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#hoo boy this feels like a contentious issue
dribs-and-drabbles · 2 years
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Thoughts on the costuming of Bad Buddy (a thread*)
Episode 8 (3/3): The Friends
There's so much I want to write about this week that I've had to break it down into three different posts: one for Ink and Pa; one for Pat and Pran; and one about the Friends. But here's the Friends,
Ooof, this feels like a difficult one to write about...I might get rambly and predictive rather than reflective...but I'll do my best to be succinct. I'm going to start at the end of the episode and Wai in the lighting/sound booth. At first glance Wai's t-shirt looked to be a light shade of green - signifying that he's potentially an obstacle to Pat and Pran's happiness, the cause of conflict - BUT I believe it's actually a pastel/baby blue (and therefore indicating that he's not as bad as he seems 🤞🏽 haha...ha...h...🤡). Hear me out...
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Earlier in the episode Pran is in the lighting/sound booth in his sandy coloured top with what looks like green stripes (on the right below - note the dark green headphones too). Aha!, I thought, it's because he's hearing the gossip about Pat and who he might be dating from the people on stage - cue conflict and angst. But later, both times when Pran is backstage speaking with Pat, the stripes are actually a dark blue (on the left below, and even looked black at times). What's my take on this? Well, I think the light in the sound/lighting booth has a green hue to it, changing the colours of the clothes. Why is this important?
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Well, Wai in a pale blue actually suggests a support of Pat (and therefore Pran's relationship to him) whether that's now or in the future. It's a weak support, at best, and something has made him drop the curtain to reveal Pat and Pran's relationship...but I'll get back to this in a moment.
Earlier in the episode, when he's looking for Pa and then drinking with Pran, Wai is also in blue (in fact it's the only colour he wears this episode)...but this time it's a richer, brighter shade. There's even a lovely blue light in the fridge to the left of him. (Note also the beautiful lighting behind Pran as he talks - with the red, blue, and mint green lights to his right and the yellow to his left. I love the way Pran is still managing to smile through his reflections about how exhausting their secret relationship is...because, even though he says it's something he tries to avoid, his expression says otherwise. 💛)
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Now, here's my (clown) theory: If the rumour is true that Wai was the one to see Pat and Pran in the car earlier, then he might have used the conversation outside the uni to test Pran about his feelings for Pat (by threatening to beat Pat up). Then in the bar, whilst Pran talks about how difficult it would be to date Pa, Wai would know Pran's really talking about the difficulties he's facing in dating Pat. I think (again clowning here) that Wai might actually feel sympathy for Pran and want to help him but isn't sure how. (I would love it if he had actually said to Pran here, "hey man, I know about you and Pat, why don't you talk to me about it" but I don't think he did [silly boy]). Anyway, Wai might potentially reason for himself that revealing Pat and Pran's secret relationship would actually relieve this pressure that Pran feels (not condoning this btw - he was wrong no matter the reason) and enable Pran to live freer. So, I don't think Wai dropped the curtain out of spite or hatred. And adding on to that, I don't think he'll be the one to tell Pran's mum. This is because at some point we will get this:
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We get Squad Goals™. The architecture and engineering groups uniting together. And this can only happen if whatever reason Wai has to drop the curtain is acceptable enough for Pran (and Pat) to forgive him (which might not be acceptable to us, because no one should out someone else, do I need to keep saying it?)...so I don't think Wai can be that bad. Btw, I also noticed in the credits that these two moments (below) of each group separately might be just before they meet and join up (above) since they're all in exactly the same clothes:
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Wai is still very much in favour with Pran, so I don't think he is an out-and-out villain. He's mis-guided, perhaps, but I think he's done what he's done out of somewhat good intentions (again, not saying it was ok) and I cannot wait to find out what his excuse is. 🤨 @thecookiemonster77 wrote a theory about how the fallout from dropping the curtain might be that Wai becomes gradually isolated from his friends (in a parallel to Pat and Pran becoming accepted) and I like the potential of scenario...but as I've already said, he will eventually be forgiven and brought back into the unified squad.
