#also glimmer-catra bonding | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spop-romanticizes-abuse · 5 months

Text

so this post is inspired by a person who sent an ask to @my-nitpicking-self (i hope you don't mind me tagging you), who mentioned the confrontation between katara and zuko in atla, in reference to glimmer's and catra's relationship in spop. i thought it was an interesting comparison, so i'm going to expand on it.

so two very similar scenes in atla and spop: katara and zuko being stuck together in crystal catacombs and glimmer and catra being stuck together in horde prime's ship. two things to note here - zuko was beginning to heal at this point and had almost completely given up his mission of capturing aang, while catra has just finished conquering salineas and was neck-deep in villainy.

as soon as katara sees zuko, she becomes outraged. keep in mind, zuko did not kill katara's mother. but she still had a valid reason to be mad at him. she holds him accountable for everything he has done.

K: Why did they throw you in here? Oh, wait, let me guess. It's a trap. So that when Aang shows up to help me, you can finally have him in your little Fire Nation clutches!

K: You're a terrible person! You know that? Always following us! Hunting the Avatar! Trying to capture the world's last hope for peace! But what do you care? You're the Fire Lord's son. Spreading war and violence and hatred is in your blood!

Z: You don't know what you're talking about.

K: I don't? How dare you! You have no idea what this war has put me through! Me personally! The Fire Nation took my mother away from me.

here, zuko doesn't try to argue with katara until she implies that violence and aggression is an inherited thing, because he's from the fire nation. zuko accepts his mistakes but he is also aware that being a fire nation citizen or even royalty alone doesn't make you a bad person. even then, he doesn't raise his voice or lash out at her, he just calmly disagrees.

after katara mentions her mother, he apologizes and sympathizes with her.

Z: I'm sorry. That's something we have in common.

K: I'm sorry I yelled at you before.

Z: It doesn't matter.

K: It's just that for so long now, whenever I would imagine the face of the enemy, it was your face.

katara also apologizes but zuko understands that it was completely in her right to blame him. and then we get to the crux of the issue. katara's mother was killed years ago but she still hasn't been able to move on from the grief.

now, of course, zuko again turns back to villainy but this was an important confrontation. and it wasn't the only one. as you all know, after zuko's official redemption, the gaang still doesn't trust him and katara is the last person to forgive him. she is still upset and disappointed by the way he betrayed her after they had begun to bond in the catacombs. and zuko has to prove his loyalty before katara could forgive him.

now let's come to glimmer and catra. catra DIRECTLY caused the death of glimmer's mother. and it was recent. glimmer had been grappling with her grief in the last season, to the point where she spirals into a small corruption arc. s4 of spop does NOT forget angella's death.

so obviously, you would expect there to be a confrontation between glimmer and catra in s5, especially since they were alone together in a confined space. but let's see what happened.

Glimmer: You again. Why do you keep coming back here?

Catra: Just...bored, I guess.

Glimmer: No, I mean, Horde Prime told you not to talk to me. He's gonna catch you eventually. Why risk it? ...You're lonely, aren't you?

so far, no confrontation, no apology.

Catra: What do you know? You're the prisoner here. I can go where I want. So, stay here by yourself for all I care.

Glimmer: Okay, okay, you're right. It...helps having someone to talk to. Even if you're the last person I'd ever want to be stuck here with.

Catra: Trust me, Sparkles, the feeling is mutual.

and just like that, they're on better terms now. glimmer doesn't bring up angella's death, she doesn't bring up the way catra treated adora, how she and bow were kidnapped by catra, nothing. they seem more like casual rivals than enemies here. catra doesn't seem guilty in the slightest, she just has to threaten to leave and glimmer immediately makes her stay.

and not just that, they joke about adora's paranoia that was rooted in her trauma, as if it's just a fun quirk. at this point, it's clear that the writers are not even trying to make it seem like they don't favor catra over all the characters.

and the one time glimmer somewhat confronts catra—

G: Please, Catra. Do one good thing in your life!

C: Don't talk to me like you know me! You don't know anything about me!

of course, catra shuts her down immediately. and afterwards, even when catra saves glimmer, she makes it clear that she's only doing it for adora. while on the surface, this might still come off as a good deed, it's clear from her later behaviour that catra's goal wasn't to help either adora or glimmer. my best guess is that she was practically awaiting death at that point and didn't expect to face the consequences of her actions, so she wanted to go out with one good deed, much like shadow weaver.

it's crazy how zuko, who was just an antagonist and has done very little to directly hurt the gaang, faced the consequences of his actions and got a drawn out and detailed redemption; while catra, who spent the entire series hurting the protagonists out of her own interest, gets off scot-free.

any time her past actions are brought up, they are mentioned in the vaguest terms possible i.e. “she made some mistakes” or “shs hurt people”. it's so clear that the writers were hoping that if the other characters forgot everything that catra did, the audience would do the same. and the worst part is that they're right. 90% of the fandom were willing to accept catra's redemption because no one in the show ever holds her accountable or confronts her properly.

#spop critical #spop #spop salt #spop criticism #spop discourse #she ra #anti catradora #anti catra #anti spop #anti c//a #antic//a #anticatra #anticatradora

82 notes · View notes

anti-spop · 4 months

Text

not the first post to talk about this, but what was the point of bringing micah back?

don't get me wrong, i love this character. he had so much potential, especially his reunion with glimmer. but for most of his screentime, micah is just turned into a joke. in s5 he's basically an awkward dad to frosta, even though micah already learned that glimmer is not a little girl anymore, so i don't get why he's trying to bond with someone who's younger than this daughter. his reunion with glimmer was also too short. it feels like they decided to add it at the last minute since they wanted c//a to be canon so badly.

and worse, micah was chipped, which was the show's way of pushing aside all the other characters (especially as most of them were the ones hurt by catra, which includes him since he lost angella). again, i love micah, but he was useless. it felt like it was just so glimmer didn't end up an orphan. even though i'm not against bringing micah back on itself, the way spop handled it was awful. micah deserved respect and he deserved a proper reunion with glimmer.

#i post #spop critical

54 notes · View notes

should-have-been-at-the-club · 2 months

Text

Round 1 Match 26: They Should Have Been At The Club Tournament

Propaganda below the cut.

Propaganda for Adora:

Adora was raised by an evil force, The Horde, with an abusive mother figure, Shadow Weaver, that manipulated and abused Adora and her found/adopted sister, Catra, before leaving The Horde.

Adora also suffered through the pressure of being She-Ra and had fight The Horde that’s trying to take over the world. Which included her ex-friend, Catra, who’s a toxic cat-woman who’s quite unhealthy obsessive of Adora and is quite abusive and manipulative to Adora and tortured Adora when fighting with her. Adora also literally had to save the entire world - TWICE - from literally ending. One time from her toxic ex-friend who literally stated that she didn’t care if she ENDED THE WORLD, as long as Catra got back on Adora for “leaving” her. (a.k.a refusing the request and/or from Adora to leave the abusive force that she and Adora were raised in with her, due to the fact that Adora bonded with some people that isn’t Catra that Adora met a day or less ago). And a second time from an Alien cultist who wanted to destroy the planet -and all life on it - in order to conquer it, which is something that Adora nearly failed and died attempting to do so. Adora also saw a few people she knew die (Angelia and She nearly died some other times within the series as well.

So because all of the trauma, abuse, pressure, and $h!t that Adora went through within the series as a young adult, she deserves to party and have fun hanging out (with Glimmer and Bow) in the club.

Propaganda for Noa Enomoto:

She was raised in a cult and dedicated her whole life to following its leader

#should have been at the club tournament #round 1 #adora #spop #she-ra #noa enomoto #cell of empireo #anti catradora #(was informed i should tag that last one)

46 notes · View notes

n7punk · 2 months

Text

“Embrace the Blame (Love the Fall”) Fic Notes

EtB(LtF) is done! For what feels like the first time in a while, a fic managed not to get away from me lol, it just got a little epilogue continuation but otherwise was all good.

