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idleglowingpixels · 1 year

Note

talk about Collector

WHYYYYYYYYYY okay now that I got that off my chest let's get serious LMAO

Before I dive in too deep, to any other ppl reading, THIS IS YOUR FAIR WARNING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ANY CRITICISM OF TOH. Something that is really apparent in this fandom particularly is that a lot of ppl refuse to allow and accept genuine criticism discussions, dumbing it down to personal biases, misinterpretations of the text (or in this case, the show), and proclaiming "It's intentional that the show did that!" every time someone breathes something negative about it. This is ESPECIALLY annoying with the "Blame Disney/the shortening" nonsense -- a key skill in television writing is to be capable of working with the allotted time that the studios give you. After they were told Season 3 got cut short, they still had 11 22-minute episodes of Season 2 and all three 40+ minute episodes of Season 3 to conclude the story in a satisfying way.

Seeking and reading criticism posts outside of the general tags, ignoring warnings on posts that give forewarnings, then getting mad and upset that someone criticized your comfort show is generally an unhealthy behavior, especially if you're not in a good mental state. If you can't take people criticizing something you enjoy, and more-so if you deem it your comfort media, and feel the need to bother them because you made yourself upset reading their posts, you've got a lot of soul searching to do. That, or maybe you should log off until you can handle it.

Also, obviously, spoilers ahead for TOH, as well as Amphibia because these shows parallel a lot more than I want them to. :')

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I have a LOT to say about The Owl House from a critical and writing perspective, and I feel like the show is EXTREMELY overhyped for what it actually is. I feel its sister show Amphibia executed much of the same/similar themes better, and that's not even a bias thing. Just from the way both shows are written, you can tell which one feels more competently structured from a narrative standpoint (and, let's be honest, which one is actually funny).

Okay enough about general opinion, let's get to Collector. From a character design perspective, GOD I love this little guy, both the reflection/shadow form and the actual form are distinct from the rest of the cast. I'm a big Sun and Moon design/symbolism enjoyer (Sun and Moon from FNAF, Sun and Blake from RWBY, Celestia and Luna from MLP:FiM, etc.) so these types of characters are always welcome. And while their voice annoys me personally it ABSOLUTELY fits them, so no matter how annoying I find it I don't think I'd want them to have any other voice.

But that, unfortunately, is the only props I can give to Collector.

The show is FULL of redeemed antagonists that range from okay (I'd like to think Amity was decent enough and Hunter was alright but definitely should have been introduced earlier so his redemption was a slow burn but this post isn't about them so I'll end this note here) to "what the actual fuck" (Idc what anyone says, there is no excuses PERIOD, Lilith's redemption was the absolute worst redemption arc I think I've ever seen AND I'VE SEEN CATRA'S), and Collector is very much on the lower end of that scale. We hardly see them overall and their character writing is rushed beyond belief -- and again, I'd like to reiterate that that is ENTIRELY on the writing team for the show. Disney and the shortening DID NOT DECIDE TO KEEP COLLECTOR IN. The writing staff were aware of the time they had left and made the decision to shoehorn them in and expect everyone to just be okay with it.

From a writing perspective, they bloat the story exponentially and 100% should have been left in the drafts or saved for future content like what Dana said she might do if she is able to through books and such. If we only get hints of the other Collectors, this one should have STAYED hints with them.

We have essentially no significant amount of time with them outside of Hollow Mind and the season 2 finale before season 3, and what we DO have of them in season 2B is so drastically different I'd consider 2B Collector and 3 Collector as two different characters entirely. And before you tell me, "They're different because sun/moon symbolism!" "They're different because Belos and King influence them differently!" etc. etc., don't waste your time. Yes, those are good explanations as to why they feel so different between seasons, but that does not make the writing of the character inherently good. Allow me to elaborate:

In S2B, of what little we see of Collector, they are extremely sadistic in nature, and while they appear childish the writing of that lack of care for others is ABUNDANTLY CLEAR. And it seemed that way even as Belos first encountered him as Philip in the flashback episode. There, they weren't yet "influenced" by Belos and his plans; hell, he hardly had an actual plan yet.

Skip ahead to Hollow Mind, easily the best episode of Season 2 imo, and Collector is taunting Belos, mocking him and his schemes. Saying things like "Ooh, you were mad!" and "I'm starting to think you make those [grimwalkers] just to destroy them. You have fun with it, admit it!"

I cannot find any reasonable explanation as to how or why Belos would influence Collector into doing such things. Why would he want a little pain in the ass making fun of him for hundreds of years? And by his response to Collector's taunt about the grimwalkers and Hunter, "Of course I don't, Collector. It hurts every time he chooses to betray me," he took offense to their words, but kept his tone from shifting to anger as he does with everyone else because of Collector's power.

Belos doesn't want Collector thinking he doesn't like them because of their abilities, but he does want to stay on their good side for information. For knowledge of spells. And he puts up with Collector's annoyances because of that.

Essentially, that wasn't something Belos taught them or influenced them to do. All Collector knows is to adapt to their friends' behaviors, yes, but Belos is like, over 400 years old. I don't know about you, but I doubt with the way he speaks and how he's written that he would taunt his underlings in the same childish vain as Collector, and do so enough for Collector to pick up and mimic that behavior.

Now to the finale, their appearance is pretty much just them getting duped by Belos and sent into the depths of the titan skull, where King ever-so-conveniently finds them, making the pinky swear that releases them.

They maintain that mocking attitude even after Belos betrays them, calling King "boring" for calling them Mr. Collector and feeling generally disinterested by King before he promises a game to play. And even after they're released, they continue the attitude further with the whole "I remember someone throwing me off a bridge...I'm not angry, though!" bit, only to send Belos to his "death" moments after, deeming it as a game of tag. They've seen Belos kill grimwalkers first hand, fully aware that their lives mean nothing, and replicated the behavior by returning the favor to Belos (or so they thought). Their lack of care continues when they nearly try to do the same thing to the Hexsquad, people who didn't even do anything to them, before King stops them, changing the subject before they can cause further harm.

After stopping the draining spell, Collector continues the destructive maliciousness they have all the way to the end of the episode, and that's the impression of them we're left with. They were sadistic, uncaring and childish, but only learned the behavior of killing from Belos -- even though Belos didn't actually die, the intent was to kill him, and they were fully planning to continue with the Hexsquad.

And then...We get to Season 3.

Just a side-note, I think it's a safe assumption to say the first 2 seasons of The Owl House took place between roughly 2 months, as Luz was outside waiting to leave for a summer camp after the school year ended before initially arriving in the demon realm. Going off of that assumption, in Part 1 Luz returned to school as she returned to the human realm, presumably in late August/early September due to her living in Connecticut. And since Part 1 takes place in the timespan of about 3-7 days, the last day being Halloween, the timeskip only brought us about 2 more months ahead. Keep this in mind.

After Luz and co. return to the demon realm in Part 2 -- objectively the worst episode of the season -- we already see King's influence on Collector since they turned everyone into puppets instead of actively injuring or killing them when they don't comply. Still bad? Yes. But from how it looks in Part 3 with the Hexsquad, it seems more like the puppets' consciences are just comatose or an alternative to sleeping, maybe in a REM-like state. But of course, the show didn't have enough time to explain that further over all the nonsense in Part 2.

Anyway, when we see Collector in Part 2, they're still being childish, which is unfortunately the only thing that stays consistent with this character. They then say two lines that were the most god-awful writing decisions I've seen in a hot minute, and this show is STOCK FULL of really bad "this is peak humor LAUGH" moments like this.

They say that Eda has this "cool aunt vibe" and such, which sounds like one of those "character dynamics/tropes" posts on social media like Tumblr and whatnot. It comes off as really pretentious in the writing, and was shockingly unfunny to hear for a show that calls itself a comedy. Another line that frustrates me, more-so for lore reasons, is when they ask Odalia to make pizza bagels, when it was previously stated that human food is inaccessible to Luz during her time in the demon realm. So not only is it contradicting that whole thing (Eda actively struggled to find food for Luz that she could eat), how would they or King even know what one is or how to actually make one??

It seems like a small point to get heated over, but it once again feels like one of those stupid one-liners that one of the writers thought was the funniest shit they've ever thought up and kept it in because they knew die-hard fans would just laugh it off and brush it off as a joke, and that the writers forgetting about Eda's maternal struggle to feed her adopted kid is Disney's/the shortening's fault because they're at fault for everything wrong with the show...and not the ppl who wrote it.

Regardless, this whole shtick is extremely out-of-character for the way they had spoken in Season 2, and from what I can recall (I'm not gonna rewatch the entire show for the sake of a single post), King never talks like this. Luz does around him, but he himself doesn't talk like this.

I've discussed with friends before about this, including Robin (the one who asked me to talk about this), but from Part 2 onward Collector gets the same Luz-like writing every character that gets redeemed suddenly dawns out of the blue. I started calling it luz-ification, but it doesn't just happen to Collector.

It happened to Hunter, where his more cocky and ego-centric dialogues from early 2A was dropped for a more "comedic" personality and an anxiety-ridden character, though it's later eluded to that his cocky attitude was him masking his true self, so I try to keep it to that perspective.

But this happened to Lilith as well, where she suddenly started acting like "Cool Aunt Lilith" IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING HER ADMITTING TO CURSING EDA AND ALLOWING HER CAPTURE. WITH NO CONSEQUENCES TO BE FACED OTHER THAN THE CURSE SPLIT WHICH IS HARDLY UTILIZED IN THE SHOW.

(Side-tangent: Characters facing little to no consequences for their actions is something that goes on so much in this show but this is long enough already and I really don't like talking about this shit for long 'cause I could be using my time on better pieces of media, I'm sure there's plenty of posts explaining this point elsewhere by ppl who enjoyed TOH more than me)

Hell, it even happened to Amity for a hot minute. For some moments in the show she's written really off-character and saying things that just completely contradict how she's typically written, but then goes back to the more sassy and balanced character later on.

This post has gotten WAY longer than I wanted it to be, but to keep me from spending even more time on this, Part 2 shows a drastically different Collector, to the point that they do not by any means have the same character writing as they had before. They got luz-ified. Using social media lingo they couldn't even have access to in canon, and being written to quite literally just sound like a mini-me of Luz with the more obnoxious undertones of the childish thing.

Point is, they mimic these behaviors of Luz that they wouldn't even have reasonable access to learning from, because she's in the human realm for almost all the time after their release. It only makes sense in Part 3, when Luz is actually there for them to see her behaviors in action, but even that is so contrived and rushed that it feels unrealistic and narratively unnecessary. Remember what I said before about the timeskip only being 2 months? Yeah, 2 months isn't nearly enough time for a character to fundamentally change who they are as drastically as Collector.

Now to the part where I talk about Amphibia really quick and mention how it did the whole "having an alternative threat acting as a mini-boss" thing a million times better than this shit ever could. King Andrias, paralleling Collector for this particular scenario, is shown relatively early on that he's an antagonist to the audience. It's later revealed as a plot twist not to the audience, but to the characters, who least expected it. They don't waste time trying to throw off the audience with red herrings or telling its audience "He's not a bad guy, he's totally not going to be evil later on." They just show the audience he's evil and keep the story moving.

He's given enough time to feel like this ominous, looming threat, and True Colors masterfully showed how messed up this guy is and the lengths he is willing to go to ascend to the Core and cheat death, just as the souls within the Core had. His motive to avoid death and return Amphibia to the world-conquering ideologies from centuries' past is what made him such a love-to-hate villain. And the motive to cheat death in a children's cartoon? Metal as hell. The Core also parallels Belos here, and further on in Season 3, being the one manipulating Andrias through his fear of death in order to make him do what they want him to.

