#(I just genuinely love her and wanted the twins to have more tragedy to their story)

[star-streaks]

With the resurgence of Gravity Falls, it got me thinking about my old oc,,

And man, she sure was an oc I made when I was 10,,

[maybeiwasjustjade]

Genuinely, perhaps 99% of me, believes that the only reason Condal and Hess made HOTD Aegon a r*pist/have adult Aegon’s introduction the aftermath of the SA of a maid, was because they knew that if Aegon was just a drunk and a cheat—like almost all Westerosi men—he would be too tragic of a character not to root for, and they really couldn’t have that. No, Aegon has to be the monster to Rhaenyra’s saint, because if you took away the act that made him monstrous, he’s so easy to root for, and the TB/TG divide would be significantly larger.

Cheating and visiting brothels are quite common in Westeros, with the vast majority of male characters doing one or the other or both. Drinking is even more so. Aegon would still be palatable with either or both traits because it doesn’t make him worse than Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra had three bastards with Harwin because Laenor’s gay, so it makes her affair understandable and valid. Aegon was forced to marry his own sister as a young teen, and clearly despises the whole targ-incest tradition. Why is it a crime that he doesn’t find his little sister sexually or romantically attractive???

Aegon’s basically a Greek tragedy made flesh. The eldest son conceived to be a long-awaited heir, yet simultaneously cheated out of a birthright. Born wanted yet unwanted, the heir who is not an heir. Meant to be loved, yet raised without it, with a mother’s disdain and fear as his only companion. His father stopped wanting him sometime after his second birthday (probably around the time Jacaerys was born), and his mother never wanted him anyway. His mere existence is a threat to a crown he never wanted, yet nobody cared when they placed it on his head. He wants love but no one loves him, and contrary to popular belief, that lack of love didn’t just stem from adulthood. He was a little boy once too, who very much didn’t deserve that level of apathy.

Married to his sister despite his clear disdain for his family’s incestuous tradition. Forced to father children on her at the grand old age of sixteen (and she fourteen). The only thing he ever really loved was his dragon, and the children he had. And even those he loses to tragedy, and someone else’s doing.

It’s not at all a surprise that Aegon’s defining trait is his love for Sunfyre. A ridiculously strong bond, born from years of having only each other. Moreover, a dragon is the symbol of power, which Aegon has little of. He can’t protect himself from his own family’s abuse or machinations, and unless he claims the crown everyone he loves will die. Dragons also represent freedom, and the ability to just fly away. And if there’s one thing Aegon wants more than anything in the world, it’s to run away from his family and the accursed throne.

In that, he’s not so different than a young Rhaenyra (pre-personality change anyway). Young Rhaenyra hated having to conform to societal standards. Hated having no choice but to marry, and to whom. She too wanted to fly away to freedom. There’s too many parallels between the two, even down to their ages pre-timeskip. Rhaenyra was about 18, and Aegon now is only 20. Yet Rhaenyra at 16’s only problem was whether her infant brother would replace her as heir, while Aegon’s was being forced to play house with his sister and newborn twins.

Perhaps misogyny and society would always be Rhaenyra’s greatest opponent, and the same Aegon’s ally when it comes to their claims, but it was not the only issue. Precedent declared that Aegon would be heir ahead of her, yet it was Rhaenyra’s position and honor that Viserys defied law for, even when she committed high treason against the crown thrice. She got everything; Aegon had nothing. He’s the underdog of the story, not her. So had they not made him an on screen r*pist (unlike Daemon who was off-screen one and merely an on-screen pedo and wife-killer), it would’ve been very hard for the writers to push their “Rhaenyra good, TG bad” narrative. Those two would’ve had too many parallels and foils for it to work, and they really couldn’t have that, could they.

No, Aegon has to be the villain; Rhaenyra has to be the hero. It’s a black and white war, good vs evil. That’s the story HOTD is trying to sell, and not at all the complex tragedy of a family tearing itself and its dynasty into pieces over greed and idiocy.

[aspoonofsugar]

So what are your thoughts on kana now having black holes in her eyes instead of a galaxy? and did you ever think we would ever get dark kana? because i was honestly surprised aka gave her that because i thought the dark eyes will be for the hoshino's only

I had not noticed, but you are right! Her eyes do look like black holes here...

In general, I think Dark Kana is necessary for Kana to grow and I am excited about this development. As I have written here:

If Kana wants to shine, she needs to experience shadows. If she wants to have healthy bonds with others, she needs to discover and accept their darkness. She is slowly going through this process.

I talk about others' darkness, but for Kana to start exploring her own shadows makes a lot of sense:

According to Jung, the shadow is what people repress and ignore, like Kana's negative feelings towards Ruby. These emotions are not only about Ruby, though, but rather they are about Kana's own acting career. As a matter of fact Kana's whole arc is about her rediscovering her own selfishness and need to shine:

As a child, Kana shines so brightly that she dazzles everyone. Still, she has a difficult personality, so she is left behind once she grows up. As a result, she matures and learns to work well with others, even if it means she has to sacrifice her own light for everyone's sake. Both Aqua and Akane notice this and try to help her shine again, in their own ways. Still, before Kana can truly explode in a bright galaxy, she should explore her darkest self and learn about others' darkness. It is not by chance that she starts this journey by trying Akane's acting approach:

Akane acts by looking inside. She analyzes her character and empathizes with her, so that she can become a new person and play naturally every part. Basically, Akane plunges into people's shadows with no fear. Kana here is doing the same. She is stepping into Nino's darkness and by doing so she is discovering new things about herself:

This is important on multiple levels:

Psychologically, Kana is facing the heart of her trauma. She faces her feelings of jealousy, which are the result of her low self-esteem born from the belief she isn't enough.

Plot-wise, she is becoming Nino, as Ruby is becoming Ai. Considering Nino is probably involved in Ai's death, it is possible Kana's link with Nino will lead to new discoveries.

Thematically, this movie is about understanding Ai, live her story again, but change its ending. From Ai's tragedy to the twins' happy ending. Nino and Ai's relationship could never be mended, while Kana and Ruby's will. Kana is right now surrounded by darkness, but she will escape them and shine once again. She will restore her friendship with Ruby and help her.

Finally, Kana's choice to show her true feelings to Ruby makes her similar to Ai:

In the end, Kana hurting Ruby is just an attempt to love her. Even when she is showing her friend her genuine negative feelings, she is doing so to help Ruby grow. Kana who never feels loved is right now trying to show love in the wrong way. Just like Ai is a person who was never loved and could not love. Kana is wrapping herself in a lie, just like Ai did. It is just that Ai's lie was "love", while Kana's one is "hate".

Kana is currently growing as an actress because she is experiencing lies and how complex and intertwined with truth they can be. It is not pretty, but it is necessary both for her art to bloom and for her to eventually be able to see the truth about her loved ones. Ruby, Aqua and Akane. Only in this way she can go back to shine brightly for them.

On another note, I wonder if instead Akane will grow in the opposite reaction by trying a more reactive and "bright" kind of acting. I think she should as she has many pieces of information that if shared could help save Aqua.

Thank you for the ask!

