Rhen is the best honestly. It meant so much to me as a kid to see such a heroic character who was female and who was also allowed to be feminine. Sure, characters like Alicia and Mel have their place, and I’m grateful for them too, but it was so inspiring to me to see a female hero who was also just a girl. Sometimes it feels like in stories females have to give up their femininity to be important. Often they outright reject it (like Alicia and Mel tend to), and as I said, sometimes this speaks to people, sometimes it’s good to know you don’t have to be feminine, but what about the people who are anyway? The people who cry at all the sappy parts of movies and squeak a little when they see something cute? Isn’t that okay too? Don’t we all do that sometimes? Aren’t the stereotypically feminine parts of ourselves also important and valuable? I think so, and in a lot of ways it was Rhen who helped me learn this. Rhen helped me like myself. Rhen helped me learn that it can be brave to be compassionate. Rhen slays demons and she also chases butterflies and gushes over cats and she wants to get married to someone who loves her and is kind to her and I don’t think that makes her less heroic, I think it makes her an inspiration. She showed me that it can be wonderful to just be myself. And sometimes that means standing up for justice, and sometimes that means getting emotional over a cute dog, and both are good, and I’m just really grateful to have this wonderful well-developed beautiful character called Rhen who helped me realize that ❤ So here are some of the art I’ve made of my fave:

This was originally done for day 17 of the 31 day Aveyond fandom challenge, which is favorite game. Here’s the caption I wrote for it:

“For me [Aveyond 1] was the most beautiful, meaningful story. I love that Rhen gets to be the hero, no tricks, no twists, just pure heroism like you would expect to read about in a book about knights and chivalry and ridiculous idealism, and Rhen gets that role and she gets to be feminine at the same time and her example has been so, so important to me. I love the duality of justice and mercy woven through the narrative. Rhen always defends justice, Dameon always advocates for mercy, for his father, and that silly ogre. And in the end Rhen chooses mercy, and she saves Dameon, and Dameon chooses justice and fights Ahriman. It’s also a really powerful story about grief, and how to live in it, and how to come at last to joy. And the truth is twined so beautifully through the whole thing (I will seriously never be able to stop geeking out that it was set up ALL THE WAY BACK IN AP guys, just wow. the poetry), and the truth is so important because what can justice or mercy be without it? How can you understand sorrow without it? And it’s just the most wonderful story, and I just love watching Rhen grow from a girl to a queen, and seeing her overcome her hesitance and fear– because who isn’t afraid to be important and powerful? I think the world will always need heroes like her. I always will.”

So uh as you can tell I really really love Rhen a lot. Next pic(s)!

I like to doodle Rhen when I’m supposed to be taking notes so here is a collection of a few of my favorites. I especially love to draw Rhen in flower crowns because she is the Queen and the flowers know it. Also the last one by itself is the face she makes the first time Dameon kisses her cheek probably<3

This one was drawn for Inktober. It was for prompt 26 last year (2018), which was stretch. Caption: 

“I could go on a long rant about how I chose to draw Rhen Darzon Pendragon for this day because of how she stretches and grows and becomes in her arc, and how she’s inspired me to also stretch and grow, and all of those things would be true and I love Rhen for them, but there is also a much shorter explanation for why I picked her, and that is:

I just really heckin love drawing her XD She’s my queen ♥

So here she is doing her morning stretches so she can kick the bad guys’ butts and also show off her muscles to Dameon

(I have yawned while looking at this so many times, it’s ridiculous)”

Another Inktober 2018 piece! This prompt was slice. Caption:

“Obviously I could not pass up the opportunity to draw Rhen. I love her ferocity. I love that it’s a part of her she’s allowed to embrace and use for good, something that’s allowed to exist with and work alongside her gentleness, like when she defends Eddy and helps Morsel and saves Tiny and saves Dameon and if I listed all the examples we’d be here forever, the point is it means a lot to me that she doesn’t have to deny either part of her. They don’t have to be opposite. She can be at peace with both her softness and her violence. They’re both her, they can both be used in accomplishing her goals, she can grow into both of them gracefully and beautifully and perfectly, and that is inspiring to me. So here is my queen, Rhen the Great, deadly and beautiful through everything  “

And here is one I drew because yellow is Rhen’s favorite color and I had to draw her in a yellow dress for my life! Caption:

“Rhen’s favorite color is bright yellow and I had to draw her in a yellow dress   

This is sometime after the canon ending, during some spring festival wherein Rhen is the life of the party. I really love picturing Thais coming back to life and flourishing and having flowers everywhere and even more I love imagining Rhen getting to see that and know it’s because of her  

Also Dameon made the flower crown 

Also also this is one of the first things I sketched on my tablet but the flowers took me a million years to finish, hahaha”

I’ve drawn Rhen a lot more times but these are my favorites of just her that I’ve done, and it’s not like I make my art hard to find so you can check out my deviantart or instagram if you want to see more, haha. I’m Mu11berry on deviantart and aveyond_obsessed on instagram! (Actually I’m obsessed with Aveyond everywhere but if you need a username there you go XD)

Oh also the featured image is an aesthetic I made for Rhen:)