In the third season, Andrias continues his work by the Core's demands, only giving up in the final battle when he's read a letter from someone he had considered a friend long ago, which admittedly didn't have much set-up but it was at least the focus of an entire episode prior to the big pre-finale.

At the end of the series, he's shown to have moved on, allowing himself to age naturally and to stop using technology to keep him in pristine condition for eternity. He accepted the natural cycle of life, and in turn accepted that he will come to pass one day. He wasn't a perfectly written character, but considering what it's being compared to? Leagues better.

Like I said before, TL;DR, Collector is the bloatware of The Owl House's plot. They were shoved in as a last minute addition because they were the writers' "precious bean silly goose little gremlin blorbo" that they couldn't just keep in the drafts with the rest of the collectors. So instead of maintaining what little integrity the show's writing had to begin with and follow through to the end with the Day of Unity plotline being the series finale (Which was VERY OBVIOUSLY WHAT THEY WERE GOING FOR), they essentially made a side quest distraction that dragged the story on for longer than it needed to, wasting the audience's time.

I'm not mad that the Collector exists, I just find that their inclusion in the series did more harm than good for the writing. The show has a serious issue with giving screentime to unnecessary characters like the miscellaneous Hexside students, giving characters too much screentime (The biggest offender for this is Amity, there's more episodes centered around her than Hunter, Willow and Gus combined) and not giving ACTUALLY necessary characters enough screentime (Looking at you, Emerald Trio).

I really want to rewrite TOH, and if I feel the need to rewrite a show, it's usually because there's too much fundamentally wrong with it for me to give it anything higher than a 6/10 overall. But I've already got a whole AU and a whole rewrite in the works for two other series I care wayyyyy more about, so that's gonna have to be left to other writers in this fandom.

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If this post is how you've stumbled upon my page, hi :') Feel free to ask me about more or to elaborate on smth I said here if you want clarification, but if you check out my intro post and see another mutual interest we have maybe ask me about that instead of TOH please and thank you

#toh criticism #toh critical #the collector #heed my warning or get blocked #I'm not dealing with ppl that take general media criticism personally #anyway have fun with this novel ig #amphibia is so much better than this show and I'm tired of ppl not seeing that

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slimy-vore-bog · 11 months

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WARNING: groomer in the SFW vore community (serious)

Content/Trigger warning: discussions of grooming, mention of incest, and sexual and fatal vore

I am posting to tags to try to keep people safe!

This specifically occured in the Owl House corner of this community, but everyone should be warned

I will put the rest of the post below keep reading, but for now the person I'm accussing is known as "les-the-mess" on here and "LesTheMessy" on DeviantArt (I do not remember the discord name) and she is 23/24 years of age

And lastly that a real minor has been contacted by said person and made very uncomfortable (url will not be stated for their safety)

Remember to check everything I say for yourself, if you don't believe me; I would not accuse this person publicly if I didn't consider them a real threat All except the minor's statement are available online

I am feeling sick to my stomach that this happened and I don't know how to handle this. I'm going to tell this a bit more like a story so I can get it out easier

I was on DA (DeviantArt) when I saw something odd pop up; a vore edit of Catra and Adora with Luz and Amity as prey. I looked at it, because I am always up to find more sfw safe vore creators, but it was neither safe or non-sexual

There were clearly comments engaging with the art in a sexual way and the creator didn't discourage or delete said comments and the description itself mentioned how the vore was going to end with both prey characters dying.

This person had an identical avatar and near identical username to their URL here on tumblr and I was horrified as I knew that this person had interacted with a minor despite having "minors DNI" and that already gave me a slight prickling suspicion something was wrong (later learned she has even DMed them on discord...)

They had both minors and NSFW in her DNI so I didn't have anything to go after, as they didn't have any post with suspicious stuff here or followed any weird blogs and I brushed it off initially

Her posts on DA however... Very fucking damning: almost all their edits are of minors and adults in vore or of the character The Collector (Which is a child who is also a god; he is immortal, but at the point we last see them is mentally an 8-10 year old)

Now I didn't pick the most damning thing to screenshot, as it was too gross (unbirth incest between Luz the main character, her girlfriend and Luz's mother Camila) but here is one example of one of their posts:

Odalia/nickname Mamadalia is an antagonist of the show and an adult woman

Here is a screenshot of her account on tumblr:

Very lousily taken, but I was too distraught to care

I contacted the minor (who I am already friendly with, since I wanted to support the growth of their blog) as soon as I deemed this person to be a threat and the minor has told me that she has indeed acted weird towards them, but it only clicked now after I shared what I did...

The minors own words when I asked for details:

"I can't remeber what we talked about exactly since I deleted my discord in a panic-

But it was first of with the collector, at first it seemed harmless, but I started getting uncomfortable when it entered into the vore Stuff, like, I dont why but it rubbed me the wrong way but I didnt say anything since it sorta felt…uneasy to say the least, and i feel stupid because i never said anything about it

She also talked a lot about digestion aswell, and when I brought up the no minors thing- she said it was because she managed and 18+ discord server and it was okay for us to talk, and I feel this is extremely important to mention- she reposted your art to me without credit, I cant remeber everything but i hope this is enough"

Now the last thing I will say I don't have much of an opinion on, because of how severe the situation is, but I wanted to include the full message (Split up into paragraphs for easier reading)

I might have forgotten some stuff, but this is all I can think of right now

Please just stay safe, stay away and block/report this person!

#important #safe vore #toh vore #sfw vore #soft vore #gt vore #extreme cuddling #t0h vore

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aprillikesthings · 3 months

Text

moar rewatch

s1! ep2 and 3!

Bow's voice actor's work here is so good lolol

Nice work establishing that only Adora can do the transformation thing with the magic sword

Man someone on youtube has to have done one of those therapist deep-dives on their relationship. So much of their interactions are just painfully accurate for the way a kid reacts to an abusive parent--that combination of fear and resentment and still wishing you could make them happy, just once.

My family didn't have a golden child vs. scapegoat thing going on, though. I wonder if this is based on the writers' own experiences or if one of them read about that dynamic or had a therapist consulted or what

oof too real 😬

anyway Free Palestine

even cartoons know that murdering civilians and/or destroying their homes makes you the bad guy

There's some parallels here with kids who grew up in conservative/evangelical families realizing their family's politics and faith weren't based around Jesus at all but were based around bigotry and small-minded cruelty and knowing they have to leave, and knowing ND Stevenson's background I assume it's intentional

"You've known these people for, what, a couple of hours? and you're going to throw everything away for them?"

:( and to Catra, this just feels like a betrayal. There's a meta post somewhere way back in my tags that was like, from Catra's POV, Adora knew how shitty Shadow Weaver treated Catra and that wasn't enough to rebel and leave, but knowing Glimmer and Bow for a handful of hours was, and how much that had to hurt like hell, considering Catra put up with Shadow Weaver's abuse for so long in part to protect Adora and in part because it meant her and Adora were still together

Ugh this is why I love this show, Catra's actions are sometimes just awful but they make sense given what we know about her life, and right now she's just panicking and trying to hide it

And meanwhile Bow and Glimmer are like "actually we've decided we trust you :) can you be fancy sword lady again thanks!"

Like of course Adora is going to pick Bow and Glimmer and not Catra in that moment!!

"Is that....Adora?" "It's She-ra!"

Yeah that's not gonna be the source of weird "who the fuck even AM I" feelings later ha ha ha amiright

Also along with all the other weirdness of suddenly being bigger/different outfit etc, like, She-Ra is not only WAY stronger, but also knows how to fight in that body and with that sword. Like having muscle memory you didn't know you had. That's gotta be WEIRD. (I mean, there's also memories that clearly aren't hers, too)

Poor bb is scared, mad, and kinda turned on (shhhh I can headcanon whatever I want)

I called Yellow Diamond a clod, right to her face!!

("You made that joke the first time you saw this ep April" It's just a good joke okay!!)

OKAY EPISODE OVER

EP 3

Glimmer: everyone hates Horde soldiers but I think people will love you as She-Ra YOU JUST HAVE TO BE SHE-RA HA HA IT'LL BE FINE

Adora, internally: I'm only valuable/acceptable/lovable as long as I can be She-Ra, a person who isn't entirely me and that I don't know how to control and feel extremely weird about, got it

LOL I FORGOT HOW THEY GOT SWIFT WIND

whether the sword's edges are sharp or not is entirely dependent on whether someone needs it to be or not pffft

ouch

lol this would be such a wild cosplay to do

(a quick image google says the original is far more popular for cosplay; only a couple of people have done this version)

"Adora's gone, she's defected. And I'm starting to think she had the right idea!"

...okay how tempted do we think Catra actually was to just fucking leave.

Once again: intentional parallels to high-control religious groups

But the reference to Lord Hordak specifically also has shades of "Just wait until your father finds out what you did!" which is, uh, a little uncomfortably close to home ngl

DEEP SIGH

boy do I hate how familiar this is

I used to get so scared it would make my stomach hurt, and I'd shake the same way Catra does here, which sometimes made him angrier

jesus christ

okay how much of my love of Catra as a character is bc I can empathize with her in moments like this one (I was never as openly rebellious or back-talking as she is though; any disagreement got me screamed at)

I mean on the other hand Hordak is like "bitch, I know you've been doing this whole Golden Child/Scapegoat bullshit, so if your Golden Child fucked off and the Scapegoat is all you've got left then congrats that's on you, dumbass."

Catra thought she was gonna be murdered and instead she got a promotion

OKAY BUT ahahah oh god

IF Hordak had actually punished Catra or even threatened her in any way, I feel like Catra would, in fact, have left. There would be nothing left for her in the Horde, right? So why not leave?

But Hordak didn't promote Catra because he personally believes in her abilities, he did it to piss off Shadow Weaver. Then again maybe he knows that promoting Catra means she'll stay loyal.

Because it works, doesn't it. Oof. Catra wants to prove herself, dammit; and she's been given a shot at doing it, so she's staying.

Aaaugh.

OKAY that's 3 episodes out of 52. I think I'm done for today. No guarantees, though. Also there's no way I can do this for every single episode. >_<

#april rewatches spop

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sketching-shark · 2 years

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okay, I'm sorry for this rant but don't you think macaque redemption arc with kind of rushed plus it doesn't it make any sense at all, he literally tried to kill the whole team, especially mk and now he's suddenly a good guy?! this is just catra all over again... nothing will ever beat Zuko lol and now people are hating on me for my opinion XD i mean he's betray the team again just watch...

Ah no need whatsoever to apologize about the rant anon! As one of the extremely tiny "your 'redemption arc' displeases me' voices in fandom I can totally see where you're coming from asdfaewds.

So I have to admit that I've never watched She-Ra or Avatar all the way, so I'm not precisely sure how these redemption arcs or "redemption arcs" went down so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong...but from what I did hear & read in reviews in Catra's case her story was something of a shitshow where she like tried to destroy all of reality & killed a bunch of people & treated Adora her supposed love interest like trash up until & even after they got together but she's apparently completely good and forgivable now because the plot said so, right?...so par for the course when it comes to "redemption arcs" these days lmao. And as for Zuko, the whole thing was that the series actually took a lot of time to showcase him slowly working hard towards being a better person over like an entire season & more, yes? Like he didn't just suddenly flip a corner, and the distrust team avatar held for him after the way he hurt them was actually framed as understandable? And he wasn't just changing his behavior because he wanted something from them, but because he came to a very difficult decision that was based on his own guiding principles of what he thought the best thing to do was? But yea it is kind of funny how much people hold up Zuko's story as an ideal redemption arc & yet no one seems to want to emulate it lmaoooo.

