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One of the most generally useful things to come out of Hbomberguy's plagiarism video and Todd in the Shadows' similar video on misinformation is how they bring transparency to the internet phenomenon of "I made up a guy to get mad at".

Seriously, I've seen people make up a lot of stupid shit on the internet over the years and it's often just a manipulative attempt to paint a group of marginalized people in a bad light.

That's the TL;DR version of this post. 

ANYWAY here is the long version

Those videos are mostly about James Somerton's plagiarism of other queer people's work. However I'd like to talk about that 20-30% of Somerton's original writing- and oh boy. It's mostly about complaining about White Straight Women and misgendering well-known trans creators such as Rebecca Sugar and calling Becky Albertalli a straight woman while it's pretty common knowledge that she was forced to out herself as bi because she received so much harassment over "being a cishet woman who appropriates LGBT+ stories".

One thing that irks me especially is how in his Killing Stalking and Gay Shipping videos Somerton brings up how straight women/ teen girl shippers exploit gay men for their personal sexual fantasies. This gets brought up several times in his videos.

Being all up and arms about Somerton being a "White Cis Gay Who Hates Women and Queer People tm" is not that useful because the kind of rhetoric he's using is extremely common in fandom and LGBT+ spaces on Tumblr, TikTok and Twitter. We really don't need to bring Somerton's identity to this since he is in no way an unique example.

It's hypocritical to make this about an individual person when I've seen A TON of posts, tweets and videos where queer people talk about these Sinister Straight Women who are supposedly out there fetishizing and exploiting queer men. It's pretty clear to me that this is just an excuse to shit on women and queer people for having any sexual interests. At worst these comments are spreading misinformation about BL, a form of media that has been excessively studied by both Asian feminists and Asian queer women.

This all sounds really familiar and I think it's good that people are calling it out as what it is: misogyny and transphobia. I'd also point out the potentially racist motives behind being this hypervigilant about Asian media.

People can absolutely be misogynist regardless of gender or orientation. I really don't know why we need to create some kind of made up enemy to get mad at. I actually think it's almost sinister how "anti-fujoshi" people call Slash shippers and fujoshi misogynists or claim that they have internalised misogyny while being dismissive about women's interests and creative pursuits under Japanese obscenity laws, China's censorship, book bans in American schools and various other disadvances that are part of being a queer and/or female creator.

I think we shouldn't be naive about the bad faith actors who want to turn queer people against each other. For example Fujoshi.info mentions anti-gender (TERF, GC etc) movement using this kind of rhetoric as well.

Anyway if you want to read more:

- about the false info around BL fandom fujoshi.info

-There is the scholar Thomas Baudinette who studies gay media in Japan. Here is a podcast with him and the scholar Khursten Santos

-James Welker is a BL scholar as well. Here is a podcast interview about the new international BL article collection he edited.

-I've already talked about this Youtube channel by KrisPNatz and his great Killing Stalking video that actually engages with the themes of the manhwa

- There is also HR Coleman's thesis DO NOT FEED THE FETISHIZERS: BOYS LOVE FANS RESISTANCE AND CHALLENGE OF PERCEIVED REPUTATION where she interviews 36 BL fans and actually breaks down why fetishization has become such a huge talking point in the fandom discourse. Spoilers, it's mostly about young queer people and women being worried that they will get judged and pathologized for their interest in anything sexual.

-Great podcast about Danmei and censorship with Liang Ge

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I don't like Viravos anymore... :/ sorry

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The Dragon Prince & Queer Subtext - Fandom and Media Analysis of Sort

Lately I’ve been pondering about the ins and outs of Viren and Aaravos’s relationship and why they give off such a queer vibe. So I ended up writing this 2 and half Word document pages long little breakdown because why not.

I think what’s going on here is about the underlying elements of the story- subtext and how their relationship could be perceived through a queer lens. Note: my brain has marinated in queer subtext juices my whole life and I have no intent trying to prove my reading is the only right one.

That Sweet Sweet Gay Shit- A Fandom Perspective

There is a lot of queer subtext between them. Homoerotic subtext even. Their scenes together definitely activated the search function in my brain’s queer coded villain trope lexicon. 