[writeronartblock]

.... (sigh) I don't think I need to say anything

This. This is something that I frankly did expect, just- not- y'know... Just because I expected it to happen, doesn't mean I wanted it.

I was hoping, SO HARD, for any type of intervention (divine or otherwise) to happen. Like, "TSUKUYOMI, GET HIS ASS BACK, PLEASE!" type of desperate. Nope, didn't happen, fuck.

I talked about this with some friends, here are some of my past thoughts...

he's such a tragic character, both of his lives as amamiya gorou and hoshino aqua were cut short before they could truly begin, both with the death of Ai and his first mother. and he's saddled with si much grief, and pain, and anguish, and vengeance, and it's--- (sigh)

AQUA DYING?! LIKE, THAT WOULD BE SO UNSATISFYING!! HE HAS TOO MUCH BAGGAGE, TOO MUCH UNFINISHED BUSINESS!!

if they do really stick with it, i'm gonna be so surprised because that will make so many people mad (including me)

like, objectively high climax (having the main protag die), but just really low catharsis

I, like, genuinely don't know how to feel about this. As Akane said in her monologue towards the end of the chapter and even Aqua himself during his final moments...

And as Tsukuyomi herself has said, he was barely 18 years old, he was a fucking child. I think that's the real tragedy, the fact that this boy sacrificed his whole future for the future of other people. But even if he sees this as a "noble" act, protecting his loved ones, he inadvertently caused them more pain than if he just came clean about everything.

Even if he didn't think so, the people he loved would've still love him in turn and cherish him. Yes, they barely or don't even know what you've done up to this point, but the right thing to do is to fess up and wholeheartedly apologize. Instead he threw away his life in service to a greater future he thought was better for them, even though he himself wanted to continue living.

He left Kana, he left Akane, he left Saito, he left Gotanda, he left Miyako.

And in the end... he also left Ruby. The sister he swore to protect from any harm. The one that made him believe that the reason he was reborn as a twin was to watch over her and keep her safe. The one that would experience the most grief than any other character.

Aqua was her brother, her other half. He was also Dr. Amamiya, the love of her life. He was half of the reason why she wanted to be an idol, he was the one who supported her through it all and helped her make her dream come true.

(claps) Bravo Aka, bravo Mengo. I am impressed as I am mortified, and I'm pretting dang mortified. I am angered as I am in grief, I'm mad and anguished, and I'm experiencing the whole stages of grief again simultaneously and repeatedly.

I'll leave one more thing before I end this post...

I used to hear a simple song...

That was until you came along...

Now in it's place is something new...

I hear it when I look at you...

You took my broken melody...

And now I hear a symphony...

[overlordofships]

oooo what got u interested in hookfang and snotlout as a ship. im interested to know :0 (if u still ship them haha)

I VERY MUCH DO >:3

Okay so when I was a baby fandom lad and just getting into HTTYD I remember shipping all the riders with their dragons, but back then the fics for that was like. 99% toothcup, 1% toothcup feat. other ships. So I could NOT for the life of me find any other dragon/rider ship fics solely for, say, Fishlegs/Meatlug, and then by extension I just didn't have any fuel for my shipping

Nowadays I'm more competent in making my own fuel. But for shipping any dragon and rider in HTTYD that is not Toothcup you have to watch the series to understand, since the pairings that aren't them don't get a lot of attention in the movies proper (henceforth all of this will be under the cut for how long it is):

First off, I will be talking about canon shippable moments. In the first season, there's an episode where Hookfang has a toothache (it's the one where the forge changes into a dentist, because Gobber doesn't have any reason to make weapons anymore) (sorry I forget episode names). There's a part near the end where big, macho man Snotlout breaks down in TEARS pleading for Hiccup to stop Gobber, outright sobbing the words, "He's gonna kill my dragon!" I remember just rewatching that episode over and over to the point of pissing off my mom and her telling me to watch something else, because it was the BIGGEST piece of non-Toothcup food I'd gotten fed up to that point.

The second season had an episode of Snotlout working Hookfang to the bone, to where Hookfang's flame went out and he got deathly ill. Snotlout CRIED, genuinely cried AGAIN over this (and this time it got called out by Astrid) and when he thought the Fireworm Queen had killed him, he just looked fucking BROKEN, and he even said "You're more than just another sword" (which I think is/was a line in our very small hooklout shipping community used to emphasize their relationship - they see each other not just as weapons to an end, they're more to each other than their strength even if that's what originally drew them to each other as dragon and rider).

Next up - this episode is Netflix-only which is heartbreaking for all you who don't have it. But there's an episode in either the first or second season of Race to the Edge (can't remember) where not only does Snotlout think Hookfang is leaving him (and the twins play it as a fucking love triangle tragedy the whole time) but he straight-up tells Hiccup that if he can't ride Hookfang, he doesn't want to ride a dragon at all.

I reference all of these to say that there's just something special to me about two people (or one person and one dragon) who are normally cold, standoffish and outright cruel to other people, but become absolutely soft and vulnerable when it comes to each other. There's a difference there to me between that and how Hiccup is nice to everyone, but is just a special nice to Toothless. (I am still a very hard Toothcup shipper, don't get me wrong, but Hooklout at this point has firmly overtaken them as my OTP for HTTYD)

All of that said, because we unfortunately cannot see into Hookfang's mind beyond the obvious (he is a dragon and cannot talk - which is ofc a roadblock in one of my fics, but still) one of my favorite things to do is imagine the canon show but with my Shifter-verse, so here are some headcanons for anyone who wants them featuring Shifter!Hookfang and Snotlout:

Hookfang uses Monstrous Nightmare courtship, which involves either submitting himself to someone stronger or making himself seem tougher/stronger. All the times he hurts Snotlout are his unfortunate attempts at flirting. (Related: He also regularly, casually says, "If this goes wrong, I want Snotlout to kill me" and he also thinks that's flirting, too)

In my Shifter AU the episode with the Fireworm Queen turns out differently - he gets to that point because he thinks he's not enough for Snotlout. Maybe a snide comment from Spitelout got him there, or maybe something happened in a battle. Whatever it is, he does it himself - and then, later, when he's better, when Snotlout is all bawling and asking what the hell he was doing, Hookfang says, "I wanted to be good enough to be your dragon." and that would be big since in my Shifter-verse I think that wouldn't be something the dragons would say lightly

Related to number 1, whenever Snotlout does something really impressive strength or intelligence-wise, Hookfang just becomes this gooey, flirty, flustered mess. It's adorable to watch, but very confusing for poor Snotlout

The episode in Race to the Edge where Snotlout has to do all those trials to be Mala's king? Hookfang insists Snotlout do it because he will NOT stand for anyone implying his mate couldn't survive something (and Snotlout plans to turn Mala down afterward anyway)

Incidentally, Hookfang acts like Toothless is the most annoying dragon ever when he talks about Hiccup... But if you let him Hookfang could give rants twice as long and just as sappy, if not sappier

Somehow, despite that, Snotlout WOULD NOT GET IT. He teases the hell out of Hiccup and Toothless, but prior to Hookfang actually using real words to say to Snotlout that he's in love with him, Snotlout would have 0% understanding that Hookfang is into him (that's also a trope I love, btw: two people very-obviously smitten with each other but one of them has absolutely no idea)