But to repeat what I've said about Mr. Six-Ears, I do feel like Qi Xiaotian, who was one of his primary victims throughout the course of the show, going out of his way to extend a hand in friendship was pretty jarring. Because yeah while what seems to hopefully be the base BEGINNING of a redemption arc is being set up in such a way where one villain doesn't look that bad compared to another that they help defeat, Macaque is still the simian who beat the tar out of/tried to kill Qi Xiaotian at least thrice--and laughed at his pain for two of those occasions--to say nothing of the way that he used and threatened Zhu Dachu, Tang Shifu, and Long Xiaojiao first with the shadow lantern and then when he forced them to set the flame of Samadhi off. Hopefully they'll address some of that in season 4 if they want Macaque to be a more major character, & not just brush it off. I do think there's a way to talk about the importance of kindness and second chances while also holding people responsible for their actions, even if that is a somewhat difficult needle to thread. As it is, given the "redemption arcs" that you see being created these days (which usually means that some character is an entire asshole who gets worse and worse up until the 25th hour when they magically change & everyone is expected to forgive & accept them immediately not matter what), Macaque's story line wasn't as half as bad as it could have been. He is still very much a smarmy jerk, & still enraged at Sun Wukong, & still just off doing his own thing rather than being immediately brought into team monkie. He does seem to have changed at least a little in terms of maybe being more willing to work with others to accomplish a goal and maybe being a little more open to interacting with others outside of a manipulative and/or "your-enemy-is-my-enemy" kind of deal, which may be something that he'll pursue, or he could just go back to his old ways. For me the best redemption stories are those that focus on making the CHOICE consistently every day to be a better person, so I guess we'll see what they do with the shadow monkey. So tl;dr, what they chose to do with Macaque in s3 wasn't half as bad as it could have been, but your frustration in how they handled what is hopefully only the beginning of a redemption arc, especially given that the short time of each episode is another real hindrance to properly setting up a satisfying redemption arc, is very understandable.

I personally feel like Monkie Kid could potentially do something really interesting with Macaque if his story line starts following something of a "redemption without forgiveness" plot, in which at least a few characters that the shadow monkey hurt never fully forgive him and/or he & Sun Wukong never fully forgive each other for whatever went down between them, but that he still finds a way to be happy and satisfied with his life by forging genuine relationships with others while still atoning for past violence. I say this partially because I'm starting to get rawther tired of fandom takes that are some version of "Wow! Sun Wukong is literally the worst person in the entire world & every bad thing Macaque has ever experienced or ever done is all the Monkey King's fault! Anyway, I can't wait until they become besties again!" Like what. But mainly because the lego show Six Eared Macaque seems to have become so obsessively enraged at Sun Wukong that he has basically nothing going on in his life that isn't tied to the Monkey King in some for or another. In a very real way, these super monkeys seem like they're still playing out their relationship in Xiyouji, with Macaque trying to snatch away everything that Sun Wukong values for himself, and Sun Wukong responding with contempt and violence. But now with the added bonus of Macaque swinging between telling everyone he forces to listen that Sun Wukong is a terrible person (& that he by association is so much better) while also seeming to find it impossible to even imagine living a life that isn't defined by his past friendship with the Monkey King. And that's...super duper bad & painful for all parties involved!!~ So while I get that reconciliation plots are popular no matter what went down, I feel like it would be much more powerful and much more satisfying for Macaque to end his story by metaphorically stepping out of the Monkey King's shadow & making a life for himself that isn't based on hate and sorrow regarding Sun Wukong.

#anon answered #monkie kid #monkie kid mk #monkie kid qi xiaotian #monkie kid sun wukong #monkie kid six eared macaque #sorry for the rant myself anon #but for the love of god can we get something that does something more interesting than bog-standard immediate redemption plots (X_X)

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quidfree · 2 years

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have you every watched voltron or she-ra? if not, highly rec!! she-ra's amazing ( in my humble opinion ) voltron is uhh the start was great bUT GIANT ROBOT CATS THAT TURN INTO A GIANT ROBOT HUMAN

hi anon- i’ve watched both, actually, though not all the way through- thoughts below the cut just because i can feel this will be long despite my best efforts. def agree on voltron but cannot say i think shera is great haha

let’s start w voltron bc it’s the og. i watched it when it was first coming out and yeah- received w great enthusiasm. keith, unsurprisingly, was my guy. allura was probably my second favourite character. love the space lion robots of it all. really enjoyed the alien fantasy drama. was extremely on-board with unlikely teammates saving the galaxy and secret galra heritage and shiro’s war ptsd and all that. i think the early seasons had a good balance of drama and comedy, too.

definitely went downhill fast, and i didn’t watch past the season where lotor first starts playing a big role in the show, in part because i could Feel the bad prince zuko arc they were going to do and absolutely did not have the time for it (cannot believe they had him and allura be a thing…. and then she dies at the end of the show). basically just got frustrated by the way the characters were handled after a certain point, the tone was a mixed bag and the plot got messy. i was lucky bc keith was one of the people who got the most consistent/thorough focus and development, but the sidelining of certain charas and the weird dvp of others was just annoying. plus the ‘funny’ episodes… no. love shiro getting gay married tho good for him #lovewins.

shera…. hm. to give it some credit: i do enjoy the silly retro cartoon energy of it (the Names!!), i think the core 3’s friendship is good throughout, and naturally i think adora and catra’s relationship is compelling, fucked up and endearing. also there were def points where (like w voltron) the smaller-scale conflicts were pretty engaging to me, esp in the way they managed to overlap them w personal struggles- adora vs the horde, glimmer’s family drama… and mermista is an icon throughout love her energy.

now for my overview of the show… season one was promising for me but the like Positivity of it all just doesn’t speak to me- it’s Very power of friendship sparkles somehow. yeah theres darkness but i feel like it always gets mishandled. the villains in shera are sooo inconsistently framed as big menacing evil or harmless funny guys & i hate it- for eg why set up shadowweaver as this military evil child abuser for the early seasons and then make her a snarky teammate by the end?? it has ambitions of doing moral greyness but it’s mostly just badly executed for me… and that extends to catra fyi, for as much as i love her. shes easily my fav character but shes not very well-written. let’s not even start on hordak and his whole mess of a plot.

on that note both shows have a weird relationship w their genocide plots also. if you want to have genocide in your fun lil show you still need to take it seriously and there are ways to do it- think of avatar or of full metal alchemist, idk. making the big bad someone who wipes out planets and civilisations to raise stakes without ever considering the ramifications / while giving them easy redemption arcs is so lazy.

both theme songs absolutely slap though.

#qui parle #qui repond #anon #voltron #shera #ooh the high school flashbacks of it all….

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lem-cup-rev · 2 years

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4.3 | Flutterina

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)

🌸🌸🌸🌸

-Spoilers-

This was a good one that just had less going for it than the last couple.

I said in the beginning that I found the little towns and their parties uncharming, and I stand corrected! This was charming! The party sequence was carried by a lot of cute little gags. And I like the noseless people with their adorable little kids. There’s a satisfying complexity to their designs and outfits, and the leader and older people we see really feel like middle aged women.

It’s a cool premise to come in after the battle and focus on the aftermath. It was honestly confusing at first when Hordak said the Rebellion had been doing new stuff, because the good guys have practically never made new progress or decisions offscreen! I think it would have benefitted from a quick opener of, like, the last bot falling to Bow’s new shock tablet and the team being like ‘well, that was that!’ That would fill me in pretty quick!

Also I forgot Hordak thought Entrapta was just working with Bright Moon right now 😭

I really enjoyed Adora and Bow’s excitement about the party, and it made such a sweet bookend to Adora’s first party and to her feeling intimidated by all the She-Ra legends. However, I thought Adora’s cockiness felt more extreme than I really wanted for the tone, and the degree to which she dismissed that very earnestly worried leader and endangered the village was kind of painful to watch.

Swift Wind is such a sweetie! He’s just a really solid member of the team! I love his balance between quirky goofs and earnest strategizing. It’s not even that big a thing, I just really expected him to be annoying.

Bow was a little more interesting to me too; he got a focus for once and I like his gentle confidence. It was fun to see him in kind of a new situation, being a legendary hero and owning it.

I WUV Flutterbaby!!! She is just so cute! She has little Ojamajo Doremi hair buns! She has so much personality in such a short time – she rotates around this balance of shyness, excitement, and bravery, and her emotions are so big and tearful and precious. I do think it’s kind of hilarious that they let her join the Rebellion right now since she does seem to be about 12.

Catra’s nightmare was exquisite. Entrapta’s quirky little voice saying “What did you do to me”... It’s such a strong choice that this portal has become a point of trauma for her more than any other specific thing. The tummy-boiling guilt over her frantic and thoughtless but ultimately useful throwing of Entrapta under the bus comes through so strong.

Some months ago, I woke up in the morning with an idea for a She-Ra-inspired roleplaying game turning around in my head. The only real image or sentence I could remember was “Give Catra a nightmare.”

Scorpia is back to being a miss for me. I’ve said it so many times that I wonder if I’m being unfair and missing the appeal. But honestly, it feels like she’s the one guilty of Double Troubling. How is she still chatting it up in the blithe hope that Catra will be her friend? I want to see some change in her. And if we’re going to keep seeing Catra reject her, I want there to have been something between them, ever, so it has any impact.

Double Trouble was such a goddamn star. I love when characters are allowed to LIE WELL! I loved that at one point they got to play Flutterina lying badly. It was such an absolute delight seeing them weave their web in a way that felt nuanced and believable. She-Ra and many other shows are usually so afraid of showing deception in a way that isn’t exaggerated and obvious! I love that this entire episode was dedicated to their performance of giving Flutterina a full constructed character arc and emotional depth and vulnerability, so there’s no reason for anyone to imagine she’s there to trick them.

I have a Bachelor’s degree in Theatre, so I understand the kind of accomplishment on display here.

It’s also such a neat touch that her 1985 namesake was a real character, not a disguise.

I had the thought during this episode that it must be infuriating to fight against a magical girl. I can just imagine Catra watching Adora and Swift Wind do their friendship power-up and just going “Uuuuuugh! This stuff again??” How dispiriting and alienating must it be when your enemies have the cosmic forces of beauty and love on their side?

I remember being pretty aggravated by some of the next few episodes. I’m so excited to see how I feel this time around!

Next time: I like don't remember, apparently Shadow Weaver starts teaching Glimmer? I don’t have a cute phrase for this one

#review #spoilers #episode #4⭐️#she ra and the princesses of power #spop #she-ra and the princesses of power

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verdantmeadows · 2 years

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FOr the ship bingo - Sun Wukong and Macaque

Ahhh, one of not just my LEGO Monkie Kid OTPs, but one of my OTPs of all time. Let me explain each of my little boxes I filled out!

Enemies to lovers to friends to lovers to weird exes to friends to enemies to lo: Have you SEEN the two of them and how they behave in show?

Facebook status it's complicated: Again, see above

Romeo and Juliet Part 2 Electric Boogaloo: They definitely have a level of tragic lovers/starcrossed lovers that should be but just can't or haven't yet. I believe if they just got over themselves (mainly Sun Wukong-) they could get together. Unfortunately. This has not happened yet. I honestly don't mind if it never happens in show because I don't trust how the show is going to handle it

This is such a normal healthy normal relationship I promise (lying): The trying to kill each other fighting and everything is part of the appeal to me, I will be honest. It is very hot. I mostly filled this out because they have definitely hurt each other horribly and try to kill each other. However I think it's a lot easier to contextualize it as them being immortals/deities.

