rather, Riku is fiercely independent and refuses to be boxed in. To the point that if there is no path to be taken, he will make one himself, stating as much to DiZ when he realizes that he can work with both Light and Darkness without rejecting the other and claims “Neither suits me. I'm taking the middle road. […] The Way to Dawn.”
The stubbornness serves him well. To date, in the entire franchise of the game, Riku is the only person able to trap his Darkness inside him, controlling it rather than letting it control him. As a direct result he is able to wield both Light and Darkness, the only one who’s ever been able to, according to Mickey.
What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. Falling to Darkness changed Riku irrevocably, but clawing his way back up from the depths of defeat made him better. Riku is vastly more mature for the hardships he had suffered, his old emotional insecurity tied to being stronger than everyone else having faded back to his original purpose- to be a protector, even if he’s no longer the one in the limelight or the one being depended on all the time. He learned to open his heart, to accept the strength that comes from your friends, and that it’s alright to rely on them in times of need.
While still rude and with an attitude, Riku’s humbler than before, and more appreciative of what he has, rather than what he doesn’t. He learned not to give in to the Darkness and remembered what was important to him, proving that he had truly learned how to be strong. His Mark of Mastery was also a Mark of how far he’d gone to come around full circle.
Timeline Personality- Budding Guardian; Pre-Destiny:
I’ll be taking Riku during the ten years before prequel, Birth by Sleep, specifically right after the “Where the Heart Goes” scene wherein Ven comes to dwell in Sora’s heart.
Five year old Riku is the Riku who’s truest to himself, untainted. Life for him is simple and clear- he has one goal and that is to protect his important people; his friends. He knows what he wants and he even has an idea how to get it-- go to other worlds and find the strength there.
Many of the traits Riku manifests ten years later is already readily apparent. Riku is fearlessly adventurous, sincerely straightforward, and teasing, but caring towards his friends. He thinks nothing of the challenge of finding strength, relishes and welcomes it, just as he thinks nothing about the possibility of not coming back or of talking to strangers from other worlds. When Sora challenges him to a race, he hangs back and walks at his own pace. He teases and challenges his best friend constantly, but when Sora starts to cry, he looks stricken, worried. His immediate thought is to comfort him, even if it’s by means of a strange and almost whimsical logic.
He also shows the commitment and loyalty he uses to repurpose himself when he’s older. He won’t lie, but he won’t break his promise, choosing to distract instead of lie to his best friend about a secret he has to keep.
Precocious, Riku is notably beyond his age group, but still, in many ways, a little boy. He has a very firm grasp of logic for his age, as Terra points out when he calmly deduces that Terra is from another world. He remains calm and collected, unfazed by huge sword-clubs appearing out of thin air. On the flip side, he is also naive and guileless, accepting what he said for what it is and never questioning his beliefs, no matter how limited his knowledge.
As a child, he’s also still reliant on adults (e.g. rowing to the play island) and instinctively seeks to be with his friend as much as possible, the two barely parting before one comes looking for the other. It’s not a closed system, with both of them gamely talking to other people, but the childlike urge to constantly be with his playmate is apparent-- along with the urge to tease, play, run, and explore. Carefree, he laughs much more than when he is older, his smile wider and easier to prompt.
Abilites:
Cuteness.
Latent ability to be a keyblade wielder?
N/A
Other:
N/A
SAMPLES
First Person:
[Voice]
[The voice is very young and light, strangely calm but with a little boy’s familiar brusqueness.]
Hello? Can I get a ride back with someone to 7 Upper Thalassa Lane? This... isn’t my house and I don’t really need another one.
I’m.. in front of a house with rose bushes near the gate. There’s a blue car outside, too, but I don’t know whose it is. I’ll be standing outside with a yellow shirt on.
If you can hear me, call me back, okay? Someone left a phone here and the number is [XXXX-XXX-XXXX].