Now for the other friends. We don't see much of them this episode, just for the rugby practice and at the end when some are suspiciously in the theatre for the reveal. The trailer for episode 9 suggests Pat and Pran will have a hard time with their friends...but I hope their clothes are actually foreshadowing the opposite. Safe and Louis are in both Pran and Pat's colours - Safe in red, and Louis in blue stripes. I've already written about my predictions (or hope) that Safe will be the Best Boy™ of architecture and the voice of reason for the group 🤞🏽 so let's hope they will be supportive.
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Korn is also in blue with a bit of pink. He looks taken aback, curious, a little shocked...but despite the ominous dark green t-shirt, I don't think he's going to ostracise Pat like the preview suggests.
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First, my prediction was right that the engineering group was going to be supportive of Pat hitting on someone from architecture when they found out. In episode 8 they're in red and pink when grilling Pat and they say that Pat's "so cool" and that they "admire him so much". Sounds pretty positive...
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However, in the preview it seems Korn has done a one-eighty - telling Pat that only engineers can sit and that "no outsiders allowed". I'm hoping here that Korn is just teasing Pat and we're being fed a big ole fat red herring. Why is this? Well, going off previous previews, we can't trust a single thing we see/hear but also...I can't help but notice the mint green cap the girl is wearing in the background. A very thin thread, admittedly, but I'm hanging on to it for dear life until I'm proven otherwise 😂🤡
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So, circling back to Wai and Pran... Next week there will be animosity between them but they will have to work together on the play. It's interesting that both are in black t-shirts here (Wai's is under a white shirt) - one of the first times Pran has worn black (Wai has worn black with another colour a few times already). And before anyone says, I know it's customary in theatre for technicians/backstage personal to wear black...but it has also been set up in the story so that Pran can wear black here - perhaps symbolising how dark he feels about the situation, how overwhelmed and heavy.
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Anyway, whatever is going on I do think there is a lot about the situation we don't know, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for 'good intentions manifested badly' rather than 'outright spite and dickery'. 🤞🏽🙏🏽✨🤡
[Ep 1] [Ep 2] [Ep 3] [Ep 4] [Ep 5] [Ep 6] [Ep 7] [Ep 8] [Ep 9] [Ep 10]
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undoundue · 4 years
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a season in hellsite - chapter 1
chapter 1. in which horatio and bacchus play chess
now the tale tells that darkness gave way to light, or else light filled a space where light had not recently been. the issue is theologically contentious, and at the time no one could be sure.
the light played an important role in the events that were to come. first it hit bacchus’s eyes. then it hit horatio’s eyes. then it hit bacchus’s eyes again, then it hit horatio’s eyes again, and this process repeated several thousand times in the next few seconds, until the light took a break.
the light did not hit the same spot each time, because of angles. it hit a narrow circle very well, and then a wider circle less well, and then an even wider circle far worse than that, because light is by nature a specialist.
now individually, these halos were not exciting, though everyone had his or her preference: but the width of the aureoles varied intriguingly, unlike the areas the light had not touched, which were all the same shade of black. so the boys ascended their subjectivities, refracting the light from their convex lenses as it bustled to describe the scene.
we may morbidly wonder how horatio and bacchus felt in this moment as the red sun dawned and with it their damnation. however, it took them a minute to realize what they were looking at, and in the interim they did not have interiority, so we cannot truthfully comment upon their thoughts or feelings, though we can surmise that in a certain qualialess way they too felt the soul-crushing dread of existential freedom—this being the onus upon all souls who wander the afterlife accurst, unguided by the voice of instinct that, after all, is only borrowed from God.
but what the tale says with confidence is this: one day horatio and bacchus looked up and noticed that they were in hell. neither of them remembered how they had gotten there, but neither of them were surprised.
“—,” horatio said, and he moved as if to speak, but then he saw bacchus starting to speak, so he stopped.
“—,” bacchus said, and then stopped for similar reasons.
“—,” horatio said, starting up again, but then he saw horatio starting up again, so he stopped, and then bacchus stopped as well.
“your move,” bacchus said.
“sorry, i was developing interiority,” horatio said.
“it’s ok,” bacchus said.
“yeah it’s okay,” horatio said: and he played 1. e4.
now when it was bacchus’s turn he did not blithely reach for 1…e5, nor the sicilian. oh no. instead he conjured two quartz goblets and poured in blood-red wine.
horatio said, “where did you get the wine?”
bacchus said, “i can infinitely generate wine, it’s one of my god powers.”