Hookfang just casually leaning on/draping himself over Snotlout in his human form, a quiet way of saying to everyone around him "This is mine" (and when they get together Snotlout starts casually sitting in Hookfang's lap)

Related to the above: Remember when I said Hookfang would casually say "If this goes wrong, I want Snotlout to kill me"? After they get together, Snotlout starts returning that phrase with, "Not if you kill me first". All the dragons think it's cute but the humans are just like "....what-"

They're also the most fucking dramatic when they get together. Hookfang sweeps Snotlout into his arms, DIPS him and then presses a big kiss to his lips. Right in front of everyone else. (Compared to Hiccup and Toothless who went out to the cove to confess to each other, and Fishlegs and Meatlug who quietly got together without even noticing)

Basically, what got me into them is imagining these idiotic, self-confident, sappy, oblivious, simpy morons looking at each other and saying "That one" and then somehow taking years to realize their feelings are requited despite them each being the only one the other will truly be vulnerable for

now I leave you with this screencap from the end of the Fireworm Queen episode

[shi-daisy]

Tamlins character assassination genuinely bothered me, to have his character turn abusive isnt inherently bad but having him get constantly shat on while ryhsand continues to be genuinely vile and horrid to feryre, tamlin just seems more sympathetic the more i pick apart why feyre and rhys suck ASS. sjm does not get to sit there and act like Nesta was evil and awful as she got constantly belittled and shat on for her COPING Mechanisms and that Nesta is the one who has to apologize to the inner circle despite the way ALL of them treated her and expect me not to think she just failed with tamlin as well, she keeps writing characters she wants me to think are bad while not acknowledging that the characters she loves ARE VERY BAD IF NOT MUCH WORSE.

Anon are we lost twins by any chance? Lol kidding, but you've just voiced the exact reason why Feysand (and by extension sjm who wrote them) piss me the fuck off!

Tamlin's story reads like a damn tragedy. Abusive father and brothers, a mom who loved him but couldn't do anything to protect him, he's resigned to not get the court and tried to go unoticed to stay safe then once he finally makes a new friend his family ruin that friend's life, he loses his mother due to the family fued, is forced to be the ruler of a nation when he has no idea how and still pulls through. Then gets hounded by Amrantha and cursed. Has to lose another friend to break the curse. Finally finds true love and even after attempting to protect her she nearly dies. He had to rebuild the court and support his fiance while still suffering from ptsd himself and so he fucks up royally, said fuck up costs him his relationship, his bestie and his court and now he has nothing.

And I'm supposed to cheer for this? I'm supposed to accept this as a fitting end to my favorite character? Nope, not gonna happen. Not when Rhysand can commit multiple war crimes and treat people like shit and Feyre can ruin a court and half of another cuz she mad at Tamlin and wanted to girlboss. (Girl stop acting like an edgy 13 year old, people are dead and you have the intelligence of cabbage head.)

Oh and yes the way they treated Nesta was worse than anything Tamlin ever did yet we're supposed to think they healed her? Tamlin locked Feyre up cuz he was irrationally afraid of her getting hurt. They looked Nesta up cuz she spent 0.000001% of their wealth and calls Rhysand an ass to his face. Guess who I'm gonna side with?!

Sarah is too into Rhysand and so anyhting he and Feyre do is justified but anyone else can go choke. It's the reason I dropped the books after ACOFAS (Tamlin's scene there had me crying and I had to yeet the book away)

Tamlin needs a redemption, but written by anyone other than SJM. She will ruin him like she did Nesta.

[horizon-verizon]

I physically cringe at how toxic some fans are becoming.

Canonically Rhaenyra loved all her children, Jace would have been a great king, Luke and Joffrey's deaths are tragedies Like the disappearance/supposed death of Visenys and Aegon loved his older brothers, so where did this brutal division come from where one side calls the older ones irrelevant and useless bastards and the other says Aegon and Visenys weren't just as loved as the three first brothers.

I find it worrying that for the first one they are recycled TG comments (I can only assume these people are A/V fans and not Rhaenyra fans if they are regurgitating this mentality) and the seconds are the fault of the same problem that the VB and the dragon twins already suffered, that of the change in ages, time jumps and poor management of time on screen translates into poor development of family dynamics.

Also, even in the show this whole argument about who Rhaenyra loves more, Harwin's or Daemon's children is super stupid because you can argue either way due to circumstantial evidence.

She loves Daemon's people more because they are children of the love of her life! She loves Harwin more because he's not a pedophile!She loves Luke more because she called him her "sweet boy" (at one point he was worried and she comforted him)! She loves Daemon's children less because she barely kissed them (we ignore that she takes the time to go play with them*)!!

Or let's make the opposite argument!! Lucerys (from Harwin) and Visenya (from Daemon) aren't enough to start a war, so I imagine she doesn't care about either of them 😳

This is all stupid and ignores both the source material and the show's writing problems, and Rhaenyra (either Rhaenyra) would be furious and ashamed that anyone make these kinds of arguments against her children.

(Now, if anyone wants to talk about Rhaenyra treating the dragon twins less like her daughters or her husband's daughters and more like one of her servants, yeah, I have no arguments against the way They destroyed those relationships because they did not " nuanced " it, they simply eliminated it)

*I have only seen intolerance from one of these sides and I am genuinely curious what it looks like in these people's heads to show that Rhaenyra "does" care about Aegon and Visenys Let it not be something she already did and just needed to be expanded upon because it appears that they mean is that they have to show Rhaenyra caring MORE about them than her other three children. Rhaenyra is supposed to hold Aegon and say "oh, my beloved Valyrian-looking son that I can love with all my heart." ?

I believe the writing for the show--how they have her literally do almost nothing for her kids after Luke dies--encourages and flamed the fires for these already existing ideas for people to be so brave about it. I myself haven't seen some myself and I think that has to do with good filtering, but I don't deny they exist. Truthfully, such ideas have existed a very long time in the fandom and I hate them.

[mdhwrites]

I just read your post on King and Eda, and I TOTALLY agree with you.

If you were in charge of the Owl House, how would you rewrite the two of them? (no pressure to answer if you don't feel like it.)

Forgot to mention this: This is with the kindness of hindsight. It is always easier to critique than it is to create. Especially with how little I plan my stories when I start them, it's arguable if I'd actually make something as cohesive as what I'm going to pitch here. This is why I rarely claim to actually be able to write something better.

So normally my response to this sort of ask is "You can't change the element without losing the spirit of the show" but that's actually not true with just changing Eda and King. There's a foundation there for something really good stemming from the concepts of the two of them but TOH actively avoids doing anything with them. Like I said... They're just kind of bad characters in execution because Eda doesn't have any interest in her own craft or her world while King is a contradictory, one note comic relief character for S1 and then a plot point more than a character in S2/3 that entirely hinges on his heritage. This is part of why King suddenly is the wisest fucking 8 year old to ever exist.