Epilogue Life:

I have so many thoughts it’s hard cutting them off.

Adora’s trip home is hard, but it is good overall, and she realizes during it that the reason Hope hasn’t mentioned church when talking is because she doesn’t go a lot anymore (more details lower down). Adora certainly wasn’t going to go with her — Shadow is guaranteed to be there, and Adora can’t be held liable for what she does the next time they meet — but church is pretty much never brought up during her visit. Hope still isn’t perfect, but she’s trying her best, and though Adora discovers bad memories around town along with the good, it turns out to be a lot easier to process now that Catra is back in her life. She kind of tells Hope that she’d like to see her again at Christmas, but in a noncommittal way since she really doesn’t know what that will hold for them.

The rest of the summer is just good. Catra’s internship is hard but valuable, as is Adora’s job assisting Netossa, and they both still have more time than they would during the school year to just be together and have fun with their friends. It’s great for bonding and falling deeper in love, and for integrating their friend groups properly in a way they just didn’t really have time for before.

Catra isn’t ready to go home that Christmas — isn’t sure she ever wants to — and when Adora regretfully informs Hope she doesn’t want to leave Catra alone for Christmas, they take another big step and Hope comes to visit them for the first time. It’s a little weird, but Catra is more comfortable seeing Hope again on their turf, and it turns out to be a good Christmas even around the bittersweet parts. Hope expresses approval for Catra to the best of her ability and that kind of takes Catra out for the afternoon. She doesn’t cry, but that doesn’t mean she’s not emotional enough to.

When they do finally visit home again, it’s a year later, after they have both graduated, Catra a few months established in a role at the company she interned with and Adora freshly moved to a job at a pottery studio, which isn’t exactly where she wants to be, but hey, it’s in her sector. They aren’t visiting because of work, though — they’re engaged and planning their wedding, which absolutely isn’t going to be back home, or be traditional, but they come back for the visit to celebrate and to get some of Adora’s old things from Hope. It’s just a few days, but Catra doesn’t have a bad experience like she feared and she’s more willing to come back for occasional visits to Hope after that, even if their hometown is never going to be her favorite place.

(Like I said, I can keep going, so I’ll just put Shadow’s reaction to that news lower down because I need to at least break this up)

Also I fully planned for Glimmer and Bow to get together in this but then they needed to not be together up until chapter seven and there just wasn’t room to fit it in at that point BUT know that they get together over the summer and everybody ends up laughing about how dumb they were lmao.

Chapter 1:

⦁ Title is from “There’s People Watching” by Jade LeMac.

⦁ I had to edit the fic disclaimer because uhhhh a lot of things happened in this fic I didn’t initially plan. I went into this fic pantsing everything past like, chapter one, so I didn’t know the flashbacks were coming up or any of the partying stuff. Some of this stuff is things I generally avoid, but ideas adjacent to them have come up before, so I decided to just go all in on All The Stuff for this fic.

⦁ Originally this fic opened with a (very brief) flashback scene of the night Catra left, and then I moved it to the opening of chapter 2, but that just wasn’t right so I included Adora remembering that line and that was it.

⦁ The food/dining halls/library/dorms in this fic are just straight up the ones from my own college.

⦁ For non-Americans, Title IX is basically our diversity/inclusion act so like if someone is discriminating against you based on gender or whatever (in a school setting) it protects you.

Chapter 2:

⦁ Title is from “So What Now” By Renee Rapp.

⦁ There was a while there would I would spin the wheels of my little Lego tuk tuk whenever I was in a virtual appointment and that’s where the car thing came from.

⦁ Shoutout to my freshmen year neighbor who would shout “papi” while having makeup sex.

⦁ “Catra flashes her a smile, the innocent one that has always pulled on something inside Adora she never understood but somehow makes her very aware of her tongue in her mouth.” Gee it’s almost like you want to stick your tongue down her throat or something.

⦁ Adora talking about how Catra didn’t change here was explicitly to set up the slow realization that she did. The theme of this fic is change and growth, really — both when it happens and when it doesn’t. No matter how they change, they still were those little girls and that’s so important to how they are now and they can’t let that love they had go. They can’t change in a way that makes them not love each other and even when Adora didn’t change and it was hurting Catra, Catra loved her then, too.

⦁ I mentioned it in my notes here, but I’ve written some of these story beats out of a lot of fics. Tip of her tongue was initially a hiding sexuality story, with Catra running after kissing Adora because the girl who interrupted them called her a dyke and she didn’t want Adora to have to deal with that. Catra cut her hair and everything to put the “blame” on her, it was a whole thing. I had a high school AU dealing with Adora pretending to be straight for a while that never went anywhere too. I finally “got” to do my comphet story here, by which I mean I could have done it at any time but I both didn’t and just got in my head about not wanting to when I kind of did, so I’m glad to have finally gotten it out of my head.

Chapter 3:

⦁ Title is from “There’s People Watching” by Jade LeMac again.

⦁ “Send me something cute” with a wink means “send me a selfie” but Catra’s too resigned for that.

⦁ Catra did NOT buy her sweater, it was her Castaspella Assigned Sweater her first Christmas with Glimmer’s family.

⦁ By complete accident a video about video game elevators came up and played while I was in the middle of writing the elevator scene. As Adora was trying to awkwardly say she didn’t look the narrator went “You can use elevators to force characters into awkward conversation” with a shot of an anime that I swear looked like RGU but I’ve never seen that show and don’t know if elevators exist in it, it was just a hell of a coincidence.

Chapter 4:

⦁ Uhhhh this wasn’t supposed to be here. There was a single paragraph in the last chapter talking about times they had kissed before, and then I went to do a fic note expanding on it, and I… just couldn’t stop. So this happened.

⦁ Here’s an abbreviated version of what that note looked like: Times Catra and Adora kissed: - 1 We definitely need to know how to kiss for this party - 2 I’ll show you how to kiss for your boyfriend (please like it better with me) - 3 Weaver was being homophobic and Catra kissed Adora out of nowhere when she was comforting her, which Adora interpreted as Catra coming out to her. For two days afterwards Catra thought there was a slim chance, despite Adora’s clueless responses on the night of, that they might be dating before a Very Straight comment from Adora brought Catra down to earth. - 4 Actual spin the bottle in the hallway during a school dance. - 5 :) Wouldn’t you like to know (This is the drunk makeout scene, which I didn’t actually write because I wasn’t comfortable doing it for consent reasons. Drunk makeouts can be agreed on and fine (see Glimmer and Catra) but with all the shame Adora felt from it and with her being shitfaced, it didn’t feel good to actually outline, so I skipped to the aftermath instead, which I think better showed Adora’s internalized shame and how it caused her to reject Catra anyway.)

⦁ Whenever I need a random background NPC I just pull up the He-Man wiki and look at the characters list for something that fits enough from the original She-ra. Yes, it’s not a reliable source of information, but I’d hope it’s base character names are at least correct. Aliases I’m less confident in lol.

⦁ “He’ll want to impress you. That’s what I’d do.” That’s what you’d do? Something you want to share with the class, Catra? It seems like you’ve thought about this a lot.

⦁ Catra’s insistence on teenage boys sucking is partially the gender norms Shadow perpetuates, partially her own repulsion to the entire idea of heterosexuality she doesn’t quite have a handle on yet, and part of her trying to convince Adora of all those ideas so Adora will just ignore all those boys and only be her friends for tooooootally normal reasons <3 Definitely.