(note at this juncture that bacchus is class DYING-AND-RISING GOD, level 1, while horatio is class GEOMETRICA FRAUDULENTUS, level 1.)
“what the fuck,” horatio said.
“yeah, it owns,” bacchus said. “except it doesn’t really affect me because my blood is like 30% GABA at baseline? but it’s cool at weddings and such.”
so they drank. and bacchus made like he was going to move 1…e5, but instead he just grazed it and said “j’adoube.” horatio gave him a look.
and bacchus said, in a voice of ambiguous irony: “if i did move that piece, we would be much akin to those frozen center pawns: stuck in the zugzwang of existential freedom.”
“and also we can only capture on our diagonals,” horatio said.
“yeah,” bacchus said, “or, i don’t know, man. i suspect it's my history of epub piracy—that, or sometimes i've said something that sounded like it was nice, but by adhering too close to the letter of the law, i was actually deconstructing that niceness, mocking it, and God knew. that, or it was a sin of omission. that, or—and here's what's most likely—every decision i’ve ever made has been five degrees off-course. i trusted my instincts, and my instincts were good, but then i ran into the error margin, and unfortunately, i was too consistent, too kantian, too tragically good, perhaps, which—and i’m not trying to exculpate myself here, because if i did something wrong i would be the first to admit it—which could happen to anyone.”
now bacchus drank. and he stood and dusted the knees of his toga, and looked up at the heavens, and down at the earth, as if the two had been briefly confused.
“look,” horatio said sagely.
“yeah?” bacchus said.
“in the field of anthropology, it has been found that nearly every system of morality prohibits acute angles,” horatio said.
“yeah?” said bacchus.
horatio said: “so i suspect i went wrong in a similar way.”
now horatio took a drink. and from whence he was prone, he rolled supine, and felt the wind move over him: west, then east, then west, then east, a little weaker with each breath, folding in on itself like a blanket.
“also, my only charitable cause was wikipedia,” horatio said.
“same, of course,” bacchus said.
“dude, seriously,” horatio said, “it’s your move.”
but bacchus did not want to move. and so a long time passed in which they were kind of bored and did not know what to do. every few days one of them would feel the urge to eat or sleep, and so they would do
that, though the summoned pad thai got samey after a while and sleep was a time-skip without rest or even a recuperative panel of black, and their ghostly eidolons didn’t have to eat or sleep or perform any other bodily function for that matter, but it was a distraction. even so, now and then they looked up and noticed they were in hell: and neither of them were surprised.
“okay,” horatio finally said, “do you want to play a chess variant?”
so they played:
courier chess (german chess)
fortress chess (russian chess)
xiangqi (chinese)
jangqi (korean)
scottish chess (white moves once, then black moves twice, then white moves three times, and so on)
senterej (ethiopan; both sides start playing at the same time and make as many moves as they like until the first capture)
shatranj (persian)
shatar (mongolian; in which the king cannot castle, and the knight cannot deliver mate),
and then they briefly played connect 4. they thought about but did not play scrabble. they played checkers. and then they played:
turkish checkers
canadian checkers,
and then they dropped canadian checkers like so many rules and played go: go was fun, but lacked a certain je ne sais quoi; they switched to blue-red hackenbush. then they played chess. they played:
shogi (japanese chess), including but not limited to: micro-shogi, whale shogi (pieces with variant movesets, named after whales), tori shogi (birds), hasami shogi, trishogi, hexshogi, masonic shogi, space shogi (nine 9x9 shogi boards stacked vertically), and taikyoku shogi (402 pieces of 209 types on a 36x36 board)
atomic chess, kamikaze chess, avalanche chess, dunsany’s chess, and hexagonal chess (variants: brusky’s, de vasa’s, mccooey’s, shafran’s, gliński’s);
meanwhile bacchus kept them amped on high-tannin wine—tossing aside used goblets and summoning new ones—it was a cantrip that cost him not a soul point (SP), the class equivalent to horatio’s knack for summoning abstract games.