I want to smash them together like barbies: Well. It's true. I ship them so much and just want them happy :(

Childhood friends to unresolved sexual tension forever and ever: I personally headcanon them as childhood friends and it's very likely in the context of canon as well, especially since I think Macaque has inspirations from Monkey King 2009. Also they just literally . Macaque literally pins him down and uses the phrase "feeling out" WHILE ON TOP OF HIM. He also pins him down multiple times (via clones and himself). Like. Yknow.

They are horrible for each other (interested): I genuinely think they're basically soulmates or meant for each other, to be clear. However, they are literally being horrible to each other as of right now, so-

Listen. Is it really subtext at this point or can we just call it canon already: I think you would have to be a little bit oblivious to not realize the very clear subtext between the two of them. I mean, the touching and pinning? Calling him a gem? His beloved? Literally LEAVING LADY BONE DEMON TO SEE SUN WUKONG FIRST BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE EVEN THOUGH HE WAS PUNISHED FOR IT?? Please. Literally being the WHOLE WAY THAT HE IS BECAUSE HE WAS ABANDONED BY HIS BEST FRIEND? Please.

Give it twenty years and maybe they'll get their shit together: Maybe more like thousands of years for all we know. It has been quite a while between the two of them. They just need to get therapy for BPD (Macaque) and NPD (Sun Wukong) (joking). But really so much of their pain is from each other and they need to work past it.

It was love at first sight: I don't really believe in love at first sight as someone who is aromantic but falls in love and acespec/demisexual. But the level of this phrase is implying they're meant for each other and that's how I feel it is. I headcanon them both as demirose. I don't feel like they immediately fell in love with each other, but that they were always going to fall in love with each other. It's one of those things where they became just a part of each other's whole life, their very being, and by the time they realize they're in love, they can't remember a time when they weren't.

I have a LOT to say on this ship and I can't succinctly say it all or summarize how I want to. But it's just one of the best written pairings ever and I truly love the extremes it can go to because of the fact that they have lived thousands of years and are immortal beings. It completely scratches the BPD urges in my brain on how intense love can be and what abandonment can feel like. I'm not sure how to phrase it well, but I truly love BPD-coded characters/villains that get to have their symptoms be fuel for their actions where they get to act out on their urges/feelings. It's not great representation but it's so cathartic for me. (See Catra from SPOP)

#asks #anonymous #shadowpeach #lmk

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gimme-tea-bitch · 3 years

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Self abuse and cruel masks, or “How Shadow Weaver Weaponized Catra and Adora’s Kindness”

Oh boy, it’s been a whole like, week?? since i’ve made meta? My brain is no longer in Catradora brainrot!

Jk, this is another analysis that i’m writing late after work because my head is empty, 1 thot.

So, on my drive home I realized something, both Adora and Catra are extremely compassionate. Which look, i get it, you’re like “Tea, dipshit, how did you only just realize this?” and look, i get it! I know they are compassionate, we see that in the show, but, that’s not the point i’m making, so let me clarify.

Catra and Adora are EXTREMELY compassionate. I would go as far to say that they are possibly some of the most inherently compassionate characters in the show. And like, Adora is obvious, but the important part to remember here is that, Catra is also included here.

The realization I had is that, Catra and Adora both want to help people, they both care about others, care about the little guy, so how did we get Catra to becoming a villain, you may ask? Well... it’s the abuse, I feel like that’s clear and that we’re on the same page. Many of Catra’s negative traits are a result of or greatly worsened by the abuse she endures from the Horde, and Shadow Weaver especially. So, let’s begin.

At her youngest, at least that we get to see, we see Catra being pretty much exclusively good, barring 1 instance. We see her playing with Adora, and we see their fierce love for each other begin its bloom. She’s playful and happy, and so is Adora, they just work together beautifully from the get go, becoming fast friends. The one instance we see that is different is what we see in “Corridors” i think the episode is called? When she is having flashbacks on the ship. We see Adora coming to comfort Catra after she lashed out. And in her emotional state, we see that she’s hurt Adora.

Now, it is key to remember context here. Catra is a child, her whole, short life, she has been raised in a culture where you become strong or you die. So joy and care are hard to come by. We also see early on, that Weaver’s abuse began very young, in earlier seasons where a Catra that barely looks any older than this season 5 flashback, is restrained by Weaver’s magic.

Knowing all this, it’s unsurprising that Catra would become scared that Adora would leave her for her “new friends” a child’s mind isn’t rational, and a child being abused is even less so. The key here, is that Catra expresses remorse. She is upset that she’s upset, but she’s more upset that she lashed out and hurt Adora.

As Catra grows up, we see her become more cruel, unsurprisingly. Because it’s the Horde. Every cadet either bullies, or gets bullied. But, Catra is not egregious in her cruelty. She doesn’t attack or bully anyone nearly as heavily as her peers. In fact, the person she bullies most is Kyle, and even that is limited to verbal jabs, something that it seems literally everyone does. This is in a culture where we see signs of cadets physically intimidating and shoving each other. The scene where Lonnie and two cadets corner Catra after Adora deserted comes to mind. And yet, up to this point, we don’t see Catra engage in that. So how does that happen? If Catra’s abuse is tied to Weaver’s abuse, why has she not become a villain already?

Enter, Adora. Adora is by no means innocent here, she’s part of the Horde, and just like Catra, engages in verbal jabs at other cadets, but just like Catra, she doesn’t seem to ever go further than that. And the common thread here is that unlike seemingly every other cadet here, Catra and Adora have something that no one else has. Love. See, they meet young, they become best friends early, and fast, and fiercely. Their whole lives, they have loved each other. And that love, I think at least, guards them against becoming the monsters the Horde wants to turn them into.

Now, I did say at the start that Weaver weaponized their kindness. So let’s explain that. We see that up until Adora leaves, Catra and Adora are possibly some of the nicest cadets the Horde has, baring Scorpia who doesn’t even insult people. So what happens? How does Catra become a villain seemingly instantly? Because Weaver takes the one thing that has helped Catra stay “good” Weaver takes her love.

Now I can hear you screaming “Tea! Tea! Weaver doesn’t do that! Adora leaves her and betrays her!” And to that I say, does she? We’ve so far focused on Catra, let’s examine Adora a bit more. We know very early that Adora has a strong sense of morals justice, (side note- we also see that Catra has a sense of justice and morals in the fact that she treats others kindly when they are kind to her, and that even when given power, she doesn’t use it to abuse.)

Adora’s sense of right and wrong is a crucial trait in how everything goes pear shaped. See, Weaver has goals and to achieve them, she needs Adora who she senses is strong, but Adora is fiercely kind, and wants to help everyone, so why would she help Weaver and the Horde commit mass murder? Well, it’s easy, propaganda. That’s right! The horde’s propaganda machine of brainwashing children is reliant on the fact that they think the rebels are evil. So to do this, they make up stories about the horrors that the princesses do. historically speaking the Horde isn’t doing anything new. They’re doing the same thing any historical empire does to justify killing their enemies. Dehumanize and demonize them, until even the “good ones” don’t know any better.

And it works! Of course it does! This is particularly effective against Adora because of her strong morals. She’s so focused on saving others that she doesn’t even register that this is a trick. Now Adora has a target, and it all falls into place. Because Adora is inclined to help others, all Weaver had to do now is feed that fierce compassion, tie it to her self worth, and voila. You have a young girl who’s looking to die for a good cause. Adora still loves Catra, and Catra still loves Adora, but. Adora gets manipulated into a martyr. She is convinced that if she doesn’t save everyone that she’s worthless, that her only value is how much of herself she can give.

So did Adora really have any choice when it came to taking the sword? Of course not. She could’ve handled it better. If Catra and Adora communicated better they could’ve avoided a lot of that suffering, but we’ve been over why they didn’t and how their abuse made them hide their emotions from each other, so let’s move on.

Adora never had a real choice, Weaver made sure of this. Weaver;s entire ploy weaponizes Adora’s kindness and compassion, but instead of weaponizing it to hurt others like she intended, she weaponized it to hurt Adora. Because if Adora can’t help, doesn’t help, then, in her mind, she should just be dead. Being dead is the only thing that can excuse her not sacrificing herself. And this, this care for others, that turns into hatred for herself, is what weaponized Catra’s kindness.

When Adora inevitably leaves, Catra loses the one thing that helped her endure it all, Love. Without it, all the abuse and the manipulation and the trauma, they come crashing down on her. Because that bubble of love is no longer holding those things back. That defence against Weaver, the support of Adora is gone, and she’s alone with just herself to fight back. And that’s too much for anyone, much less for someone young and suffering for this long.

The thing is, it’s not instant. I’ve built it up like it flips a switch and bam, she’s a villain. But that’s not true. Because we see that Catra still cares about people. She becomes more aggressive and violent. But she relates to Entrapta, helps her feel better when she gets left behind. She does show kindness, even after becoming a villain. And look, yes, she does use this to manipulate, but, it works because the basis of it is true. Because underneath the manipulations, she sees someone suffering and wants to help, but the only way she can allow herself to do that, after all this, is by making it seem pragmatic.

Weaver’s abuse does a lot, it causes a lot of harm to both Adora and Catra, and the effects of it ripple through so much of their lives. This is just one of many facets of how these two have been hurt. And all this it’s undone eventually. As much as some people wanna paint Catradora as abusive, it’s not. It’s quite literally the opposite, it’s healing. It’s a return to form. Because we see in season 5 how they each dismantle the weapons that Weaver put into their hearts.

Catra’s villainous mask is stripped away and she is laid bare, her weapons dismantled. Her goal gone. And the thing that she comes back to, when all that is dust, is the love that carried her so far. “Corridors” is beautiful because it’s Catra coming to terms and accepting that all this, it was to cover the fact that she loves, she loves so much, so fiercely, so wholeheartedly, she loves. And it hurt to lose that. But she still loves anyway, despite the hurt, despite the loss, she’s still full of a love she can’t get rid of, a love she didn’t know what to do with anymore. And she chooses to give it again. She chooses to give that love again. And in turn she dismantles Adora’s weaponized kindness.

Adora, who’s kindness and caring was turned into a blade. A sword hanging over her head, waiting to drop at any moment. Catra chooses to love Adora again, and she chooses to love Adora in spite of this sword. Adora, who’s whole life, who’s whole sense of self is carried in the weight of this blade waiting to kill her is told that she’s loved. Regardless of if or when the blade will drop, regardless of if she sacrifices herself, she is loved because she is Adora, she is loved because she is enough on her own. And that, that love, it removes the sword. It unties it and sets it on the floor.

Idk, it just it makes me so emotional. And i’ve made myself cry again. I think, an important thing to take away from this is that, just because someone is kind, doesn’t mean they can’t be cruel. abuse can turn that kindness into cruelty. And sure, we’re not cadets in a war machine, but, there’s people out there who are abused, and that abuse can make them unkind or rude, just idk, it’s really nice to see that it’s possible for people who’ve done shitty things for the wrong reasons to remember that they can be kind. That you do not lose your capacity for love and compassion just because you’ve made the mistake of being cruel. I think that’s important. I think it’s important to tell people that fire can destroy everything around you if you let it, but it can also provide warmth and comfort, and that’s you can choose what kind of fire you want to grow into.