⦁ Catra was not invited to Caleb’s party, btw, it was just a (pretty obvious) condition of Adora’s attendance that Catra would be there too. Because besties don’t let besties miss out on parties or leave the other alone for their first “real” kiss. Obviously.

⦁ I just find these freshmen being sure high school is like on TV and all sophomores must have done ton of kissing hilarious, but it’s a very Kid thing to believe.

⦁ When I was a kid the game Trace Memory taught me the word crud because the protagonist Ashley said it whenever, you know, you would normally say a swear word. This led to me saying it a lot because it was something I could “get away with” before my mom informed me I could not, actually, get away with it. To this day my mom (who isn’t religious, by the way) insists that crap, damn, and hell are all Swear Words, which I disagree with. I mean those last two, sure, I just don’t ascribe to Christianity. “Crap” though? What the fuck? That is not a “swear word”. It might not be an innocent word, but it is not a fucking swear by any means. You do not have to bleep it out or limit the number of them that appear in a movie to maintain a PG-13 rating or whatever (rumor is you get one “fuck” btw).

⦁ My dark elf lore comes from Knifepoint, with Shadow Weaver’s appearance generally matching her Mystacor look and “dark elves” dubbed so because they are a race of elves with a high degree of photosensitivity that must either cover up or avoid the sunlight to avoid burns and a greatly increased risk of cancer. More info in my “Races” fic extra if you’re interested.

⦁ Shadow’s “reminders” for Adora to bring Catra are both because she thinks Catra is more likely to listen to Adora, and to reinforce for them both what a model daughter should look like. She makes Catra see Adora following expectations every time they see each other, later telling Catra that is what she should be like and slowly driving an uncomfortable wedge between them, reinforcing that Catra will never be Adora and never be good enough for her.

⦁ If I remember the puritan crime severity ranking right, it goes like Blasphemy > Adultery > Murder, which is why Adora brings it up in reference to Shadow’s own sin ranking list. That, and the rumor is that the reason Shadow’s life is how it is is because her husband left her (true) for committing adultery (ehhh it was mostly just because she was a terrible person) so she has dedicated the rest of her life to making herself appear “upstanding” by society’s standards after she “failed in her duties as a wife” (the way the church sees it — she doesn’t feel she has duties to anyone but herself, but she wants them to perceive her as capable), which is actually why she ended up fostering Catra, to appear as close as she could to the vision of a woman put together. She also… has the whole fucked up thing where she “relates” to Catra and wants to make things as hard for her as possible because she thinks she sees herself in her and life was never fair to her (she says in her $800,000 house).

⦁ The coming out scene takes place following one of the incidents Catra alludes to later at the party.

⦁ Adora vision: Oh, she’s kissing me so that I know she’s gay and for no other reason. I will not examine this further.

⦁ I’m convinced spin the bottle isn’t real tbqh, but this fic is me finally doing all the high school &college tropes I haven’t done or have only brushed against over the years, so yeah, it gets thrown in there.

⦁ Alright the spin the bottle scene I wrote in the car so the names just got pulled out of my ass.

Chapter 5:

⦁ Chapter title is from She’s Pretty by Beth McCarthy

⦁ Scorpia is watching “She Loves To Eat”, a lesbian manga/TV show that my friends have loved. It’s actually about all kinds of food but “cooking” just felt weird in that sentence (like it implies some kind of Top Chef thing) so I went with baking.

⦁ Lesbians will literally hide under the bed and call it romantic instead of admitting their feelings.

⦁ It was honestly hard to type Christmas in a fic instead of Winterfest lmao. Making Christianity exist is really antithetical to my usual views. Winterfest is a stand-in for a number of holidays, including New Years traditions, but new years is secular so I usually still leave mention of it as the name for the final day of Winterfest.

⦁ The Dean’s Spotlight is like, another version of a thing we did have at my school, shifted to the left. For this fic the spotlight is basically the faculty nominating the student they think is the best showcase of their school (academics, extracurriculars, and standards wise). Fall highlights one senior and spring nominates one junior, so you only ever have two chances of being picked, but it’s a great networking opportunity.

⦁ Hope doesn’t mention church here because she stopped going every week. She still does it a lot, but while she could go and punish herself with guilt for the rest of her life, there came a point where she just couldn’t keep doing it to Adora once it started to cost her their relationship. Adora brought a little of Mara’s glow back into her life and she couldn’t lose that joy again She did go to church the next Sunday after their phone call though, and made a point of sitting next to Shadow, who of course noticed and struck up “polite conversation” (digging for information as to why she’s approaching her since she usually doesn’t). Hope wasn’t fooled and told her she was just thinking of her because she spoke with Adora that week and she was thinking how much more they used to see each other when they were coordinating their daughters’ playdates. Shadow’s response was “Yes, that will change when your daughter goes off to college and stops speaking to you in favor of a life of sin”. No matter how coolly it was spoken it was the exact opening Hope needed. “Yes, I suppose she has been busy”. This immediately piqued Shadow’s interest because while it wasn’t the first thing Hope ever said about Catra post Catra cutting Shadow off, it was the first in a long time (she said it was not her business to meddle in family at first and barely said anything even before the fallout. She might not have hated Shadow — at the time — but she also didn’t wholly agree with what she saw of her parenting philosophies). Shadow’s response was something to the effect of “What has she gotten herself into now?” to which Hope responded “Nothing bad, making Dean’s Spotlight just takes a lot of work. It’s not an honor lightly earned. Adora could use learning some of her discipline”. Hope wasn’t actually trying to shit on Adora, just make the conversation seem more natural. It’s something she might have said back when Adora was in high school, which was the last time she and Shadow really spoke frequently. Shadow said some stuff about Adora having discipline in other important areas (unaware she came out) and tried to lightly pry for more but Hope got a lot more reluctant to speak after that.

Chapter 6:

⦁ Chapter title from Not My Fault by Renee Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion

⦁ Adora’s whole thing about Bow wanting in a different way than she does is just from how the idea that sometimes it feels like everyone else must be fine on the inside or feeling some pure ideal of emotion instead of everyone just being fucking messy like you, but when you assume everyone else is feeling the Pure™️ kind of sadness with just yearning and no Problematic Jealousy™️ you’re just setting yourself up for disaster because everyone’s emotions are messy.

⦁ Man I miss the art studio I did my freshmen year art project in. Sure, working in it was fucking miserable when it was hot out, but all the light was so great and despite the noise having a fume and particulate hood was really handy. I’ve been doing a lot more crafts project recently and I just do them in my “office” which is a tiny bedroom with a single window that’s on the side of the house that never gets any light it’s sad.

⦁ Lonnie picked up everything Catra was putting down and found it hilarious considering she and Adora were just friends. She wasn’t surprised when Adora started gushing about her girlfriend not long after.

Chapter 7:

⦁ Title from “Friendship Bracelet” by Beth McCarthy

⦁ Adora started freaking out as soon as she got on the phone with Catra for obvious reasons, but she was also internally worried that Catra had attached to someone else there who might not have her best interests.

⦁ They are having two entirely different conversations while Adora is trying to get Catra home. The second Catra says she wants something and Adora stops, her drunk mind assumes Adora knows what she wanted (her) and when she says she can have it when they get home, Catra just goes yayyy make out time! Meanwhile Adora is just like work with me here and you can get as bitey as you want okay. They are living in two different worlds as usual.

⦁ So the original outline of this scene was uh. A little darker. I’ll be honest, I find the final version of the drunk Catra scenes very funny because I love sloppy Catra, but the original outline of the scene called for her getting further in trying to kiss Adora and then crying more than she did and kind of rambling all her insecurities and outright asking Adora why she was toying with her. The final version is the right version.

Chapter 8:

⦁ If I have to tell you this chapter’s title is from “Curious” by Hayley Kiyoko I really don’t know why you’re here.

