#aaravos icon

[amanocora]

ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ𝟎𝟏ㅤ🏡.ㅤ# 𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗼́𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘀

[orangecreamsoda]

ᴀᴀʀᴀᴠᴏꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ʜɪꜱ ᴇʟꜰ ᴅɪꜱɢᴜɪꜱᴇꜱ ɪᴄᴏɴꜱ

Free to use with credit

[raayllum]

RAYLLUM S6 MEME:  scenes [3/7] 6x06, “moment of truth”

The path of freedom is the path of truth. You are my heart and my truth. Only you can see your own deep truth. Only you can decide the path you're going to walk. / You must search your mind and heart for your one deep truth, the star within you. Then you must let that truth shine and fill the darkness. One deep truth, huh? Your deepest truth. Now fly to the stars. You must find the star within you, the one deep truth so bright it can fill the darkness.

[druh19]

Olá!! Poderia fazer icons do Aaravos de "O Príncipe Dragão" por favor??❤ não vejo muitos icons dele...

Seu icons são divos! Agradeceria muitooo!

prontinhos <3

໑ — Aaravos icons ~ like and reblog if saved ‹3

[parroset]

"elf sad" Clip Analysis!!!

(I don't know what else to call it, that is literally the caption for the video T_T)

TDP finally posted the clip from s6e1 where Aaravos sobs into the water, so let's analyze it!!

The first thing I want to point out is the reflection symbolism and ripples symbolism. In Ripples (the short story), we get the following line:

In other words, ripples ruin the reflection of the stars. (Tangentially related, but we have also seen many occasions of Aaravos himself ruining reflections, which I've written about here). However, in this scene, we first have view of the water, and the tears hitting the water. Aaravos then appears on the screen, first as a reflection that is blurred by the ripples created by his tears. The camera only pans up to the reflection's caster later in the scene.

AKA, the ripples are CREATING the reflection of a star.

I also love the way that he looks at his reflection, and then looks away towards the stars when he finds that he's not glowing. It appears to me to be a mix of guilt and anguish. The fact that he can't bear to look at his own reflection and looks to the stars instead is... interesting.

Another thing that I think is worth pointing out in this clip is the Rayllum parallels with Aaravos and the Merciful One. This scene is so similar to the scene in The Midnight Desert when Rayla was self deprecating and looking at the water, and Callum was telling her to shut up.

Rayla and Aaravos are both crying into their reflections, and Callum and The Merciful One are trying to pull them out of it. We don't have much info on what is going on in the new scene, but to me it seems to be around the time of the formation of the Sea of Castout/when Aaravos lost his powers. So, in this case, Rayla and Aaravos are both learning that they are "ghosted" or "cast out"--pretty much, exiled from their community. Callum and The Merciful One are both shocking them out of the tears. (I do think Callum was more effective than The Merciful One's weird cryptic words, though ;)).

I'm so excited for this season! The imagery and visual motifs are already excellent, can't wait to see what else season 6 brings!!

[imminent-danger-came]

Aaravos is like, such a weirdo. He's just kinda a freak. "Our child! Our baby was so cute!" "I swallowed her" "I'm afraid his voice must come from your side of the family" "I am nothing if not elegant and efficient". Like hello, this guy just says shit

[vanitas-vanitatum-mortis]

Show making jokes about Viravos and their "canon" child, Aaravos literally trolling Viren when he is about to die yet again-

Things happening around Sir Sparklepuff were probably the funniest part of the season, I SWEAR HIM DANCING TO THE JAZZ MUSIC SCENE? ICONIC.

Or when he first screeched BLOOD OF CHILD out of random? (Which wasn't that random in the end)

Me and my friend with whom I watched entire 5th season yesternight were literally crying out of laughter when Aaravos came and went like "You know what Viren? It's communism time, it's our child now"

LIKE VIREN'S FACE WAS HILARIOUS.

[luctus-flos]

HIHIHIHI SILLY

2 requests:

CAN I BE MOOTIE PLEASE EDITBLR MOOTIES EDITBLR MOOTIES

Any possibility you'd take a dragon prince layout request of Aaravos 🦅 if so i'd love a blue one tHabk you little silly squishes

‧₊˚౨ৎ greetings to you as well, patron. to answer both your questions simply, I would not mind possibly being mutuals, though I will warn you it may take time for me to warm up. and with that, I will most certainly take upon your request. I am not too knowledgeable on the dragon prince, though the character aaravos was certainly fun to work with, so I do hope that the theme I have chosen to match with the request color palette of blue is satisfying to your needs.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀aaravos [sea of stars] tumblr layout

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ f2u with credits; do not claim as original work ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀reshare + like if using ♱ reshare + likes are appreciated

[yourprinceofnothing]

Can we all agree that Aaravos is a fashion icon?

[m4rs-ex3]

sometimes i love this account to death i really do

[amalthea-fictions]

Haiii! Do you accept hcs over Aaravos (TDP?) Thank u very muchh~~ <33

Yes!! ♥ If you want some specific ones feel free to request, but here are some general ones!

