All the symbols~♥ xoxo haha hope u hf w/ your book!!
♚ Do you agree with fandom interpretation of your character?
Short answer?: It’s complicated; but mostly no.
Well okay, so first we have the two known mangas (Light Inheritors and Oosawa Mitsuki’s manga adaptation) that portray Aless really differently that you’d think they’re literally polar opposites. I feel like with the Light Inheritors manga scanlated and easily(-ish) accesible online, it kind of sets that manga’s characterization of him in people’s minds - in which where he is really stoic and a bit of... a cold-personality stereotype (”I don’t need to read this letter because why would he write me this if it was false in the first place?” when game canon Aless clearly read it) So yeah, I see people just take the always distant, gives-the-cold-shoulder guy in black armor as how they interpret him and I don’t agree with it. (As for the Oosawa’s portrayal - well, call I can say he’s the personification of the zodiac sign Leo to the core of his character? He’s so fucking overdramatic/overemotional it makes me cry a little. But from what I’ve looked at so far, his speech/thought process is pretty on point with how I see him reacting to his surroundings. Just too easily expressive/reactive.)
I haven’t seen too many people describe Aless from game canon actually... I see people jokingly go he’s proto-Owain with how he gets over the Mistoltin/bloodlust and while it’s fun to headcanon him as a high school chuuni thing (not to an annoying extent at all (the cool/dorky extent)), there’s a limit to that. A lot of people don’t seem to delve deeply into his character though so this was kind of a hard thing to draw a line on.
♤ Has your muse developed to be different from their canon selves through roleplay?
Mmm, hard to say? I still see A LOT of his canon traits in Aless still like how we see him first introduced in the game. He’s definitely grown and learned, but this is most likely due to the fact he’s already an adult when we first meet him and he’s not exactly stuck between childhood and adulthood like the rest of the Second Generation kids are in terms of growing. So his personality/character-wise is pretty.. set? There’s definitely a difference between him as a 20yr old and him at 30 years old, though. But, yeah, I’ll say he’s definitely more in tune with himself and he knows more of who he is now.
✘ Any unpopular opinions about your muse?
He’s a growing character (yes I know what I just said but that still stands) and he’s like.... developing himself more and evolving from who he was even though he’s still more or less the same. I really think he can grow to learn how to appreciate and love others and not be a dick and shove people away just “because he doesn’t care about them personally in the first place”. To be there for others, continue to be selfless since that’s how he’s been all his life since his mother died and always looking out for others’ wellbeings when his mind isn’t consumed about revenge, learn to be a little selfish sometimes out of good intentions later on. His heart is in the right place when he goes to Agustria (he has this strong admiration for his father and failure seems to be his number one weak point that he loathes so I believe in him he won’t throw Agustria into chaos because “MISTOLTIN CRAVES YOUR BLOOD OKAY WE’RE AT WAR NOW”.)
(Which is going overboard on making a small fun thing about Aless into a Major Trait that ‘DEFINES’ him when it doesn’t.)
♧ Any part of their canon portrayal you dislike?
I totally blanked out at this question for a while, but there is probably one thing (although it more or less is game-related in terms of storytelling rather than about him directly but): Aless’ hatred on the ‘idea’ of Sigurd + Celice for over 17 years. And he’s a traveling mercenary. BOY, WHERE HAVE YOU GONE AND NOT HEARD ALL THE THOUSAND AND ONE TALES ABOUT SIGURD’S HEROIC CROSS-CONTIENT MARATHON ADVENTURE AND NOT HEAR ABOUT HOW YOUR DAD DIED?? At least he got over his hatred for Celice soon enough within the game’s timeline so it doesn’t bug me as much? A+ for that development.
...But, still, though. Goodness.
☯ Is your muse liked or disliked by fandom? Does this affect your portrayal?
Eltshan exists, therefore, they don’t really care about his son in turn.
There’s a few people who adore him for being Playable Eltshan 2.0 But Better, and that’s about it really. So it’s hard to exactly gauge the fandom’s feelings on him at large whether he’s well-liked, well-disliked, or indifference for the most part which I suspect is the answer.
As for if it influences my portrayal any - that’s something I’ve never really thought about actually. I just write him because I want to and interpret him how I feel like he canonically comes off to me in the original Japanese game of Seisen no Keifu. I guess I’m doing pretty good so far since Fire Emblem: Treasure (the book released by IntSys + Shouzou Kaga) confirmed two of my headcanons. I don’t really pay the fandom much attention otherwise and just write for him.
♢ What's your opinion on different interpretations of your muse?
Gonna be brutally honest, I’m rather high strung on a few aspects of Aless’ character. Other parts of him, I’m more lax with (his relationship with Leen can be taken either way so I don’t mind much about that, his influences as a lone boy growing up, how much Jabarro influenced him to an extent, etc.) but there’s parts I’m going to be rather judgemental on (how he views and treats his blood family, his coping/developing relationship with Celice and getting over the false obstacle to unexpectedly befriending him (or romancing him, whichever), and how he handles his responsibility as the Agustria’s lone crown heir to take the throne/overall attitude about ruling), but that’s nothing personal against the other muns if they pick him up as a muse (like there’s even any except a friend who only has him casually). I’m just picky and have what I strongly like as being set in stone for him; pretty reasonable as anyone else with their big, main muses, really. This heavily applies for fanfiction, too, since most fanfictions I read are in English (read: Light Inheritor manga problem above on characterization). All the JP ones I’ve even read were the r-18 ones and let’s not talk about the one wicked OOC jpfic where Aless and Leaf talked about their fathers/father figures. No.