You know- mutual penetration with a phallic object (knife), sharing some kind of mysterious bond through blood magic, so, you know, bodily fluids are indeed involved, the classic slash fiction trope “we are close but we cannot touch” -gay pining because the mirror separates them. When Aaravos is shown for the first time in the mirror the camera does this Laura Mulvey Male Gaze 101 up-down pan shot of him from Viren’s POV. Something that’s usually reserved for female characters when male characters “check them out” in a movie. And then my personal favourite: Something that comes out of Aaravos enters Viren, comes out and then transforms into a creature with a toddler level intelligence- they made a freaky little metaphor baby together! Awwww!

And let's not even talk about the possession and Aaravos slowly taking over Viren’s body. The aesthetics of a toxic queer romance are all over their interactions.

No, Viren! Don’t express vulnerability as an intimidating male figure! Tumblr will babygirlify you!

Storytelling

So what about their interactions makes me perceive them in a queer way? By “queer“ I mean the broader concept of queer here; does the way the characters are depicted come across non-heteronormative and disruptive to gender norms.

I’m mostly talking about the season 2 here since they share their most intimate scenes together in that season.

1 Story Function

Aaravos and Viren’s interactions are supposed to have multiple purposes in the story: They move the plot forward, characterise both Viren and Aaravos, create emotional conflict and intrigue in the viewer etc. Viren observing Aaravos through the mirror is supposed to create mystery and spark the audience’s curiosity. Viren is a device through which Aaravos’s allure gets demonstrated to the viewer so of course their interactions come across pretty, hm, charged. Anyway there are layers of meaning here the audience can interpret in multiple ways both intuitively and through an analytic lens. The meaning naturally changes the more context we get. There are still three more seasons to come.

2 Gendered Tropes

There is a certain element of seduction present: Viren gives Aaravos more access to himself and his body little by little in exchange for Aaravos fulfilling his desires (for power). This could be read as having sexual undertones. Some of Aaravos’s first words to Viren are clearly something Viren wants to hear “How may I serve you?” Weaponising manipulation and seduction, where a character poses as submissive while having alternative motives, is something female characters traditionally do in stories. I don’t know about you but Aaravos’s character has a bit of a femme fatale thing going on if you ask me (haha!) There is something about him that defies gender roles that’s not just about his androgynous looks.

A traditional Femme fatale is often a tragic figure trapped in unfortunate circumstances. They are shrouded in mystery which prevents the audience from empathising with them or understanding their motives. The character often uses coercion to make their victim do what they want. And yes there definitely is an element of coercion and even a threat of violence present in Aaravos and Viren’s relationship. Their goals are aligned for now but what happens if/ when Viren decides to defy Aaravos? TDP makes me wonder (with horror) what it is that Viren has really agreed to.

3 How the Show’s “Camera” Portrays Aaravos

Even the camera emphasises him as an object of desire. Something he is from the story point of view as well. Viren desires access to Aaravos’s power after all. When the camera puts Aaravos on display in an objectified manner in the beginning of the season 2 it’s supposed to, in my opinion, heighten the feeling of Aaravos seeming harmless at the first glance. And by “objectified” I mean he’s portrayed without agency.

I joked earlier about male gaze and Laura Mulvey but I do actually think there is some truth to that. One of the biggest reasons behind me thinking Aaravos was a pretty pretty lady at first was how he was introduced in such a feminised way. And I wasn’t the only one. Just look at the comments under his TDP Wiki article. (Lots of het men being confused about their sexuality. Also shout-out to that one lesbian). This makes him appear less threatening so the story can build suspense around his true motives. It’s not evident that Aaravos is a completely sinister figure at first, at least compared to Viren who seems more like the main villain of the story prior to the seasons 3-4. Little did we know back then that Aaravos was the true alpha male of this whole sordid affair.

Aaravos in the mirror from Viren’s point of view, season 2, episode 3.

Why I’m not mentioning anything about Viren’s gender performance is because his story conflict is all about struggling with traditionally masculine gender expectations. Understanding how his character relates to hegemonic/ toxic masculinity/ emotional struggles men face in real life is a core part of understanding his character as a whole. That’s a broad topic and this post is long enough as it is so I’m going to leave it at that. (Maybe someone else has written about that already?)

