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rivensmusa · 3 years

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How Tecna and Riven built the most organic and consistent friendship in the series

*Disclaimer: contains Season 5+ canon and graphics

At this point, it’s clear that I will never shut up about Tecna, so naturally my first meta is about her. For a character with such meager individual screentime I realized that one of her main strengths is the quality of her (underrated) relationships. She is most often associated with Timmy and Musa, but a relationship that has gone majorly under the radar is the one she has with Riven.

To me, they have had the most naturally progressive Winx x Specialist friendship that was actually not dropped in later seasons (I’m still mourning the loss of Brandon and Musa). In fact, I argue they got even stronger as time went on. And the extent of their bond was the most apparent to me in Season 8.

Their friendship worked well because it had a solid foundation, starting from when she rescued him at the swamp.

- In Season 1 they both start off as emotionally challenged “outcasts”, but Tecna is already a lot more mature and giving. She has a natural instinct for protection, and saves Riven despite hardly knowing him and him being extraordinarily rude to her/her friends.

- Actually, she's the first person (and the only at that point) to show him genuine kindness. The majority of people he came across saw him as a nuisance, and the only one that didn’t had some idealized version of him in her head. But it didn’t matter who Riven was to Tecna; she saved him because she naturally cares for people.

- Below you can see Riven looking a little grateful, but he doesn’t have the emotional capacity to express it. Riven is known to be extremely loyal to people who have been kind to him/saved him, which hasn’t always led to good results (Darcy). Nevertheless, I take this moment below as the first time he felt like he could trust another person.

- Notably, Riven was canonically a misogynist so it must have been mind-bending to realize that he’d been saved by a girl. That may have played into why he couldn’t thank her outright (but we’ll see later that the respect is there). On a side note, this moment subverted the trope of “bad boy is saved by his love interest”, which was really a testament to Winx Club’s then-aversion to clean-cut tropes and archetypes.

- Riven tends to be drawn to people who can outsmart him or beat him in a fight. Famous examples include Darcy and Nabu. But we tend to forget the very first time he was outsmarted - by the same person who first showed him kindness.

- What I found so fascinating about this scene, besides Tecna being an icon as usual, was that Riven did not fight back. This was one of the few moments in S1 when he didn’t. He would repeatedly fight or ridicule the other boys. Earlier we saw him snap back at Stella when she cracked that “the specialists are gonna be here” joke. Later in the Grounded episode, he snapped at Flora and Musa just because (“next time you have a party…”). And in the episode right after we saw him go toe to toe with Bloom, blatantly disrespecting her in front of their friends.

- But here, he probably figured it was better to shut up, because he clearly respected her and saw her as some kind of authority, a privilege he only gave to Darcy in that season. Of course, he was romantically attracted to Darcy, so in that case his respect was framed in rose-colored glass. With Tecna, he respected her for her, no extraneous feelings involved, and never went up against her again for the rest of the show, unlike Musa, Sky, etc.

- We don’t see them interact again until the end of S1 (see photo at the very top), where they sit next to each other. Something known to be frustrating in Winx Club is the lack of dialogue (we could have had a peaceful resolution of the Diaspro situation by now). So instead we get unspoken moments of characters next to each other, and in visual media that usually means people are close/want to be around each other. Basically, Tecna is Riven’s bestie among the girls now and the show doesn’t even try to hide it.

- Just look at how close they are next to each other yet so isolated from everyone else. With the exception of the *actual* couples Brella (and Flora and Mirta), Tecna and Riven are physically the closest to each other.

- In Season 2, they watched Musa's concert together, because they have to support their mutual girlfriend.

- The two of them also collectively turned up their snark in the Wildlands (sadly not to each other). Speaking of which, during the ski trip, they were ready to die next to each other. Riven wasn't even next to Musa, his crush/pseudo-girlfriend (she can be seen in the far left of the photo below, next to Flora). In a life-threatening situation, you’d think he would be, but instead he decided to ride the parachute glider thing next to his best friend (and his other bestie, Brandon. Ugh another underrated friendship for another day).

- I know I’m probably overanalyzing at this point but look how sandwiched she is in between Riven and Timmy (I’m sure everyone would want to be Tecna at this moment), while you can see a bit of space between Musa and Flora and Brandon. For the lack of dialogue in this show I will take the crumb that is physical proximity. No counterarguments accepted.

- In Season 3, Riven consoles Timmy when Tecna “dies.” This is the first time we see him help any of his friends with their girlfriends. And he’s never been that close to Timmy (or any of the guys) before. Why I think this is more about his relationship with Tecna than with Timmy is because Riven was seldom one to (publicly) cry after losing someone or something; he’d usually try to talk his way out of it. By helping Timmy he was processing his own grief over losing Tecna, trying to convince himself she was gone to not deal with the anxiety of her being alive but suffering. That’s not an uncommon mindset for someone with abandonment issues, where it’s easier to believe someone were dead rather than live with the fact they didn’t want you.