✦ Has your own interpretation changed from when you first began playing the character?
Yeah, it really has. I started out Aless when I was super new to FE4 and have seen the game playthrough, but since I can only remember so much of the game’s events when I went into reading both mangas - some details got screwed up in my head so I had a good chunk of Light Inheritor Aless’ portrayal stuck in my head for a couple of months until I went back and reverted him back to game-based once I realized it and am now sticking to it for the rest of my musing for Aless. I definitely have added elements to him along the way and I’m grateful for it, though I still made sure I didn’t make that accidental mistake again and stuck him as close to the game version as much as possible when thinking about headcanons and backstories in verses.
✍ Has new canon material ever forced you to adjust your headcanons?
Well... Mangas aren’t really canon, they’re just authors’ re-tellings of the stories in their own ways, so...
Well, if anything, perhaps Fire Emblem: Treasure (since it was published by Intelligent Systems and had Shouzou Kaga’s notes and designer’s notes in it so I take it as canon as ‘background sources and additional info’ are). Not really a force of changes on headcanons, but solidified them with the following confirmed:
(1) Experienced loneliness most of his life(2) His hatred for Celice is fading [over the course of the game].
(1) I figured that since from the moment his mother died to the Thracian attack on Lenster and got raised by Jabarro for SEVENTEEN years and had nobody familiar to talk to, he’d... be pretty damn lonely. That is until he sorta meets Leen and befriends/protects her and then meets Celice who’s like the Gate Way in introducing him to a lot of things he didn’t know about before (unintentionally reunited him with Delmud then later Nanna and all) and that turns his life for the better from being a lonesome one.(2) This one is such a big one to me. From what I’ve sincerely picked up on between Aless + Celice’s conversation to Aless + Nanna’s conversation to the Epilogue ending where Aless inherits the throne if he’s alive - he really did seem to grow and gradually move past the false “belief” into living the true reality (like why dwell on it?) and strongly befriends Celice because Celice just fanboys over him the first time they meet and wasn’t even deterred one bit that Aless tried to threatened to take his life (and well within understandable reasons initially), but he grows out of that over time and doesn’t hate the false “picture” of Celice anymore and sees the real person himself whom he came to feel Celice’s happiness in getting to meet Aless and his firm words on restoring their countries to the point Agustria is Grandbell’s number one influential partner and that says a lot to me on how much their relationship have grown in game. It’s the puzzle pieces and connecting the bridges/dots what I love about any media.
So yeah, if anything, these just really solidified my headcanons to be set in stone!
✎ What do you wish the author would reveal/had revealed about your muse?
I could’ve sworn there were a million things, but I can’t remember them right now. If anything, I’d love to know Aless’ view on Delmud - any conversation would’ve sufficed on both of their parts. They don’t even converse in the epilogue ending, so it’s all up to the most likely implications/headcanons/fanon.
✿ Why did you decide that they [insert headcanon here]?
AND THIS IS THE PART WHERE I’M GONNA TAKE YOUR FANART AWAY FOR NOT SPECIFICYING THIS 8(. I keed, I keed. But, I’ll take a look at my list and pick something out.
Okay I didn’t put this on my HCs page yet but I want to talk about it anyway.
Why the color ‘blue’ has such a big significance to him that he’d call that color ‘home’ even though it appears so little in his life. Starting with Aless’ mom’s, Grahnye’s, Treasure artwork (her only artwork), she has these little blue sapphire beads and a sapphire necklace. I see Aless as being pretty much a Mama’s boy (and Daddy’s boy, but then again who isn’t) and Aless treasures his memories of his mother a lot in an endearing way that’s well-hidden under wraps of his exterior. There’s also the popularity of the Nodions being shown with blue eyes (Eltshan, Lachesis, Aless, Delmud, Nanna, you name it) and although my personal canon-headcanons say Nanna (and sometimes I guess Delmud) have blue eyes (because Fin fathered them) while the rest have different shades of brown to brown-gold eyes, just the small things like his loving family mean the world to him. The fact that people’s eyes are like the windows to their souls is also a thing so he looks into people’s eyes a lot to determine whether they’re shady or sincerely good-hearted. Also, Celice is basically all blue who was a good “sign” to him that his life really started through him and got to meet his family then think of a real future for himself for once after—a real home.
Even if black/red/gold are his main scheme colors, I see green (flag of Agustria) and deep violet-royal purple working well for him too. While blue is just his Aesthetic Color that whenever it shows up, he feels right at home, right at ease, like he belongs, and he finds it comforting. Because it reminds him of how safe he felt with his mother, so there’s that. Blue is literally the next color that’s closest to white—light. Blue and Light are both opposites of him (blue is yellow’s opposite color on the color wheel and White/Light is opposite of Black/Dark), so it plays a double meaning too. Which is kind of funny since he isn’t really an artistic consciously, but he responds that way.
To Aless, blue = home, important, must love & treasure closely to his heart even if rare. Like the saying goes, once in a blue moon. And it’s good when it happens.
❀ Share a headcanon you have not shared.
I believe I’ve only mentioned it once vaguely, but Aless has a fainted long scar down the side of his back. He’d received it from a really bad fall off his horse due to a dangerous skirmish in the desert during a mercenary mission when he was a teen.
IDK but can you really tell me that guy who lived at Darna (a wee ways into the desert land surrounded by literally named the Desert of Death) who’ve traveled far and wide for nearly two decades doesn’t have at least ONE scar or two, or so? Especially if you think about how reckless he must’ve been when he was a growing teenager still learning on handling his holy demon sword that thirsts for blood.