4 The Audience Is Also at Aaravos’s Mercy

Aaravos’s submissive façade is supposed to fool both Viren AND the audience. The show plays rather cleverly with the audience’s expectations here. Slowly the roles are starting to flip until it’s clear that Aaravos is the one in control. Given Aaravos narrates the opening of the first story arc it raises even more questions: Is his control over Viren supposed to parallel his control over the whole world of the show? This circles back to the show’s themes of freedom vs destiny. It feels almost meta in a way how the story’s villain tries to gain control over the whole narrative.

5 Horror and Fantasy

The powerplay between the characters naturally creates a plenty of tension and it’s not unusual that this translates into something sexually charged in the audience’s minds. While this is the perspective I’m the most interested in, there are other layers to Aaravos and Viren’s scenes together.

For example this kind of breaking of bodily boundaries is common in horror as well. Aaravos is beautiful and mysterious but is also associated with repulsive things like larvae and blood and there is something very eerie about him in general. These kinds of emotional reactions of repulsion and attraction are essential to horror. The audience sees that everything isn’t definitely quite right about him but it’s also understandable that the audience (and Viren) find him fascinating. I think the key word for these scenes in the season 2 is “ambiguity“. Even if you aren’t invested in these characters this show would be much less fun without all the nuance their interactions have.

In a good story everything isn’t just literal. Especially since TDP is a fantasy story- A genre that’s traditionally been all about symbolism and intertextual references. I could go on and on about the genre traditions with similar flavour to what Aaravos and Viren have. Michael Moorcock’s classic sword and sorcery antihero Elric of Melniboné and his pact with the demon Arioch comes to mind.

Something Something Fandom

Viravos as a ship lives in the subtext but the subtext isn’t always black and white. Fiction uses metaphor and other storytelling methods to create meaning- To give a narrative experience. The queer subtext in TDP feels very elaborate to me and while I’m dissecting these scenes more analytically here my emotional reactions are the original source of that interest. No matter how much time passes I’m still a morbid teenage goth at heart and that part of me loves the dark fairytale aesthetics akin to TDP season 2.

I didn’t even touch on the element of Viren giving into a “forbidden desire” (literally his desire for power but- you know- multiple readings etc.) when making a deal with Aaravos. Something very typical to the horror genre as well. It’s a “deal with the devil” -sort of situation and those stories often paint the agreement as something corruptive and sinful and therefore transgressive. This post by Tiredsunrisesmeta got you covered on that. Also queer coded villains something something- Anyway, read Tiredsunrisesmeta’s blog for more.

Pictured: Yours truly

Last and Least

I remember when I saw a post here saying that “Viravos couldn’t be canon because it’d be too sexy.” and that’s just the funniest way to put it in my opinion. Their relationship feels a bit too, I dunno, mature? for this show. But what does “canon” even mean? Is a gay ship canon when two characters of the same gender kiss and declare their love? Get married? Have kids? Personally, I don’t want to see LGBT+ characters’ stories just copy straight romance tropes beat by beat all the time. I want something that feels authentic and what’s more authentic than Viren being a cringefail bisexual getting rejected by men and women and then getting his life ruined by the sexy femboy elf satan? Kinda iconic honestly.

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"Netflix’s Live-Action ‘Avatar’ Series ‘Took Out How Sexist’ Sokka Was in the Original: ‘A Lot of Moments’ in the Animated Show ‘Were Iffy’"

Not a huge fan of this honestly. It was integral to Sokka's character to grow out of that shitty mentality and how it was done was really cool too: Sokka actually had to listen to women and empathise with them, Suki especially and then he even wore her clothes as a symbol of that. I hope they kept the Northern Water Tribe sexism plot at least though I think it was much more powerful when the character we were supposed to spend time with and even LIKE acted sexist. (Also the portrayals of systematic misogyny leave a lot to desire as well)

Girls' first experiences with direct sexism and misogyny usually come from their own family after all especially from their fathers/brothers. Those elements only improved Avatar's story and added more weight to the themes of its fantasy setting.

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I love how part of The Dragon Prince fandom has just decided that Aaravos is Claudia's weird unhinged father uncle step-dad figure now. It makes sense her relationship with her dad was pretty fucked up as well. Same with all the other adults who were supposed to look after her.

