#winx jared

pre-rivusa. the past love interests.

darcy. depending on the dub, their relationship was/was not consensual, but i like the former because riven’s redemption becomes much more meaningful. even if it was a calculated move on darcy’s part, she had met him at the right time, but was not the right person. i think that riven, with the rising tensions in the team, needed someone to just accept him the way he was. darcy would never be someone to challenge him, or expect him to be someone better. he became the worst version of himself, but he needed that to become someone better (but i’m also not saying that riven would be completely innocent in his relationship with darcy).

pls i promise i don’t hate driven, i find them one of the most interesting pair in winx club. i feel that i can’t decide if she’s the most or less evil out of the trix because of her relationship with riven. and for me, i can’t ever see darcy letting riven become her equal in a relationship. i feel that she’d need to have the upper hand. because once her feelings became a liability in the trix’s plan, she quickly discarded riven. yet, i feel that he comes to mind more than she’d like. darcy’s more likely to entertain the what-ifs. somehow she’d find riven when he’s at his lowest (she’d have an intuition for that), which is why i think there was a scrapped driven plot for season 4 (i can’t remember where the image is from though).

jared. riven has always been a sore subject for musa. from her perspective, an unrequited love. the last time they’ve really talked was the time they couldn’t go on the mission (s2 e4). so imagine musa’s suprise to find out that it was riven who had sent jared (s2 e12). it certainly doesn’t help that her friends tease her about jared’s obvious crush. i think that any hope musa had that riven might potentially like her back was crushed, which is why she took it out on jared.

“riven? he said you were nice, and if i wanted to meet one of the winx— it should be you.”

riven had probably thought nothing of it, given that it is for school and musa is the person he is closest to out of the group, so why not? i don’t take riven to be oblivious about musa’s crush, more on that he doesn’t know how to deal with it. musa had probably assumed that this was his way of telling her to move on.

to be honest? i found his stalker-ish photo collection of musa to be really random. given the time winx was released, i’m assuming that it was supposed to be more of an endearing trait (similar to marinette from miraculous lady bug?). because outside of that, he is a sweet guy. somewhat the complete opposite of riven. jared’s overly eager, a little too obvious in his interest. he’s shy, but was quick to apologize about the miscommunication. even if musa had only seen jared as a friend, i’m sure it must’ve been nice to be seen.

musa, “there’s nothing between riven and me.”

flora, “oh yeah right!”

musa, “thing is, i don’t think riven would ever be interested in a tomboy like me.”

stella, “by the way he looks at you, or doesn’t rather, he obviously is.”

pls everyone being aware of riven’s interest in musa but her. stella’s line implying that he isn’t avoiding musa because he’s disinterested in her, rather the opposite. in s2 e12, stella had been insensitive towards musa (and aisha). yet she was also the one who had reassured her about doubts!