"do you think tannins are funny?" bacchus asked shyly. then, hearing his voice and finding it mellifluous, he became bold: “yeah…i'm thinking tannins are funny.”
“tannins are kinda funny, yeah,” horatio said.
name prime numbers (basically, they competed at naming large prime numbers, but eventually horatio named the biggest one and they had to stop)
but they felt like they were running out of steam. so they played all the games listed above, but as drinking games, wherein every time one spotted a pattern one had to take a drink. as a consequence of this behavior they became quite drunk.
“i don't know…….” bacchus said dysarthrically, “i feel like i messed up….…”
“what is this! i thought you didn’t get drunk!” horatio exclaimed.
“no!…i said, wine didn’t affect me,” bacchus countered, “but my ebriety [vocab word] can still be perpetuated by the endogenous, xanax-like molecule that floats in my ichor, i.e. the blood of the gods…!"
bacchus tripped and then caught himself. he smiled at gravity with the warm antagonism one holds for a cartoon villain, then turned his 18 charisma on horatio. but horatio, whose alignment was lawful neutral, was unimpressed.
“well, you did mess up,” horatio said, “you’re in hell.”
“yeah, but i don’t think i should have to feel guilty on top of that,” bacchus said, “guilt is un-dionysian! it’s bluepilled!”
“okay, so then don’t,” horatio said.
“okay,” bacchus said, “then i won’t!”
“okay!” horatio said.
“okay!” bacchus said.
they both felt better after this interaction. soon bacchus was puking into an ink-black river.
"yeah, i'm feeling it," bacchus said.
"you're feeling it?" horatio said.
"yeah, i'm feeling this is dionysian as fuck," bacchus said.
now the river was utterly opaque to light, so one would expect it to have the consistency of tar, but the boys were surprised to observe that to the touch it was thin as water. so they went uphill and upstream to a slow-moving pool and rinsed their hands and splashed their faces and hair. in the pool, dark nymphs with sporty swimsuits swam until they became silly with paresthesias; and the satyrs leapt in chortling menacingly like hoo hoo hoo and ho ho ho and the nymphs would giggle with elusive allusive illusive knowledge, and within a few minutes both had forgotten lifetimes, staring at each other like babies in a warm and curious fog.
by the time the boys had looked up from the river that did not show their image, they had forgotten most of the engrams their souls had contained.
“word,” bacchus said; though this should have come earlier.
“yo,” horatio said, “i’m pretty drunk.”
“yeah,” bacchus started to say, but for some reason he stopped and instead stared blankly.
“yeah,” horatio thought about saying; but he was too tired, so instead he stared blankly too.
the next one hundred years were spent in a hangover.
some of the games they played during the hangover include:
moving their hip flexors
moving their knee extensors
moving the plantar-flexing muscles of the feet
moving their hip extensors (meta-breaking)
moving their knee flexors
moving the dorsi-flexing muscles of their feet
by this point their enthusiasm for the lower extremities had dimmed—horatio bored when he had solved the path to the game’s solution, bacchus discouraged when the flapping of the map recalled to him the territory—and the psoas and quadratus lumborum muscles were given only a cursory trial.
their attention moved superior (we are skipping over the reflex arcs and smooth muscle contractions that took place automatically, such as laughter, sneezing, and vasodilation, though the boys became skilled at those too) as the boys practiced other forms of iterated narrowing choice: the brash trapezius giving way to the stoic biceps, the careful flexors, the presumptuous precision of fingers and thumb closing three pixels away from the yearned-for dimensionless point. they considered past encounters with such discrepancy: ah yes, these were the angles who ached to lose themselves in intersection. three pixels. electricity clenched efference on no choice at all.
“we could play chess,” horatio attempted to say.
but he had forgotten how to speak. horatio gestured with his hand (though not in a way that was interesting or original or which had semantic meaning) and briefly he felt good (due to dopamine) because he had moved (which felt like an accomplishment) but soon he stopped moving (and the dopamine faded) and then he was still.