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Seeing a Tumblr post criticising people who call their favourite male characters "babygirls" 'cause it infantilises and sexualises male characters in a feminising way which is misogynistic towards women. almost 13.000 notes in 3 days

I'm honestly kind of moved . I haven't seen discourse this silly for awhile excluding Twitter. Good job Tumblr. you still got it.

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"Fandom ignores female characters while inventing elaborate backstories for male characters with no speaking lines."

is a common fandom copypasta but also

these people clearly haven't heard of Lissa The Dragon Prince and the 5 people on Tumblr who have formed a dedicated fandom around her.

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Hazbin Hotel is such a weird beast. The fandom feels so juvenile despite the show having some dark and mature themes in it. I was honestly pretty impressed by how Angel Dust's story was handled for example. He's the pink gay femboy spider furry so you know. Yes, he's named after recreational drugs, yes, that's not his real name that's his stripper name because that's just the kind of show Hazbin is.

Maybe it's just me but The Dragon Prince fandom feels, idk, much more mature? I don't think it's some inherent quality of the fanbase or anything. My hypothesis is that 1. a lot of former and therefore older Avatar fans got into TDP because it has the writer Aaron Ehasz working on it. TDP has used the Avatar connection very liberally in its marketing after all. 2. TDP season 1 has a lot of older characters in it like Viren, Harrow and Runaan. Like how many animated shows have a middle-aged divorced dad as one of the protagonist? They clearly wanted to court older audiences, too.

Btw I'm not here to roast Hazbin. I'm taking the horny swear-y furry show very seriously. Alastor the Radio Demon and Aaravos are basically the same character anyway. I'm not above anything.

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Disturbing, Strange, Profound, Beautiful lesbian art for your Disturbing, Strange, Profound, Beautiful lesbian art needs

row: Stone Butch Blues/ Fluids/ Mickey+Jessica

row: When I Arrived at the Castle/ Brother, Dear Brother

row: My Broken Mariko/ Mulholland Drive/ Revolutionary Girl Utena

row: Leash/ In the Dream House/ Shattered Spear

row: The Haunting of Bly Manor/ Doomsday Dreamgirl

row: Ladykiller in a Bind

row: The Favourite/ My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness/ High Pitched and Moist

row: Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke/ 920London

links included to the ones that are free/ available to download

wanted to include stuff with butch leads/ love interests & trans lesbians<3

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The local librarian when they see the same fujoshi mf (me) filling out acquisition proposals for BL non-fiction lit once again.

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Claudia, Viren & The Very Real Parent-Child Dynamics of The Dragon Prince

Sometimes I wonder if I come across like I try to defend Claudia too much. That's not my intent at all. I just think she deserves more and better critique.

The Point I guess

Personally, I really connect with Claudia's brand of messy, unflattering and even pathetic rage and grief much more than the dignified and mature ways Callum and Ezran handle things (More on that later). Maybe this sounds unflattering but Claudia being also kind of an asshole really speaks to me. Like that's the kind of teenage girl I'm the most familiar with and we don't have enough media that has nuanced takes on this sort of troubled character. Exploring negative or even anti-social traits and impulses in fiction, especially in women, is kind of undervalued in my opinion. Those are part of humanity and therefore part of us and this impulse to completely reject them doesn't benefit anyone really.

Finally, some wholesome father-daughter relationship rep in media!

My way to view fantasy media is about how it can artistically portray something true to real life. That's why I'm the most invested in this kind of reading of the text. Fantasy media is often dismissed as mere escapism even by the fantasy fans themselves (*side eyes the dude bro Witcher fandom*) which ignores the emotional depths it can reach by approaching difficult subject matter more metaphorically.

Inject Viren & Claudia's Father-Daughter Dynamic Straight into My Veins

There is something viscerally real about Claudia and Viren's relationship. I've seen this kind of father-daughter dynamic play out in real life many times where the child gives and gives and gives yet the parent takes it all for granted until it's too late and the parent-child relationship is just a mangled corpse of its former self, way too damaged to ever be truly repaired.

