#kevin back to riko

[misfit-god]

The song don't let me by the morningsiders is in fact, a kandreil song

[adamsrcnan]

imagine kevin came back with the foxes instead of staying in west virginia after riko died and he's looking around their dorm room in despair after he sees the damage that jean's rage induced grief inflicted. he's helping clean up & goes to throw stuff in the trash when he see's a pile of andrew's candy bars in there. it's so ridiculous & such a jean thing to do that he actually laughs and suddenly he misses his first and longest best friend so much that he feels sick with it

[afurtivecake]

Sometimes I forget how many fights Kevin gets into because a) his violence is massively overshadowed by incidents of murder and torture and b) at any given moment, he's either having a panic attack or playing exy.

This isn't even all of the instances Kevin starts fights. Like yes, he is the Queen, the First Princess, of exy and yes, he does have every single person he knows ready to fight for his honour, but that doesn't stop him from doing it himself.

[dayurno]

im in love with your aftg twitter takes and if you ever decide to do more i will give you my kidney <3

for you!!

[ffroppydisk]

I wonder how Kevin grieved Riko.

Because he did. He must have. They had grown up together and yes, he might hate him for all he's done to him (and Jean, and then Andrew, and Neil, and...) but he was his brother.

Don't you think that at least in the first years, things were at least slightly better?

Do you think Kevin has happy or happier memories from his childhood or is it all bad?

Do you think Kevin and Riko have had inside jokes at some point? Do you think that not too long after Riko's death, Kevin realised that the other half of those inside jokes is gone and there's no one else left to laugh at it but him? Because he can't explain the joke to anyone, they wouldn't understand. Perhaps Jean would or could, but Kevin is not selfish and he will not share inside jokes he and Riko had and that Jean had been left out from. It's unfair. So even those bits of nice memories get stained. Tainted forever.

Do you think Kevin ever subconsciously seems out Riko for something they used to do together and was theirs, only to realise again that he's not there? And not in a way that can be changed, you know. And not always in a negative way, for Kevin's fear for the king had infiltrated so deeply into his heart and head it sometimes felt like nothing but reassurance that Riko was not there anymore. But still. He had been his partner, for better and for worse, for a decade. A child born the same year they were partnered up would be in middle school, would be having thoughts, would be the same age they were when they partnered up.

Do you think Kevin ever cries about it? With Bee, or in his room, or Wymack, or in the lockers after night practice when Neil can't see him.

Do you think Kevin ever let himself feel the grief without feeling guilty about being relieved?

Do you think Kevin ever grieved Riko even before he was dead, grieving the Riko he had been when they were kids?

I don't know, I just think Kevin's grief is so, so, so deeply intricate.

[blue-jos10]

i know at least 2 ravens fainted during the kathy interview upon hearing that kevin will join them as a coach

[crazy-fangirl2524]

Neil and Jean wouldn’t work

But Nathaniel and Jean? They would’ve been the Andreil of the ravens

[ninyard]

inspired by the last anon: do you have any unhinged kevin hc's?

(cw; abuse, sh, briefly) (this isn't a headcanon at all really. more of an au i guess. just thoughts. just a little what if?)

The sight of blood makes Kevin feels sick, not necessarily because it reminds him of his injury - though that's a big factor - but because it reminds him of what he is capable of, and some of the things he did with Riko by his side. When Neil's father cut up that man in that room - Kevin was there. Riko was there, too, of course, but Kevin has been around death and violence for a very, very long time.

Teenage boys are young and stupid and impressionable, and maybe there was a point where Kevin fought back and matched the pain Riko inflicted on him, at least until Riko went through puberty and became stronger, more evil, more interested in truly hurting Kevin than just having "fun".

Think of them being twelve, and Riko has just drawn lines into his own legs because he likes how it feels to bleed, to be in pain, and him and Kevin are sat on the floor of their bedroom. Riko hands Kevin the knife, and tells him to do it. On myself? Kevin asks, but Riko guides the point to his own skin. Kevin tells him to stop, but when he flinches at the sight of Riko's blood, Riko grabs his hair and asks him if he can see how good it feels to make someone bleed.

But then think of them a little bit older, and Kevin is on his bed, and as Riko crawls up towards him, he kicks him hard in the chest, so hard that he ends up winded and sits at the end of the bed, cursing him in Japanese until he can breathe again. One time Riko puts his fingers into Kevin's mouth, and Kevin bites down hard enough to break skin. He spits in Riko's face as he recoils, and Riko slaps him hard enough to leave a mark. They're young enough at this point that Kevin has not yet become truly afraid or aware of what Riko is truly capable of. So maybe one time, he pins Riko down, his hands above his head held down by his wrists, his free hand wrapped around Riko's throat, and for just a moment, Kevin wonders what it would feel like to watch the life leave his eyes. Riko has done this to him enough times that Kevin wants to know what it feels like, to hurt someone like this, to wrap his hands about their throat and feel them desperately try to find a way free. Riko's face gets redder and redder, and he's struggling under his weight, struggling harder the longer it all goes on. Kevin regrets it when he lets go, and Riko is too quick with his punches. Kevin regrets it when Riko does the same thing to him, but until he loses enough oxygen that he passes out, until he's unconscious and Riko has bound his hands to carve his name into Kevin's skin.

What if there was a point where Kevin had the strength in him to fight Riko? What if, for a short time, they fought like they were equals? Before Riko's abuse "became" abuse, before Kevin realised that this is not normal. Before Kevin truly felt scared of what he could do.