⦁ Adora does eventually convince Catra to visit the student counseling center, but it isn’t until the next semester, and Catra doesn’t make it a long term habit, just going in for a few sessions to work through some stuff and moving on. There’s processing to do, but she is also one of those people where talking about it only helps so much until it hurts instead.

⦁ Adora got that hopeful smile because Catra’s eyes blew out when she stepped into her view, just like she did the night before, and then she slow-blinked at her immediately after not denying she wanted the things she asked her for last night, but Catra as freaking out a little too much to be that self-aware.

⦁ Not to be NSFW for a teen fic but I do think this Catradora take a little longer than normal to get intimate, but once Adora is comfortable and ready she’s all in.

⦁ The kiss motivation method is an actual thing me and my girlfriend did freshmen year and yes it helps the ADHD but it also makes it worse because you’re thinking about getting the next kiss instead of the dumb textbook lmao.

Chapter 9:

⦁ Title is from “I Think I’m Growing?” by Fletcher.

⦁ This was supposed to be the end of chapter eight, but it felt more right to split it off and make it its own thing, even if it makes for a very short epilogue. It keeps chapter eight the same length as all the rest of the normal chapters (minus the 5 + 1 shoved in the middle of this fic) too, so I decided to split it off even though I was hoping not to increase the chapter count on this one. I have a really terrible habit but my policy is always what’s best for the story and not what’s best for a number so splitting off these “looking forward” scenes was right.

⦁ Entrapta’s relationship with her parents is largely transactional and they just aren’t close at all, so she has to consider the scenario where they deem the transaction “isn’t worth it” anymore. It’s not actually something that would happen, but they just have a weird relationship overall. They aren’t bad people (I mean, they aren’t Shadow), just busy and kind of neglectful, so Entrapta finds a lot more support in her friends, and wanting to be with those friends and have community she didn’t experience growing up is why she likes to share an apartment.

⦁ The waterpark is based on an actual park I used to visit that could hold (and usually did hold) thousands of people at once. The pools would just be seas of bodies, it was insane. I haven't been in years and probably won't ever again because swimming and masking don't exactly mix. It was often manned by college students in the summer rushes, though.

⦁ Okay continuing from the epilogue section: Shadow’s reaction to them getting engaged. True to the protocol of the first few years, Hope doesn’t really tell Shadow anything that’s going on in their lives after that time Adora drops hints for her to, and she sees her a lot more rarely as Hope starts to fade in her faith, so she goes back to just brushing her prying off for years. The engagement is big enough to break that form, especially because Catra drops hints again when they visit that maybe Shadow should know about it. Hope goes back to church the weekend after they leave (her first time in a month — listen, going a few weeks between visits is “falling off” for her. She visits once every month or two at this point, but she is still involved in certain initiatives she deems important, like the annual toy drive). When standing around with a bunch of the older ladies afterwards talking — Shadow included — they’re talking about their “joys” that week and Hope says that hers is that her daughter just got engaged. Shadow is immediately alert as the church ladies offer Hope congratulations and Hope is just quiet and gracious about it. When asked about Adora’s suitor, Hope just says they visited together that week and it’s good to see her so in love. She’s lucky to be marrying her best friend. The ladies just aww and talk about how it’s a shame they had to leave before Sunday so they couldn’t meet them, but Shadow know what that means, and she’s quietly seething. Honestly it’s mostly impressive that she waits until she can catch Hope in semi-private out in the parking lot that she asks if she’s allowing that, which like, wicked not her choice dude, but it’s more like is she enabling it and acting like it’s okay. The answer is just “yes” and Hope ignores her protests otherwise, continuing on to her car. Shadow definitely considers outing them to hopefully have the rest of their congregation exert pressure on Hope for Hope to exert pressure on Adora and Catra to “correct”, but ultimately it would expose her own “failure as a parent” when it came to raising Catra “right”, so it just becomes a “painful secret” for her to bare.

Original Outline:

Since I was wicked winging this one, there really wasn’t an original outline to deviate from. Basically I had the entire first chapter outlined and then… nothing else. Sometimes it’s fun to do a fanfic off the cuff like that.

The one “big change” was my original idea had Catra living in an apartment with the BFS, but I wanted one of them to live on campus.

I also had this vague idea (inspired by “I only smoke to feel bad” by KiNG MALA) where Catra would have another friend group and they would kind of be stoners. She would have someone in that group who she sometimes kind of hooked up with (I went with Glitra instead) and after reconnecting with Adora, Catra goes to one of their hangouts, gets high with them, and then freaks out when that girl gets flirty with her because she’s in a weird frame of mind and suddenly all she wants is Adora again and this just feels very wrong. Because she’s anxious-high she doesn’t do the logical thing of “hey I’m not feeling this” and instead leaves to call Adora to come pick her up. She doesn’t explain much other than “I’m high and I want to go home” at which point Adora is immediately out the door and not leaving her to navigate the bus system. It was supposed to help push them a little more towards being vulnerable with each other as Adora takes her home and tries to take care of her, because I was envisioning their relationship as still being kind of antagonistic at that point.

You can see how that idea became the party scene. There were some things with that I just didn’t want to write, and I think the party version is way more fun, more logical with the set up of the world and characters (which didn’t exist when I had that first idea), and more fitting for where they were in the story.

Aside from that and stuff previously mentioned, it was all off the cuff.

Meta:

Playlist

Upcoming:

To be 100% honest next I’m going to work on my SPOP Big Bang fic which y’all aren’t going to see for months, but then I’m probably going to do the ******** AU. Not saying exactly what that is because a certain subset of people are going to be feral for it and I know it’s at least going to be a bit before I’m ready for it, but since there’s a whole fic between here and there my whims could change too. We’ll see! Updates on my Tumblr as always.

#etbltf #ficmeta #fic notes

22 notes · View notes

baggebythesea · 1 year

Note

One of my big Post Season 5 things I like is Glimmer trying to start a "Princess outreach initiative"

Basically Glimmer wants Princesses to try and interact more with their people so that they don't appear to scary to non magic wielding people.

I love that a lot, especially after Horde Prime's anti-princess propaganda campaign there is a lot of work to do.

Cue heartwarming when they get to bond with little adorable mushroom people, hillarious when Mermista decides that since her kingdom consists of pirates, 'outreach' means beating up everyone in that bad-guy-bar in Sea Worthy (it works) and and heartwrenching when they have to first hand process other peoples' grief and loss throughout the war.

There will also be some wanna-be-cool leatherclad teenager who's just 'fuck you, princess. I'm a cool outlaw I reject monarchy' and Glimmer tries SO HARD to win her over and in the end Catra is just 'out of the way, Sparkles, I've got this' and the girl fangirls over BadGirlCatra SO HARD and Glimmer is all fuming in the background.

