Welp. Since I've written fanfic for Ben 10 now, I've decided to make this little side-blog to post and reblog about Ben 10 stuff (and anything else I like. Keep things nice and clean from my other blog for a different cartoon I'm obsessed with.
Feel free to call me Cell over here. I'm about 23 years old and use any pronouns, and I'm in a polyamorous relationship with a few members of a system. That's all you really need to know about my personal life right off the bat. Everything else about me you will probably learn about through my posts.
My current fandoms are: Kingdom Hearts, Ben 10, and Digimon Adventure and 02. Do expect posts and reblogs of such content on this blog.
My AO3 Pseud is Celestialite. Feel free to peruse my "creative wares"! You can send asks about my AUs (Bezelverse and Replicated Hearts), chat with me through reblog chains, or just DM me stuff! I don't bite! I like meeting new people! ^0^ Just don’t be a meanie.
Oh, also you can make fanart for any of my AUs. I don’t mind at alll! I actually consider it a very high form of a compliment! Definitely tag me in any of your posts about my stuff so I can reblog and comment!
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Playing 358/2 Days and surprisingly enough it’s not the platforming that makes me burst into tears. No, the platforming is actually better slightly and I know what to expect this time. I’m actually going air-based and it’s fun. Lift Gear my beloved.
It’s the fucking following Pete mini-game in Agrabah on Mission 21 that made me lose my shit. I failed it five times already and I genuinely broke down into tears. I’m not exaggerating. I actually cried. Whyyyy is it so haaaaard?!
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Playing 358/2 Days and surprisingly enough it’s not the platforming that makes me burst into tears. No, the platforming is actually better slightly and I know what to expect this time. I’m actually going air-based and it’s fun. Lift Gear my beloved.
It’s the fucking following Pete mini-game in Agrabah on Mission 21 that made me lose my shit. I failed it five times already and I genuinely broke down into tears. I’m not exaggerating. I actually cried. Whyyyy is it so haaaaard?!
I CAN'T BELIEVE I WAS SO ANNOYING ABOUT KINGDOM HEARTS TO MY ROOMMATE WITH OSDD THAT THEY FORMED A RIKU ALTER! I was trying to fucking sleep and low and behold Justin (the host) starts joking about how if another alter forms he's going to piss and whine and LOW AND FUCKING BEHOLD RIKU FROM KINGDOM HEARTS INTRODUCES HIMSELF IN HEADSPACE. I'm laughing so haaaaaard oh my gooooood—
our friend FIRST made Roxas and Axel start fronting again after like a decade away from front (they're regular fronters now) and then got Sora to split by playing kh2 randos in vc
we now have a whole system full of kh fictives and he had to watch as Kairi kicked Riku's ass at the end of kh1 without even breaking a sweat. he spent that whole game hyping up how it's the hardest fight in the whole game and it's finally going to wreck out shit, then Kairi fucking two-tried the fight and asked if she was being fucked with because "that seriously wasn't that hard"
these days he has to live the real life experience of having Vanitas get him with ligmas so he suffers the consequences of his actions
Ooooh are you talking about the fight in Hollow Bastion? Yeah I think that was pretty easy for me, probably because I was on easy mode though. I also tend to grind and over-level a bit in games. I beat it first try.
I didn't know how to dodge roll at the time so I just spammed wind magic and relentlessly smacked his ass with my keyblade. I don't think it lasted too long? I mean, Kendrick Lamar's Squabble Up wasn't even finished playing by the time I cooked him.
...I kept getting soul-eaten by actual Ansem in solo later though (my karma ig), because I still didn't know how to dodge roll. I played the entire game without dodge rolling and still made it through somehow...Again, probably because I was on easy mode. I struggled a lot even then but not so much at the Riku-Ansem fight.
Anyways yeah apparently Tulip (one of the alters in my friend's system) made this Riku alter because he is needed for my friend at their current time in their life (something something road to dawn being useful for them figuring out how to balance their own life). He's specifically post-CoM Riku because we just got done watching that.
the fronter can hear people close to the front in headspace so I was able to communicate with him via the fronter translating everything he said. I was showing Justin more of my Replicated Hearts art and Riku said he was disturbed by Nulla (in an uncanny valley way), which means I did a good job with Nulla's design. That is exactly how a Riku should feel about Nulla at first sight. :) Yaaaay!