#spop #meta #catra #adora #FUCK shadow weaver

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heartslobbf · 4 years

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let’s talk about perfuma. imo, she’s one of the best characters in the show despite being underdeveloped, and i wanna explain why. she could’ve been extremely average, just some lanky flower girl that doesn’t believe in violence and loves everyone, but she is so much more than that (and it pisses me off that y’all reduce her to that).

in her introductory episode, perfuma is clearly in denial about the horde almost destroying plumeria. she doesn’t want to acknowledge the problem, wants someone else to take care of it for her. she’s scared of change, and that is because change makes you vulnerable. if things always stay the same, there’s a whole lot less danger and uncertainty, and therefore you’re safe. secure. perfuma’s kingdom is dying and she can’t bear to accept it because it is unknown to her. it’s putting her in a position where she is no longer secure. this fear of vulnerability can also be seen at the beginning of 1x10 when the princess alliance falls apart and she literally says ‘being together makes us vulnerable.’

the thing is, perfuma isn’t wrong. look at her choice of words. she says that being together makes them vulnerable, not weak. here, she kind of has the words mixed up, but we see that by s5 she has come to understand the difference. that’s what’s so great about perfuma, her motivation to do better, her hunger for self-improvement. it’s why she’s such an important part of catra’s redemption, actually, because she embodies the kind person catra is or wants to be.

let me explain: perfuma is an angry, impatient, short-tempered character. we are shown this again and again with her passive aggression to others and how easily mermista can annoy her with trivial things (sitting in her seat in the war room, for example). catra is also an angry, impatient character, but perfuma works every day to manage those emotions. she knows she needs them, she uses them as a tool (calling catra out, for example, is a time they were practically pivotal for getting her point across) but she also acknowledges they can hurt the people she loves. we know she does a meditation ritual each morning and we see in 4x02 how quickly she can unravel without it. she wants to be better. she puts the work in. that is such a valuable lesson for a character like catra who has always felt she’s just not good enough, she’s always going to be this angry and unlovable and no one can do anything about it.

so, 4x02. it’s a brilliant episode for perfuma’s character, really, and the first proper development we’ve had since 1x04. we see her anger, her impatience, but we also see her self-doubt. her belief that she’s inadequate, ‘just a flower girl.’ this is also when we get introduced to her little mantra that becomes a bit of a motif later on, ‘i can do this.’ we know perfuma doesn’t wholeheartedly believe this, but she says it anyway because she wants to. perfuma wants to be better. she will do whatever she can to be her best self, whether that be actually conquering her gripes with cacti or realising there’s a loophole with the roots (love that conflict resolution by the way, another good deconstruction of hero bs by spop).

this episode is also significant because it comes back to perfuma’s fear of change, of vulnerability. she’s thrown into a situation she doesn’t want to be in, one she feels miserably unprepared for, and she hasn’t done the one thing that puts her at her best beforehand, but she pulls through in the end because she is surrounded by people that support her, that listened to her and consoled her when she was vulnerable. 4x02 teaches perfuma the power of self-worth and the power of true, mutual, unconditional love, which can only come with vulnerability.

and this is where her character gets really interesting, in my humble opinion. ngl, one of the reasons i love perfuma so much is because she’s a pisces and i am too. i’m not gonna go astrology hoe on you rn, i’m just using this to demonstrate the part of her character that teaches others. pisces, if you don’t know, love to play therapist. we like to help the people around us with whatever strifes they may have because we think we’re fucking great at it. perfuma actually is.

you know how i said perfuma learns the importance of self-belief and vulnerability? yeah, she teaches both of those lessons to other characters in s5. like i said, perfuma is a character who values self-betterment and also happens to be a pisces, so when she sees scorpia, riddled with so much self-doubt and such low self-esteem, her immediate response is just i’m gonna teach that bitch how to love herself. and she does!

i’ve seen some people say they don’t like scorfuma because it seemed as though the writers just decided to ‘fix’ all of scorpia’s problems by giving her a girlfriend. that’s very dumb, first of all because they aren’t even together by the end of the show, they’re just interested in one another. second, the whole point of she-ra is that we’re stronger together. scorpia doesn’t go through growth in s5 because a girl likes her, she goes through growth because someone is showing her support and love for the first time in her life and that empowers her. you know, the worth that scorpia finds in herself doesn’t hinge on perfuma, like it did with catra. it’s about her as an individual, and perfuma so clearly makes it about that when her big lesson revolves around singing. scorpia loves singing. perfuma tells her she should do it because she enjoys it, a sentiment you’d never hear in the horde, and when scorpia does sing, she is actively rejecting the people who did make all her self-worth hinge on them catra. she’s doing something for herself, because she enjoys it, because it makes her happy, because she can.

it’s that same mantra: i can do this, i can do this. i really love how this was brought back from 4x02, how perfuma repurposed something that taught her such a valuable lesson for someone else. perfuma and scorpia are great foil characters actually, both constantly underestimated and thought of as weak by their groups, but some of the strongest characters in the show due to their deep value of love and self. i can do this, and i know i can because you believe in me, because i believe in myself. it’s brought back again in 5x10, when the last thing perfuma says before scorpia breaks the beam is ‘i know you can [pull through]’. she tells catra she believes in scorpia. it’s that belief, that support from other people that empowers the self to believe it too. we are stronger together, you know??

anyways, onto vulnerability. return to the fright zone is in my top ten episodes of the whole fucking show and you might think that’s a bit weird but i don’t. 5x10 encompasses so many important themes of spop so well and tells them with scorfuma and spinnetossa, our two side lesbian couples. this is significant since perfuma literally draws a parallel between her and catra at the end of the episode, and catradora and spinnetossa have always been significant to one another. i’m gonna say it, perfuma is the reason catra is finally able to confess to adora in 5x13. i’ve already talked about how important perfuma is to catra’s motivation to improve, but she literally makes catra rethink everything about strength and vulnerability, two words catra has a lot of feelings about.

catra fears vulnerability. we know this. she has such a deep love for those important to her but is never able to articulate it because she worries she’ll be taken advantage of, shot down, laughed at, whatever. all of this stems from the abuse she suffered at shadow weaver’s hands and her attachment issues, and it’s also why catra pretends to hate scorpia’s very open displays of affection and love: she sees it as weak because she has been taught to, but it’s all she ever really wanted to be.

we also know perfuma used to fear vulnerability. she doesn’t any more. the entirety of the episode leading up to her and catra’s heart-to-heart is her being vulnerable, putting herself in a position where she’s in danger but believing it’s worth it. and it is. despite what everyone said to her, perfuma is right: it was worth it. she got through to scorpia, even if it was only for a moment. she literally spells it out to us and catra with one of the best lines in the whole show: it’s hard, keeping your heart open. it makes you vulnerable, but it doesn’t make you weak, and i have to believe it’s worth it.

back in 1x10, perfuma was right: being together makes you vulnerable. horde prime tries to use people’s relationships against them, that’s literally the plot of save the cat, the point of pitting catra and adora against one another. he sees them as weak, just like shadow weaver deems adora’s feelings for catra ‘confusing’, just like light hope insisted adora was a danger to her friends as long as she was around them. they were all wrong. yes, they’re vulnerable. perfuma acknowledges that vulnerability puts you in danger, that it’s difficult to do that, but she knows it doesn’t make you weak. weakness vs strength is a big conflict in 5x10 literally introduced to us with netossa’s theories on everyone’s weaknesses in the first few minutes.

like perfuma says, friendship isn’t a weakness. it’s her greatest strength. her belief in love is literally what saves her and adora’s lives, it’s what saves everyone who got chipped, glimmer, bow. belief in love, both of others and yourself, is what saves adora in her dying moments. perfuma summarises she-ra’s entire fucking message to us repeatedly in 5x10 and she tells it to catra because catra is the one who will do the most with it. that glance at adora, it’s obvious what it means. perfuma is telling catra she should be open with adora about her feelings because you have to believe it’s worth it.

you won’t get anywhere waiting for other people to make the move. she-ra couldn’t heal plumeria’s lands, so plumeria had to fight their own battle alongside her no matter how much they felt unable to. the rebellion couldn’t move mara’s ship, so perfuma had to despite thinking she wasn’t strong enough. the reason they always win in the end is because they have each other, they have love and support and people motivating them to do better. just like perfuma motivates herself to do better.

it’s the mantra. i can do this. i can be vulnerable and still win, because i have love. and it’s hard, it’s so fucking hard to be vulnerable when you’ve feared it all your life and you’re so angry, so hurt, but you have to believe it’s worth it. and it is. it is, it is, it is, love is stronger than anything and being vulnerable for the people you love is the only way you can ever get what you want from them. perfuma as a character embodies that, having learnt it herself, and teaches the lesson to one of the characters who needs it the most.

adora is dying, and catra loves her, and she knows she does, and she just has to believe. adora is dying, and she loves catra, and she knows she does, but she doesn’t believe. not until catra teaches her too, in that moment, to realise they were all wrong, light hope, shadow weaver, horde prime. adora doesn’t need to let go, she needs to hold on and believe she will be pulled back up by the girl she loves. she needs to believe she deserves it. that it’s worth it.

and it is.

#ANYWAYS I FUCKING LOVE PERFUMA THANK U QUEEN FOR BEING THE BEST SIDE CHARACTER #sjdjeksmnf sorry this is long i tried to keep it short #I HAVE SO MUCB TO SAY ABT HER #shut up daisy #spop #perfuma #scorfuma #catra #scorpia #catradora #adora #spop meta

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nny11writes · 2 years

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Who are your favourite spop characters and why?

Oh man, I genuinely love every single character in SPOP lol so ranking lists are always switching around in my head for who I like the most. Most of the top contenders trade places on a whim too.

I think I have to say Catra as my top fave, but really she's just the one I find easiest to write for. She's complex and messy, and my comfort characters tend to be short angry women who are fucking trying okay. She tends to dominate the top of the list because of how many facets there are both to her and the way she perceives things. I just, god, I love this catgirl. There are better people out there who've written love letters to Catra and they're right.

Glimmer is my next favorite who sometimes knocks Catra off her lofty throne. And I gotta be honest, it's always a shock when I realize that. Confession time: when I first was watching and all we had was Season 1 out, Glimmer was the only character I actually hated. Yeah. I liked Swift Wind more than her at that point. And it's because I sold her EXTREMELY short in S1. As the show went on I realized that Glimmer's also a super complex character and not just a perky privileged girl next door trope. She's one of my favorite characters in the whole thing now because she's so fun, intense, and well meaning. She also hits my small angry women who are fucking trying okay comfort needs, but it's absolutely refreshing to have that in someone who is also (mostly) working hard to be a friendly, upbeat type.

Entrapta is someone who is always vying for spots 1 and 2 on this list. There was a brief stint where she was my favorite character in the show, and so she deserves to be on this list of who's my fave and why. As to why, LOOK AT HER! Chaos mad scientist gremlin! *chef kiss* Love her or hate her, this is what peak human performance looks like baby! I think Entrapta would handily kick Glimmer and Catra's asses on this list if she'd had a little more screen time for development and screen time with her being treated more seriously. I know I just cracked a joke here about her chaos status, but I do wish we'd had more with her that was serious. I love the moment in S5 where Entrapta, so fucking quietly, explains that she thought she could use her tech to be a better friend. Like, damn, she has Adora levels of "my worth to others is based on what exchanges I can make for their love and affection" but with less self sacrificing and more robots that can blow you up. Fans have picked up a lot of slack to help showcase Entrapta's nuances and talk through why she reacts the ways she does. (not all SPOP fans mind you, but some) But yeah, I love her desperately.

