I Was Looking Through The Helluva Critical Tag Today And I Had Some Thoughts About How Vivzie Writes

I was looking through the Helluva critical tag today and I had some thoughts about how Vivzie writes her traumatized characters after seeing others complain about it. The way that Vivziepop writes her traumatized characters is so infuriating to see as someone who has "ugly" trauma symptoms and it reminds me of how writers tend to approach writing traumatized characters who don't have "soft" symptoms in general.

There is definitely a place for representing traumatized characters with anger issues and personally I'd love to see this actually done well without demonizing nor avoiding accountability for the character. However, Vivzie cannot hold her characters accountable, because if she does, then it takes away from them being her sad soft uwu babies. Loona physically lashing out at people is just seen as a funny joke instead of something Loona has to actively work on. Blitzo SAYS he's going to change how he treats Moxxie in Truth Seekers, but he never does and the show continues to treat Blitzo's behavior either as a joke or as just something for the audience to go "uwu so sad" at. Angel Dust out of all the other characters is the most tolerable to me personally, and I understand that we really only know how he acts from the pilot and the Addict video. However, I agree with other people that sometimes he acts way too aggressive and he isn't held accountable for that by anyone except Vaggie, but the audience is just supposed to laugh at Vaggie being mocked for no reason. I hope that in Hazbin the writers make him ACTUALLY complex, and give him a mix of kind and standoffish moments while showing his journey to opening up and being more friendly to people. I don't want him to be another Blitzo and it would be a shame if he went to waste.

It feels like writers, mostly neurotypical ones, don't know how to write these types of characters without either implying that they can never heal or making them avoid accountability. Even characters who I enjoy like Catra have issues with them. Catra gets held accountable in season 4 when Adora and Scorpia leave her for good, and she has to earn back Adora's trust by sacrificing herself for Glimmer in season 5. However, the show makes her redemption arc last for only one season, so everyone is forced to completely forgive her in a short amount of time when it would have made more sense for everyone to save her from Horde Prime, but still be cautious around her before fully trusting her. The season also doesn't even focus a lot on Catra getting new coping mechanisms other than Melog, and it feels like Catra's personality and symptoms change too quickly.

I'd love to see a story have a character with anger issues from their trauma or any other trauma symptom that's seen as "scary"/"ugly" (control issues, doing things to push others away because you think you don't deserve them, etc.), but actually handle it properly. It feels like stories will either treat the characters as a lost cause or act as if everyone is mean for not wanting to be bullied or outright abused. It is not a Vivziepop exclusive problem, but one that makes me upset to see in any context. If writers can't even handle writing general trauma victims or characters with PTSD who have "scary" or "ugly" symptoms, then I'm very scared of how writers in the future will tackle other lesser written mental disorders that are often caused by trauma (BPD, ASPD, etc.) My biggest hope is that more people who actually experience these symptoms (who don't excuse bullying people with them) will write characters with these issues, because so far it seems like I can only find other mentally ill people understanding the nuance properly.