I'm just waiting for him to front for the first time so I can see how annoying fifteen-year-old Riku would actually be. Considering Justin said that their Riku feels a lot like the Dereks, and Dereks are fucking asshats (love them though), I think Eklesia-Riku's gonna fit in just nicely. ^O^
I CAN'T BELIEVE I WAS SO ANNOYING ABOUT KINGDOM HEARTS TO MY ROOMMATE WITH OSDD THAT THEY FORMED A RIKU ALTER! I was trying to fucking sleep and low and behold Justin (the host) starts joking about how if another alter forms he's going to piss and whine and LOW AND FUCKING BEHOLD RIKU FROM KINGDOM HEARTS INTRODUCES HIMSELF IN HEADSPACE. I'm laughing so haaaaaard oh my gooooood—
La de da de daaaa I’m on my Tumbler scrolling and stuff. Life is good! I’m so (Gets jumpscared by my abuser reblogging things on their blog) GNTGJNFHMBVHFHGNGCGGHFNFXFHGJHSSYUK8SDACYKH—
My abuser keeps reblogging cutesy age regression posts. ToT What the fuck.
(Vent under the cut. Drink the tea at your own risk because it is HOT!!)
I have no problem with age regression posts. I just have a problem with them acting like they're in need of comfort after they threatened suicide or self-harm whenever I hung out with my partner for more than like...five minutes (mind you we had to go on food errands for them to even have a moment to ourselves).
Like, the fucking audacity to yearn for innocence after tearing mine away via coercing me into a relationship I didn't really want to pursue but felt pressured to anyways because they just...constantly, were screaming and crying about being unlovable and accusing us of abandoning them, and they would not leave me and my partner alone. I cared about them so much at the time. I thought I could grow to love them like that if I just tried hard enough.
I thought if we just included them in our relationship, things would be easier. But it wasn't. They proceeded to continue to scream and cry about feeling unloved and unequal in the relationship when me and my partner had a five second interaction. Even after we constantly showered them with attention and bent over backwards to please them, it was never enough. Never ever enough. Every fucking day. Every fucking day I had to sacrifice everything and everything and everything for them.
I developed a drinking problem because of the asshole! So yeah I wish them a merry suffer in hell for eternity. Yeaaah go ahead and act all innocent after you abused us in every way possible. It's not like you punched my partner in the face in a cramped motel bathroom after threatening to kill yourself or anything! :))
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La de da de daaaa I’m on my Tumbler scrolling and stuff. Life is good! I’m so (Gets jumpscared by my abuser reblogging things on their blog) GNTGJNFHMBVHFHGNGCGGHFNFXFHGJHSSYUK8SDACYKH—
whenever people sat that replica riku woule go by a different name in fsnfictions i thijk a part of me dies because it’s so horrifying to think about like he’s a permanently 15 year old copy of everything bad about someone, their jealousy and their anger, and nothing ahout yourself is truly yours. not even your name. like i donMt blame him for trying to kill the real riku and take his ppace i wouleMve been extremelu disturbed too hwd i been in his place and i just don’t think he would have sacrificed uis name… idk it’s just me right. i feel like he’d cling to evey shred of his identity
Even the things that differentiate him from riku like for example his affection (or love haha hehe 😅😅😅) for namine aren’t HIS nothing is HIS and i can only imagine how desperate he must be to have something of his own. like i get why they’d make him give himself a different name, to satifsy his need to NOT be riku, but i don’t thijk he wants to STOP BEING RIKU!!!
Replica riku isn’t trying to be a different person, he’s trying to be the only riku!! he wants to be riku because he IS riku!!!!!!! At least to me
I do agree with the general sentiment that what Repliku went through was a horror show. Yeah it absolutely was. The poor poor robit. ToT
Though, as much as I do love seeing other people's interpretations of a character that wasn't really well worked with in a franchise, and as much as I don't want to look like I'm that guy. Uh...
Isn't the entire narrative surrounding Repliku in CoM about Repliku being his own person with his own developing heart that was forced to be Riku?