Shadow Weaver is also on this top contenders section. I'm less interested in breaking her down as a character and finding complexities (and there are plenty to be found), although I do like taking some jaunts into her head. I have several short meta pieces I wrote throughout the series about her, none of which I want to share as they've changed as we learned more about her. Man, I just- I love Shadow Weaver. She is a fantastic villain/antagonist and I think she's possibly the best done one on the show. When Weaver is on screen she has my damned attention, even in the background, in a way no one else does. Prime is a bigger threat and more disturbing, he's a great Big Bad for the series. But if these two were in a room together I wouldn't look at him unless he's center frame lol. Fantastic character!

And because I'm sure someone will want to say shit on that opinion, liking a character doesn't mean I would condone a real life person doing the things she did or acting the way she acted. But she is a cartoon character who is supposed to be awful, and the whole crew did a fantastic job making that happen. And as such I love Shadow Weaver.

After my top contenders it's an amorphous blob of Adora, Angella, Scorpia. Then Bow, Lonnie, and Perfuma.

Then another amorphous blob of literally everyone else.

Again, I genuinely enjoy every character on this show and I really love reading meta on them. I've been really enjoying a lot of Hordak centered things I've seen recently, which have given me a lot to think about for my own assumptions as well as giving him more depth.

Huge shout out to fic writers who have, like, 5 PoV characters and help me fall more in love with characters from this show!

#spop #she ra #favorite characters #anon ask #I wish Bow had more screen time I want to love him so much more than I do #I like him and I think he's interesting!#But the main reason you've never seen me write from his PoV is I know I'd do his character a major disservice #but man it felt bad to be able to put him a little higher up #rankings =#Love Love LOVE #Really like a lot!#Very enjoyable #Entertaining and interesting #I don't know I just think they're neat :)#and Well Duh I Like Them Why Wouldn't I?

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catrasredemption-moved · 3 years

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one thing that's always irritated me was how easy it was for adora to leave in the beginning. like barely any pain or deliberation, and immediately believing people she had known for about a day? the only cues we got about her missing catra was when she couldn't sleep in her bed alone, and even that lasted about two seconds until we moved on. i know adora has a hero complex and always "needs to do whats right" but goddamn she still has emotions. it came across as her really not caring about catra at all, while catra was literally falling apart. ever since the first season i've wanted catra to move on from adora, since she clearly didn't care about her, i just really wanted her to be happy :/. it's one thing to have a codependent relationship, at least both fully need each other💀. the worst thing abt this is that if catra hadn't treated everyone like that, people would be more sympathetic, bc being thrown to the side by the one person you loved is downright shitty. as it stands, the bad things adora did can't outweigh what catra did :/. i love catradora, and i love them together, but that action pops into my mind and i just feel bad. i want catra to be able to just be and exist without adora, bc literally the whole show is catra not being able to function without her. it's one of the main reasons why i kinda wish they didn't get together at the end, despite loving the ship. eventually, yes, but not immediately.

Personally I still don’t interpret that ending as “we are together now and everything is fine.” You can acknowledge your love for another person and even kiss without immediately jumping into a relationship. A few soft moments =/= “we’re girlfriends now” ya know?

And yeah, I agree, it would have been nicer to see more of Adora missing Catra, but I don’t think it’s fair to say she didn’t miss her at all. The fallout of her decision to just fuck off and be a hero hit them in different ways - Catra has always been just a little self-destructive (I mean come on, she attacked an adult when she was like, eight), but Adora’s presence kept that under control, while Catra stopped Adora from completely collapsing under the weight of Weaver’s expectations. She brought a little bit of life into what would have been an otherwise extremely miserable life, and without that anchor Adora kind of got lost. Like yeah, she had Bow and Glimmer and they were great, but Catra understands Adora in ways no one ever will - and proves that repeatedly throughout the series. Her spiral to the point of thinking her life was forfeit didn’t start with the sword - it started with Catra walking away.

Which is basically what Shadow Weaver means with that “Catra confuses you” bullshit. Because Catra makes Adora think about herself, and without that, Adora kind of loses her sense of self under the weight of everyone else’s expectations. It just isn’t seen the same way as Catra’s spiral because Adora doesn’t break down the same way Catra does, and everything she does can be seen as “that’s how a hero is” rather than “this is Adora self-destructing because there’s no one to remind her how important and special she is the way Catra did.”

That’s how I see it, anyway, idk

#Mystery Person #Sam Answers

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ninjakittenarmy · 3 years

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I’m really fucking tired of people automatically accusing people of hating redemption arcs and not realizing people can change because they complained about ONE redemption arc being ill conceived or poorly executed. Like yeah, people can change and grow to be better people, and being redeemed doesn’t mean others need to forgive them, but guess what? That doesn’t mean that the redemption arc was good! It doesn’t mean that the arc was satisfying or well suited to the show! If your villain crosses certain lines, then they’re going to be very hard to sympathize with when they have a face turn. That’s just how it is.

Take Steven Universe: I’ve been an avid fan of that show for years, I love it to death, and I will be the first person to tell you that anyone saying that it supports fascism is a fucking idiot. HOWEVER, I also think the Diamonds’ redemption arc was horrible. It basically required one to focus on the family drama and relationships of the diamonds at the expense of what made them actually EVIL.

Sure, perhaps they were always meant to be a depiction of toxic family relationships as viewed through a lens of cartoon heroes fighting cartoon villains, but the fact of the matter is that even if you want the whole conflict to be a metaphor/consequence of realistic family drama with much more wide reaching consequences-which can TOTALLY be done btw, that’s perfectly fine- you still need to set things up in a way that makes reconciliation believable and not a huge miscarriage of justice.

The Diamonds were HORRIBLE people who killed countless of their own subjects, turned dead revolutionaries into twisted monsters still suffering in immense pain in a bid to destroy humanity, and wiped out countless worlds (admittedly, the writers said that humans were the first sentient organic life they found), and yet because they had an epiphany about their home life, we’re just supposed to accept that and move on. It doesn’t work like that. Even if the whole conflict is a dramatization or metaphor for familial strife, you still need to pay attention to the literal events actually happening. I’m not going to disregard the actual war going on and the consequences thereof because we’re focusing on the personal feud at the center of it all and it happens to be resolvable. I admire their attempts to resolve some of these issues in Future, where Yellow is shown in the process resurrecting the subjects she murdered, but the arc itself was still very forced.

Steven Universe really is the perfect example for this discourse because it has one terrible redemption arc amidst a sea of good ones. Lapis and Peridot had great redemption arcs that dealt with their personal issues in ways that made us like them and sympathize with them. Peridot was easy because she was mainly comic relief, but it was still a very moving redemption when she was shown getting her first taste of freedom and growing to love the planet. Lapis, while somewhat divisive, was an even better one in my opinion. Sure, it took a while, and even towards the end, she still had major issues throughout, but her character was built in a way that made it so you WANTED her to come around, and even though she had major issues throughout, it was always clear to the audience that she was never a BAD person at heart, and she never went too far down the path of evil to be forgivable.

Spinel is probably the one of the best redemption arcs I’ve ever seen, definitely in my top 3. I’d even put her above Zuko in some respects, though mostly due to personal preference. That’s really impressive considering that not only did she try to blow up the planet, like the diamonds did, but she also came soon after the polarizing Diamond redemption arc I just cited as a bad example. Spinel was everything the Diamonds should have been. Menacing and clearly unhinged, irrational in her goals of vengeance, and extremely dangerous, willing to end the world for what is for all intents and purposes a personal dispute with a relative (a very serious one but nonetheless), yet somehow still sympathetic throughout.

Unlike the Diamonds, Spinel was a character the audience WANTED to see redeemed throughout the whole film, even through her actions were still pretty terrible. A part of this is that we see more of her personality and struggles in the film than we see of the Diamonds’ in the whole series. We learn to like her and sympathize with her plight. It helps that she’s extremely entertaining. The other part is the main crux of the issue at hand really, and that is: SPINEL NEVER KILLED ANYONE!

This is the main issue I have with this whole debate. People get accused of refusing to let people change or let characters have any flaws when all they do is hold people accountable for anything AT ALL. Yeah, if a character crosses certain lines, I won’t want them redeemed. Sure, what those lines are depends on the scale and scope of the work and how seriously these actions are treated/ what consequences they had, but they exist and some crimes simply aren’t forgivable.

It’s easy for me to forgive Spinel because her actions caused mostly temporary damage. No one died. The Diamonds killed tons of people, including humans defending their home from destruction. Liking one doesn’t mean I have to like the other. Forgiveness doesn’t come for everything. Yes, I know the victims don’t need to forgive the villains as part of a redemption arc, but you know who does? THE AUDIENCE. The audience is pissed at these people too, you need to win them over. Their forgiveness doesn’t come just because the author says it should.

“Oh, but some people are more forgiving than you.” Fine, let them like this stuff, but if every fucking show I watch redeems villains after making them seem like the worst people ever, I won’t like it and I WILL express my opinion on the matter. I’m sick of every villain NEEDING a redemption arc. So many works go for the forgiveness angle in the end with little to no buildup.

To be clear, I don’t hate redemption arcs. In fact, I love them. Some of my favorite characters are ones who underwent redemption arcs. My favorite character ever (Crona from Soul Eater, but you don’t necessarily need to be familiar with them for this) started out as a villain before becoming a hero. I actively prefer the anime version of the show they’re from because it gave them a happier ending. Catra from Spop is another fantastic example. Both of these characters hit many of the same notes as the positive examples I listed above. Those are just the two best examples I can think of for redemption arcs in my opinion, but there are certainly more.

I’ve even desired redemption arcs for characters we WEREN’T supposed to want one for. Chara from Undertale, Seryuu Ubiquitous from Akame Ga Kill, possibly Toga from MHA though I’m actually somewhat hopeful about her (if Endeavor can have one, she should too). All of these characters are ones I feel are compelling enough characters that I actually waved my usual threshold for crimes I can forgive. I still get why it didn’t happen, mind you, I’d just kind of like it.

So yeah, I love redemption arcs. When used well, they can result in some of the most interesting characters in the work. But that doesn’t mean my love for the trope is unconditional. Like any trope, it is a tool. It can be misused, and when it is, it’s fucking infuriating. Nothing is more rage inducing than a villain not facing consequences for their actions. A redemption arc that doesn’t work is literally just that presented as a good thing. Few things are as infuriating as a work have something infuriating happening and telling you to celebrate. It’s like someone punching your teeth out and demanding payment for the dental work.

#redemption arc #fandom discourse #steven universe #atla #soul eater #shera #spop #akame ga kill #undertale #my hero academia

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mooncaps · 3 years

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The parallels between Catra and Glimmer keep sticking in my mind. They don't quite mirror each other exactly, visually or thematically, but there's a lot of overlap. They're similar in so many ways, but the inverse of each other in certain ways as well. Their natures are so alike that if their circumstances had been swapped, they'd probably just become each other.

So, I guess I’m picking up my shovel and digging into this. I wanna examine the ways they’re alike, the key ways they differ, what shapes each of them, and why their intersecting journeys are significant. There’s a lot to unpack and this is gonna be a long post, but if the subject matter sounds interesting to you, then read on.

Their parallels are most evident in Season 4, but are also woven throughout the show. I'm thinking back to 1x07 when Adora explains to Bow and Glimmer what being raised by Shadow Weaver was like and Glimmer, without missing a beat, says: "Okay, sure, Mom stuff." Completely nonchalant, with a casual shrug, as if nothing sounded out of place. All of these characters are impacted by being embattled in a militaristic conflict, of course, but Catra and Glimmer are both getting particular parental experiences from their mother-figures, the only parent in either of their lives. Notably, they don't have the same experience. Angella's a much better mother to Glimmer than Shadow Weaver is to Catra. Shadow Weaver is abusive, manipulative, power-hungry, and especially cruel to Catra above all others. Even when Angella is harsh, she's constructive and supportive.