So what would I change? First, I would make them a real family from go. Not by blood but by connection. Acknowledge earlier that Eda adopted King when he was alone and scared. She actually cares about him but struggles to show it because she's been really hurt by family as well and just by life in general so she has these boundaries even with those she's close with. This makes Luz's arc of turning her more motherly feel more natural because Eda isn't just randomly becoming a better person and retconned as having always been sweet but instead her relationship with King highlights what her eventual fate will be as Mama Eda and allows her inner kindness to show earlier.

For King: Write him as a fucking eight year old. Now, I actually have to get into the other big change in order to discuss more of the changes I would make with him but he should never have been equally as world weary as Eda. It constantly put his age into question in S1 and it made how much he actually cared about his heritage feel out of step with the lessons Eda would have taught him to make him such a jaded ass in the first half of S1. It also means that his character is more inline with his character episodes instead of feeling like they're out of character. The true big change though is... Have them reflect twin sides of the Isles. Make Eda love magic, and thus show Luz the grandeur of the Isles (you can even keep the "No Chosen One" thing for this because she genuinely thinks ALL magic is special and wants to impart that on Luz if Luz really wants to be her pupil). It makes it so that she is actually motivated to teach Luz and to experiment with magic. It turns her character more towards someone who is always experimenting with magic and the curse was instead not just something that made them not be able to steal as effectively but a genuine tragedy for her. But because she acts tough and is forty and flirty, she doesn't show it except in really vulnerable moments. Again, this allows Eda and Luz to have a better relationship and keeps her character more consistent between the two seasons while still allowing character growth/an arc that feels justifiable versus what we got.

Meanwhile... King is a fucking 8 year old orphan who's mom has to constantly leave the house to feed them and Hooty is his only protection. He has no strength, he has no magic, he has no friends, he has NOTHING. So make him wanting to be a ruler explicitly a fantasy. Not just biologically encoded into him (which is a WEIRD fucking plot point to begin with) but something that comes from his surroundings. He wants to be a king and have minions because kings are safe and have subjects who adore them. It makes it so that you can have the ruling jokes while also letting King be a character. This also makes him latching onto Luz feel more natural. He is desperate for safety and others and Luz is not only willing to give him the time of day unlike most, but is also mostly safe. He doesn't have to worry about how much more powerful she is than him as they're getting close so he feels like a friend of hers rather than her vassal. This admittedly would need changes to how Luz treats King but, well... That kind of has to do with what both of these changes really are: Take the narrative goals TOH had for these characters... And use them to make real characters. This is a general problem of TOH that Eda and King suffer especially from. They're not real characters. They're just creations meant to serve specific goals and those goals are more important to the writers than the characters. Which begs the question of "If the writers don't care about the MAIN CAST as people... Why should the audience?" And that's something that I as a writer fear a lot personally. I consider characters to be the end and beginning of a story but they do still have to work for the story and finding that balance is a very real struggle. I do not promote Inspiration ID Vol. 1 because the main character in that series is shit. And he's shit because he is just my obsession with a porn trope I disliked and led to the creation of that book. And a lot of TOH shares that motivation so of course the characters are going to tear down the world they're in more than they're going to lift it up.

And when talking about main pillars of your story... The ground is going to cave in eventually.

=========

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[ladymorghul]

I'm definitely more than a little worried on how they've handled Helaena thus far and how they'll continue to handle her going forward. Regarding Dreamfyre, the official HotD HBO website says that Helaena rarely rides her. I guess that they wanted to differentiate her from her siblings more since they're more devoted dragonriders than her, such as Aemond (or at least I'm assuming they all are), and having her being more concerned with dragon dreams than by actual dragons. But when it comes to her children we have little to nothing shown on-screen, the twins are barely even acknowledged, and Maelor might even not exist if it weren't for the opening titles.

And then there's Helaena herself, who I think is genuinely the least developed member of the greens besides Daeron, who hasn't even appeared yet. Like, there's so much around her that we barely spend time on. Does she understand her visions at all, or do they just come to her and she's unable to make sense of it? Is she frustrated at her family for brushing off her prophecies, or is she unable to communicate to them what's going to happen? Does she even seek to change the outcome, or does she think she has no control over it happening? How did she feel, when she was first betrothed to Aegon? Did she care about being betrothed to her brother, presumably not by her will? How does she feel about her children with him? Did she want them in the first place? Does she love them unconditionally or take comfort in them, or is there baggage associated with them because they're the product of a distant marriage? How does she feel about being crowned Queen? Did she want the crown at all, or really didn't want it, or is she simply willing to wear it because at her family's behest? Does she have ambitions, or is she simply going with the flow of what happens? (and could this be related to her prophetic visions of the future?) How does she feel about her father and Rhaenyra, and the various politics that everyone partook in? (Aemond's eye, Vaemond's petition, etc.) How much does she believe in her family's goal of crowning Aegon? Is it because she's worried about her family being targeted if Rhaenyra comes to power, or is it simply her being dutiful and loyal to her family, or is she a very reluctant participant? The thing that's keeping me from being totally pessimistic is that they were able to make Alicent, Aemond, and even Aegon to a degree complex and even sympathetic. Especially Aemond, since he was only there for half of the episodes but he feels like a very well-rounded character compared to his book version, with the relatively little screentime spent we spent with him. So like, I can hope they can pull off the same with Helaena.

Like, they need to do A LOT of heavy lifting in the first half of S2 if they want B&C to have an actual emotional impact. I'm hoping, since the year-long time skips are over, that they'll slow the pace down and spend the time developing Helaena that she deserves.

i am also worried about helaena but at the same time, i’m expecting disappointment.

i love the questions you posed about helaena and would be so interested to see the show answer at the very least half of them, but i don’t think they will. 

not only do i think they don’t care about helaena as a character as much as we do, but they’re also moving the plot entirely too fast. 

personally i’m afraid that s2 itself will start with b&c early on so we won’t get much time with her prior to tragedy striking and her falling into depression 

and since i don’t think the writers will deviate her story from her book story this just makes me all sad because they made her a dreamer but she can’t do anything about it. she sees what will happen, she tries to communicate it but it doesn’t get through and she can’t stop it from happening 

at least helaena in the books was described as a happy girl and that she would make a good mother until b&c happened and everything changed 

i love that helaena is a dreamer but if helaena being a dreamer is just their way of adding one more layer to her character that just makes her sadder and more stressed and unable to connect with her mother at all (which people percieve as helaena and alicent having a bad relationship) until the inevitable death of her children, her depression and her jumping out the window then....that’s messed up for this poor girl. 

not only did they not give her more agency, they added another layer of trauma of living with prophetic dreams that she can’t properly communicate but will also not change 

i am not as optimistic as you though simply because the idea that they made alicent, aemond and aegon more sympathetic seems untrue to me to a certain degree. yes, alicent is more sympathetic, but she’s still one of the most hated characters in the show, at times on par with otto. with aegon they did the opposite. they made him a drunk rapist who watches people fight. aemond is albeit the only one who gets more sympathy because they didn’t make him intentionally kill lucerys, but that’s not completely positive from an audience POV. 

in the end, most people still don’t like the greens under any circumstances and personally i think there were moments when the writers tried to make them sympathetic but those were very few and they generally didn’t know what to do with them. and i still think the show is 100% working hard on making team black look like the only choice the audience should have

but yeah, agree so much with you about helaena. they could have tried so much harder to develop her. 