“uhn,” bacchus said.
to explain these profound deficits is difficult. we must note that, in addition to the known amnestic effects of alcohol and the river lethe, their circadian rhythms were off. managing the boar-driven chariot that drew the sun across the sky was not a highly-sought position: the black sun rose during the day, and the red sun rose at night; but the red sun did not rise every night, and though the black sun was more timely it was directionally impaired: rising in the south and setting in the north, rising in the northwest and setting in the northeast, or rising in the north and taking a strange zig-zag pattern to the south and back—possibly an attempt to draw a “cool S”. we can also say with confidence that the grayish vapors disseminated from the cracked obsidian of the forsaken earth did not have a salubrious effect. finally, we must note that the boys’ amnesia could have resulted from the omnipresent rule of demonic soul magic, in which what is attended to becomes real, and what is not attended to, does not.
now at this time horatio and bacchus girded themselves with determination, even though it caused them sadness, and tried to recall language. it started with a sharp inspiration and then a slow expiration, “ooooooo”; which got a laugh, and with pursed lips they varied the number of oo’s for a while before settling upon 6 to 8 as the optimal (i.e. funniest) range. then they widened the distance between their lateral commissures to make eeeeee, and they dropped their mandibles and flattened their tongues to make aaaaaah, and these too were amusing, if admittedly juvenile in the way of all unperturbed air. hence the consonants: one would lead off with a gggggggg and the other would breathe the metronome of expectation and listen to gggggggggggggggggggggggg continuing past all semantic purpose until with some internal wrenching of sockets this noise would give way to eeeeee, and they would laugh.
various orderings of consonants and vowels were tried as the sophistication of their humor increased. now with words they recalled meanings, and with meanings they became capable of irony, and shortly thereafter they were back to their old ways.
“1…e5,” bacchus said.
“holy shit,” horatio said.
and so the boys continued to game systematically, but not as systematically as they once had; and they continued to drink, but sometimes in moderation.
“do you think there's a psychological typology of chess openings?" bacchus asked, “like, certain types of people prefer certain openings, to clarify?”
“yes,” horatio said.
“yeah, i think so too,” bacchus said.
2. Bc4 Nc6
3. Qh5 Nf6??
4. Qxf7#
now by this time horatio fundamentally understood bacchus, and bacchus fundamentally understood horatio, but not in the way that allowed them to make predictions about individual actions, so they kept being surprised. for it was evident that the light that limned them had exhausted innumerable other options before settling upon this one, because the scene had purpose and harmonious proportion. and even though the light vacillated across moments of perception, in each moment, it seemed that it could be no other way.
“yeah man,” horatio eventually said, “my take is, you can be in a bad place, and still make a good thing of it.”
horatio tilted the white queen and rolled her base across the fatal square.
“in fact, maybe it's better to have a good time in a bad place, on your own terms, than to be in a good place, conditional upon doing what you’re told,” he said.
“well,” bacchus said, spinning the board, “maybe.”
and with a desultory sweep, horatio brought pawns and knights errant to the frontier of their steady-state, while bacchus, kneeling, with three arcs of divine manumission lifted pawn, queen, and bishop directly to their native squares.
chapter 1 - END
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herateleia-blog · 7 years
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Hera's relationships with the other goddesses of olympus?
meta | always accepting.
        Hoo boy!  There’s actually way more gods that exist within Olympus than those of the Twelve—I happily include all the gods’ retinues as Olympian unless they’re specifically tied to a different specific location.  Sort of like how I don’t prescribe to the “Hestia gave up her throne for Dionysus” retcon that appeared later down the road.  BUT THAT’S JUST ME!!!  
I’m not in the mood to dig up a complete list of all the gods that can be said to exist within Olympus, so I’ll be working off my memory here and focusing on the main women of the mount.  
GENERALHera puts up a wall between herself and others, permitting only a few “intimates” to enter into her inner circle.  Those who are not her intimates can never be certain where they stand with the (former) Queen, only that they should be fine as long as she is not crossed—but who knows for certain where the lines are drawn?  Essentially, Hera is greatly liked when she’s in a good mood and usually feared and/or distrusted when she’s in a poor mood.  
APHRODITE It depends largely on the portrayal, but Hera does not dislike Aphrodite on principle and she doesn’t think lowly of her.  She doesn’t always understand her or approve of her choices, but they work together quite often when their spheres of influence overlap.  Hera respects Aphrodite’s place in the pantheon and her innate independence; she knows that Aphrodite isn’t someone who is meant to be controlled or tied down.  
