How's My Driving?

[personafalsify]

How's My Driving?

What do you think about how I play Riku Replica? Things you like, things you hate, things to improve on? Please give me a little more to work off of than "You suck, go die in a fire" as that tends not to help me actually improve my playing.

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Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Not crit so much as a question. I've been trying to look back in Replica's entries but haven't found a real answer for this question and the people I've asked have no idea either. I probably didn't go back far enough but I've been wondering this since August so idk.

Anyways. What's up with the Replica? Why is he a heartless?

[personafalsify.livejournal.com]

Right, this is one of the things that I never adequately explained in a visible place, did I? Whoops, uh. Sorry about that.

The short answer is he broke and his darkness powers took him over.

The long answer because hey it's nice to tally these things:

He came to Luceti thinking he was Riku, and was immediately forced to confront a lot of truths that he didn't want. A few of the important ones were the fact that he was not only a Replica, but that the Original Riku was somehow "better" than him despite (here in Luceti at the time) lacking one of the things he considered most important to him, his power of Darkness. Additionally, the one who changed his memories was the person who he also thought of as being the only person who mattered, of course being Namine. This has been an internal conflict of loyalty that he still hasn't to this day resolved.

Less than two months later, the Namine dropped, leaving Repliku uncertain for a while until he got confirmation that she was gone, and then devastated that he'd lost not only his most important person, but due to the issue of conflict of memories, the only person he'd put his trust in. For a while, he had no one, and he was searching for someone who he was alright with putting his trust in.

He wound up going to Xion due to them both being Replicas, and at around the same time (I think?) sort of mentally adopted another character, Kyrie, into the role of a girl that he could try to look after and protect. Over the course of opening up to Xion, Rep started getting a crush on her. The problem then was that he noticed that Xion and the real Riku were also getting very close, although he didn't actually realize that they were officially dating. This arose yet again feelings of being inferior to the real thing, and this time, he didn't feel like he had someone he could talk to. This bottled up inside of him, Kyrie dropped, and Xion had to be killed over something he considered to be his own fault.

Basically, by the time the power cap was removed, his heart had kind of been through the wringer very thoroughly.

For... a week in August? A couple weeks? Some period of time, the 50% power cap was removed in Luceti. Replica Riku's problem was that while the strength of his darkness had been suppressed by the power cap, the strength of his heart hadn't, so suddenly he was dealing with a lot more strain than he had ever had to deal with. With the power cap off, his heart was partially consumed by the darkness, transforming him into a Heartless. If the cap had stayed off for too much longer, he probably would have lost himself entirely (and in this case I probably would have had to canon-update him to get him back), but because it went back on, his darkness returned to a strength he could keep at bay, but not overcome to the point of getting his body back. Currently he's trying to regain his strength of heart so that he can push back the darkness and un-Heartless-ify himself.

And that's where we are now. /end tl;dr I think that was everything?

[(Anonymous)]

It explains everything well enough for me. /o/ Thanks!

[(Anonymous)]

this is just something i've been noticing with your posts for awhile now. i know being a heartless really limits rep's cr possibilities, but (from what i gathered in your ooc note to the previous anon) his heart being "damaged" is what's made him a heartless, right? so he needs to learn to reconnect with people and start accepting them and making friends and all that stuff if he wants to change back, right? (i'm pretty canon blind with kingdom hearts, sorry.)

but your posts make it very difficult for characters to approach him. and i don't mean your tags; it's understandable there and I think you handle his inability to speak and communicate properly really well! but like your most recent post: he's just standing in and around his home? it pretty much limits your interactions to castmates/people who live in that home. i don't know if that was your intention per se (it might have been, for this post, but idk), but for people who might want a chance to interact with rep, it makes it kind of hard to have a reason to, you know?

so i guess... try to find things that might give your posts more opportunities for other players to come in? i think rep is really interesting, especially with this heartless thing he's been going through for so long, and personally i'd love to see some attempt to help him happen between him and his cr!

sorry if this was kinda rambly, orz

[personafalsify.livejournal.com]

I can see why you're saying that. The most recent post was meant to be focused particularly towards his housemates since they specifically would notice he's gone, and that was the point of the post. Honestly the reason why he could be found outside his home at all was in case someone else had some reason why they really needed to interact with him; I threw it in mostly as an afterthought and didn't intend it to be a major point.

Usually I try to make his posts more open, and this semester really kicked my ass so I haven't been posting as much with any of my characters (not just Rep), so I think the closed-off post stood out more than it normally would have since it was the first post after a long dry spell.

That said, is there something in particular you could suggest for his other posts? He hasn't done a poll-the-audience sort of post in a long while, but I normally try to make him at least do something interesting that he can be bothered about. Are these harder to tag than I'm imagining them to be?

[(Anonymous)]

see, that makes a bit more sense! and i understand what you mean about school. i know it's been kicking my ass lately too, hahah.

i think most of your posts up to this point have been pretty open, but i think some people might just intimidated at the prospect of trying to hold a one sided conversation in a way that doesn't seem forced. i know i'm always afraid my replies are boring or i'm not giving enough to work with, ahaaa. ;;;