----

Random Aaravos HCs

If you have managed to capture the affections of this practically immortal and perfect being-- oh boy, you are in for a treat

You are his world

Caters to your EVERY WHIM

(But of course appreciates that you'd never abuse that)

Won't let you lift a finger if you don't have to. You want that book from the top shelf? It's magicked to your lap

Yes he's got big plans for revenge against Xadia and yada yada yada, but he is fundamentally a gentleman

Stars forbid something ever happen to you

He would rip the world apart to save you

Cities would burn

Dark magic would be invented

Just absolutely feral

When it comes to the intimate-- SO. MUCH. TEASING.

Tease you all day until he wins and then just clucks his tongue

"My my. What's gotten into you, my little star?"

This man is the king of charm and swagger and just knows it

Like the devil himself-- never lies

That doesn't exclude half-truths but he wouldn't do that to you

Pet names-- "Little star," "Starlight," some other words in ancient elven (?) that he assures you are romantic but don't have translatable equivalents

The two of you are comfortable enough with each other to just enjoy quiet silences, surrounded by the setting light of the sun and books in your hands

He may be startouched, but you are the starlight of his galaxy~

[raayllum]

love it when your friends make fun of you <3 @imminent-danger-came

[behind-xemnas]

just some pride icons with my personal headcanon regarding their sexualities

[frumdyke]

dragon prince was sad who coulda guessed

[xadianglyphs]

Seventh Source: The Dark Magic Symbol

In honor of Book Seven: Dark, I want to revisit and expand on analysis of the dark magic symbol, itself—something I'm always low-key thinking about, but now I'm going to make you think about it, too.

We are lucky enough to have a fascinating window into the design process for all the primal source symbols (both individually and as a set) through the portfolio of Samuel Thompson, the designer. This includes the dark magic symbol:

I've scaled up the secondary, "also-ran" designs so they're all the same size, because I do want to talk about some of them. There are several paths of development visible, and each one reveals something that was seriously considered as a possibility for representing dark magic as a whole.

It's in the Blood

So to start out, we know on some level that, during story development, what became dark magic was originally blood magic. Two years ago, when I first looked at the concept art for the symbols, the filename used for the dark magic symbol image was "blood." That was corrected at some point when the designer uploaded new images with better presentation (as one does when maintaining a portfolio), but it happened.

There's also more than enough association between dark magic and blood developed over the course of the series that it seems pretty clear that the name changed on a surface level but the underlying concept remained.

It's even visible in the designs that not only was a blood droplet considered as the entire symbol, but it was incorporated into variations of multiple design directions.

Dragons in the Dark

There's a bit of a problem when you go from "blood" to "dark," which is "how do you represent darkness in icon form?" The primal sources are ultimately elemental—you can see in their design process that a lot of it was about creating a balanced set where the symbols are both individually distinct and yet related enough to fit together as a group. Earth has the usual "do we do rocks or plants?" decision-making, but otherwise it's just... the sun is the sun, water is water, etc. But what the hell is the iconic form of darkness?

Well, apparently it's dragons, because pretty much all of the rest of the designs are a clear evolution of what began as a dragon symbol. It gets stylized into a set of wings that is then further stylized, and in combination with other influences discussed in the next section, we eventually start getting something like the final symbol.

There's one other direction kind of explored here, which is the ouroboros dragon(s). I actually wrote out a whole thing about the ouroboros as a symbol historically vs. through the lens of modern Christian-influenced western culture to use here, but really none of that is the point. The most likely scenario is that they told the designer, "let's explore some possible directions dragons" and the ouroboros designs are just something you do in that situation. Obviously you don't want to actually choose it for the final direction, because then you'll never escape the specter of Fullmetal Alchemist.

But like... why dragons? I mean, this is not an accident. The designer dragon-ed the fuck out of this shit, and the only reason to do that is "that's what he was specifically told to do." So at some point during development, there was apparently a consensus that dark magic should be represented by something related to dragons.

Now, this could be as simple as "dark magic uses the essence of magical creatures, and a dragon is pretty much the epitome of a magical creature," or something like "dark magic elevates humans to being equal with dragons." After s6, however, I feel like there are enough weird little things connecting the Celestial Order, the archdragons, Aaravos, Laurelion, the Staff of Ziard, and various other stuff that it could be... something else. Something we're not yet able to see in its entirety.

But that's something we'll have to wait to find out.

The Staff of Hermes Ziard Hermes

Now to return to reality: the influence of the caduceus on the dark magic symbol is a done deal. It has literally been said. Even if it hadn't, it's also just... kind of obvious.

Like yeah, that sure is a set of wings with a little knob between them and a twisty stem, just like the the final dark magic symbol and all the designs that most resemble it.

