#reko questions my beloved. so much enrichment in my enclosure

[reco-obsessed]

HII HELLO its me again hc anon and i wan to know.....do u have any specific hcs for samurai yaiba era reko? :3 i love to hear your hcs a ton <3

hello hc anon, its nice to see you again, i thought i scared you off. im sure i do if i take a second to scrummage around. i have a pretty speculative view of samurai yaiba in general, so i think most of my thoughts on samurai yaiba era reko could be considered headcanons, but theyre a bit less fluffy than the last ones (most of the analysis-type ones are under the cut).

i think her eyeliner probably varied a lot just depending on how much of her eyebags she was trying to cover up or how much she messed up the other eye. i dont think she was going for a specific look as much and just kinda went with it.

i wonder a lot if her hair was dyed different back then. we can see with her wig she obviously has always had that weird part in her bangs as kind of her signature, but her character sheet notes how her teardrop eyeliner is a style shes favored 'recently', which makes me wonder what other aspects of her style were different back then. and then of course that line obviously indicates her eyeliner style was different as well, not just on stage but in general. i could see her with blond tips, or thin streaks similar to the spots of pink in her blue wig. maybe shed dye the underside of her hair? i should draw these at some point

Reko’s eye contact is very all or nothing. Either she’s staring you down, hasn’t blinked in five minutes with no signs needing to, or she turns her head completely away and closes her eyes like she’s got her social security number written on her eyelids and is trying to hide it. This is something i headcanon for reko when we see her in game as well but imagine how much worse it is when she’s got those electric blue contacts in and that annoyed look on her face.

while i doubt its the case, i think theres an argument you could make for SY reko still being closeted (this depends a lot on whether you also headcanon her as transfem. it doesnt make as much sense if shes closeted as a lesbian but out as a trans woman. then again, that would be extremely funny, and thats usually enough reason for me). shes been very rebellious before this and had her noted delinquent era, but seems to have been isolated and focused on music for pretty much her entire life. i see SY reko as someone who squandered most of her positive feelings about people away in general, let alone such intense ones like a crush. she definitely had some really obvious moments anyway, but she just... only focuses on music. she compresses what she feels into music instead. if she was, it would definitely be a situation where literally everyone besides her knows. i also like this interpretation because i think the idea that she kind of knows shes different from everyone else, doesnt get conventional norms about romance, and overall just suppressing such a huge part of herself probably contributed to her early rebellious phase and her short fuse. then again, you could easily argue her figuring out she was into women could have contributed to her rebellion in the first place.

i think she wore lipstick more often back then. not all the time, but on occasion. this ones just a hunch.

i like to imagine part of the way the stage outfit we see her in is designed is intended to prevent her from overheating (shorts, mesh paneling). its probably mostly a stylistic choice, especially since that doesnt seem to be a concern for the other members, but also consider shes singing, playing guitar, and probably even dancing as well, and shes already got enough reasons why she could fall over- she doesnt need her outfit to contribute (even though she ends up wearing heels anyway).

I see SY Reko as probably being someone who was in a bad place mentally thorough out the bands run. shes kind of in this in between spot, where shes made this big statement of having rebelled from her father and the industry she was forced into, but she hasnt completely shorn off every harmful thing she was taught from those years in actuality. shes 'free', and she thinks shes 'free', but in reality she keeps falling into habits and patterns of thought set up from earlier in her life and she doesnt even realize it and wont for a while, as she isnt in a place where shes self aware until later on. shes destructive- mostly to herself, but it doesnt look like that from the outside because theres so much collateral. this concept is kind of the foundation for a lot of my interpretation of Samurai yaiba era reko. the symptoms include:

I doubt SY reko took as good care of herself as she shouldve back then. maybe not skipping showers or not brushing her teeth type of not taking care of herself, but probably had a poor diet, a shitty sleep schedule, was overworking herself.

I can see SY reko being the type to exercise a lot. i imagine she had a thing about making sure she was always in peak performance. another part of how she disregarded herself in order to keep up to her own impossible standards. (theres also the fact her stage outfit shows off her midriff and legs, so its not impossible she felt the need to keep herself in check in that sense).

i imagine she hid not only her feelings about alice from him, but just her feelings on their band and stuff in general. her feelings about alice have always been complicated, and between desperately trying to not feel any love for him and failing at it, and her trying to put her all in samurai yaiba and making it the perfect successful band she thinks he wants, its easier for her to just try to interact with him any more than she has to.

similarly, i see SY era reko as being someone who was very lonely, but didnt process it enough to realize that. she was isolated from her peers at an early age by been tokenized as a 'gifted kid' and then later on even more so as a source of profit, and she lost out on a lot of key developmental stages socially. she throws herself into her music completely instead of even trying with people because its all she even knows how to do. even if she did try, she has this complex about how everyone is out to get her. she doenst think anyone really wants to be around her, and she tries to match that energy with something along the lines of 'well screw all of you anyway'. in spite of all that, she still has that base need to be with others and connect to them- partially shown thrown her love of music, and its probably part of why its such a huge coping mechanism for her.

SY era reko has issues with vulnerability. obviously self-esteem contributes to this, but i think its also a big symptom of being exposed to the music industry as child. she got used for profit when she was just a kid by the people who were supposed to protect her, and no one stepped in until she refused to keep going along with it herself. its no wonder shes learned to see everyone as an enemy.

SY Reko probably had something similar to a paranoid streak. shes canonically described as someone who antagonized everyone by Alice, which means she was probably constantly in self-defense mode, hence her angry outbursts. she likely saw everyone as hating her and wanting her downfall or at least inevitably leading to it, and based off the notes of ehr being 'alone' and pushing everyone away, was likely very closed off and incapable of thinking of herself in a positive light or even as thinking of herself as lovable at all. i think its very likely that with how her father treated her, his love became more conditional- like a goalpost or reward for doing well enough, if he even kept showing affection at all. i think it probably really scarred how she saw love, especially at this point in her life, and you can see a lot of it in the way she interacts with alice.

even though reko rebelled from making the music she didnt want to, i think she was still left with a lot of self esteem issues from abandoning the thing that made her valuable and lovable to her family. yes, she was doing what she wanted, but she mustve been very aware of the backlash that would come from not only her parents but her previous fans because of the drastic change, leading her to feel as if she was universally hated.

SY reko's self deprecating tendencies were likely a lot more pronounced. reko already somewhat has this habit (she refers to herself as 'pathetic' in game for not taking better care of sara) but between her being much harsher in general its not a stretch that that probably applied to- in fact came from- her view of herself.

i think thats all the major ones that come to mind right now, though more may respawn because reko yabusame of all eras haunt me . thus concludes my essay . i hope you enjoyed reading