[farenduil]

September 2023

mentions of @meryasek, @aegnorx, @yaviefey, @wintersaurora, Titania, & more

"Parents got divorced when I was, uh, five years old And I saw my father about three times a year after that And when he found out that he had cancer, he decided to To bring me here and he gives me this big pink seashell And he says to me, "Son, the answers are all inside of this" And I'm all, "What?" But then I realize, I realize that The shell's empty, there's no point to any of this, it's all just a A random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes." - The Pink Seashell, Fall Out Boy

The news hits him and it's all just another blow, but it is perhaps the hardest one to take. After every loss he asks himself how much more can he afford? If the people he cared for were gold in his pocket, it'd be empty. Or it had been emptied time and time again and he would cling to them a little tighter, those that remained. He felt as if he never got the chance to. Time was such a strange concept over the years and he'd unwittingly thought he had so much of it. And yet it was never going to be enough. Mortal, he sits on the beach where he and Mery used to walk along. His brother would run up to him with all of these shells in his hands and he would kneel in the sand and look at each one with genuine awe. Some of those shells sit heavy in his pocket now and he swears they are anchoring him to the very earth. Without them, surely he would just float away.

Things had been different between them as they grew, over what must have been the last few months but the time might as well have spanned centuries. He'd gotten to see that boy turn into a man, into a prince, and then into a king and he'd tried so hard to protect him from everything and so he'd coddled him like their mother had. Farenduil, in an ever present grief that he now knew he and Titania shared over Aegnor, he had underestimated him. He'd been a good senator despite not wanting the position, he'd been a good man, he'd been a good king. He'd been a good brother. When he had been at his lowest, Mery had been there to catch him, hoist him up and shake him around and remind him he wasn't a failure until he let himself be. His talk with Titania, what he imagined would be the last one, had remedied that to an extent. He had her love, and Mery's too, Yavie's, potentially Aurora's, the twins in their own way, maybe even Aegnor's if he could find it in him to really sit down and talk with the man. And yet he can't do much of anything. He can't even bring himself to leave the forest despite the fact that he has no real place in it anymore. He wakes up in the cabin, Emma's tomb, and he goes to his desk and gets out some paper and he writes letters. He'd done that on the ship after Yavie had gone over the edge, he had put letters in bottles and gently dropped them off into the ether, as if his warder would get them. He writes down everything he should have said to Mery, begins each piece of paper with 'Dear Brother', and it's almost mechanical. Healing in some way to draw from the empty shell that is his body and just pour whatever is left of him onto the paper. He tells him that he is sorry that he could not be better, that he could not be of more help, that he had not been there in the end. And then each day he goes to what he thinks of as their beach and kneels down at the water's edge and he gently sets the glass bottle containing the letter in the shallows. He sits in the sand, he watches the waves take it out further and he finds it soothing. No matter how angry the waves seem to be some days, they carry his words gently, he watches them bob on the water until he can't see them anymore. He thinks about interrupting meetings for a boy tugging on his sleeves, he picks flowers just up the beach on the grass to send in the bottles. He thinks of that first masquerade where he was drunk and happy at the edge of the dancefloor as that disco music Mery loved played on around them. He goes back as far as remembering when he'd first laid eyes on the child, when he'd been so sure he couldn't possibly feel much for a new brother after losing Aegnor. But he'd looked at Mery in his mother's arms and he had the exact opposite reaction, he had thought that no one would ever hurt him, not while he was around. How wrong he'd been. He goes home when it gets dark, prepared to do it all again the next day. Knowing that the one person who had never given up on him was gone and that now he had to carry on for him anyways, because it's what Mery would have wanted. He would continue on him, even if his magic was gone. He could live for that boy he'd carried around the halls of the palace and told stories to, that he'd watched make flowers grow. Farenduil goes home and he waits for what feels like a miracle, for yet another gold coin to be returned to a pocket that's full of only shells.

"So I take pleasure in the detail, you know, a A Quarter Pounder with cheese Those are good The sky about ten minutes before it started to rain A moment where your laughter becomes a cackle And I sit back And I ride my own melt"

[chlorineloki]

i’m sorry i’m going on another rant but this ship enrages me; i think they should be besties, not romantically in love. that’s how i originally read it, and i hope the show backtracks a little bit and makes that real, because they do NOT need to have romantic feelings for each other. like it seemed like they were just trying to figure out how to CARE about others, not like they were in love. i think they have deep platonic love for one another, but i see no reason that it needs to be/ should be romantic?? i think they’re both just trying to figure out how to express that for each other, and they’re really awkward about it, so it ends up being expressed a bit weirdly. i really really hope s2 does this narrative and they don’t end up as a couple. it just doesn’t feel right.

idc about the selfcest or whatever bc they’re completely different characters. the actors even have some chemistry, but i just do not like this ship as romantic, i see them as friends. i’m curious to see as well if sylvies feelings were genuine, or if she was trying to manipulate loki to get what she wants. i hope they can be friends without the writers/directors ruining it and making them actually fall in love.

taken from a quora response (i know i hate that site too but this reply really made sense):

“I glanced at the other answers and everyone seems pretty sure that they are madly in love. I have to say I disagree.

The Loki we know has truly experienced trauma throughout his life. He was basically abducted as a baby for lack of a better term, lied to, etc etc. He doesn't trust people. I would go as far as to say he doesn't even put any effort into liking them. As much as I do believe he loves Thor, it is a love-born out of initial obligation. I think that loving/caring about anyone outside of your immediate family is always different. And that the first time you do it, it has a learning curve. What a lot of people read as soft loving romantic feelings, I read as Loki slowly lowering walls.

I think that at the moment when Mobius was pruned, Loki truly was heartbroken, because he considered him an ally and a friend. Possibly his first. Imagine not having a single friend in a thousand years. After having that kick ass fight, working with Sylvie against the minutemen, he grabs her shoulders, I don't think he was going to dip her and kiss her. Ala a Peggy/Steve or Tony Pepper moment. Or declare her his one true love.

I think he was going to declare that he trusted her and that he wanted to fight alongside her. He was going to tell her everything that she missed, everything that he thought they should do next. He was fully prepared to do the same thing with Mobius, He just never got the chance. He's never known how to trust someone and now he did. And in his mind the first part of that is declaring it. Declaring that you aren't trying to betray that person despite it kind of being your calling card.

Could I see a romantic relationship in the distant future? Maybe? Everyone seems to look at the variant thing differently. To me none of the variants are the same. They look different, they act different, they were raised different, and they don't even appear to have the same genes. Literally twins are more similar than the variants. A lot of people are also saying that him caring for her is similar to him accepting himself because they share so many traits. But that is a kind of relationship that can be found in a person who isn't your trans-dimensional variant. Oftentimes our best friends, our platonic soulmates, are people that we see ourselves in the most.