I apologize. I am about to be so neurodivergent about this. In fact I'm gonna be so neurodivergent I'm adding a cut into the post because it's kind of long.
Like, Repliku himself states multiple times that he doesn't want to be like Riku. Sora tells Repliku that he's his own person and doesn't have to be Riku. The game seems very intent on telling the player and the viewer that Repliku is not Riku, doesn't want to be Riku, and was forced to be Riku.
I mean, it's even supported subtly if you look at Repliku and Riku's first interaction, where Repliku is not Naminé'd yet and is at his purest (or as I call it, his prime).
Repliku is perfectly content explaining what he is to Riku on his first hours of existence. He doesn't seem to hold any anger or disappointment in being a Replica yet. Hell, based on the tone of voice, he's proud of it.
That's the very first trait you notice in Repliku right off the bat that's...a bit different from Riku. I'm not saying Riku isn't prideful, I'm just saying Repliku has so much hubris it doesn't even seem like Riku-brand pride anymore. I think that's just literally how he is deep inside. That's what was born with the little data of Riku he had at the time, and it became its own thing.
This does make sense as, at this point, Repliku is primarily based on Riku's combat data? I think? And not so much his personality data? I could be wrong on that front. But if I'm right, it explains why he has a different vibe from Riku.
And then this specific exchange happens here. Notice how Repliku does not say anything like "I'm just as real as you!" , or "I'm just as you as you are." or anything like that. He says "I don't care if you're "real"! You're not better!"
Which means Repliku interpreted Riku's comment about Repliku not being the "real Riku" as Riku saying he was lesser than Riku. That's what grinds his gears: the implication that he's not hot shit and that his source is better than him. That's not at all what Riku said, but OK Repliku.
He couldn't care less that he's not human or that he's not exactly like Riku, here. He just cares about being better than his "loser" source. There be even more hubris as Repliku's defining trait.
And then Repliku proceeds to make a very clear distinction between them both. Whether this is an actual distinction between the two is up for debate, but it does tell us that Repliku is willing to try to distinguish himself from Riku. And that very act alone does in fact distinguish him. Mmmh more pride on the hubris cake.
And it's not like Repliku getting Naminé'd later even suppressed this jerkness in him. I mean:
Riku would never say that about his island friends. Repliku is an asshat and even after his entire personality is forced to mimic Riku more closely and revolve around one to two people, he still has that moxie in him. The real him shines through. The fucking audacity of this Replica (I love him.).
Maybe it's because I live with a roommate with DID that had five to seven alters of the same character that were each a little different (Ahh I miss the Dereks.), but subtle differences like these between Riku and Repliku are kind of more obvious to me, personally. It's is a me thing though so—
So I think it's perfectly reasonably for people to give Repliku his own name. Riku has been forcefully IV'ed into his circuit-board. He deserves to discover who he is as his own person and further expand those distinguishing traits between him and Riku that already existed on hour one. He himself may not recognize those differences, but they are there.
...Unfortunately Repliku gave up his life for Naminé in KH3 so we'll probably never see the guy he becooomes. Waaaah!
I do really like what you've said here! I think the concept of Repliku being like Riku and wanting to be exactly like Riku would have been an interesting alternative narrative the game could have taken! But as far as I can see (And I myself am a flawed being, so I dunno man?) the actual game makes it very clear that the opposite of what you have said is the case.
He does try to kill Riku in the end, but considering how Repliku was acting right before he got his shit rocked and also everything else presented in the game, this seems less like an act of usurping Riku's place and more like someone having the biggest psychotic breakdown after his entire perceived reality was unraveled and he's taking it out on the source of his existence out of pure anguish.
Maybe he thinks if he kills Riku, he can free himself of the Riku in him and figure things out from there. I'm not sure what he was doing. He was clearly not in his right mind. He could have also been trying to kill himself considering he was eerily calm when Riku defeated him, which implies on some level, he was expecting and maybe even hoping Riku would defeat him and put him out of his misery (What mind games does to a mofo.).
Anyways, I really hope I'm not coming across as confrontational or anything! I'm really just confused?
I'm actually really curious about how you came to the conclusion you have in this post. I'd be eager to know if I've missed any subtext in CoM that supports your take, and I like having discussions with people and comparing perspectives!
