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- It's hard to convey when an anthro animal character is supposed to be a POC. For lions, like Samirah, here, I tend to give them a Scar-esque fur color. Alex is also a POC, being Latinx; I tried to convey that in her fur color here.

- The "violent trans person" is one of the most harmful stereotypes surrounding the trans community. I think Magnus Chase found a nice way to reconstruct the trope. Alex is angry and violent when we first meet her, but it's because she's had a hard life, has trust issues, and has been thrown into an unfamiliar setting, not because she's trans. She even becomes more friendly once she learns to trust Magnus and the others. That's something I can relate to. As someone on the autism spectrum, I get overwhelmed easily, have trouble talking to people, and am prone to anger. I'm also happy that Alex is allowed to be a flawed character, just like the others. It's easy for a well-meaning cis author to fall into the trap of making a trans character too perfect because they're afraid of looking transphobic.

- I like that the series has these moments where Alex talks about what being trans and genderfluid means for her and what language she does and doesn't like. One thing I like about her as a trans character is that she doesn't gatekeep. She understands that every trans/genderfluid person's experience is different and doesn't insist that you have to be a certain way in order to be valid. She says to Magnus at one point, "Don't use me as representation for every genderfluid person. I'm not a teacher or an ambassador; I'm just me, trying to be me as best as I can". When Magnus asks why she doesn't use they/them, she doesn't say, "I don't use they/them because it's stupid and makes a mockery of the trans community"; she says, "I don't use they/them because that's my personal preference, which doesn't invalidate those who do prefer they/them". I think some people could learn a thing or two from her.

- I've seen one or two people talk about how it's problematic for "good" characters to call Alex slurs, and while I get where they're coming from, I think it's important to take context into account. The characters who call Alex an "argr" are from Viking times, so that's what they're used to calling what we now call trans women. They have some unlearning and catching up to do. Heck, one of such characters is Halfborn Gunderson, who isn't the most progressive character in general; aside from this, he's also shown to be a bit misogynistic in that he often calls his girlfriend, Mallory, "woman".

Aside from that, people in general don't always realize the impact their words have. It's up to Alex to let the others know she doesn't like being called an argr. I mentioned that I'm on the autism spectrum. I have to deal with people using "autistic" as a pejorative and using "sperg", "tard", and other ableist slurs. As far as I'm concerned, the people using this language aren't necessarily bad people; they've just had this kind of language normalized for them and don't realize how harmful it is, since they're not affected by it.

At any rate, I think the other characters trying their best but still not fully understanding, accidentally saying hurtful things, having some transphobia to unlearn, et cetera, is much more realistic and believable than them all being super duper accepting and knowing exactly what to do and say.

- Thomas "TJ" Jefferson Jr. is also from an older time: the Civil War era. He's known what we would now call a genderfluid person before Alex, which we'll talk about on the next page, but he too has some catching up to do. I love this one moment where he uses the term "argr", then immediately corrects himself. He's trying.

I've said enough. Stay tuned.