#spop #glimmer #mermista #catra

102 notes · View notes

lavenderstobins · 27 days

Note

idk if you’ve spoken about this in a while but i’d love to hear more about the ronance catradora au

personally, i feel like nancy and adora have the same energy and robin and catra have the same energy but i also feel in terms of plot and all, nancy as catra just makes sense, same with robin and adora

i would love to know what you think since this has been on my mind for the past hour 😭

i see both options!

realistically, in terms of energy/attitude i do agree that nancy and adora have similarities and robin and catra have similarities. robin would handle the rejection similarly to catra while nancy would pick up the hero mantle.

that being said, i actually think character-wise and plotwise that robin as adora and nancy as catra makes more sense. robin is too empathetic to stay with the horde while nancy renounces them; nancy, however, while empathetic, would be more willing to get things done for the greater good.

nancy has her guard up, is slow to form new relationships, and lets her emotions drive her more than anything. this alone rules her out as adora in my opinion as I don't see her forming a bond with whoever bow and glimmer would be, especially after being held captive. nancy wouldn't even be held captive by them. robin, though, is shown to be clumsy and forms quick friendships (look at her dynamic with dustin and erica in s3). she, to me, fits adora's style of heroism much more than nancy does.

nancy as catra, though? that's the biggest hook for me. nancy taking what feels like a rejection, in my opinion, would spur her down catra's path. nancy is the leader. nancy is the planner. nancy is very rarely wrong. she's smart enough to know what the horde is doing, like catra is, but to ultimately believe it's the best course of action, because it's all she knows. nancy wants to prove herself, to be something, and whoever shadoweaver would be would be able to take advantage of that.

i don't see nancy being as naive as adora is in some situations. she'd know what's going on but be smart enough to keep quiet. and, honestly, if robin had asked her to run away with her separately to rejecting the horde and embracing helping her 'new friends', I think nancy would've joined her. as it is, because it's nancy asking robin to come back and robin saying 'no, this is wrong', nancy takes it like a slap to the face, because in her eyes robin isn't rejecting the horde, she's rejecting her.

as a side note, i think plot-wise it makes more sense too. i think max could fit glimmer's character and lucas could fit bow's and steve's like, their bodyguard, or something. in which case, robin stumbling into that dynamic makes Sense. (erica fits frosta pretty well also, and dustin as entrapta).

robin's schtick is that underneath it all she's kind. she wants to help people. nancy does, too, but overall nancy is less concerned with people's feelings than she is getting she wants. robin puts on a tough front, but it immediately crumbles the moment she's actually close to someone.

this is all an extremely long-winded way to say that I personally see robin as adora and nancy as catra (especially because it makes their dynamics delicious), but I like both options!

#asks #anonymous #answered #ronance catradora au #st shera au #stranger things #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #ronance #i need to add the au to my masterlist tbh

9 notes · View notes

inflammatoryfandomblog · 11 months

Text

okay. so voltron’s second season (”seasons” 3-6) were. well.

i have to say that i sort of vastly preferred the first production block. i definitely think the show was more in its element with the episodic “defeat zarcon” stuff than with... to be honest, i have no idea what’s happening.

i mean it started off pretty good. could have gone in a lot of directions. i was interested in the idea of lotor, whose ideology seemed to be a very good contrast to zarcon’s but still seemed to be a good villain. a darker side to the alteans, the fact that the lions can bond to multiple paladins, etc etc etc.

like idk, i know there are people that would take issue with it but it would have been kinda cool if various characters could bond to the different lions sometimes, and the relationship with each one could reveal something about the character. like maybe it would have been a contrast to zarcon, who was hyperfixated on the black lion and thought that because it was the leader, it was the Important One or whatever.

anyways this is called “inflammatoryfandomblog” and it’s time for the griping.

-> the plot is about quintessence, which... the galra empire depends on for some reason, even though it was really the druids we’ve seen use it before, and they were destroying whole planets for the stuff and using it to power zarcon’s little ego “i’m going to get the lions trip.” it’s kind of unclear what else uses it. and i think that’s like my main issue with this season/production block? aside from the S1-like episodes, it feels very muddled and hard to really get into.

i just. am trying to make sense of lotor’s plan. or haggar’s plan. or what they each wanted. or what even what quintessence does. quintessence seems to be like, a... theme-thing... for being too entrenched in the past and what you’ve lost, and so being poisoned by it is losing sight of the present by trying to recreate it. at least that’s what makes the most sense. it’s not, uh, subtle--but it’s not used well enough to relieve it of the Magical Bullshit feeling.

(this is something she-ra has over voltron; whatever plot magic BS happens is generally woven in better, thematically, with adora and glimmer and catra--but this just might be because there’s a lot less characters and she-ra very early on drops the pretense of being political in any way; it’s the type of series that’s very transparent with that--it says “yeah lmao our world doesn’t matter this is basically a basic family story with princess/scifantasy icing”, while voltron is very different in this regard, and so this approach does it no favors, because how it developed its world was a very good selling point for me in the first production block)

like “oh we just offer them more quintessence and they’ll listen to me” seems like a really bad justification for......... anything......... and idk if they even needed that plotline, i feel like lotor wanting to create an “inclusive/fair empire” is a pretty interesting oxymoron without the weird altean magic stuff. that haggar also unlocked. somehow. i wasn’t very invested in it i suppose; it failed to sort of convince me at any point of being true to the setting, which was a real strength of the first season.

-> i remember being miffed at the lack of shiro/lotor interactions (i mean, the lack of interactions sort of gave it away that this shiro was not worth investing into, especially since it was so telegraphed that druidlady was controlling him, but i was annoyed at the time) because i dunno, real!shiro and lotor could have built up an understanding re: being forced by zarcon to do bad stuff. generally the shiro clone plot is very meh, i feel it would have been better if a) the “real” shiro was actually taken to be some sort of trojan or he’s dead and the clone has to reckon with what it means and be an actual character or b) shiro’s spirit guided them and he was a mentor figure the entire way through, only getting back into a body at some point or another.

generally the entire clone plotline was just kind of worse than most possible alternatives to it, including having both shiros be alive and kicking. as it is now shiro is basically the same as the one from the first production block and can’t have changed.

-> for a second, since most of my predictions panned out in some way, that shiro *was* actually going to be zarcon all along. that would have been wild. similarly a very funny alternate universe is one where the gang splits the comet, gives half of it to the evil alteans and half of it to the galra and simply lets them fight.

-> i liked that the characters went off and had lives/missions outside of voltron (or at least, pidge/keith) and had a few episodes dedicated to those. those, aside from the early “season 3″ episodes and the fun one-shot ones were very enjoyable breaks from the mostly incoherent main plot. i had fun watching them instead of being like “hmm. so this is a Thing now” in the Main Story

i really feel that ultra-dramatic storytelling is not these writers’ strong suit. which, fair, i mean, i’m not a writer, but i don’t think it’s a stretch to say that they’re a lot better with episodes with some implications as opposed to long, serialized, dramatic structures as a group. i think it might just be a matter of experience; most cartoons until the 2010s were very episodic, and longer stories just have more production/meddling complications which are non-trivial, whereas with episodes, if something doesn’t work... you can just dump it. but episode-episodes also don’t play well with streaming. just kind of an unfortunate media-landscape conundrum there.

(note that japanese animation for example, while it’s very serialized, most of the time has the benefit of having source material already laid out for it. really the equivalent of something like that are like, comic book shows i guess.)

-> animation is really stellar and action is very good. studio mir is great. they always stick the landing.

-> i guess i like that they tried to do something with the idea of “the evil emperor is dead/gone, now what?” which is kind of a difficult plot to write honestly, especially when the main cast are transformer-power-rangers, it’s not obvious how to make them relevant enough to have the focus on them. (and in classic fashion, i don’t really like making suggestions.)

-> lance is going to get with allura nooooooo. i was really invested in the idea that he defects because of a hot girl. instead he just gets jealous of lotor. the sad thing is i really think they could have been at least good friends (lance/allura). the scene where allura replicates trying to flirt with the blue lion is really funny, and lance bringing out everyone’s goofballness would have been a good variant on his general archetype. instead lance is mostly Annoying and gets a few disconnected Scenes. i can’t even really think of a good lance episode this season.

-> pidge baby though. she’s obviously flawed (esp with the prisoner exchange stuff like wth lady) and like. the main plot is dead to me at this point. but i really liked her side episodes. same with keith etc etc.