But both of these children end up with a strong desire to prove themselves on the battlefield. Both want their mothers to be proud of them, to recognize them as worthy. Catra spends the early part of her life suppressing the urge to prove herself, pretending not to care about it while secretly being deeply upset when she finds herself overshadowed by Adora. Glimmer, on the other hand, openly thirsts for opportunities to be a great commander and earn recognition for her accomplishments. They both have somewhat of an inferiority complex as well. Catra comes to decide she doesn't want to be the sidekick. Glimmer is insecure about being the princess who has to recharge.

In 1x08, Glimmer's jealousy toward Bow and Perfuma is essentially a microcosm of a key dimension of Catra's arc for the show. But Glimmer is much quicker to learn the lessons and grow. Due to her experiences, Catra's walls are much harder to break down. I'll swing back around to that point later.

As Season 1 draws to its close, Glimmer and Catra both gain a little more independence, though they do it in very different ways. Catra does what Glimmer wanted to do at the beginning of Season 1. She presents valuable tech and a valuable ally to her commanding officer. Glimmer gets closer to her mother and they both start to understand each other better. Catra defeats her mother-figure in combat. Glimmer and Catra both gain favor in their respective armies and get the much-desired chance to prove themselves in the Battle of Bright Moon.

In 2x02, Glimmer and Bow take Catra hostage and the ways in which these two characters differ are really highlighted. Glimmer is tempted more than once to be as ruthless with Catra as Catra would be with her, but Bow talks her down when push comes to shove. "We're not them." Catra doesn't have a person in her life who talks her down. Not anymore. Catra sees the reliance on friendship among the Rebellion as a weakness. "It's why you're never going to win."

With the environment she grew up in, Catra's understanding of concepts like friendship and love are primarily in relation to power and manipulation. She's quick to seize upon the closeness between Glimmer and Bow as a way to force Glimmer to use up her magic. Catra's own love for Adora is, in the early days, selfish. She doesn't want to share Adora, whether with friends in the Horde or friends in the Rebellion. And it's why she believes that Adora doesn't feel the same way. If Adora wouldn’t take things to the same selfish extremes, then she must not feel what Catra’s feeling. This is what Catra believes because her experiences have given her this very specific, and flawed, understanding of love.

Glimmer's relationship to love is different. She comes from a more supportive environment and even in the rare instance when she does trend toward selfish love, she's more able to accept and understand the flaws of it.

But focusing on 2x02: Glimmer and Catra push each other's buttons. Each of them instinctively knows how to hurt the other one, though Catra is more willing to inflict that hurt. They’re both paying attention and learning each other’s vulnerabilities. The one moment where Glimmer touches a nerve with Catra is: "How did Adora take years of this? She didn't run away from the Horde. She ran away from you." And Catra immediately pushes back: "You think she's not going to leave you behind too, Sparkles?"

It's somewhat telling that Catra sees Glimmer as having taken her place in Adora's life. Again, similar, but not the same. The relationship between Adora and Glimmer is different to the relationship between Adora and Catra, but Catra, with her limited and warped understanding of love, can't tell the difference anymore than she could when Adora first befriended Lonnie. Catra sees Glimmer as having the same place in Adora's life that Catra used to have. And as much as Catra wants, at this point, to tell herself she's over Adora, she's still angry.

So we’re kind of flipping between parallels and inversions, but a key factor starts to become clear at this point. What Catra and Glimmer hate in each other is what they fear in themselves. Glimmer hates that Catra took her as a hostage, but she's also frustrated that she can't be just as cruel when she has Catra as a hostage. She wants to be cruel, and yet she hates herself for wanting it. Catra hates seeing Glimmer step into the role of Adora's sidekick and she mocks the Rebellion for "the power of friendship" because she hates how vulnerable she felt after opening her heart to Adora. She wants a loving relationship, and yet she hates herself for wanting it. Catra and Glimmer see their own perceived flaws, weaknesses, and shortcomings in each other, which is why there's so much friction between them. It's really an interesting concept that develops further as the show goes on.

The next minor point of interest is 2x04. Glimmer sees the primary conflict as being between herself and Catra. It’s not much, just a little look into how Glimmer is thinking about things.

Seasons 2 and 3 are paired together in terms of themes in a way that other seasons aren’t. At the end of Season 2, or midway through the story threads, Catra loses her mother-figure. At the end of Season 3, Glimmer loses her mother. Once again, the circumstances differ. Angella is truly gone, but Shadow Weaver has simply switched sides. Glimmer’s arc going forward is very much driven by Angella’s absence, whereas Catra’s arc is driven by Shadow Weaver’s presence...as an enemy combatant.

And Shadow Weaver doesn’t just join the Rebellion, she starts working her way into Glimmer’s life. Her opening pitch that gets Glimmer to free her plays on a familial connection - the fact that she taught Glimmer’s father. They go to the Fright Zone together and of course they run into Catra, who discovers Shadow Weaver quite literally taking Glimmer by the hand.

All of this sets the stage for Season 4, where the Catra and Glimmer parallels are at their strongest. The two of them become much more similar to each other in this season. Glimmer is now receiving guidance and familial connection from the very person who shaped Catra into the person she is.

Both Catra and Glimmer effectively take control of their respective armies. Glimmer literally becomes queen and, in the very same episode, Catra seats herself on Hordak’s throne. Glimmer is reluctant to take the throne, Catra is eager to. At the end of the episode Catra says to Hordak, “I think you and I are going to do great things together.” This line echoes what Shadow Weaver said to young Micah and baby Adora. And of course Glimmer is also stepping into her mother’s role.

From there, the two of them find themselves on similar paths. In 4x02 they both have the same idea to recover Mara’s ship. In 4x04 Glimmer wants to think like Catra and asks Shadow Weaver to teach her. Glimmer ends up in a fight with Catra and Catra marvels at Glimmer’s tactical decision to use Adora as a decoy. Where Glimmer was previously unwilling to be like Catra, now she’s determined to do anything for victory. And of course the idea to use Adora as a distraction came from Shadow Weaver and Catra’s recognizing this change in Glimmer’s tactics without quite realizing why it should feel familiar.

Some things happen at different times for these two, but there’s so much overlap. Glimmer starts the season dealing with boring meetings and itching to be out in the field, jealous of her friends. For Catra, she starts the season in the field, but as her plans advance she finds herself stuck in the Fright Zone while Hordak does the field work.

Both of them are focused on success, no matter the cost. They both become so stubbornly obsessed with winning the war that it fractures their friendships. They reject all counsel and push away the people who care for them. In spite of being hurt by losing the trust of their friends, they both double down on trying to win, expecting total victory to be the thing that brings them peace of mind, the thing that makes everything worth the cost.

There’s a push and pull between the two of them throughout the season. Neither can succeed in their chosen path without destroying the other. And yet they can’t seem to destroy each other without losing themselves. Metaphorically, destroying each other would mean destroying their own shortcomings, and both of them want those weaknesses and doubts erased, but neither of them can manage to strike the final blow.

Catra gains the upper hand in the war by having Double Trouble work the cracks in Glimmer’s friendships. Glimmer gains the upper hand by having Double Trouble drive a decisive wedge between Catra and Hordak. Double Trouble’s duplicitous allegiances and feigning of friendships are key developments on both sides of the battlefield and their services are weaponized by both Catra and Glimmer to target each other. Double Trouble essentially acts as a messenger, sent from both of these two characters to tear the other one down. Catra and Glimmer personify to each other what they fear in themselves and Double Trouble gives voice to the doubts of both characters, acting on behalf of each of them in turn.

Double Trouble gets to Glimmer by suggesting that Adora is undermining the queen’s authority. They work from an understanding of Glimmer’s genuine desire to be a great queen. However, and this is a key point, when Double Trouble confronts Catra, the tactic is completely flipped. “You try so hard to play the big bad villain, but your heart’s never been in it, has it?” They work from the understanding that Catra’s apparent desire to lead the Horde to victory is not genuine. As opposed to Glimmer, whose heart has always been in it; her heart’s so in it that she becomes blind to the risks of her plans.

Part of Double Trouble’s speech to Catra can apply to Glimmer’s insecurities as well. “They didn’t believe in you, didn’t trust you, didn’t need you, left you. But did you ever stop to think, maybe they’re not the problem? It’s you. You drive them away, Wildcat.” Obviously it applies to Catra, but it also describes what Glimmer has just been through with Bow and Adora. Glimmer and Catra have so many overlapping fears and this messenger sent by Glimmer to throw Catra off balance ends up making this statement that labels Glimmer’s recent mistakes just as accurately as it does Catra’s.

The key difference between the two of them comes down to their hearts being in it. For all the similarities between Catra and Glimmer in Season 4, this climactic moment emphasizes that, for Catra, a lot of it is an affectation, a costume.

Which brings me to an element of the visual storytelling. I recently read an interesting post about the thematic significance of Catra’s mask. I also made my own post about the change to her hair in Season 4. The visual storytelling has many facets in this show. This post is about parallels though, so what I’m focusing on now is the fact that Catra and Glimmer both change their costumes in Season 4. The first scene of 4x01 features the reveal of Glimmer’s new look and the last scene of 4x01 features the reveal of Catra’s.

One of the first things I noticed about Catra’s outfit is that her new black sleeve and shoulder armor are covering the area that was damaged in the portal reality. At a guess, I’d say she wants to guard against feeling whatever that felt like again. Again though, my focus is on parallels. Let’s have a look at their outfits side by side.

Glimmer’s is essentially an evolution. She’s growing more into herself. She now has both shoulders covered. Hard to say if these shoulder pads are decorative or could serve a protective function. They kind of look metallic. Her legs are newly covered; her neck and chest are newly exposed. There are a few changes to Glimmer’s outfit, but not a lot that’s truly new to her.

For Catra, there are a few new elements in her outfit. The single sleeve, the fingerless gloves, and at the shoulders she seems to have upgraded from fabric to something that looks more like it could be armor. Her legs are more covered than they were in her previous outfit, but there are still small exposed gaps. Her feet were never covered before, but now there’s a partial covering. And there’s also what fandom has dubbed the “boob window,” though this show isn’t one that gives focus to things like cleavage. The new elements for Catra bring her outfit a little bit closer to Glimmer’s.

I’ll be interpreting exposed skin as representing vulnerabilities. Of particular interest to me is the fact that they both wear single sleeves now, one white, one black, and they cover opposite arms. Glimmer has no mask on her face; Catra has no cape covering her back. Glimmer’s boots seem especially enforced at the heel and toe. Catra’s heels and toes are exposed. You know how I’ve been saying that they see their own shortcomings in each other? Now Catra is visibly vulnerable where Glimmer is guarded and vice-versa. The particular asymmetry of the sleeves brings to mind ideas of imbalance, both internally and between them.

Catra’s sleeve looks durable; Glimmer’s sleeve looks decorative. Glimmer’s sleeve leaves a gap of skin exposed below the shoulder pad; Catra’s sleeve covers the full length of her arm. On Glimmer’s unsleeved arm, the glove barely covers her hand; Catra’s glove covers a portion of her forearm. Remember 1x08, that point I said I’d come back to? Glimmer’s quicker to learn the lessons. Catra’s walls are harder to break down. Now it’s visually represented in their outfits.