Third Person:
All the grass in this place felt weird, Riku decided. The sky looked different, too, especially at night. Riku hadn’t gotten up to counting all of the stars yet, but they didn’t look like the ones back home. He wondered if that meant his home was out there, somewhere, a star shining far away looking back at him on this one.
And the water-- it looked a lot like the sea around the Islands, but it tasted awful and not at all salty, smelled like medicine, and didn’t have anything growing or living in it. Why would anyone want water like that? He’d tried swimming in it, half-hoping it would somehow give up all its secrets, but while almost familiar, the lake beside the house he’d woken up in was stubbornly placid with none of the mysteries offered in the deeper parts of the ocean Sora’s dad always told them not to swim in.
But he knew one thing. Other worlds definitely did exist and when he got back he’d tell everyone that he’d told them so. Even Wakka and the other big kids.
And if this one existed, then there had to be others, too. He’d heard some grownups and the bigger kids at school talk about where they’d come from. He really didn’t understand why he couldn’t have ended up in half of those other worlds, instead. They sounded like much more fun than this one.
Maybe someday he could get one of them to take him back with them. Both of them. It wouldn’t be as fun if Sora wasn’t there to go on adventures with him, after all.
OTHER
Housing Request?: Requesting to be in same household as young!Sora from Kingdom Hearts.
Did you read the rules and FAQ?:Yes.
Would you like your application to be unscreened?: No.
If there is one single thing that is at the core of Riku’s identity, it is to be strong. But strength to Riku is not just any brute force, but the strength of a protector, a knight and guardian.
It comes as no surprise then that he values his friends highly, likely influencing the shape his goal has taken. One can’t be a protector without someone or something to protect.
His goals throughout the Kingdom Hearts series are notably always about his friends and finding strength to help or protect them. While he may exchange blows and bruises, using his physical strength freely, his dedication to his precious people is paramount. Nothing, not even the possession of his body by the Seeker of Darkness, nor the threat of permanently losing his body, physical harm, or wandering the Darkness forever—has ever stopped him from making sure a close friend is safe and whole. When it really matters, Riku will sacrifice himself as many times as he has to, proving his dedication throughout the series by coming to both his friends’ rescue time and time again, whether from kidnappers, an enemy’s laser blade, or the very depths of Sleep.
That isn’t to say that Riku is limited only to his friends, however. At heart, Riku has a generous spirit, tempered by a levelheaded awareness of what must be done. He might deny the suspicious, too-knowing entity asking for unspecified favors, but he will lend a helping hand to a girl being chased by monsters, a puppet and his Conscience, led astray, or to a fatherless son in a digital world, trying to set things to right. He shows compassion for others, as when he talked to rather than abducted Xion, tried to get DiZ to give Roxas one day at the beach, and returned all the Nobody’s mementos to Sora.
From that one motivation to seek a protector’s strength spirals Riku’s entire outward identity. Riku’s mannerisms, appearance, and behavior all project someone who is strong: confidently cool, cockily collected, and responsibly levelheaded. Nearly everyone on the Islands looks up to him, admiring his physical strength and ability. Wakka even goes so far as to say to leave things to Riku and everything will be fine. (As it turns out, he’s wrong, then absolutely right in the end.)
While Riku isn’t too cold to get angry, drop snarky comments, or tease his friends mercilessly as boys do, he has always been far calmer and sharper than many others of his age. In Dream Drop Distance, Joshua remarks on this trait: “Bravo, Riku, why can’t Sora be this quick on the uptake?” At the tender age of five, he was able to pinpoint that the stranger on the beach was from another world and advise said best friend to listen for someone who was crying from the stars in the sky- a remarkably philosophical comment from someone in kindergarten. As his best friend, Sora remarks, “You say some really weird stuff sometimes
The philosophical and open-mindedly curious outlook doesn’t seem to ever leave Riku. He daydreams of other worlds, posing the question, “I’ve always wondered why we’re here on this island. If there are any other worlds out there, why did we end up on this one?” in the start of Kingdom Hearts, influencing his friends into coming up with the plan of making a raft. He even applies it to himself, on occasion, with his tongue in cheek admittance during 358/2 Days that “Fair enough. You could say I’m the biggest Nobody of them all.” He was a dreamer who wanted to see other worlds, broaden his horizons, and venture fearlessly into the unknown—at least until that ended badly enough to make him doubt it.