- Note that Riven attempts to give relationship “advice” only twice more in the series: one to Brandon in S4 about Stella/Mitzi, but he was more joking (and a little sexist) and clearly wasn’t thinking about Stella’s interests while giving it. He also gives Timmy advice again in that disaster of a date episode in Season 5 that simply does not exist in lambofzenith land (…fine I will try to talk about it later).

- In Movie 1, Tecna scolds Riven (and Sky) for being reckless with their bikes, and Riven just shuts up like yes mom sorry. Very reminiscent of S1, and again shows Riven’s respect for Tecna. He can bite back at Musa and ignore the others' existence all he wants, but Tecna is his missing mom sister and he knows that well.

- Even if you consider canon to end here, their friendship had already come full circle with Riven being able to respect Tecna and care for her the way she cared for him even when she barely knew him. What they lacked for in actual dialogue/scenes together they made up in quiet understanding and affection.

But a lamb needs to graze the entire pasture of canon so I will unfortunately go up to 8. Disclaimer: S5+ content begins here.

- Season 5 had this weird insistence with putting Tecna and Riven and their partners in the same frame. (So did Season 6 but it doesn’t exist according to me). It’s never explained why, but once again the visual media proximity principle suggests that they all prefer to be around each other (or maybe they're poly. Tecna has two arms and more robot ones if needed, after all).

- Also. Look at the bottom right of the photo above. Riven has Tecna hooked deeply in his arm. Have we ever seen him be this affectionate with a girl besides Musa? (No Day of the Rose doesn’t count). And notice how the configuration is similar to the Wildlands skiing positions? (Brandon -> Riven -> Tecna -> Timmy. And Flora and Musa are next to each other. Visual parallelisms my beloved). Furthermore, Brandon has his hand resting modestly on Riven’s back, Tecna and Timmy don’t even look that close in proximity…but Riven is full on squeezing her, with her head close to his, because they really are just best friends. That’s it, 10% of my Save Tecna from Rainbow (STFR) fund will go to developing a spin-off for these two.

- Then we have that episode where Musa sees Riven outside the building with another girl (where Flora calls him a dog. Flora), and Musa assumes the worst. But Tecna is being rational, saying there's surely a good explanation. Yes, logic is her thing, but she also knows Riven well enough to not cheat (again...Flora). It's quite embarrassing to consider that your best friend trusts your boyfriend more than you do, but I digress.

- Now for that Godawful Date Episode. Because the pasture I grazed is the pasture of canon, I sadly have to acknowledge this. Riven tells Timmy to basically not act like himself, and my salvaging interpretation is that he doesn’t want Timmy to look like a fool in front of Tecna. Notice how he doesn’t insult Tecna like he insulted Mitzi back in S4. He wants Timmy to be good enough for her, even though he doesn’t really understand what that means. And so this supports my theory he’s closer to/cares more about Tecna than Timmy. That’s all I’ll say about this disaster.

- In Season 6 there are only two events I will acknowledge, and only one was actually in the show. The first was in the trailer (video here; I ran out of photos to put in this post), where Tecna and Timmy are about to kiss and Riven separates them like an annoying older brother who wants them to get a room. It’s like seeing your sister make out with her boyfriend, and Riven wasn’t having that. And no, he wasn't jealous or intentionally malicious, because he grinned right after. Have we ever seen him do this with the other couples (no DOTRose again doesn't count)? No, because he's so comfortable with Tecna (and Timmy) that he'd lovably shit on them like an older brother. Compare that to S1 where he makes fun of both of them for not dancing (and they say Riven has no character development). Speaking of...

- The other scene I considered canon in S6 was them dancing together in the background. Dancing. Together. magicallyblonde’s reblog summarizes my thoughts. They both used to hate dancing, and whenever they did they’d do so with Musa and Timmy. But here they are vibing with each other, exchanging silly hand poses and not being embarrassed about it. They’ve become so comfortable with each other that they can now dance like awkward middle schoolers. Remember when you called Timmy ridiculous, Riven? Oh, how the tables have turned.

Just look at the material. If someone can write a fluff piece with these 4 I'll give you some money out of my STFR fund (at this point 10% is for Triven spin-off, 10% is for stellasolaris meta sponsorship, 10% is for fanfic, and 70% is for suing Rainbow/Netflix).

"Sunshine mom takes socially awkward children to first dance."