-> predictions for next season (if i get around to watching it):

-> 1. sendak (zendak?) invades earth. “YOU EARTHLINGS DEFEATED ME LIKE A CHUMP... LOOK WHO’S THE CHUMP NOW???” -> 2. allura and coran start a cow extermination policy -> 3. everyone gets sent to a mental institution and they have to break out -> 4. haggar does some quintessence bullshit and tries to revive lotor or whatever. zombie lotor is horribly mangled and rips a hole through reality again! -> 5. shiro binge-watches all the series he’s missed in the time he’s been dead. he likes kdramas or wuxia. not anime though. -> 6. ?????? lance becomes embroiled in cuban politics. just randomly. (he’s the one who likes anime.)

#vld #reactions #me.txt #begone thought #maybe #i feel like it's really not THAT bad.#i don't really understand the fans' hate for it. to me i sort of got more or less what i expected.#i mean there are worse series out there that promise more upfront #i didn't particularly expect this show to be very Deep and the plot is blockbuster movie basically. maybe b-movie.#i like the action. i like the ideas. the main plot kinda bad though #which is like. honestly. most action shows.

28 notes · View notes

call-me-double-trouble · 9 months

Text

Double Trouble Headcanons

--LIZARD-RELATED HEADCANONS--

Double Trouble is a cross between a gecko and a chameleon, but mostly chameleon.

Double Trouble can climb on walls like a gecko, but they have to be barefoot. They don't wear socks, and they slip their shoes off and carry them with their tail, mouth, or shapeshift an extra arm to carry them while they flee from danger on a wall or ceiling.

Being cold-blooded, DT prefers to share a bed with someone warm or use a heated blanket, since regular blankets don't really help when they don't have their own body heat to insulate.

DT has a diet of insects, fruit, and leafy greens like an actual chameleon. They can also extend their tongue and catch insects with it. They and the others develop a game where someone holds a piece of food as far as their tongue can stretch, and Glimmer stands at the same distance and teleports to them to see if she can get there faster than they can catch the food. She hasn't bested them yet, but keeps trying.

That said, they had chicken once and LOVED IT. It's their guilty pleasure. If promised chicken, you can weasel a few favors out of them.

Also like a chameleon, DT used to change colors when they were angry, sad, frightened, and happy, but they taught themselves to stop so they wouldn't give away their emotions.

Being a reptile and not a mammal, DT is lactose-intolerant and avoids dairy entirely. The closest they can get to enjoying dairy is vegan substitutes.

DT sheds their skin like all reptiles. And just like a gecko, they immediately eat it. It's so natural to them that they don't even think about it and don't understand why non-reptiles find it gross.

DT used to be self-conscious about their more reptilian traits, but learned to love themselves and stop caring what others thought and started delighting in making others squeamish by licking their eyes and eating bugs, but deep-down, it still hurts a little. They feel so loved when someone is accepting of their traits and even accommodates them, such as offering heated blankets or a meal that fits their diet.

In a similar vein, some of DT's characteristics are from them overcompensating from past insecurities. They were born without eyelids, without external ears, and without hair or eyebrows.

--RELATIONSHIP/FRIENDSHIP HEADCANONS--

Double Trouble has favorite people and makes it REALLY obvious who their favorite is. They snuggle up to their favorite person/people, are nicer to them, always trying to cheer them up or make them laugh, and are constantly seeking affection and validation from their fav. They're also willing to do things for free or at a reduced price for their fav.

Despite the fact that DT is very affectionate, they seldom say "I love you" because it feels too revealing to them. If they do say it, though, they mean it.

DT is polyamorous.

DT was betrayed by someone dear to them at one point, and this gave them trust issues. They betray anyone who gets close to them first, always fearing that they themselves will be stabbed in the back at any moment if they're not the first to do it.

DT sabotages any meaningful relationship, platonic or otherwise, they have because they believe they're safer alone. This is partially what motivated their betrayal of Catra. After the war, they start to work on this side of themselves and allow themselves to trust a friend again.

DT saw a bit of themselves in Catra, hence why they bonded with her and then read her so well during the infamous vibe-check.

DT had a crush on Catra and got jealous that they'd always be second-best to Adora in Catra's eyes.

DT reconnects with Catra after the war, and they rebuild their friendship. DT has a harder time befriending the others, but they do eventually. Without a war going on, they don't have a reason to betray anyone in the Princess Alliance, so they're able to maintain a friendship with them.

DT rarely ever opens up since they operate under the assumption that others will view that information as a weakness to be exploited, since that's how they view others. Opening up to someone is the biggest show of trust DT can give.

DT never lets themselves cry in front of others. They try not to let themselves cry even on their own. They see it as a weakness others could take advantage of, and they also refuse to let other people make them feel upset because they don't want anyone to have that kind of power over them. If they find themselves starting to cry, they try to hold it in, often resulting in bursts of crying separated by chunks of silence or frustrated groaning.

On the rare, rare occasion that DT gets drunk, they infodump about things NO ONE wants to know. They'd sooner die than tell you their favorite color, but they WILL tell you about the weird shit people have paid them to do (and about how, instead of doing those things, they knocked the client out and stole their money).

DT loves giving makeovers and shapeshifting into their friends in different outfits and hairstyles to help them decide when they want to try something new.

--MISC. HEADCANONS--

"Double Trouble" is a name they picked for themselves.

They knew they were nonbinary at a young age and explored various ways of expressing themselves with their shapeshifting until they settled on what they liked.

DT doesn't have earrings, tattoos, or wear makeup because they can't shapeshift those things away. They can shift a hole in their ears to make an impromptu piercing to wear earrings when they want, such as at Princess Prom, but when they're out and about and need to shapeshift at a moment's notice, it's easier not to have any jewelry.

Despite not doing makeup on themselves very often, they're good at putting it on other people because they understand facial structure very well.

DT is a cat person.

DT is an extrovert, but can be just as quiet and unnoticeable as they can loud and attention-grabbing. They are a SPY, after all.

DT doesn't hate kids, just thinks it's funny how stupid and clumsy they are.

#double trouble #spop double trouble #she ra double trouble #spop #double trouble headcanon #spop headcanon #my headcanons #mine #cw alcohol mention #tw alcohol mention #long post

21 notes · View notes

ericas-spop-blog · 10 months

Text

A scrap because it's what I have the emotional bandwidth for:

Valley of the Lost really exemplifies the framing issues season 4 has; it's framed as a victory for the Good Guys - Saved by Hidden Strength, rah-rah - but what it's about, structurally, is Adora failing; failing repeatedly, constantly, and profoundly, in ways that will require the entire back half of the show for her to fully grasp and process.

She fails to keep the mission on track.

She fails to "protect" Glimmer from the knowledge of the mission going off the rails.

The attempt to impliment said "protection" was itself a profound failure as a friend and a person.

Huntara saying "I was wrong to leave my home" is an overt challenge to Adora's abandonment of Catra(Adora's symbolic home) in the first half of the show.

It's also an extremely direct and harsh rejection of the swordpoint salvation she was given in season 3.

Huntara's bond with Perfuma supercedes and replaces her bond with Adora - because Huntara has grown, while Adora has not.

The utter fucking shot to the heart of Catra immediately recognizing DT's false Scorpia, while Adora "we grew up together" fails to recognize anything even slightly off about the false Catra (In all those years, did she ever know Catra?)

And again, just. The visual of Adora being so smug over "it was fun distracting you, though", over finally reaching the point Catra was at in season 1, while the real Catra is already on a skiff, flying away, literally leaving Adora behind.

#scraps #spop #adora #catra #huntara #season 4 #swearing #somewhat salty

19 notes · View notes

sometipsygnostalgic · 1 year

Note

Idk if this has been talked about before but do you think Hordak and Wrong Hordak are kind of parallels to catra and adora? Adora and WH both fully believed the hoard was truly good, and only defected when they realized it was a lie. Their values never changed, their realities did. Catra and Hordak both seemed to know the hoard was actually pretty evil, but didn't care. They both had there own reasons to rebel in the end, personal pride and whatnot, but mostly it was their love for adora and entrapta that pushed them to change sides.

