#i'm not gonna clog the rika tag with hate or anything so here we go

[marshmallowprotection]

Ray deserves more love. I just? Wanna hug him? And make him feel loved?? Is that too much to ask??? Ray needs to be happy and not think he’s useless all the time if Rika doesn’t fuck off I’m gonna lose my shit

You about summed that one up. 

I feel awful when Ray feels bad about himself, or when he says horrible things about himself. I have an internal dialogue with myself that can be like that too, so I know what it feels like to be that insecure about his own needs. He is the manifestation of what was left of the Saeran of the past balled up into one person who could only feel sorrow. 

Everything I see that I’m like, “I need to protect somebody get this boy some ice cream oh my GoD!”  

Here’s some messy personal views

First lemme say I don’t condone sending hate to people that like Rika in any way because I know this is something that always happens when you drag her name out into the open and talk about her character in any capacity. People are free to like characters and enjoy them without getting flack for it. I find her character interesting to read into, and write into at times, but I don’t really care for her in huge capacity given all she’s done and the lack of empathy she has for everyone. I feel like I gotta say this any time I touch the discourse that surrounds her because I really don’t wanna see people going after each other but okay, now that I said that! 

I get really tired of the nonsense that Rika does. 

Look, she’s done a lot of bad things, and she needs to get the due process and punishment for those actions she’s committed. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like that is ever going to happen given the fact she’s sent away to Alaska post Secret Ends.

The fact that she gets to go free post V route (although she’s ostracized and pushed away from her former by miles it really isn’t legal punishment; I don’t like that when you basically say the most valid feelings about Rika and about not wanting to forgive her, rather, judging her because all of that awful shit she’s done, you’re not given this ‘happier’ end. Although I do like the sentiment that you can forgive someone and move on from that, that just doesn’t work for people. News flash, you don’t have to forgive abusers for what they’ve done. I really throw back my feelings about ATLA where Aang feels like Katara should try to forgive the firebender that took her mom away from her, Zuko clearly disagrees with that ideology because you know he won’t ever forgive his abuser, but in that journey, she realizes that she doesn’t have to forgive this guy to move on with her life! She never does, and she continues on living just fine).  

In the end, it’s up to the RFA members, V, Saeran, all of them, it’s up to them what they decide to feel about Rika. 

And when I think about Saeran’s route… I hate the fact that V wound up going back to Rika. I fear for what might happen in his after end, not only to my fears for Saeyoung’s fate, but just for the way that Rika might be handled. I really hope that we can get him the hell out of that toxic relationship. It does no good for him and it does no good for Rika. She needs to get her own help for her mental health along with punishment. V needs to learn how to love himself again, and have people in his life that love him for the right reason. 

Their relationship is never going to be healthy. 

Rika really needed help for her mental health but she kept spiraling down that rabbit hole. She started to push back against what she needed, and it all just cracked the moment that she blacked out and killed the Choi brother’s Mother. That was the moment that she really couldn’t turn around in her own opinion, and as she said herself, it was where her demons had grown so strong that she couldn’t ignore them any longer. 

When you look at what she did to Saeran you can’t help but have your stomach twist and think okay, this is awful. But when you think about these crimes that she’s done that’s not the end of the atrocities you guys. She’s done a lot more and a lot of it hasn’t even been mentioned all that much. You have to infer and read between the lines a lot of the time. 

Mint Eye was already a developing complex by the time she deceived Saeran and made him come to Mint Eye. There’s a bit in Ray Route where we’re treated to a flashback where he’s being tortured in the past, and if you need to see more of that descent in madness for Saeran, you can check his diary from the Mint Eye believer package. But aside from that, this place has already been building up with people that Rika has cultivated from the first two RFA parties. 

She’s been building this place up already, and there are people working for her already at that point. Countless believers and people she’s gotten on her side thanks to her speaking abilities. The ideology of this place is pretty much already set in stone. So you know she’s been doing this fairly often by this point, torturing people to the brink of madness and instilling the idea into them that they need the elixir, and her words to survive in the world. God knows how many people were roped in before she got Saeran. 

I don’t think that’s ever clarified. 

She’s been torturing people for months. It isn’t just Saeran. And I think when anyone turns against her, she has no qualms about getting rid of them as she’s said it herself. Depending on how dark you want to read into this, that means that there are people getting killed or locked away until they basically waste away to nothing or they start to listen to her again only to pray that she doesn’t actually kill them. 

It can get pretty dark. I try not to think about that because I tend to think of the worst possible scenarios. It makes me angrier for Saeran and everyone else who has ever had to deal with Rika after she decided that she needed to “protect people” by hurting people in the process. Her idea is that if you have been hurt enough you can become stronger. She took that idea and manifested it in Saeran like he was toy, like he an experiment. She twisted him up so bad that he’s going to be recovering for a long time. 

Don’t even get me started on all the stuff that’s happened with V, or the toss-in character that they added in the Rika DLC to push all the blame onto. No, Rika is still complicit in these actions. 

She’s still guilty. 

Cool motive, still torture and murder and wrong! 

It’s Cheritz’s game so they can handle the story how they want to do it, and because they do so much for us, I’m always grateful to them and how hard they work for everyone. They didn’t have to do Another Story, and they don’t have to give us the DLCs. Please don’t send them hate, you guys, I’ve seen that going on and I don’t like that. Don’t send hate to people in general, I hope that’s clear to y’all.