Heyyy as the other Duela fan I know of besides myself; thoughts on Enigma, her sister?
Oughhh good question. To be honest, I love Enigma! I think she’s fun, although her designs across the years have always been…. Lacking?
I’m having trouble fitting her in my au! I know Duela for sure (I might actually talk about a briefing of my Duela soon to be honest), but I don’t know what I’d do with Enigma. I remember that I named her Athena though! Goes by Athena Nygma I guess.
Although I don’t know exactly what I’d do, I have a few things that I think about a lot in regards to her character and how I’d interpret it. I don’t think in canon I’d go through with Enigma actually being Riddler’s daughter, but !! I usually talk about Enigma with my friends for Parent AUs so I have ssssome thoughts. I can’t guarantee they’re good though
Enigma has autism and ocd.
She definitely needs glasses and has come to peace with that, but for a long time she was afraid of being seen as a failure so it went on for… too long.
She knows who her father is. Edward Nygma… the smartest man in Gotham. And she’s his daughter. She has to live up to that. Because of that along with Edward’s sometimes misplaced excitement for Athena’s interest in academics, she has a fear of failure. This is something that is actually a very important to her character to ME along with being something that Edward realizes in the parent AU
Duela, in the parent au, is Athena’s step-sister. This is because TWIDDLER SWEEP and I like this idea. Duela is older than Athena (I’d say by a couple grades), so by the time Athena enters high school, Duela is already either a Junior or Senior.
Duela is a bit too rough for Athena at first. Duela has a giant personality, something that clashes with the rather reserved Athena.
Duela’s relationship with Harvey also makes… Athena a little jealous. Edward is not a bad father by any means, but being Who He Is really adds stress to Athena’s own self worth in regards to her being seen as intelligent. Seeing Duela being raised in such an open space where she doesn’t feel the pressure to succeed along with feeling comfortable going to Harvey for her problems regarding herself just makes Athena feel weird.
Another conflict: I believe that Athena, especially when she enters high school, gains that kinda “I need to be better than everyone and if I am then they’re cheating or just wrong somehow” attitude that Edward sometimes has. This really comes out when Athena realizes that… Duela isn’t that bad in school. Duela does good in her subjects, especially science (chemistry related stuff mostly), but also… Athena never sees Duela “pushing herself” or “punishing herself for failure” where Athena usually would. She’s jealous how Duela is still able to keep this all up, something that Duela picks up on.
They’re sisters in the end though so 🩷 it’s okay. They get better, especially as the relationship between Harvey and Edward goes on.