There's a quote that I don't remember exactly. But it goes something like, “You will find that in your life there are people who will know your soul from the inside out and the great tragedy is that these are rarely the people you spend your life with." I thought of that quote several times when I was watching the last episode.

I personally really like Sylvie as a standalone character, and at this point I'm just hoping that she lives to move on in the next phase of movies. Because honestly, I like Tom Hiddleston, it would be cool for him to have a romantic relationship with anybody. But more than anything I'd love to see him in his mischievous glory with a best friend egging him on.”

[dicmondskies]

☆ & * .   ♡   I N T R O D U C T I O N  …  

[          ◟  KAY. ◝           ]     ⸻     have  you  ever  heard  shirt by sza ,  well  it  is  ZOLA ROBINSON  to  a  tee  .  the twenty  seven  year  old fashion designer has  been  spotted  wandering  down  portobello  road  markets  just  last  sunday  ,  do  you  know  them  ?  would  you  say  she  is  more  blunt or more  vital  ?  anyway  ,  they  remind  me  of  fine wine and angel hair pasta  ;  overnight flights to paris  ;  crystal chandeliers ,  maybe  you'll  catch  them  around  yeah  ?     ⸻     [          ◟  ALISHA BOE . ◝           ]  

trigger warning: drugs, suicide, death, murder .

from the outside looking in, the robinson’s seemed to be your typical upper middle class family residing in nottinghill. clean cut, happy, successful. with mom running the most competitive dance studio in the area, finances were never an issue. the robinson children seemed smart, talented, dedicated…and the parents? to outsiders they seemed almost too perfectly in love, and maybe they weren’t, maybe rumors of their marital problems were the talk of the town when they turned their back, but even the family themselves never imagined the tragedy that were to come. the robinson’s eldest child, zola’s twin brother zaine was found dead in their family home on what seemed to be a normal friday night. the death was ruled a suicide, it struck the town, the neighborhood, everyone was in mourning. zaine was a fairly popular kid, well known to be genuine and liked by everyone, so what was it that drove him to the edge? the robinsons’ still don’t know, and as you can imagine, it’s tore their family apart from the inside out, everyone scrambling to pick the pieces of their lives back up after losing someone so dear to them.    

zola would argue she took it the hardest out of her two other siblings. though, she knows her grief isn’t a competition. it was just that zola was extremally close to her twin brother, they had an unbreakable bond, they were thick as thieves. it was true what they say about twins. they can feel when something is off with the other. so why didn’t zola know what was going to happen that day? why didn’t she sense that something wasn’t right with zaine? her brothers death almost consumed her. she was up day and night, investigating his death on her own. the details didn’t make sense, and the path she followed lead her to believe someone covered it up to look like a suicide, everything in zola’s heart tells her it was a murder, though her family thinks it’s just her crazy way of grieving and that she doesn’t want to believe the truth. she soon learned not to speak about it in front of them, and she pretends she’s left the investigating behind her. she feels close to finding out who was behind her brother’s death, rumors whisper the name of his best friend keith, someone she always sensed was jealous of her brother. her close friends are worried that she’s too close to the truth, and sometimes zola feels like someone is watching her from afar.

even with the weight of the world on her shoulders, zola never let it knock her off her grind. soon, her mother started to go off the rails, and her father didn’t stick around to clean up the mess. everyone was living out their own version of depression and it all seemed to fall onto zola to pick up the pieces and glue everyone back together. her father moved out, her younger brothers and her were offered a place with him but they didn’t want to leave their mom behind, she developed an addiction issue after her brothers death, and it was too much for her father to deal with, he didn’t want to abandon the whole family, but he couldn’t watch the woman he once loved destroy herself and her family with no remorse.

zola used her grief and anger and put it all into her fashion career. zola loves to climb the ladder of success, and losing her twin only fueled the fire and passion within her. zola started making her way into the london fashion scene, starting off as an intern at a fashion magazine glam, uk! , zola charmed her way up the ranks and has now become a high end fashion designer and stylist for some of the biggest names in fashion worldwide. she travels a lot for work but likes to take the fall and winter months to come back home and ground herself with normal life. she’s super bubbly and sometimes and airhead. she gives big libra venus and leo moon vibes too, always wearing pink, always wearing something over the top and luxurious. she is the life of the party and loves to be the optimist in every situation. is super outgoing and friendly and loves to indulge in the best things life has to offer. 

[nightingaletrash]

1, 2, 4, 7, 12, and 20 for the DAV asks??? (Hopefully not too many ;w;)

There's no such thing as too many!! :D

I already answered 1 and 4 in another ask, but I'll copy-paste them below a cut for you ^^

2. Which Dragon Age game is your favorite so far?

Gotta be da2, it's the game that compels me most in terms of story and characters. I love that it's a tragedy, that the ending never changes no matter what you do because you are a little guy against an overwhelming forces BUT what you do still matters - Hawke is my favourite Dragon Age protagonist and I will love them forever because they might not have power in the overarching story, but in the little things? In the everyday lives of people? Hawke matters so much, they help people and make things a little better for them, and they did their best. It's not a perfect game, but it's a game that makes me feel a lot of things, and I love that <3

7. Which character from the previous games or other media are you most hoping will make an appearance in DAV?

Isabela, Dorian, Maevaris, Fenris, Vaea, Francesca, Valta, Calpernia, Valya, ISSEYA (not in-person obvs, but I'm begging for just one mention of my aroace Warden Queen, she deserves acknowledgement), Sandal <3

(there's definitely someone I'm forgetting but these are the ones I know for sure I want to see in some fashion)

12. What's one thing you're hoping we DON'T see in this next game?

Anders.

jks I know bioware won't bring him back now but I genuinely struggle to think of what I don't want because shard searching, multiplayer and micro-transactions are confirmed to be gone for Veilguard :D

20. Post a picture or gif that conveys your current level of excitement for Dragon Age: The Veilguard!

an accurate representation of the goblin in my brain <3

1. What was the first Dragon Age game you played?

Origins!! It was back in 2014 - I'd seen some Inquisition clips and looked into the series, and decided to start right at the beginning ^^

4. What does your worldstate look like going into DAV?

This... got lengthy, but here is my canon world state for Dragon Age:

Origins: Warden was a female Human Mage who romanced Leliana; Redcliffe was saved, sided with Mages, Connor was freed from possession, Anvil was destroyed, Bhelen was crowned King, Zathrian sacrificed himself to end the curse, the Urn Sacred Ashes was preserved, all companions recruited, Alistair became a drunk, Anora was crowned as Queen alone, Warden performed the Dark Ritual (modded lol), Avernus was spared and allowed to continue experiments, Shale rediscovered their past, and Morrigan was allowed to leave through the Eluvian

2: Hawke was a female Mage who romanced Isabela; Bethany died escaping Lothering, accepted Merchant Cavril's bribe and worked for the mercenaries, protected the mages without killing Karras, sent Feynriel to the Dalish then to Tevinter, Carver became a Grey Warden, killed Bartrand, Aveline married Donnic, didn't side with Petrice, killed the Arishok, made Tallis angry, sided with Janeka and killed Larius, Varric didn't keep the idol, killed Castillon, helped Merrill leave her people peacefully and preserved the Eluvian, let Zevran go, let Keran go, turned conspirators over to Orsino, reunited Gamlen and Charade, helped Anders, killed Anders, sided with Orsino