Unlike other daydreamers, however, Riku acts upon his dreams. He takes the initiative, seizing each and every opportunity with a resourcefulness few can match and a determination that turns even weaknesses into strength. It takes a special person to be claimed by the Darkness and yet resist and struggle through it each waking moment, who voluntarily locks himself into the realm of Darkness and chooses to suffer and work his way up a castle alone and against all odds, only to take on a new difficult mission to help his best friend get his memories back, stalking an evil organization for almost a year. As Riku himself says in his limit break battle cry: “As if I’d ever give up!”
On top of that, Riku genuinely wants to better himself- in some ways, he even wanted to be perfect. If he was going to get protect anything, after all, he had to get stronger- be the best. As a result, he constantly challenges himself and his own worth, ending up with a competitive streak a mile wide. He’ll rarely back down from a challenge or fight, whether if it’s a friendly race across the island or tests of will and courage, choosing to confront rather than run away from his trials and never shirking the burden, only accepting and besting it- a trait he carries with him throughout all the games.
But the self-same goal that drives him to become stronger belies a deep-set insecurity. Early on in Kingdom Hearts, it becomes clear that Riku needs to be needed. Without the assurance of his own worth, he tends to easily distrust and loathe himself and become very easily jealous when his position is being threatened. This distrust, jealousy, and general darkness in his heart was what Maleficent used in order to manipulate him—or at least, tried to. Feeling abandoned, unvalued, and betrayed, particularly when it seemed like Sora might be stronger and thus no longer in need of him, was also what led him mock Sora for having a Keyblade that turned out to be willed to him.
At the end of KH II, he outright admits that he was jealous of Sora’s ease in following his heart, and always thought that he had to be better at him ‘at stuff’ in order to compensate, possibly, to be worth being a friend. It’s a burden he carries with him straight into his Mark of Mastery exam. In sharp contrast to Sora, who is confident in their abilities, Riku humbly accepts the exam, desperate to prove himself exactly how far he’s come and that he is worthy of the Keyblade that had rejected him once and had fought so hard to earn. The exam became a means to test himself and prove that he had mastered his own Darkness, once and for all.
Riku’s emotional insecurity does not depend on the presence of his friends, however, (or even friends in general) so much as the assurance that they are still his friends and that they are inside each other’s hearts, as King Mickey proved to him by remaining his sole and steadfast friend all throughout Riku’s journey through Castle Oblivion.
Rather, Riku is fiercely independent and refuses to be boxed in. To the point that if there is no path to be taken, he will make one himself, stating as much to DiZ when he realizes that he can work with both Light and Darkness without rejecting the other and claims “Neither suits me. I'm taking the middle road. […] The Way to Dawn.”
The stubbornness serves him well. To date, in the entire franchise of the game, Riku is the only person able to trap his Darkness inside him, controlling it rather than letting it control him. As a direct result he is able to wield both Light and Darkness, the only one who’s ever been able to, according to Mickey.
What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. Falling to Darkness changed Riku irrevocably, but clawing his way back up from the depths of defeat made him better. Riku is vastly more mature for the hardships he had suffered, his old emotional insecurity tied to being stronger than everyone else having faded back to his original purpose- to be a protector, even if he’s no longer the one in the limelight or the one being depended on all the time. He learned to open his heart, to accept the strength that comes from your friends, and that it’s alright to rely on them in times of need.
While still rude and with an attitude, Riku’s humbler than before, and more appreciative of what he has, rather than what he doesn’t. He learned not to give in to the Darkness and remembered what was important to him, proving that he had truly learned how to be strong. His Mark of Mastery was also a Mark of how far he’d gone to come around full circle.