I'm not going to go over the caduceus in depth because I did that once already. You can tell I was naught but a wee, innocent babe by the way I use the words "wiki" and "confirmed" in the same sentence. In that post, I spent a lot of time digging into the associations of the caduceus and Hermes/Mercury as if that was a window that would tell us something about dark magic. It was a fun post but largely irrelevant, now—this time, we're going to come at it from another direction.

Setting aside the more distinguishing features of the caduceus like the wings and snakes, what is it? It's a staff. (Or a rod, depending on your interpretation of the distinction between the two.)

Well, interestingly enough, we happen to have another staff to bring to the table for consideration. One that's important within the setting, inextricably linked with dark magic, and with an iconic design.

Now bear with me, because here's my argument: the dark magic symbol is based on the caduceus, but in relationship with the Staff of Ziard, with either the staff influencing the design of the symbol or vice versa.

To see what I'm talking about, we can take a look at the staff from a few different angles. Personally, when seen closed and from the front, I think it already looks plenty like wings.

But if we put it in profile I can do a little overlay to show what I'm talking about more easily:

It's not strictly the most anatomically accurate setup, but stylized in a way that's interestingly similar to the stylization of the "wings" in several of the symbol designs. This could be related to the the "dragons" stage of the designs, assuming that there is some connection with the dragons, or it could just be visual influence from the caduceus itself.

We should also consider the shape of the staff from the front when it's extended (unfolded?):

The rounded rhomboid/oval shape, the diamond in the center? Come on, work with me—it could conceivably resemble the symbol, right? Though yes, I do know what you're thinking. A professional would call that "yonic" and definitely not giggle about it.

As for the twisty bit—what would be the coiling snakes in the caduceus—there's a certain iconic spell associated with the Staff of Ziard:

Maybe a stretch. But you don't get much twistier than a tornado.

Contexts and Meaning within the Setting

Now that I've chewed on my tinfoil had enough that I'll never get the taste out of my mouth, I also want to just touch brief(-ish)ly on the actual use of the symbol within the context of the series setting. Like the primal source symbols, the dark magic symbol doesn't actually show up very often. The two biggies are Claudia's spellbook and the Key of Aaravos in Callum's dream:

I'm going to ignore Callum's dream because the use of the dark magic symbol there says more about Callum's psychology than it says about actual dark magic, while Claudia's spellbook is a use that its author presumably intended to be meaningful for other dark mages.

Ignoring the garbage symbols in the corners, the central hexagonal symbol is reminiscent of the geometric tree of life diagram, which you may be familiar with if you are into either one of several varieties of religious mysticism... or anime. Let's be real, it's probably anime.

I'm not going to explain it in detail because honestly I don't know a lot about it and it's (intentionally, as with most mysticism) pretty complicated. Extremely summarized baby version which suffices for my purpose here is: the hexagonal tree of life diagram is a hierarchical arrangement of nodes and connections between them, with each node representing a distinct facet through which we are meant to recognize a single greater truth or divinity. On the cover of the spellbook, we have the dark magic symbol surrounded by smaller symbols for each primal source. This is a clearer arrangement that could be conveying the same concept—each of the primal sources is only a facet of a truer, deeper magic, which we are to take as being dark magic.

None of that is particularly important, I just think it's neat. Anyway, what I want to do now is propose that there is, as of season six, one additional appearance of the dark magic symbol within the setting context. This one:

Like... rhomboid shape, little diamond in the center, twisty stem? This isn't something unique to the Hearts of Cinder spell, it's an early or ritualistically stylized version of the dark magic symbol.

To contextualize this further, allow me to draw attention to this image from Tales of Xadia, part of a larger graphic showing a scroll that illustrates significant events in the history of dark magic:

We have a sacrificed creature, from which dark magic flows. On it appears to be carved some symbol composed of straight lines, which because of the size and angle we can't really see clearly. I spitballed a while back that it could be a straight-lines version of the Star primal symbol. We also have use of the actual dark magic symbol, which I'll spare you my analysis of since really it's just more of the same.

It's still a little bit fuzzy how dark magic spells get the magic resources from reagents, but generally a living reagent (used in its entirety) is killed and non-living reagents (harvested from a larger source) have some destructive act performed on them, like crushing. We have a spell that uses a living(?) human heart, which is apparently distinct from a human life in some way, even though the latter is not going to be getting very far without the former. For casting such a spell, unless you're currently holding someone else's still-beating heart in your hand, you probably want to be at least a little specific about exactly which heart in the vicinity is gonna get consumed. I'm putting forward that there's a way to mark a reagent such that it connects properly with the spell in cases where squishing it in your fist or whatever is impractical.

Like with a symbol, right? And what better symbol than the one for all of dark magic, the staff that may or may not be behind everything?

With that, thanks for coming to this long-ass TED Talk that was entirely an excuse to say "the symbol Viren carves over his heart to mark it for sacrifice is an ancient or stylized version of the dark magic symbol, which itself likely on some level derives its shape from the Staff of Ziard, which he is literally holding in his hands." I've wanted to say it since s6 released. I cannot be stopped.