(I also have a rogue Hawke who is the twin brother to Marian; he romanced Fenris, helped Tallis, and sided with Larius)

Inquisition: Inquisitor was a Female Elven Mage and Merciful Judge who romanced Solas; denied being Andraste's Herald, helped refugees in the Hinterlands, recruited and dissolved the Templar Order, declared for the Inquisitor, left Hawke in the Fade, recruited the Grey Wardens, Celene rules and was reunited with Briala, Dorian reconciled with father and planned to return to Tevinter, Blackwall redeemed as Rainier, Bull saved the Chargers and became Tal-Vashoth, Cassandra discovered the book and rebuilt the Seekers, Sera killed Harmond, Cole became more human, Solas freed his friend, helped Varric track the red lyrium source, Vivienne was given the heart of the snowy wyvern, Cullen did not take lyrium, Josephine and the Inquisitor did favours for the du Paraquettes, Leliana was inspired, Calpernia's past was investigated, respected the Temple Guardians, spoke to Calpernia, Inquisitor drank from the Well, Leliana became Divine Victoria; shared the truth about Ameridan, earned a legend mark from the Avvar, discovered the source of the tremors, Bull stayed loyal, redeem Solas, disbanded the Inquisition. Additionally, Inquisition forces were deployed regularly, all keeps were captured, lake rift was closed, and Sutherland's company was successful.

[thal-ent]

Greetings! For the ask game, what characters would you consider your blorbos and what do you like about them?

Ok ok ok ok so i have many blorbos. So many of them. So I'll only talk about my current Big 3™ of blorbos eheheheh

Honorable mention because I dont wanna talk too long for now about her but my character Agathe is very blorbo. She's just a little off. A little gal. A lesbian with weird Magic thingies around her. An angel who keeps her eyes closed.

Blorbo number one : Nico Robin, the one and only. My gay awakening. The only strawhat that wasn't invited. The backstory that still makes me bawl my eyes out years later. She's genuinely such a well written character and I would die for her anytime. Her struggles with her survival and realising that after 20 years she found a home are HEARTBREAKING. She's also such a badass and I love how her powers are used. I also agree with Oda her devil fruit is probably the one I'd want lmao

Blorbo number two : Vash the Stampede, any iteration of him (even tho I have a hard time with the perviness of 98 and BLR). The Humanoid Typhoon, the 60.000.000$$ man, a guy who just wants to help people around him but is trapped in a tragedy of his own twin's making. Honestly Vash is so interesting to me with how he always has some sad and melancolic mysterious aura around him, and it only serves to hide the rage he knows he feels. He's a pacifist but he's so angry all of the time. He loves humanity but ran for years before actually saving them. He refuses to take any life but doesn't care about his own. He's not human yet so painfully Human. He's full of contradictions, and his relationship with Wolfwood and Meryl show that as well. I could go on about how they represent his present and his future respectively, but it's about Vash, not Mashwood lmao

Blorbo number three : C!Dream, the tragedy. That's really how I see him, he's a tragedy. Forced into a role that never fit him, just a 21yo boy forced to fight friends and then getting villainized for it. A boy that kept trying to distance himself from his friends and ended up alone despite having someone at his side always. A man that didn't care about his own life so he let himself be put in prison. A man that got offered a hand and a "maybe we can try" too late. He was barely 23. He's the snake that lost everything, he's a man who never got a hand from anyone, a man that was always seen as a villain no matter what.

I have so many more but yea they're my top three currently uwu

[pluto-the-chinchilla]

I don’t think anyone will read this and I doubt I’ll get anything Pride related on the main blog in time for this month. I’m gonna share my OCs sexualities.

Ms. Enswell is a bisexual woman. She’s never dated a woman and she’s in love with a man, but she finds herself admiring the fem staff of the WVBA more and more as well as her classmates at her capoeira lessons. Her adoptive mother and father are very supportive, but it’s taken until now in her early thirties just to wear a pin. Her bio family was catholic and said abhorrent things about the community and even after getting saved from that household there was a lot of internalized hate. She’s never been cruel to others in the community it felt repulsed by them, but also felt ashamed at being unable to join them. She’s never attended anything Pride related herself because she feels like she hasn’t earned the right to count.

Nurse Shio is a straight ally, but her twin brother was gay. She’s at best a biiiit flexible but overall she’s just a humble ally who genuinely ti this day can’t understand the grounds for hate.

Blood Eagle isn’t sure if he would fall under bi or pan, but he’s also definitely Demi (sexual and romantic.) In order to get involved he needs the intimate history of talking, bonding, connecting. He’s not interested in dating, but if he finds himself connecting with someone it’ll consume his thoughts until he acts in it. He’s afraid of losing his individuality and his alone time. He loves people in small doses and wouldn’t know what to do with himself. He has been intimate with men, women, and outside of the binary but just hasn’t felt that click.

Toddy is pansexual. He just lives people and used to be prone to developing crushes regularly. When he was living on Hippo Island he tried dating a guy and girl each, but it was usually the highly revered non-binary Hippoans who astounded him most. As many people have already figured out, Toddy is hopelessly enamored with Heike Kagero. Toddy's not hopeful of ever having his feelings reciprocated however due to their communication and because he's well aware that he doesn't meet the beauty standards that Heike is used to from his own homeland.

Vivian Chatworthy is a transwoman. I was really elated about this one because it was in my head the entire time I was creating her, but I was afraid of being honesty about it for over a year. She's amab, did not have an easy upbringing at all. Her mother rejected her, her father could never truly understand her but tried to and even stood by her when he refused to kick her out of the house like his wife wanted to. She lost him to tragedy right on the cusp of adulthood, used the inheritance to take off to the states to reinvent herself... met the love of her life who, also didn't fully understand, but made more of an attempt than her father did and with information becoming more available over time she was more understood and was able to fully physically transition. It's not a well known fact about her, but she allows for it to just be an open secret. If you know, you know. If you know anything it's that she's loudly supportive alongside her husband and their LGBT child.

Francisco Featherweight is... my least favorite character. He's bisexual but almost kind of prefers identifying as gay. I'm not very interested in him, but he has a particularly difficult home life. He's a gay man into defying typical gender norms, he's into makeup and styling clothing from the womens section, he miiiiiight have a history as a male stripper, and his father is... cruel to him about it. He has a cruel family. His family openly lambast him online. He's having a good time with his fame but he has a bit of an attitude and can be entitled to things and people at time because he does feel he deserves things to go his way at this point in his life. He'll get better I think. Honestly just writing this makes me more sympathetic towards him.

One of Toddy's younger sisters turns out to be a lesbian later down the line (I'm pretty sure Tepache) whereas the other is straight and asexual.