Then of course S6 had to end with Riven leaving, so we obviously don't see them interact in S7. But Tecna respected his space, which is important because...

- In Season 8 (only one photo included below I promise), when Riven gets back from his self-improvement journey, everyone but Tecna is unreasonably angry. Tecna is instead curious.

Stella: he looks different! Queen really broke 4th wall. Add this to the reasons she is Actually Intelligent

Tecna: too soon to tell.

- Everyone else had refused to hear him out, rejecting him like they did back in S1. Meanwhile, Tecna once again was the one to show him a hint of consideration. Her statement suggests that she was curious whether he had really changed like he set out to do (and whether it was too soon to tell). She is the only one who actually remembered why he left in the first place, thus showing interest in him as a person rather than the evil ex who showed up to ruin Musa’s life again, which is what the other girls seemed to view him as.

- In the Hydra Awakens episode, she does something interesting, mirroring his sadness/dejection when Musa shuts him out. The others barely reacted aside from Flora and Helia who decided they’d play doctor and get them back together. With Tecna it was almost like she could feel his emotion (if you watched the episode, they hung their heads and sulked at the exact same time). She went from a girl who once struggled to understand emotion to feeling other people's. Subtle full circle character development my beloved...

- However, the most interesting development of their relationship yet was in the dance contest in Melody episodes…where I had to get creative with the interpretation because S8 never fucking explains anything.

- First, at the start of the episode, Musa told Riven they were going on a mission. That should mean somewhere dangerous and scary, right? Somehow, he showed up at her house knowing she’d be there. Musa herself was surprised and didn't expect him, meaning she wasn't the one who told him. This either meant Riven was a stalker (taking notes from his ex bestie) or that somebody told him. Haters will probably answer the former, but wait! See what Tecna says before and after the Winx save Musa and Riven from the Trix:

Tecna (while still at the contest): rough and soothing…who does that remind you of?

Tecna (after they arrive at Musa’s): I realized the rough and soothing must be you two!

She already knew that Musa and Riven were physically together even before realizing that that was the key to getting the prime star. Which means it was her who told him where Musa was. Was Tecna just being galaxy-brained and somehow knew them being together would solve the puzzle? But since when has Tecna left anything to chance? She didn’t actually know the solution until they were told Musa was in danger!

- This means Tecna potentially telling Riven to go to Musa showed that she simply cared about him but didn't push him to do anything unlike Dr. Phelia, who pushed Riven into making a grand gesture (because he, like the writers, forgot S4). But then...why did she care? Does she support toxic relationships? I doubt it. Tecna historically has no tolerance for BS (yes I know canon has diverged but bear with me). I think she saw that Riven had improved as a person, and believed him worthy enough for a third chance with Musa. This is coming from someone who barely gave Avalon a single chance - subtle character development my BELOVED.

- In fact, while everyone seemed to skirt around the obvious issues in Rivusa's relationship, Tecna explicitly described them as rough and soothing, which is also the first time someone described them in a more nuanced way rather than just "they fight all the time" or "they love each other so much" (looking at you Florelia). Tecna has always understood the nature of Riven's relationship, and understood both his and Musa's communication styles enough to not intervene. Because she respected and knew them (him) very well.

Case in point: remember early in the season when Musa declined a call from Riven? While Flora would've told her to call him back, and Aisha probably would have said "fuck him" (the negative connotation), Tecna simply turns up the music and dances with her (poly theory confirmed). Because she knew what was best for Musa, but also knew it could be good for Riven too. She’s seen how them talking (or trying to talk) has led to disaster in the past and is trying to not repeat history. When I say emotionally intelligent royalty, Stella is the queen and Tecna is the crown princess.

- That said, why now did Tecna lead Riven to Musa in the Melody episodes? Like I said, she saw the potential, assessed the probabilities, and correctly deduced that he had changed and is now ready for a proper relationship (will the writers follow through? they've never been known to satisfy Tecna). She didn't ignore or romanticize their issues, but instead cared for the two as individuals. Because she cares deeply for Riven even without having to express it in words or explicit actions, and vice versa.

In conclusion, Tecna and Riven have indeed built an organic and slowly progressive friendship based on mutual respect and understanding. Tecna cares about him beyond being Musa's boyfriend. She cares about him as a person, and it has shown from the very beginning of the series to the latest season. At the same time, Riven has come to see her as a sister, showing off his affectionate and silly self just for her in a way he'd never done for his actual love interests. They don’t give each other much advice because that’s not really their thing, instead showing their support by just being there for each other.

B to the F to the Fucking Precious.

And so, even though many things have been left to implication, the evidence is right there. Like Tecna would say, we just have to analyze the data.

#winx club #winx meta #winx tecna #winx riven #brotp

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