I just realised i never made an official Riven headcanons post this is a punishable offense
Riven grew up with the worst trust issues and the lowest self esteem. He grew up poor with drunk and gambling parents so he had to fend for himself. Which is why he is who he is in the first couple of seasons — prefers to work alone, puts people down just so he can feel better, bc honestly he thinks he's worth nothing. The reason he fell for Darcy is because she tapped into his insecurities and made him believe she is the only one who sees him
He genuinely tried to unlearn his toxic tendencies as we see later, but the pressure of red fountain training, all the constant appearances of the trix throughout their lives made his mental health crash and die and he regressed back to his awful self in s6. That's the reason for his mental break at the end of s6, he genuinely wanted to get better but didn't know how. So he took time off.
The most striking change when he came back was that he was comfortable with physical touch now. In fact, he starts to need it. During outings, he always leans into the person next to him ever so slightly, even if it's just a slight brush of the shoulder. He likes it when musa hooks her arm around his elbow. He denies it, but he internally BEAMS if sky or brandon or anyone puts an arm around his shoulder casually while chatting.
He developed one of the strongest bonds with Flora. She had a way with words, she had an ability to be honest without it hurting. Riven sought a lot of advice from Flora, in fact she was the one who suggested the mental break.
He likes chicken 🍗
Riven loves tinkering with cars and bikes and stuff. One of his ways to blow off steam is to dismantle his wind rider and assemble it again, or customize it, or add new functionalities
He listens to all of Musa's songs.
It was really really difficult but with Flora's help, he managed to individually apologise to everyone that he had hurt before.
He has trauma and PTSD from when he was mentally tortured by Darcy while being imprisoned in Cloud Tower. He sometimes has nightmares and wakes up in a cold sweat, and Musa has to sing him to sleep after that.
His handwriting is dogshit.
He has absolutely zero organization skills. His house is so messy all the time but it's some form of organized chaos that only he can understand.
He's actually a decent cook.
He's never one to talk about his feelings, he's more of an action person. He shows his love in actions — memorizing the exact way Musa likes her tea and making it for her every morning, picking up art supplies for bloom and helia when he passes a store, forwarding tech news articles to tecna and timmy to initiate conversations, buying trinkets for stella, etc.
Riven is Stella's go-to for masculine fashion. He gives her honest opinions and ideas.
Riven influenced sky and brandon to wear crop tops.
When riven gets drunk he's the most sappy piece of shit ever. He yells out love declarations so easily everyone is actually so shocked that riven thinks so highly of them. He once called Nabu his best friend in the whole wide world. Nabu teared up 👍
Riven has no memory of what happens when he drinks. His friends film his drunk shenanigans so that they can show it to him the next day to piss him off. He gets really embarassed about it lol
His boomerang is his favourite fidget toy. He likes idly throwing it about when he's bored.
That's it for now :))