I’ll reference the visuals as I go on, but let’s get back to thematic analysis. As the Season 4 finale draws to a close, Catra and Glimmer end up together and both have been brought low. Double Trouble has just seen through all of Catra’s walls and read her for absolute filth. Glimmer has to reckon with the fact that her own hubris nearly got everyone she’s been fighting for destroyed. Both have come closer to total victory and closer to total defeat than they’ve ever been. Coming off a string of mistakes and pushing away the people who care about them, they end up together.

Glimmer has the chance to attack a willingly defenseless Catra, but spares her. Moments later, Glimmer is threatened by Horde Prime, but Catra’s intervention saves her. It’s a layered action from Catra, certainly not altruistic, but it saves Glimmer nonetheless. I think something in each of them feels hesitant to see this person, in whom they see their own flaws reflected back at them, destroyed.

And now they’re stuck with each other, quite literally cut off from everyone else. They’re each wrestling with the weight of their own failures and shortcomings, so of course they’re both trapped with the metaphorical representation of everything they never wanted to face in themselves.

They’re together, and yet they’re separated. A barrier stands between them. Catra is at liberty to move about the ship, but there’s nowhere to go and no escaping the watchful gaze of Horde Prime. She’s frustrated by this illusory liberty: “If I’m a prisoner, you might as well make it official.” Glimmer, on the other hand, is in a cell and she wants out, even though there’s nowhere to go. For a brief moment, the barrier is taken down when Catra and Glimmer are invited to dine with Horde Prime. One very effective way to bring people together is to give them a common enemy. They’re only physically together when they’re united in defending themselves against him.

Horde Prime understands the similarities between the two of them and breaks through both of their walls at the same time with the same tactic. “You Etherians are all alike. Such strong connections to one another. It’s what makes you weak.” It’s the unguarded vulnerabilities in Glimmer that poke holes in Catra’s plan of “parsing out information like a bargaining chip.” Though Catra and Glimmer have a common enemy now, they’re not yet coordinated and working with each other.

So we return now to the scene from 5x03 at the top of this post. Even the way it’s framed is significant. The scene could presumably have been presented from the other side, but seeing it from this angle allows me to infer some things about what’s being communicated.

They start out facing each other and we see their sleeved arms. Neither is quite ready to trust the other, so their walls are up. When they stand face-to-face with what they fear in themselves, they put their guards up. They’re both more-or-less equally guarded and equally vulnerable, but the guarded side is what the show’s creators are showing the audience, as well as what Catra and Glimmer are showing to each other in this moment.

The scenery around the two of them shows a stark contrast. Glimmer’s cell is brightly lit with simple architecture. Much of the space around Catra is dark and complicated.

As they open up to each other emotionally, they turn back-to-back and we’re shown their unsleeved arms. When they look away from what they fear in themselves, they let their guards down. Both of them lay a hand on their unsleeved arms, almost as if they’re subconsciously worried that they might need their walls at any moment to defend these vulnerabilities.

Their body language relaxes, though only fractionally in Catra’s case. Glimmer is a little more at ease, but Catra won’t let herself be quite as open and unguarded. Her fingers remain on that unsleeved arm, alert and ready to defend at a moment’s notice.

I’ve talked a bit about walls and defensiveness, but the way these two came to construct their walls is also important. Glimmer and Catra have both experienced hardships in their lives. Both of them grew up with only one close friend. They both felt pressure and a desire to prove themselves and they’ve both endured great tragedy in their young lives. Glimmer has developed more of the emotional tools to work through her pain and begin to heal. Catra is only at the beginning of the healing process and her pain comes from a very different source.

Glimmer spent the majority of her young life believing her father had been killed and then she lost her mother as well. Catra was either given up or orphaned and then taken in by an abusive family. Both experiences were surely traumatic. Catra’s walls are tougher for a reason though. A few reasons. The primary reason is that the source of her fear and pain was also her mother-figure.

Being traumatized by someone who should be on your side is different than other sources of trauma. And because Shadow Weaver is her parent, Catra also bonds with her and wants her approval. This is emotionally confusing and compounds Catra’s issues. Wanting love from Shadow Weaver is one of the reasons Catra hates herself for wanting love at all.

Not only is Catra traumatized by her parent, she also lacks any other parental guidance to help her process her trauma. Glimmer, even after losing her father, still had her mother. It’s after losing her mother that Glimmer really starts to lose balance emotionally. Though Catra had Adora, that kind of comfort is not the same as having the calming influence of a supportive parent to help a child cope with their trauma and assure the child that things will be okay. Further to that are the wedges that Shadow Weaver (and later Light Hope) employed to ensure that Catra and Adora would doubt each other. Then finally, Adora left the Horde and whatever comfort Catra had received from her turned poisonous. This was the thing that threw Catra’s sense of safety into chaos and unraveled any semblance of emotional balance. For much of the show, wanting love from Adora is one of the reasons Catra hates herself for wanting love at all.

This is all a roundabout way of explaining why Catra’s walls are so much thicker than Glimmer’s and why everything around her is dark and complicated. Glimmer has her own walls and coping mechanisms, but they’re constructed differently. Catra is largely driven by defensive panic responses. Glimmer is reactive and even reckless at times, especially after losing Angella, but she’s generally more able to slow down and sort through her feelings. Glimmer’s walls are constructed in such a way that they don’t impede her ability to grow and heal. Glimmer’s walls don’t keep as many things away, but her capacity to let the right people in is the trait that serves her best. The contrast between these two characters speaks volumes.

Season 5 is where Catra and Glimmer begin to learn from each other. They get past the initial reaction of simply being disgusted by seeing what they fear in themselves. They both make some appeals to each other for information and help. The barrier between them comes down again and Catra enters Glimmer’s space.

The audience is shown both sleeved arms. Walls are up. Catra uses both hands and takes Glimmer by the sleeved arm. The cake is in her unsleeved hand; it was an appeal to her vulnerable side. The full appeal from Catra that acknowledges Glimmer’s walls is the one that actually reaches her and gets Catra the information she wanted. It’s an appeal so strong that it can reach Glimmer through her walls, not just some simple ploy to prey on her softer side.

“You can’t tell him.” Glimmer uses both hands and takes Catra by the unsleeved arm. This is an appeal to Catra’s vulnerable side. And it echoes something that has previously frustrated Catra. “It’s always the same with you, Adora. I have to do this. Oh-oh, we have to do that.” This appeal to her softer side isn’t enough.

“Do one good thing in your life.” Glimmer uses both hands and takes Catra by the sleeved arm. The audience is shown both of their unsleeved arms. They’re both vulnerable here. It’s this appeal, which acknowledges Catra’s walls, that reaches her. Catra still reacts in fear, a response pattern that runs deep with her, but the message reaches her through her walls.

After processing some of her emotions, Catra returns, offering Glimmer her unsleeved arm. This is a vulnerable action from Catra.

Glimmer takes Catra’s hand with her sleeved arm.

This is the turning point. They represent each other’s insecurities, each vulnerable where the other defends. Glimmer has the tools to balance out Catra’s vulnerabilities. Glimmer’s sleeved arm meeting Catra’s unsleeved arm is like saying: “I’ve got your back.” If they’re confrontational to each other, or if they ignore each other, they’re both equally defended and equally vulnerable. But if they stand side by side...

...they can compensate for each other’s vulnerabilities. They embrace and understand the insecurities they were afraid of and together they have the tools to present a balanced front that can protect them both. Neither one of them was going to be able to succeed alone, but together they can accomplish more.

Catra knew where the teleporter was and could have escaped on her own, but that would not be success. As Glimmer pointed out, even if Catra runs away it won’t matter when Horde Prime destroys the universe. As Catra pointed out, Adora would still come to rescue Glimmer. It’s their combined knowledge that leads to the solution.

Getting Glimmer out is the key, but Glimmer is unable to do this alone. Catra has the knowledge of the teleporter, Catra has the knowledge as well as the physical combat skills necessary to overpower the clones, and Catra has to be the one to take down the barrier that divides the two of them. Only Catra is in a position to achieve this. In terms of emotional metaphors, Glimmer is ready to let Catra in, but that fact alone isn’t enough. Catra has to be willing as well.

And the plan succeeds. It’s Catra’s most vulnerable action yet and she stands willing to sacrifice herself. Catra sends Glimmer, this metaphorical representation of her own insecurities, to Adora. This action is the very thing that ultimately saves Catra. She’s stuck with Horde Prime and her defenses are all ripped away, but it’s this show of vulnerability that affords Adora and company the opportunity to come in prepared and save this defenseless cat. Glimmer’s willingness to forgive Catra is significant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that Catra is the party most responsible for the conditions that led to Angella’s sacrifice, and Glimmer cites Catra sacrificing herself on Horde Prime’s ship as the reason she’s willing to help Adora go back and save Catra.

And once she’s saved, when Catra next gets the liberty to determine her own outfit, as she treads a path of vulnerability and learning to follow her heart...

...the sleeve and fingerless gloves are gone. The costume she put on when she took her seat on Hordak’s throne has fallen away. That’s not who she wants to be anymore. Now she’s ready to start on the path of growing more into herself.

The push and pull contentious relationship between Catra and Glimmer has reached its conclusion, but there are still a few moments of interest. In 5x08, there are several instances where Catra questions what seem to be tactically unsound decisions from the Rebellion and they shrug off the concerns. Near the end of the episode, it’s Glimmer who questions the tactics and Catra who shrugs it off. This shows that they’re both getting more comfortable with each other and also both getting more comfortable with the parts in themselves that make them similar to each other.

In 5x10, when Catra finds herself in trouble, trapped and confronted with rising water, she calls Glimmer, knowing now that Glimmer is someone she can trust when she comes up against the limits of her own vulnerabilities.

In 5x12, Catra goes to Bow and Glimmer, looking for Adora. Glimmer informs Catra that Adora left them behind. Catra says: “Of course she’s gone. That’s what she does, isn’t it?” Glimmer was caught off guard by this, but Catra has recognized this vulnerability in Glimmer since Season 2. “You think she’s not going to leave you behind too, Sparkles.” This time Catra’s not just here criticize; she’s here to help. She warns Bow and Glimmer about Horde Prime’s plans and volunteers herself to take over helping Adora. Glimmer comes up against the limit of her vulnerabilities, but she can tag in Catra to help her now.

In the literal sense, this shows the value of letting other people in. In the metaphorical sense, it shows the value of accepting oneself. Learning from others, finding the common ground, gives us a fuller understanding than we can achieve on our own. No one can do everything alone, but working with people who are skilled where we come up short, guarded where we are vulnerable, and open where we are closed off is what unlocks the potential to accomplish things that would have otherwise been impossible.

I love that message, but I also love the metaphorical message. Glimmer and Catra have repeatedly seen in each other the things they were afraid of in themselves. Hating each other is tantamount to hating themselves and their acceptance of each other is tantamount to accepting themselves, which makes both of them more well-rounded and helps them to move forward.

And those lessons, to me, are among the most significant things about their intersecting journeys. They accept the differences in each other, they recognize the similarities in each other, and they come together to build each other up. It’s at once a journey of learning to accept others and a journey of learning to accept themselves. They learn that greeting their shortcomings with anger is ultimately self-destructive, ignoring these vulnerabilities is perilous, and it’s only through acceptance that they can begin to understand themselves, compensate for their limitations, and better themselves.

They each look into a mirror, see their own insecurities staring back at them, then decide to give that person a hug and say: “I’ve got your back.”

#SPoP #Catra #Glimmer #long post

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