Of course, you don't have to have a discussion with me. You can totally ignore this reblog! I wrote this reblog more to express my own thoughts on Repliku's character in my blog and credit you as the source of my word vomit. Being able to potentially talk to you would be something extra for me.
hi!! i don’t really care if we don’t agree but i feel like you misunderstood what i tried to say a little!
i’m not trying to say that replica riku is trying to imitate riku or be him, I’m saying that replica riku considers himself the superior, or “true” riku. like you said, he’s been forced into this identity that doesn’t belong to him and is significantly different from the ACTUAL riku, but in the end he still believes he is riku. what i mean by saying that he is STILL riku is that no matter hiw much he almost developed as areal person, there is still an identity and memories rhat were forced on to him and that he is forced to live and, being his age, i tried to pur myself into his shoes and imagine that I, too, got told one day that i’m just a cheap copy of another person. i would be horrified and then like you said have a breakdown.
he’s clinging to his life, kinda? i don’t think he’d change his name because at this point being riku, no matter how artificially, is still a part of him and the memories in his head, no matter how stolen, still feel his. i can’t imagine someone being able to completely distance himself from a whole identity in what is essentially a day. replica riku doesn’t want to imitate the actual riku, he considers himself the actual riku. he wants to be THE ONLY RIKU, he wants to be REAL and not have to give up his life. his friends aren’t his and he doesn’t try to pretend their are as we see like with sora towards rhe end, but the life riku has lived still feels like his. he wants to live the life his mind thinks is his because he is scared.
to me, repliku feels more like a screenshot of riku at a specific point in his life than a completely different person— he’s like a small piece in the puzzle for a bigger person, a very very specific picture of who riku tried to be for a small period of time. “riku”, to me, in dialogue and attitude is very reminiscent of kh1 riku towards the end of the game, filled with bitterness over having been abandoned and replaced by his friend and beyond angry at sora and to some capacity himself. he’s trying to prove to himself and others, throughout kh1, that he is still better. the whole game, to some degree, is a scared kid’s jealous fit. the feelings he has towards riku, this intense superiority probably fueled by insecurity, are the same riku has towards SORA in kh1
replica hasn’t learned the lesson, at the end of kh1, becaude he wasn’t THERE. replica hasn’t matured, like riku. he’s a picture of what some fucking randoms though riku was put together by some data and their own ideas, not an accurate replica. no matter how inaccurate, though, he is still a copy of that specific riku. kh1 “evil” riku, which is why he still looks like that in his appearance in kh3. he’s a replica of a version of riku that doesn’t exist, rhat the real one has aged out of, but he can’t age out of it. his arc ends with him dying because it’s when he’s able to accept that fact that he id a copy, no matter how much he despises it. his death, his fight, is an ego death.
it’s true that at the start of his life he behaves like a different person and that they did in fact basically “lobotomize him” like you said in a previous post that i commented under, the end result is still the same: wether consciously or not, he was hard wired into being the only version of riku the organization knew, or “percieved him as”. a jealous, bitter and cocky person angry at being replaced and forgotten by his friends. he’s a cheap copy of riku, not a different person. i don’t have a picture of the dialogue here as you have but i do have the quotes website which complies the things in the game LOL:
the quotes are different as is the context, but when looking at the big quote site between kh1, reCoM and kh2 you can gather some pretty important stuff— riku from 1 and 2 have different speech patterns, while still being the same person. riku in kh1 talks a lot less and is quick to jump either to conclusions or making jokes but it’s rare to see him confront somethint face on, instead of pretending to be above it. a classic 15 year old, basically. i had at least 8 boys inmiddle school class who behaves EXACTLYYY like him. in kh2, he talks a lot less sure and is still pretty sassy but we also see him be a lot more honest, a lot more often. like finally admitting to be jealous of sora and jumping to action a little less often. basically he starts thinking things through instead of assuming
in the screenshots i linked all i wanted to highlight was that even tho the contexts are jarringly different LOL replica and riku kh1 talk in the exact same style, which to me only reinstated my idea of him being a sort of “photography”. he doesn’t want to be riku (the riku he considers weak and a loser) he wants to be riku in he sense he wants to be the ONLY riku. he is the stronger one, in his scared eyes, so he is the one who deserves to come out on top. he’s scared, especially in reverse/.