Like if you've had a difficult relationship with your parents it can feel similar to how s4-5 Claudia struggles to keep Viren alive while Viren hesitates. The child is the one who tries to fix things in the relationship while the parent is in denial or completely oblivious. Viren doesn't really try to connect with Claudia further in s4-5. It almost seems like he's completely emotionally unprepared to have that conversation and oh boy if you know any boomer parents that's pretty damn realistic. He just sort of gives up and acts completely passive because he's so out of touch with his emotions.

There is also this aspect of your parent aging and then one day you realise that you, the child, are the one who has more power in the relationship. It's a universal experience. These are just some of the ways I can see Viren and Claudia's relationship in seasons 4 and 5 metaphorically portray real life parent-child dynamics. There is a lot of emotional truth to how TDP approaches these relationships even when the story itself is an over the top fantasy romp.

How much Viren relies on Claudia is revealed little by little: She got the unicorn horn for the spell that killed Avizandum, she got the dragon horn that helped them cross the lava to Xadia in s3. It's set up really subtly how there is almost this parentification of Claudia like she's the one who took her mother's place as the emotional center and caregiver of the family after Viren and Lissa divorced. It's a lot of pressure to put one a child to say the least. This extends to Soren and how he is treated as the scapegoat of the family when Claudia is the Golden Child. This sort of treatment of Claudia and Soren by Viren is probably the most common analysis of their family dynamic as far as I can tell.

You ever heard of the thing called "eldest daughter syndrome"?

Eventually Claudia's most admirable and positive traits get corrupted (insert here an analysis of the corruptive nature of the dark magic as a plot device). It's like this perversion of feminine nurturing instinct society values and enforces in girls. Claudia's love is not domesticated but something that's so all consuming it destroys everything in its way. In s 4 she insists Viren has to live. She does everything in her power to keep her family together even against the wishes of her loved ones; first it was healing Soren in and then it was bringing Viren back to life in s3. Claudia has fully internalised her role as the caregiver to the point of self-imposed victimhood.

All The Characters Have a Part to Play

Since TDP is meant for an all-age audience (And later for teens and up since they hiked up the age rating) all the younger characters Callum, Ezran, Rayla, Claudia and Soren collectively represent the kind of different and difficult feelings parental abandonment and neglect can cause. A real person most likely feels all of these emotions at some point of their life but in fiction they need to be spread out among different characters or the story wouldn't work as, well, a story.

"she was a mage girl committing warcrimes, he was an elf boy vibing in the woods, can I make it anymore obvious"

I'd gladly read some more critical takes on Claudia's character. There is something very interesting there about Claudia and Terry's relationship for example. Terry is clearly very enamored with Claudia whom he perceives as someone very vulnerable and in need of help. Terry isn't wrong exactly but it does get problematic when he goes to great lengths to protect Claudia to the detriment of his own wellbeing. While TDP itself doesn't draw attention to it there are also the racial and gendered elements, both implicit and explicit, because of Claudia's fantasy racism and because of Terry being a non-white trans boy character as well. Claudia is the most powerful dark mage in Xadia when Terry is just a normal guy. Given the context of the show there is a power imbalance there.

tHÖ END

Why I'm laying this all out is that I think the Internet would be a better place if people didn't try to constantly find an objective "right" way to view a piece of media but instead were somewhat transparent about what they personally got out of it. I think this Viravos meta is the most popular thing I've written so far and I tried to explain my approach in detail because I don't want people to go "look this person says Viravos is canon!". Jokes are fine of course but taking it too objectively ignores the fact that analysing subtext is valuable on its own.

Idk how to end this. Here, have this meme.

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I fail to see the appeal of the official subreddits or Discord groups. What's the point of interacting with a fan community if you can't post the favorite character's hole?

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Part of me almost hopes that Viren's story arc will end in a disproportionately cruel way, you know.

I'm just so tired of seeing a character doing one good thing before they die or trying to change before they die and instead of the audience taking that as purposeful ambiguity the discussion will center around if the character was "Redeemed".

But imagine if he was punished so harshly that even the Viren haters would feel bad for him. Now that would be interesting! I've seen some dark speculation around season 5 so I'm looking forward to seeing how the show will contextualise his arc.

I don't understand why "Redemption" is such a popular talking point when centering villains (ok I actually do. I'm looking at you, Zuko).

"Sin and Atonement" and "Redemption" are deeply Christian themes. I don't think those should be a universal frame of reference to all stories.