ARTEMIS I haven’t really interacted with an Artemis, largely because Hera is fairly indifferent towards her.  She doesn’t particularly like her, but it isn’t rife with antipathy the way she fucking hates Apollo/n, and it isn’t personal the way she loathes Leto.  They’ve fought in the past—physically at least once—but Hera prefers to ignore Artemis’ existence unless she can’t avoid acknowledging her.  
ATHENAEveryone has their own opinions on the Hera-and-Athena’s relationship, but I do know that Hera desires a close relationship with her and that Hera would like to think of Athena first as a foster/step-daughter (or something to that effect) before she is Athena’s queen.  The two goddesses have an excellent working relationship, but I do imagine that there is at times some friction between them due to differently aligned goals.  
DEMETER Hera and Demeter (in my view) tend to clash the most out of the sisters because they’ve both got strong personalities and have differing opinions on contentious issues.  Like marriage and motherhood.  Still, Hera and Demeter both love each other fiercely for all that they fight.  If anything, the deep care they feel for each other tends to be at the root of their fighting.  
HESTIA I haven’t had the pleasure of writing a lot opposite a Hestia—though I still love @aventvres‘s old Hestia over @olympianflame—but I feel like Hera and Hestia do get along greatly and come to each other for mutual support and understanding.  There’s a lot of love between the sister Kronides in general and I like to think that they always have each others’ backs when they’re against others, whether they always see eye to eye or not.
AMPHITRITE I’m cheating here as Amphitrite isn’t one of the Olympians, but I do have to make a shoutout to @eternityendures‘s Amphitrite and the beautiful friendship she shares with Hera.  They’re truly each other’s best friends in their adult life.  
HEKATEAlso cheating because Hekate is only part time on Olympus, but this is Hera’s best friend in her young adult life and absolutely one of her soulmates.  One of the most formative relationships in Hera’s life outside of her siblings and children.  
EILEITHYIA When it comes to my Eileithyia and my Hera—which might be different with other Eileithyias or other Heras—their relationship is fraught with friction.  It’s another situation of independent personalities and strong tempers butting heads, but it’s also a case of a daughter rebelling against the unfair expectations of her mother.  In recent days they’ve gotten along a lot better, especially as Hera stopped expected complete obedience and Eileithyia realized she could rely on her mother’s unconditional love.
HEBE Again!  Depends on the individual interpretations, but Hera loves her baby girl to pieces and while she doesn’t always understand her—which is a little sad considering they’re slightly distorted mirror images of one another—it is absolutely unconditional. 
THE HORAI I don’t really have a lot of individual headcanons on the Horai (yet!), but Hera does consider herself their foster/step-mother, which makes them one of the few of Zeus’ children by other women that Hera has wholeheartedly accepted into her life.  It helps that they’re Themis’ daughters, legitimate children, and that Hera helped raise them.
THE KHARITES I really only have headcanons for Pasithea and also for their dynamics among each other, but also Hera basically took over parenting for the Kharites that were Eurynome’s daughters and that fostering of the Graces falls under both Hera and Aphrodite’s purview.  They’re probably a bit closer to Aphrodite than Hera, but Hera loves them dearly nevertheless.  
PEITHOHera’s ex-gf before they both realized they weren’t that into each other.  They’re cool with each other, but not particularly close. 
IRIS Depending on the interpretation, but!!!  Though Hera is Queen and Iris serves her—and this is a power dynamic that doesn’t quite fall away—I don’t think it’s fully one-sided?  Hera depends a lot on Iris’ work, and if Iris weren’t competent and proved that she was both loyal and trustworthy, their dynamic just doesn’t work and Hera would have no reason to entrust Iris with helping her fulfill her agenda.  
NIKE & BIAI’m not sure what their relationship is like!!!  I’m certain that they used to be a lot closer/more companionable before Hera became Queen and I have headcanons where Nike and Bia (and their brothers) gave the Kronides martial training.  Hera was very friendly—perhaps even friends—with them while she was Zeus’ cupbearer, but her marriage raised her status to such an extent that their relationship had no hopes of surviving it.  Also she fucked their brother Zelos and broke his heart because she didn’t love him back lmao.
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