you misunderstood what i meant by “being riku” and it kinda misses rhe point of the post i tried making LOL!! i’m not saying u said was weong or anything god forbid its just a character in a game but the thing i had originally written wasn’t understood so yk it did frustrate me a little. it’s no biggie since i’m always open to talk abt replica he is my favorite character from kh to the point it’s literally my overwatch username
my post is a lot less straight forward than urs but i don’t like writing long posts ajd wanted to get thisnout while beingnin the car so i’ll write rhe big summary here at the end: replica, no matter how he acted before being naminè’d, ended up being a bad copy of kh1 riku from an outsider’s perspective and just like you said, ended up having a breakdown. to me, it felt like fear of not existing anymore, to you it could be really anything. i felt like the final fight at the end with the real riku was more of a move of desperation than anything, a jealousy bubbling over after a game of being beaten over and over first by the boy who he was as basically engineered to spite and feel betrayed by becquse of his memories, and then by what he’s come to learn is a “better copy” of him. replica is scared of dying because deep fown he feels like riku will be able to kill him much quicker than he can, no matter how much his ego backs him up and makes him feel like rhe superior version of this guy.
he doesn’t want to BE riku, he wants to BE THE ONLY riku!! that’s what i meakt
Oooooh ok!! I see what you mean now! Thank you so much for clarification!
Also I somehow missed you were reblogging from your other blog. I thought sun0rsorrow was a different person for some reason, lol. (More under cut)
Also seriously seriously seriously like I did not mean to or want to come across in any sort of negative way. I'm fucking stupid as shit and all that and my neurodivergency will take things SUPER literally or just not get what someone says. And my intentions are generally pretty innocent with the wish to just understand someone better or clear things up. I'm so so sorry I frustrated ya a little!
I'm kind of glad I misinterpreted what you said though because I got to hear your expanded thoughts on what you mean! And I actually agree with a lot of it! We agree on more than I think either of us thought!
I do think it'd be really dumb to just...have Repliku take a new name fresh off of CoM unless a new name was just forced on him (coughcoughXikurInReplicatedHeartscoughcough). See, you need that robit to have the appropriate character arc to chose his own name if he so wishes, otherwise it's not fun. Even then I wouldn't be surprised if he say, just kept the name Riku or had Riku as a middle name in most other AUs.
I also agree that, yeah, Repliku would find it hard to separate his identity from Riku after being forced to be more like Riku. That kind of trauma you cannot completely let go of. I wouldn't even say Riku and Repliku are completely different in personality. They are, in fact, very similar on virtue of Repliku being based on Riku. I even agree with the photograph analogy in some regard.
For me though, like, two souls can be extremely similar and be based on each other even but still be two souls, and that's more what I was implying, and I was noting the subtle differences between Repliku and Riku to kind of show that. And Kingdom Hearts is all about hearts developing and making someone their own person so uh, yeah.
I think the main difference between us is you perceive Repliku's arc as more a road to his acceptance of being a copy and experiencing ego death, while I perceive it as a car crash in slow motion and literally the worst things that could ever happen to a person ever. I did try to be objective as I could in my post but I'm not going to deny my lens are colored by my trauma.
In fact I'm proud to state i could absolutely be speaking utter bullshit. I don't know what I say half of the time anyways, like, it's 9 AM and I'm dissociated and I haven't slept yet. Nobody should ever take me completely seriously ever.
Anyways I know what it's like to have your identity and self worth rewritten to fit someone's narrative. I know what it's like to lose yourself. I know what it's like to experience mental breakdowns from the deconstruction of your own autonomy and value of life. I know what it's like to be forced to love someone. All of that circles around Repliku's story and I'm just seeing what happened to me happen to him, and goooood it hurts. He deserved so much better. Ego death sucks.
I still like what happened to him in CoM though, actually, because I love me some tragedy. Not so much what Nomura did to him in KH3. I do nooooot like how they concluded his character in that game. Although I still need to review my materials before I am firm on that opinion, so take what I just said there with a grain of salt.