Timeline Personality- Budding Guardian; Pre-Destiny:
I’ll be taking Riku during the ten years before prequel, Birth by Sleep, specifically right after the “Where the Heart Goes” scene wherein Ven comes to dwell in Sora’s heart.
Five year old Riku is the Riku who’s truest to himself, untainted. Life for him is simple and clear- he has one goal and that is to protect his important people; his friends. He knows what he wants and he even has an idea how to get it-- go to other worlds and find the strength there.
Many of the traits Riku manifests ten years later is already readily apparent. Riku is fearlessly adventurous, sincerely straightforward, and teasing, but caring towards his friends. He thinks nothing of the challenge of finding strength, relishes and welcomes it, just as he thinks nothing about the possibility of not coming back or of talking to strangers from other worlds. When Sora challenges him to a race, he hangs back and walks at his own pace. He teases and challenges his best friend constantly, but when Sora starts to cry, he looks stricken, worried. His immediate thought is to comfort him, even if it’s by means of a strange and almost whimsical logic.
He also shows the commitment and loyalty he uses to repurpose himself when he’s older. He won’t lie, but he won’t break his promise, choosing to distract instead of lie to his best friend about a secret he has to keep.
Precocious, Riku is notably beyond his age group, but still, in many ways, a little boy. He has a very firm grasp of logic for his age, as Terra points out when he calmly deduces that Terra is from another world. He remains calm and collected, unfazed by huge sword-clubs appearing out of thin air. On the flip side, he is also naive and guileless, accepting what he said for what it is and never questioning his beliefs, no matter how limited his knowledge.
As a child, he’s also still reliant on adults (e.g. rowing to the play island) and instinctively seeks to be with his friend as much as possible, the two barely parting before one comes looking for the other. It’s not a closed system, with both of them gamely talking to other people, but the childlike urge to constantly be with his playmate is apparent-- along with the urge to tease, play, run, and explore. Carefree, he laughs much more than when he is older, his smile wider and easier to prompt.
Abilites:
Latent ability to be a keyblade wielder?
N/A
Other:
N/A
SAMPLES
First Person:
[Voice]
[The voice is very young and light, strangely calm but with a little boy’s familiar brusqueness.]
Hello? Can I get a ride back with someone to 7 Upper Thalassa Lane? This... isn’t my house and I don’t really need another one.
I’m.. in front of a house with rose bushes near the gate. There’s a blue car outside, too, but I don’t know whose it is. I’ll be standing outside with a yellow shirt on.
If you can hear me, call me back, okay? Someone left a phone here and the number is [XXXX-XXX-XXXX].
Third Person:
All the grass in this place felt weird, Riku decided. The sky looked different, too, especially at night. Riku hadn’t gotten up to counting all of the stars yet, but they didn’t look like the ones back home. He wondered if that meant his home was out there, somewhere, a star shining far away looking back at him on this one.
And the water-- it looked a lot like the sea around the Islands, but it tasted awful and not at all salty, smelled like medicine, and didn’t have anything growing or living in it. Why would anyone want water like that? He’d tried swimming in it, half-hoping it would somehow give up all its secrets, but while almost familiar, the lake beside the house he’d woken up in was stubbornly placid with none of the mysteries offered in the deeper parts of the ocean Sora’s dad always told them not to swim in.
But he knew one thing. Other worlds definitely did exist and when he got back he’d tell everyone that he’d told them so. Even Wakka and the other big kids.
And if this one existed, then there had to be others, too. He’d heard some grownups and the bigger kids at school talk about where they’d come from. He really didn’t understand why he couldn’t have ended up in half of those other worlds, instead. They sounded like much more fun than this one.
Maybe someday he could get one of them to take him back with them. Both of them. It wouldn’t be as fun if Sora wasn’t there to go on adventures with him, after all.
OTHER
Housing Request?: Requesting to be in same household as young!Sora from Kingdom Hearts.
Did you read the rules and FAQ?:Yes.
Would you like your application to be unscreened?: No.