And finally, Moira Ryan, Aran's twin sister... is a closeted lesbian who is deeply in denial. She dated Narcis Prince for over a year and it ended horribly - they do not like one another at all and are both very resentful of one another. It's an issue even Aran won't touch with a fifty foot pole. Moira is deeply attracted to some of the girls on the WVBA staff, but doesn't have a planned ship or a specific crush at this time. She's afraid of coming out because she doesn't want her parents to treat her the way they treat her brother. She still tries dating other men, entering relationships with male influencers who keep up with the WVBA, but deep down all she wants is just for a woman to hold her away from the general public. She's just ready for anyone to know, she's not even ready to be honest with herself. Aran of course has no idea and her dating Narcis feels more like a slight towards him, hooking up with his nemesis.

[oodlyenough]

@kobitoshiningneedle:

You had me until the Iris part. Firstly, I'm not sure the plot that just happened to be revolved around Phoenix relationship with the girl is merely "a feeble attempt at heterosexual romance", since it actually has its own pretty clear narrative purpose. Phoenix's relationship with Iris, and subsequent learning that he was right to believe in a person close to him is a beautiful conclusion to the whole trilogy's theme of trust Secondly, I agree wholeheartedly that Iris is a chararcter beyond a nice twin to Dahlia and one of possible Phoenix's love interests. And I sorta also agree that she didn't get enough focus for this supposedly important character. But still, from what we have it's not that hard to see what the gist of her character was about (and it's not "occasional blushing") Iris playing along with Dahlia crime stemmed from her twisted loyalty and an extreme gullibility. It was not some kind of malice. This still was a flaw of her, an ugly flaw that, if not for it, would prevent many tragedies. Iris is a morror to Godot who also had his gross flaws that caused the entire fallout of 3-5. And a lot of her character is not being a cute ex to Phoenix, but someone who needs to be able to stand on her own two. Sorry if my rant felt attacking, I just feel Iris gets flack for something that is a skewed perception of her

I sense I'm going to ramble a lot so I'm moving it out of replies where there's no character limit lol sorry.

On Iris: I don't think she's malicious either and if my wording implied that it was a mistake. I don't think she wanted to hurt or kill anyone. But I do think she does things (like continue to date Feenie vs just stealing the damn necklace) either out of a sort of selfishness/self preservation/self interest (she likes him, likes dating him, etc), or cowardice (doesn't want to upset him, doesn't want to upset Dahlia, doesn't want to face Dahlia's wrath), or at least I find either of those possible interpretations more interesting than her simply being unable to stand up to Dahlia out of pity ("why did you do it?" "I felt sorry for her" in the game). To have her be so gracious about Dahlia despite Dahlia's miscellaneous wrongdoings is imo part of the "good twin" umbrella that I found smothering to the character. Alternately, I would have been interested to see Iris more conflicted between her love for her sister and her love for others -- but instead she goes to great pains to protect Maya/thwart Dahlia, and reassures us she would have even killed Dahlia to protect Phoenix (?!?), so that's not really the case.

I think you could say something about how in the end of 3-5 she very stoically accepts whatever sentence she gets for mistreating a body/covering up a crime scene/etc, as opposed to hiding from culpability before with Fawles and with Feenie. But even there I feel like I'm stretching a bit against the text. I think I would have wanted to see a little more emphasis, if that was its meaning; instead it felt to me like a foregone conclusion of Iris' nobility.

On Phoenix's relationship with Iris: I don't think we're going to agree. I think what you're saying is what the game was trying to go for, it's just that I personally didn't think it was well-executed or that "actually she was good all along" was a meaningful resolution to Phoenix/Dahlia from 3-1. I would be more moved by a Phoenix who continues to trust so wholeheartedly despite a "real" betrayal*, or a Phoenix who trusts stranger-Iris to not repeat the mistakes of her sister despite resembling someone who hurt him badly, than by what the game was giving me - this idea that Feenie and "Dollie's" relationship was genuine and she "was always the person he thought she was" and his trust in her even in 3-1 was founded. We see him trust in the face of great odds all the time; it wasn't a new direction to take him imo. Him being wrong, in a very personal way (not just magatama BS with Engarde lol), and how he reacts to and moves beyond that is more interesting to me and speaks more to his character than "he always trusts the right person", which is how I feel the end comes across.

(*And here is also where the game and I differ, because I think from Phoenix's POV what Iris did was pretty fucked up regardless of her reasons or her feelings, but Phoenix and by extension the game do not particularly care. I suppose this is in-character for Phoenix, who forgives many things and loves with his whole chest, but... I'm not Phoenix.)

And I do feel that introducing a hypothetical girlfriend in the last case of a trilogy infamous for homoerotic tension, to then drop her again immediately, is a pretty transparent move. YMMV.

Ultimately I more-or-less agree that what you're saying is what Capcom was intending from Iris -- I just didn't, personally, think it was well-executed or very compelling, and if I think about fleshing Iris out more myself, it's not in that direction.

I've been thinking a lot about how fandom attitudes towards female characters shift, and how a lot of the outright hatred that was once prevalent now is replaced by "girlboss" "mom friend" "only braincell" type discourse... and also about the Hawthorne twins and what I see of them in fandom vs canon.

It's interesting to me that I see a lot of what feels like a fandom desire to rehabilitate Dahlia as a character from a feminist perspective, sometimes taken as a given that her canon material was bad, when ...tbqh I don't really feel that she needs it. If I think of characters wronged by their canon text, Dahlia wouldn't make the list. Even a surface-level reading of Dahlia is, imo, a compelling character, with clear motivations, consistent behaviour, agency. She's funny and memorable. You can dig deeper into speculation and headcanon territory with Dahlia (and I totally get the impulse, she's great and there's lots of potential there) but I don't think you need to do that to make her a solid character, I think she already is. I don't think she's any less complex than the other trilogy villains, and if anything she's a lot more complex already than someone like Engarde, and on par with Von Karma.

On the other hand, I think Iris got some paper-thin writing as "the good twin" and, let's be honest, a feeble attempt to set up a heterosexual romance for Phoenix which gets dropped in subsequent games anyway. There are interesting possible complexities to tease out of Iris, just as with Dahlia; Iris facilitates or participates in some pretty messed-up things, but Phoenix and the story are very forgiving, which just flattens her out further into Good Twin. I don't think the canon is very interested in Iris outside of her role as plot twist doppelganger and occasional blush sprite... and mostly it seems the fanon Iris gets in response is to quadruple down on those things. She's pure and kind and sweet, besties with Phoenix, their relationship is cast as something wholesome and innocent, despite the uh objective reality of it.

What about the Iris who helps her sister plan harebrained criminal schemes only to back out at last second, the Iris who fell in love with Feenie despite herself and yet continued to lie and place him in danger for eight months, who watched Dahlia get a death sentence without ever coming clean ... Those things are the aspects that would make her a multidimensional character, imo, but they're ignored and/or glossed over in the story and (what I've seen of) fandom. And I don't say this to mean that she's evil or irredeemable or something, she isn't -- just that the basic fact of her actions is a lot messier than is usually acknowledged, by canon or fanon. For the canon I think the reasons are obvious and not flattering; for fandom, I think the intentions are generally positive, trying to correct for the opposite end of the spectrum (and 20 years ago the attitude was probably quite different), but I still wish female characters were given more space to be complicated in ways that include being kind of fucked up actually.