Anyways I think we can both agree that Repliku's story is a tragedy, it's just very specifically for me an absolute horror show that I have seen somewhat played in my own mirror. I'm still trying to find who I used to be. I wish Repliku had been allowed to do that too, because I see him. I see him underneath the base of his coding, the part that I at least perceive is not Riku, but just himself.
And that's the tragedy for me, personally, that there was something there and everyone in his life took that something from him. And even then, they couldn't take it away properly, but the experience messed him up so bad that even he couldn't see what was in him at the very end of his life.
And then of course there's the different interpretations of Repliku's death, which again are a matter of perspective based on different experiences. You translate it in a slightly more typical way, I assume? I don't know, as I am not you. I, meanwhile, have BPD and also am one impulsive thought away from drinking an entire bottle of wine at any moment. Where you saw excruciating fear, and I agree there's absolutely fear there, I saw the good ol' psychosis beast grabbing hold of Repliku like it grabbed hold of me and many others.
I sounded exactly like Repliku sounded there in those moments before the final confrontation with Riku. I just had less outwardly murderous intent. I was more uh...inward. I lived though. ToT
If you can't tell I'm basically recapping as much as I can here, so you can feel free to address anything more I say in an easier manner.
Anyways like, in the end though, I loved hearing your perspective because it's your perspective, and it expands my own horizons. If I just focused on what I believed all the time, I'd never learn anything about the world and about the people around me.
So thank you for giving me some things to ponder over and rant about, seriously!! o0o And I hope you found my perspective, perhaps, a little interesting too! This was...I mean, I hope it was a great exchange of perspectives.
Also I apologize for any future misunderstandings because half of the time I am just...so tired. Or kind of out of it. So uuh yeah. ToT
whenever people sat that replica riku woule go by a different name in fsnfictions i thijk a part of me dies because it’s so horrifying to think about like he’s a permanently 15 year old copy of everything bad about someone, their jealousy and their anger, and nothing ahout yourself is truly yours. not even your name. like i donMt blame him for trying to kill the real riku and take his ppace i wouleMve been extremelu disturbed too hwd i been in his place and i just don’t think he would have sacrificed uis name… idk it’s just me right. i feel like he’d cling to evey shred of his identity
Even the things that differentiate him from riku like for example his affection (or love haha hehe 😅😅😅) for namine aren’t HIS nothing is HIS and i can only imagine how desperate he must be to have something of his own. like i get why they’d make him give himself a different name, to satifsy his need to NOT be riku, but i don’t thijk he wants to STOP BEING RIKU!!!
Replica riku isn’t trying to be a different person, he’s trying to be the only riku!! he wants to be riku because he IS riku!!!!!!! At least to me
I do agree with the general sentiment that what Repliku went through was a horror show. Yeah it absolutely was. The poor poor robit. ToT
Though, as much as I do love seeing other people's interpretations of a character that wasn't really well worked with in a franchise, and as much as I don't want to look like I'm that guy. Uh...
Isn't the entire narrative surrounding Repliku in CoM about Repliku being his own person with his own developing heart that was forced to be Riku?
I apologize. I am about to be so neurodivergent about this. In fact I'm gonna be so neurodivergent I'm adding a cut into the post because it's kind of long.
Like, Repliku himself states multiple times that he doesn't want to be like Riku. Sora tells Repliku that he's his own person and doesn't have to be Riku. The game seems very intent on telling the player and the viewer that Repliku is not Riku, doesn't want to be Riku, and was forced to be Riku.
I mean, it's even supported subtly if you look at Repliku and Riku's first interaction, where Repliku is not Naminé'd yet and is at his purest (or as I call it, his prime).
Repliku is perfectly content explaining what he is to Riku on his first hours of existence. He doesn't seem to hold any anger or disappointment in being a Replica yet. Hell, based on the tone of voice, he's proud of it.
That's the very first trait you notice in Repliku right off the bat that's...a bit different from Riku. I'm not saying Riku isn't prideful, I'm just saying Repliku has so much hubris it doesn't even seem like Riku-brand pride anymore. I think that's just literally how he is deep inside. That's what was born with the little data of Riku he had at the time, and it became its own thing.
This does make sense as, at this point, Repliku is primarily based on Riku's combat data? I think? And not so much his personality data? I could be wrong on that front. But if I'm right, it explains why he has a different vibe from Riku.