Yes, yes, this is more of a fandom problem, not a show problem. But if people want to see a bad character harshly punished for their crimes maybe they should get that for once. I don't really mind because I think Viren, while unlikeable, is a sympathetic character already. Of course I feel for a character even if they are "irredeemable". That's what stories are for.

I don't mean it's a completely useless way to look at art but it's just- I don't know- I'm bored? Especially YouTube commentators talk about redemption constantly instead of engaging with the themes that actually are there.

Sometimes villains can't even really make up for everything they have done, just like some people in real life. Viren has committed so many crimes- like how do you even fix that? However it'd still be interesting if he tried to change. That's what I'm here for. Like Viren and Claudia are not just an antagonistic counterforce to our heros but they have a lot of going on as unique characters.

Viren has his saviour complex and values domination over cooperation. Claudia is interesting because she's both the victim and the perpetrator. It's interesting how self-sufficient she is while being deeply emotionally codependent on Viren. She has a ton of agency as a physically (magically?) strong person but not a ton of agency as an independent, emotionally strong individual. Viren and Claudia love each other but it's isolating kind of love where they don't really have anyone else but each other (Terry is really trying to get in there. Like sorry Terry you don't know how fucked up these two are lmao).

No wonder it was so easy to Aaravos take Viren's place as an authority figure in Claudia's life after Viren died. Or at least that's what I took away from Lost Child short and TDP season 4 in general.

I still think about the first information we got outside Viren and Claudia's POV about Aaravos's mirror: Runaan's warning about "A Fate Worse Than Death".

This framing device sounds really important. I've been wondering how it'll play out eventually. Is it something about Viren losing his old life he worked so hard to build, or will he lose Claudia in some metaphorical or literal way? Is it something even more personal?

Personally, I'd love to see Viren live and change as a person. There are plenty of high-fantasy male characters like him who go through that kind of transformation: Guts from Berserk, Geralt of Rivia, Jaime from GoT, Ged the Wizard... You know, characters who realise that the things they value are unsustainable or even harmful to themselves and to people around them and even to the world as a whole. Or they realise that superficial things like status and power are unfulfilling and only serve status quo. There are some parallels to toxic masculinity/ hegemonic masculinity, too.

However, I think it'd be interesting if Viren's story will be a deeply tragic one. Anyway I'm here for this.

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On Claudia, Viren, Aaravos & Claudia's Character Arc

This post is mostly about Claudia's character development or should I say character deterioration.

It's highly likely that Callum will be the one to take down Aaravos- like it all goes back to Harrow's letter in s2 and chains of history and the themes of free will vs destiny and such. Aaravos possessing Callum is all about that. He's literally taking control of Callum's faith. There is clear antagonism there that's in a direct conflict with who Callum is.

But at the same time Claudia is the one who's got the biggest personal beef with Aaravos. He exploited her grief, manipulated her and used her father to accomplish his own goals. If Aaravos didn't exist Claudia wouldn't have spent two years of her life in a complete stagnation waiting for her dad to come back from the dead instead of moving on. It seems like Aaravos has been molding Claudia into his personal minion through dark magic during the time skip as well.

Taking this into account it would be really satisfying to see Claudia snap out of it and take her revenge. Characters having a personal connection to the villain always makes a story's climax more gripping. More personal the better! And everything between Aaravos and Claudia is VERY personal.

That's why Viren worked so well as a foil to Callum and Ezran in s 1-3. Especially Ezran whose rightful place as the king he tried to take. He was basically their shitty, power hungry uncle who turned against them. Side note but if Viren is still alive I hope he makes a return as Ezran's foil.

Claudia helping to take down Aaravos would be emotionally satisfying. All the elements for that are already there. Of course Claudia should come to some kind of realisation about the way she's been used by Aaravos before she can take that turn. I doubt the show's got the time for that but it's an interesting possibility to think about.

