a/n. i wanted to re-do one of my oldest posts on here (the five love languages), but less me pulling things from my ass, more interpretation of canon. it started off as just the five, but there is so so so much to talk about them! so i decided to analyze them entirely. will mostly be s1-4, cherry picking from s4+ and comic scenes.
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!
i had mentioned this in another post, regarding the tomboy line. and i still stand by this that riven had always liked musa regardless.
not darcy talking about jared's potential to darkar to set a trap for the winx. could it be that she hopes that jared and musa will become a thing so that riven will stay free for her?
When she walks off he uses his bike to make sure she can’t get away
He pressures her to come with him away from Alfea and her friends even though she doesn’t want to
Kisses her without permission even after being told she just wants to be friends
Jared is giving the same vibes as that one guy in high school that gives you the creeps but he’s polite so everyone thinks you’re crazy or stuck up for not wanting to be friends with him.
Happy New Year and great work on today’s chapter; I’m a whore for crumbs and interactions between friends. My ask is about Jared from Season 2. I don’t know if I was overthinking it as a kid but I always thought Jared was kinda creepy. It was mostly because of the Musa shrine but the other day I rewatched the episode and so many other things felt...off
Yeah... I posted a while back about all the red flags he threw up in that episode. It was uncomfortable to watch because everything he did is something that guys actually do to manipulate girls. And it’s not innocent, it’s aggressive.
However, as I have done with plenty of other characters, I’m taking the intended spirit of Jared rather than the poorly executed Jared. So he’ll be in S2 and he’ll be sweet and clueless and not creepy as fuck.
And since I gutted S2 of all the filler I hate, there’s a lot more room for interaction between characters who don’t get that in the show.