And then this specific exchange happens here. Notice how Repliku does not say anything like "I'm just as real as you!" , or "I'm just as you as you are." or anything like that. He says "I don't care if you're "real"! You're not better!"
Which means Repliku interpreted Riku's comment about Repliku not being the "real Riku" as Riku saying he was lesser than Riku. That's what grinds his gears: the implication that he's not hot shit and that his source is better than him. That's not at all what Riku said, but OK Repliku.
He couldn't care less that he's not human or that he's not exactly like Riku, here. He just cares about being better than his "loser" source. There be even more hubris as Repliku's defining trait.
And then Repliku proceeds to make a very clear distinction between them both. Whether this is an actual distinction between the two is up for debate, but it does tell us that Repliku is willing to try to distinguish himself from Riku. And that very act alone does in fact distinguish him. Mmmh more pride on the hubris cake.
And it's not like Repliku getting Naminé'd later even suppressed this jerkness in him. I mean:
Riku would never say that about his island friends. Repliku is an asshat and even after his entire personality is forced to mimic Riku more closely and revolve around one to two people, he still has that moxie in him. The real him shines through. The fucking audacity of this Replica (I love him.).
Maybe it's because I live with a roommate with DID that had five to seven alters of the same character that were each a little different (Ahh I miss the Dereks.), but subtle differences like these between Riku and Repliku are kind of more obvious to me, personally. It's is a me thing though so—
So I think it's perfectly reasonably for people to give Repliku his own name. Riku has been forcefully IV'ed into his circuit-board. He deserves to discover who he is as his own person and further expand those distinguishing traits between him and Riku that already existed on hour one. He himself may not recognize those differences, but they are there.
...Unfortunately Repliku gave up his life for Naminé in KH3 so we'll probably never see the guy he becooomes. Waaaah!
I do really like what you've said here! I think the concept of Repliku being like Riku and wanting to be exactly like Riku would have been an interesting alternative narrative the game could have taken! But as far as I can see (And I myself am a flawed being, so I dunno man?) the actual game makes it very clear that the opposite of what you have said is the case.
He does try to kill Riku in the end, but considering how Repliku was acting right before he got his shit rocked and also everything else presented in the game, this seems less like an act of usurping Riku's place and more like someone having the biggest psychotic breakdown after his entire perceived reality was unraveled and he's taking it out on the source of his existence out of pure anguish.
Maybe he thinks if he kills Riku, he can free himself of the Riku in him and figure things out from there. I'm not sure what he was doing. He was clearly not in his right mind. He could have also been trying to kill himself considering he was eerily calm when Riku defeated him, which implies on some level, he was expecting and maybe even hoping Riku would defeat him and put him out of his misery (What mind games does to a mofo.).
Anyways, I really hope I'm not coming across as confrontational or anything! I'm really just confused?
I'm actually really curious about how you came to the conclusion you have in this post. I'd be eager to know if I've missed any subtext in CoM that supports your take, and I like having discussions with people and comparing perspectives!
Of course, you don't have to have a discussion with me. You can totally ignore this reblog! I wrote this reblog more to express my own thoughts on Repliku's character in my blog and credit you as the source of my word vomit. Being able to potentially talk to you would be something extra for me.
A long time ago, in a conversation, I started talking about what the parents of the destiny trio would be like, since they stopped being mentioned after KH1.
So I started making some sketches and things, starting with our protagonist's mother.
Ammm....There's something I should mention, and I think maybe I should make some changes about it. I'm not sure yet; my head is full of things, and I can't decide what to do.
I personally head-canon Sora as being a single mama’s baby (I’m a single mom baby myself) so I can totally see this woman standing by the door with her hands on her hips, trying to coax Sora into helping her with the laundry. She has “makes every chore fun” vibes.
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The context of this image has been explained in Roxas’s post, but I wanted to draw a depiction of just how messed up Xikur and Nulla were when they finally got the hell out of The Castle That Never Was.
So yeah, that’s is what this is! I can’t write the way DiZ speaks very well at all, and I’m still working through the reasons why he might help Xikur and Nulla. But for now, you have this fake report I half-assed.