Yes, I absolutely do.

Wrong Hordak even has a scene where he's petting a horse for the first time, just like Adora!!! And they both have this sort of existential crisis.

They both believed they were honorable missionaries of the Horde, that the Horde was perfect. Whether it was Adora believing the Horde were victims of rebel insurgents, or Wrong Hordak believing that Prime was the smartest and most merciful man in the universe. Sweary Shera amps this up to 11 with their Wrong Hordak having heard a bunch of lies about gay people, kind of like how Adora heard a bunch of lies about princesses (also gay people).

With Catra and Hordak, it's more like... okay, yeah, they were ALSO brought up in these cults. And I would actually say that Hordak was far more "brainwashed" than Catra, because to begin with Hordak fully believed in the hype of Prime, at least for a while. He was cast aside as a defect, and knew of the violence of the Horde, but still believed in his creator's perfection, unlike Catra, who knew from the start that Weaver was full of shit and realised over time that Hordak was too.

I'd say though that both of them were SCARED of their masters, and were trying to get their approval, to sort of... prove that they were wrong about them. Because the little voice Prime and Weaver put in their heads says "You are wrong, you are a failure", and they need to silence that in order to function. This is why Catra never defected, she needed to prove herself in the system and Weaver would "win" if she quit, and this is why Hordak scrambled to Prime's feet once he arrived.

But something changed over time. The versions of Hordak and Catra we get at the end of Season 4, their hearts aren't in it anymore. All of their actions across S4 are driven by different motivations to before.

For Hordak, his motivation actually flips over - He hardly gives a shit about reuniting with Prime anymore! What he wants to do is prove to Entrapta that she was wrong for leaving him behind, and prove to himself that he isn't a worthless piece of shit failure like everyone thinks he is. Hordak goes from a sheltered scientist to leading the army on the front lines, embracing the violence of a warlord and sort of making a name for himself rather than hiding behind the rest of the Horde. He's in the state of mind Catra was in the previous seasons!!!

For Catra, her motivation... well, it ends. We saw the fire and rage from her in the previous season where she was so determined to prove herself that she ended the world, and this is a Catra who has to deal with the consequences of that. She realises that she has very little left in her life and she tries to cling onto those ideas, even to bond with Hordak despite everything he's done to her, and she goes through the ten stages of grief, ending up on Prime's doorstep as having... started to think about what it is she really wants. Like, she sees Glimmer fuck up big time but try to fix it anyway, she goes "You can do that???", and I think Catra starts to accept she still cares about people, she cares about Adora and even Glimmer and Hordak. She's a character filled with so much empathy who tries to crush it dry.

Hordak and Catra both get the "death and rebirth" in the final season, after their "rebirth" they become more introspective with all the rage tempered or gone. Hordak, in close proximity to Prime, starts to see how truly weak the man is, and how hollow his version of "Love" is, especially compared to the sheer strength of heart he sees from Entrapta. And Catra, in "Save the Cat", are their bare selves, all notions of hero vs villain stripped away, just those two girls who grew up together trying to survive. Catra afterwards still has the final strips of her mask that she claws onto, but she lets them flutter away.

Wrong Hordak and Adora "had it easier" when it came to defecting because they were entrenched in the false values of their system, and just applied those values to their new situation. Whereas Catra and Hordak had to develop new values from the ground up, since the whole time all they were made to care about was whether they were on the good side of the person in charge, because if they werent, they were going to get the Stick.

#she ra #spop #catra #hordak #adora #wrong hordak

74 notes · View notes

spop-romanticizes-abuse · 6 months

Text

so i think we already established that catra does not love adora and never has. or that if she did love adora, she definitely never bothered to show it. but what about adora? surely, she loved catra, right?

nope. this is another problem i have with this ship. they don't hint at any romantic feelings between the two until s5. there are a lot of "sexual tension" scenes whenever catra is hurting adora, of course, but never anything genuine.

mind you, i do think adora genuinely cared about catra. but it was also an instinct that was instilled in her by shadow weaver, because she had to constantly be around catra and take care of her. again, the sibling dynamic comes into play because adora is the older sibling who has to take care of their younger sibling, because the parents don't bother to do it. so rather caring about catra genuinely, it's more of a forceful conditioning, which gets darker the more you think about it.

and even if adora did genuinely care about catra, she never once shows romantic interest in her. never. all that adora shows is guilt for not taking responsibility and concern for catra's well-being. the first is definitely not romantic and the second one could be romantic, but not in this context. in fact, it's so glaringly obvious that adora always acted as an older sister towards catra, rather than a love interest. she had to take care of catra, she had to keep catra out of trouble, she had to sacrifice her personal happiness and relationships in order to keep catra happy.

now, you might argue that they couldn't show any romantic interest between the two characters because their studio restricted it. to which i say, how come glimmadora has more romantic chemistry? for starters, adora is not conditioned to care or worry about glimmer. that's a decision she makes, and it's very important because it is one of the first decisions she makes after she finally reclaims her freedom - to love and care about glimmer and bow.

of course, she cared about bow too but her bond with glimmer was definitely stronger. she wants to prove herself to glimmer, she wants to protect and heal glimmer, she wants to be good enough for glimmer. a lot of this is mildly unhealthy because adora was raised to believe that she has to prove herself in order to be worthy of love. but here, glimmer returns the affection, regardless of whether adora succeeds or fails. unlike catra who only "loves" adora when she does what she's told, glimmer loves adora unconditionally. she doesn't expect adora to be this flawless, selfless hero; she just expects adora to be herself. and this is such a good foundation for a healthy relationship, it's really a shame that the writers went "hmm no it's too healthy, we have to promote toxic relationships to our young viewers".

#spop critical #spop #spop salt #spop criticism #spop discourse #she ra #anti catradora #anti catra #anti c//a #anticatra #antic//a #anticatradora #anti spop #anti shera

74 notes · View notes

anti-spop · 4 months

Text

alright, please correct me if i'm wrong. but in s5, do they ever bring up the fact glimmer was manipulated by shadow weaver?

weirdly enough, glimmer and catra don't actually bond over that. they were both victims of shadow weaver. they're very much alike, you could say they're narrative foils (which they explore in s4). but the main difference being the fact glimmer recognizes her mistakes and tries to do something about it. catra, though, just continues to run away from her problems and refuse to admit she's wrong.

and another relevant thing to bring up here is that shadow weaver also pitted glimmer and adora against each other, the same way she raised catra and adora. i'm surprised this specific conversation never happened. catra could've finally realized that adora had no fault in anything. it was always their abuser's fault.

but instead, catra and glimmer just bond over adora, and not even in a very endearing way, since they're making fun of adora sleep fighting. which is clearly a trauma response. but adora's suffering is either funny or sexy, for some twisted reason.

anyway, i do sort of recall a scene where micah gets angry at shadow weaver, but i don't remember if he explicitly brings up the fact SW manipulated his daughter. i'm guessing he does, but it's probably never mentioned again (considering micah gets chipped later on). which is sad because father AND daughter were taken advantage of by the same woman. but given this show's history of handling trauma, well, we don't see that happen properly.

(micah would also be very fucking pissed if he found out catra is the reason why angella is gone. and i'm guessing that's why he got chipped. but that's a topic for another post)

i hate this. i hate how glimmer is handled in s5. she lost her mother, she was manipulated and almost lost adora, and she still goes through a hard time. while i'm not saying bow shouldn't have been angry with her, because glimmer did mess up, i don't like the fact glimmer suffers more than catra, who arguably did worse things than she did. glimmer deserved so much better.