Riko gave Kevin a lot of fear, the guts of a PTSD diagnosis. As the years went on, things got worse, and Kevin became unable to be an equal with Riko any longer. but in those formative years, he also gave him a lot of knowledge on how to hurt people, too. He knows what Riko got off on. He knows what moves and attacks hurt the most. He knows where to hold a knife that any movement will hurt the person it's held up to. He knows where to punch someone, where the bruise will linger for weeks, and the pain even longer.

Maybe there’s a dealer out there, somewhere, that Kevin thinks of every now and again, who has a permanent scar from the first time Riko asked Kevin to try and see how it feels to cut someone up. Maybe there’s someone out there that Kevin burnt with a lighter, or matches, or maybe there's a handful of scars on Jean's body that Kevin has apologised far too many times for. Do you think he had to hold Jean down when Riko waterboarded him, or when Riko drew swirls into his chest with a knife? Do you think Riko held him down then, too, and handed Kevin the knife, and watched as Kevin apologised with his eyes, and cut Jean up from his neck to his stomach?

Maybe in this universe Kevin hides that part of him because he's so ashamed of the stupid, awful, disgusting things he did as a teenager. Maybe Kevin feels so much guilt and shame about who he was at one point that there is nothing in the world that can possibly clear his conscience.

Maybe in this universe, Kevin wishes he had never stopped fighting back. Maybe he ponders what it would've been like to be in Riko's position.

[tigtree]

now if i said precanon riko and kevin….

[kevindavidday]

aftg wild geese au

@aftgscenes as requested, but it might not be what you're expecting :D

i have been successfully thinking about this idea for the past two or three years and it is so wonderfully fleshed out in my head i'm honestly scared to write it. it's title is from mary oliver's "wild geese" and it has three parts (yes, i have thought about it in HEAVY detail)

it's a perfect court artist au that you may have seen me go on and on about before too, but only recently did i write out a chapter for this properly. i tried before to post it but it didn't fit so i changed shit about it again. and now that we have an outline...who knows what will happen. i'll elaborate:

1. the moriyama front isn't sports, it's several businesses including art - any and every form of it. it caters to an exclusive, elitist crowd with clients who would pay a fortune for anything that's sold to them with conviction.

2. kayleigh used to be one of the more successful artists from edgar allen university - a place known to graduate few but extremely talented students.

3. tetsuji decides to create a group called the ravens who learn exclusively from his preferred techniques. kevin and riko have the privilege of learning since they were kids so they're meant to be tetsuji's most successful investment.

4. there's various forms of art: fine arts goes to the strikers, music goes to the backliners, sculpting to the goalkeepers etc etc

5. multiple povs from childhood to adulthood because i wanted to create a silly little nest of my own.

6. nathaniel is sold into the family once his mother dies and tetsuji oversees his training as well. as a musician. his presence changes a lot for kevin and jean.

7. when they're in their second year, kevin's probing into his father's life subtly and finds andrew's work as a sculptor at PSU and decides to reach out

8. andrew agrees (for reasons i don't want to spoil)

9. raven artists perfect court completed.

10. chaos.

[daddyduncan69]

neil: the player? the pawn? both? neither?

[afurtivecake]

Andrew isn't Kevin's guard dog. He's more like Kevin's emotional support dog.

He follows Kevin around so that he feels secure, lends his presence and support when Kevin has his meltdowns and look! Here's Kevin calling Andrew over for silent moral support before he gives his "never been skiing" interview.

[stabbyfoxandrew]

also people HAVE murdered over horses and HAVE MURDERED HORSES IN CONNECTION TO THE MOB. search up shergar

i just read about him TwT

(aged 4) noooooooo!!!! >:(((

but what i'm learning is that a mob-related jockey au that is on par with aftg's insanity wouldn't be that far fetched... like i knew it was a possibility because where there's gambling there's gonna be a syndicate involved but ahhhh poor horsey :((((

[dayurno]

riko is in such a weird cultural place if you think about it. he’s a japanese boy who has been coached to assimilate into american culture by an uncle who we assume taught him japanese but didn’t have enough interest in him to share any aspect of his culture beyond the language, and he’s the main perpetrator of holding jean to an americanized standard but he himself has been through that process before and had to learn and adapt on his own. beyond the acceptance of his family i think it’s easy to forget riko was also denied access to his own culture (and likewise, any sense of non-exy related community) through their rejection, and it’s interesting to think about how he upheld the same process of americanization for kevin and jean, both foreign boys just like him. it makes one wonder if riko was even buried with the proper traditions—did they bury him as a japanese man or was he denied even that? and did tetsuji even care enough, respect him enough to oversee his burial?

[lucky-slice]

low key i think to deny Riko's trauma is to deny his narrative importance in the story.

like Riko's trauma related to his father parallels neil's. His concept of brotherhood adds complexity to Andrew and Aaron's relationship. He acts not just as an antagonist but as a foil to other character's relationship to trauma and violence.

to solely view riko through the lense of his actions is to miss the point. He is a character in a story, not a real breathing human being.

[dykekarkat]

does anyone care about akiangel andreil where andrew has pledged his life to the special division (run by riko moriyama in an attempt to get his family's favor) because a devil killed his newly found and fought for family in an instant (rip aaron) who meets the angel devil aka neil josten who's been trying to escape from riko for years and they fall in love and neil refusing to touch andrew because he can't be the one to take his life away and andrew realizing the one person he actually wants to touch will never do so. yes kevin would be denji in this he can't escape the chosen one allegations i fear.