I really like how the plot around Aaravos manipulating Claudia is done. Even Claudia's own father didn't do anything to prevent it from happening although all the signs of Aaravos having sinister plans for Claudia were there from the beginning: Aaravos calling Claudia "an asset" and encouraging Viren to lie to her in s3 therefore enabling Viren's worst impulses while also using them to his benefit. It's SO EVIL (and I love it). Viren isn't that much better since he always had some kind of excuse to ignore the red flags. At this point of TDP's run I'm convinced that Runaan's "Faith worse than death" line about Aaravos' mirror is finally paying off. It means that the consequences of Viren's actions have hurt Claudia, the only person Viren loves unconditionally, in an unfathomable way.

I think Claudia's arc is relatively subtle and very well done. It balances between Claudia being a victim of manipulation and neglect while also giving her agency to influence the plot as a whole. My only complaint is that Lost Child short story should have been implemented in the show itself and not just be extra material. I have some other grievances but those are mostly fandom related.

How some fans, especially in YouTube reviews, talk about Claudia's downfall like it was inevitable because she's always been fucked up or talking about how "trauma isn't an excuse for bad behaviour" is strange to me. Like, yeah, it isn't an excuse but it's simply just bad media analysis to instantly jump into condemning Claudia's actions, like she's a real person who uses trauma as an excuse to hurt other real people, instead of seeing it in the terms of a character study. Claudia clearly uses trauma to convince herself that what she's doing is right but never tries to manipulate anyone else by using it as an excuse. Think about her and Terry for example: she usually refuses Terry's help instead of trying to garner sympathy from him. This character trait is one of the many reasons why she felt obligated to keep her family together as well. She's extremely stubborn and not very self-conscious about her trauma brain but she does understand why others would see her actions as objectionable. I think this character type (usually a woman) has been given the playful nickname "trauma bitch" in the internet lexicon. Anyway god forbid if we actually empathise, reflect on and engage with unpleasant or problematic characters instead of instantly condemning them.

TDP is about how people can always CHOOSE a different path. Viren's dark magic hallucination in season 5 stated this very clearly.

In Claudia's case it's more interesting to think about WHY she DOESN'T choose differently. That's where all the meat of her character writing lies.

Claudia's arc is what happens when the desperate actions of someone motivated by trauma around abandonment are taken to their logical conclusion in this fantasy setting. It's a fictional story, it has metaphors and shit. Fantasy genre has used necromancy and extending one's life by magical means as a story element to explore humanity's relationship to death many times. The metaphor for loss and regret basically writes itself. Ursula Le Guin has used this trope in The Earthsea books, Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn has done it etc. Everything can't be a one to one comparison to real life (trauma rarely makes you want to kill your friends with dark magic irl. idk that's just me though) and there needs to be a level of abstraction involved in a fantasy story. Abstraction and metaphor, paradoxically, can reveal a greater truth about the world. (I'm probably accidentally quoting someone here but can't remember who.)

Anyway the rest is great. When you think of it all for a moment it's pretty fucked up how Claudia has been used by Aaravos. It's not some tiny part of Caludia's story. It IS her story. And Viren set that norm for her. Viren too has abused Claudia's trust. It's a complex subject and probably requires its own post since Viren, Soren and Claudia's situation reflects some pretty realistic dynamics real life troubled families have. That's why the characters compliment each other's stories so well. Viren is a more realistic character after all when Aaravos is more over the top and symbolic and less of a real person. Aaravos is one of those villains who embodies the opposing ideology of the heros. We (still) don't know almost anything personal about him so he matters mostly in relation to other characters.

Thanks for reading this Claudia propaganda! I've had so many of these in the drafts. Anyway TL;DR

[sarasade]

I'll be post the rest of the Viravos comic on Cohost. I'll let you know when I get that done. The story is getting kind of weird so I need to add some content warnings.

Sorry everyone who thought it was going to be sugary sweet and cute! This keeps happening to me where people assume that my art is cute and then it goes to a really fucked up direction and everyone gets confused. The same thing has happened with my original comics. I just can't and won't motivate myself to draw something that's just all cute or all dark. I've tried it and it wasn't for me. Real life is full of confusing and conflicting desires I want to portray in my art (yes even in my silly Viravos yaoi). It's not the best marketing strategy but also I don't believe in "artist branding" at least not for every artist.

[sarasade]

I haven't managed to finish my Valentine's Day Viravos comic because I've been cheating on The Dragon Prince with Hazbin Hotel. now I'm ready to come crawling back to TDP like some kind of unfaithful lover.