#i post #spop critical #i feel like this is why the fandom hates glimmer so much #bc her actions are not excused by the narrative #(which well. that's ideal)#but glimmer is nowhere as bad as catra #even if they're alike personality wise #and yet the show and the fandom give her such a hard time #and catra gets away with everything #anyway i love glimmer and i want justice for her #abuse tw

31 notes · View notes

swearyshera · 1 year

Note

Alright, some of this is hitting me in a way that neither of us could have expected. I talked with you earlier about Entrapta's background story hitting me hard with some things I've been through... Okay, now you've got discussion between Catra and Glimmer about Angella's demise, which neither of them actually expected. Little aggravations at a loved one, little memories and deseprately wanting them back. Glimmer chooses to believe that it was a sacrifice on her mother's part in order to hold it together. *Sigh* - this is very personal. I just lost a loved one, a very close family member also best-friend, a person I had a unique geeky bond with and it's the kind of bond I'll never have again. He was the third member of my tiny little found family and we had him up for holidays and that's never happening again. We learned of his death yesterday and I've just been going through Hell. He was young and it was sudden - he had some health issues, but it was still unexpected. It wasn't a heroic sacrifice, but there are things I need to believe about it to hold myself together. I'm flashing back to Entrapta's seeing a tear in space-time to know what's on the other side. I remember what canon did and what you're looking forward to doing to a cruel fundamentalist version of a god while I'm flashing back to some of my old religious trauma hard right now - as in, I'm really, really hoping the fundies / evangelical circles I used to be a part of aren't right and have been outright Hordak-style *threatening* God to do the right thing by my loved one, possibly sealing my fate if there is a Hell and being glad of it. This portion of the script is coming at the "right?" time for me? Wrong time? I am hoping I can find some catharsis in it? Anyway, I do apologize for any reblogs I do in the near future in which I blubber all over your posts. I'm holding steady, but it's probably going to happen sooner or later. _freedfromthegalactichivemind

@freedfromthegalactichivemind Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry for your loss.

I would always say that looking after yourself is the most important thing, and if any of my posts do bring up stuff that makes it more difficult for you, please do take a break. I'm the worst person for "deal with stuff by totally immersing yourself in it", and that doesn't always work, so do take it slow and be kind to you. This goes for everyone, too.

There's a few things that I have taken to quite a raw level in these last two seasons and I've come out of the comfort of non-stop silliness in order to have a more meaningful impact on people. But I don't do it to hurt, these stories will ultimately become ones of comfort and power. I've expanded on Prime's zealotry to be a more bare-faced depiction of the anti-LGBT rhetoric that we're seeing worringly often in real life and how weathering it seems insurmountable - but he will be defeated by people who stand fast and remain true to who they are, people who will never ever let those like him win. I've also leaned in pretty hard to Catra's fragile mental health, not because having her talking about how she wants to kill herself is shocking and spices up the story, but because I want to have her reach that lowest point multiple times and still fight for a life that she wants to live. I've been there, as I'm sure many people reading this have - it's messy, but it is not the end.

So yeah, I make the choice to invoke difficult things that might hit some of you quite hard, but I do it with the love and intention to show that perseverance through adversity is one of the hardest, most rewarding things any of us can do. (Also, I know some of this can get quite personal, you're welcome to blubber at me through DMs if you prefer).

We're gonna win in the end.

45 notes · View notes

ben10shera2020 · 1 year

Text

Shadow Weaver's sacrifice was a final act of manipulation

To all Shadow Weaver stans, Shadow Weaver never changed as person nor grew as a person she was a monster until the end. Catra and Shadow Weaver were always enemies.

The only, ONLY reason she went to the heart was because Catra convinced her that Horde prime was going to infect the heart before Adora could use the failsafe, which risked upsetting her own plans so she agrees and from there she personally begins to guide Adora to the heart. It is only when she realizes the heart will be lost soon combined with Adora's refusal to proceed to the heart without Catra, that she decides to sacrifice herself, not to save them, but to ensure that Horde Prime loses and so she can go out on her own terms. Her your welcome at the end is exactly that, her playing the hero in her own story as she always thought she was, dying on her own terms, because it was literally the only option left.

Shadow Weaver believes she was the hero of her own story but all of her actions were fueled by greed for power. She cared about no one, she was manipulative and abusive to everyone around her.

So, like we know, Shadow Weaver sacrificed herself, she quite literally blew herself apart with the last of her power to kill that monster and allow Adora and Catra to save the planet, her last words being 'you're welcome' to them. So, if she was really so selfish all this time, why did she give up her life like that? Well, Horde Prime was about to literally destroy the planet, so if they didn't activate the failsafe the planet was doomed and so was her. But she still could've let Catra die! Except we saw that without Catra, Adora would've very likely died before getting to activate the failsafe and save the world. Even if she didn't stop, she likely wouldn't have made it in time.

So no matter what happens, Shadow Weaver would've died. If she let Catra stay behind, Adora would've died and so would've done the world. If she stayed behind and let them go ahead, she would've died. There was no outcome where Shadow Weaver could've survived- and sure, maybe she could've still tried with Horde Prime, but she's smart enough to know that she had no chances of even staying alive or keeping her free will if she joined Horde Prime. She was screwed no matter the outcome.

So wouldn't that mean that Shadow Weaver sacrificing herself was the most selfless outcome? Sure, it could be seen this way, but let me remind you- Shadow Weaver despises Catra, Shadow Weaver is very controlling and does NOT tolerate when things don't go her way, and she is fully capable of physically lashing out and punishing anyone under her control if they rebel. We already saw how she only held back in the past because someone stopped her, and we saw in this season how Adora and Catra are both going against anything she says so much easier and faster than before, they already know what her game is and refuse to keep letting her toy with them any longer. Glimmer is also not following her advice anymore and no one else will listen to her.

Shadow Weaver effectively lost all the control she had over anyone or anything in the world, and now? Now she has no longer a way of winning. No outcome is favorable for her anymore. Even if Adora did die saving the world, the bonds between the rebellion are stronger than ever before, she can no longer count on mourning and ill feelings to give her an easy way out while they deal with the aftermath.

So if she has to go out, then she might as well do it on her own terms, still have some control over something. Not only that- what is more satisfying for a controlling, manipulative and abusive individual like her? Just dying and letting the world die with her by taking away its only chance at survival, or dying as a hero and letting Adora and Catra deal with that knowledge?

Shadow Weaver didn't redeem herself with her death, but by allowing Adora and Catra to save the world, she did die as a hero. Adora and Catra will have to deal with the fact that their abuser died saving them and that if it wasn't for her death, they wouldn't have lived and gotten to be happy together. If it wasn't for Shadow Weaver's sacrifice, their world and loved ones would be all gone. And at least for a while afterwards, they'll have to remember Shadow Weaver just because of her sacrifice, and then they'll have to remember what she has done in the past. Shadow Weaver can and will haunt them for who knows how long while they still sort out and deal with their trauma, she just ensured they won't leave her in the past so easily.

By sacrificing herself, Shadow Weaver has effectively said 'fuck you' to Catra and Adora- maybe with more class than that, but it fits her with how much she resents them and Catra especially. Shadow Weaver really puts Catra’s past and future in perspective and it's so unfair because her entire life Catra has been put down by her, and now Shadow Weaver is sacrificing herself, Adora and Catra are free to be together without her, Catra has made up for her mistakes, it really is the beginning for her, but Shadow Weaver has to frame it like Catra gets that chance because she's giving Catra it. Her "You're welcome" shows that Shadow Weaver was never redeemed by her sacrifice, it was selfish and one final way to put Catra down. All her life Catra has been looking for validation and she only gets it right when Shadow Weaver dies and Shadow Weaver implies it's only because of her that Catra is where she is now and the future she has with Adora. She wants to make Catra feel like she owes her even in death.

#anti shadow weaver #shadow weaver sacrifice was final act of manipulation #spop critical

19 notes · View notes