#and I was like oh my god it's catra. and then I listened to this song on repeat for 2 days

[spopsalt]

More miscellaneous She-Ra pins I found while sorting through Pinterest that made me want to die and my commentary on them. Pt. 3 Fanart Edition.

Something about the vice like grip Catra is using while writing on Adora’s ass is making me feel gross. Listen, if people are into that, it’s cool. It’s just that specifically Catra doing that to specifically Adora makes me sick, especially with that smile Adora is giving. Also, idk if that’s what the artist was going for, but all that combined with the writing ‘C//A Canon’, the ass smack, and Catra having that one dark spot on the dead center of her face that anime characters get when they’re being threatening… It all gives off the air of someone rubbing it in the face and being a douche about it. Like, “Look Catra is about to tear Adora’s stupid ass up because she can and out ship is canon so you can fucking suck it! Haha, you must feel so fucking stupid right now!”

Oh look, seems like someone took inspiration form that one post Nate did with Catra wearing Adora’s shirt because she tore it up so Adora couldn’t wear it anymore. Giving off some weird ‘property’ vibes. Again, I know this can be viewed as something people are into, and it’s okay if someone is. It’s just really creepy for C//A specifically.

Me too, Shadow Weaver, the fuck. I know SW is a shitty mom. No one’s gonna argue that point. But it takes a special kind of shitty parenting when you screw up so bad your children/teenage daughters are making out with eachother. That’s a joke btw, kind of. I think SW is to blame for some things, but C//A isn’t one of them. Hell, she seemed to be wholly against it. Not that I blame her for not wanting that.

Eh. Not the worst one. It’s a funny joke based on a funny gif. But I’m getting real tired of the same jokes over and over. “Adora dumb” “Dumb jock lesbian” And it’s a soccer thing, so there were probably “dumb lesbian” and “useless lesbian” jokes already. I’m not even a lesbian, but I’m getting tired of it. I’m not saying it’s on the level of those outdated “wife bad” jokes. But it’s getting old. People gotta stop treating Adora like a total moron. Also, the gif this is based if isn’t inherently romantic, but the artist just had to add the blushes to make it a C//A thing. God forbid two people exist near eachother without it being a ship thing.

Oh god this fanart...is interesting.

More sexualizing! I'm going to assume they aren't minors in the art for my own sainty and faith in humanity. But still, why are Catradora fans so sexual? I do not get it, can't they just like a ship without making it sexual every 2 seconds?

Ugh. That just feels gross. Why do they think it's cute when Catra messes with Adora's propety? Is it supposed to be some cute thing? I don't get it

Honestly I'd have the same reactions if my daughters started dating. Yes Shadow Weaver was a shitty mom, but they both got raised together and have the same mother figure, they. are. s i b l i n g s

4. Why does everyone try to make Adora seem dumb? She's really smart, Catra's the one who calls her dumb, braindead, and idiot. Which Adora interlized! How cute is that?

#spop discourse #anti spop #spop criticism #spop salt #spop critical #anti catra #antic//a #anti catradora #anti c//a #spop crit

[n7punk]

"Roses & Thorns" Fic Notes

Roses & Thorns is finally done! It really slowed down there at the end as my life got busy, but I had a lot of fun with it. No playlist this time since I was mostly listening to random stuff as I felt like it.

Epilogue Life:

Catra moves to Bright Moon so Adora can keep cheerleading, which she does professionally until her mid-thirties before switching to cheer coaching for middle schoolers. As mentioned in the epilogue, they get married two years after the show. One day they looked at how much of the tapestry they had done and were both suddenly like, oh, I’m ready to be married. Within a few months they had everything thrown together for the wedding. Someone working with their wedding planner leaked news of their wedding to the press, which is what led DT to digging around and finding their date, but aside from a few tabloid stories like Former Bachelorette Couple Tie the Knot and a carefully curated Instagram post on Catra’s page, the public doesn’t learn much about it. They mostly get added as a statistic to the show’s wikipedia page as a successful relationship that made it to marriage and is still together. Catra slowly transitions into more all-encompassing graphic design work until she follows through on her speculation from Fantasy Suites and starts working with a charity dedicated to providing equipment to hybrid children and schools. She still does other work on the side sometimes, but she’s happy with the direction her career has gone, and she keeps up a sparse public Instagram to make some posts promoting her work — pre- and post-charity shift — and to flaunt the life and relationship that she really can’t believe she has now. Adora’s old Instagram is still up and public but she abandoned it and only uses a private one now because she really just wanted to leave the show behind. Adora and Catra go down as an odd and rare case in the franchise. The show never risks casting an ex again even though it would certainly go closer to the way they intended the next time. The casting directors insist that they knew the love story could work if given the right encouragement and that’s why they brought Catra in. Adora and Catra are always brought up in discussions of odd or adorable Bachelor couples, especially after they get married. They were also, yknow, the only queer couple to come from the show until Melendy’s season, so that made them stand out a lot too. Adora’s seasons did end up being as positive when it comes to representation as something like that can be and she’s proud of what she managed and what came of it in the end.

Chapter 1: Opening Ceremony

⦁ I was, like, really nervous to do this fic. I didn’t want to step on any toes but I really loved the idea so after sitting on it for a few months I decided fuck it, I’ll start writing it just to see if I like it. Once I realized it was definitely going to be a whole fic, I went poking around for socials and found petty_labelle’s permission statement and was like oh thank god XD Obviously some tropes don’t require credit to anyone (celebrity AUs, there was only one bed, etc), but this was a case of direct inspiration no matter how wildly different the fics were once you pass the word “bachelorette,” so I’m really glad they were down for it.

⦁ Speaking of, having to type bachelorette so many times might just have driven me insane. I hate spelling that word.

⦁ Usually the bachelor/ette is cast from the one of the fan favorites of the last season. So whatever girl the bachelor didn’t pick would become the next bachelorette, etc (it isn’t always that clear cut; sometimes it’s a girl that got sent home sooner or a girl from a season further back). In this case, there was an open casting call because none of the contestants from previous seasons who they knew/thought were sapphic were willing to either come back or come out, which is how Adora ended up on the show as a nobody to the franchise but a strong contender thanks to her prominent cheerleading career (and being hot. Let’s be honest it’s a third charisma, a third being willing to play ball, and a third being hot).

⦁ Finding out this show usually films in just 6-9 weeks was less surprising than it should have been but still insane. I thought it was three months since most seasons are 10-13 episodes (I think) (and also the fic that set this off was literally called 12 weeks) but I looked it up and. Nope. So I gave Adora like 7-8 weeks in the middle range. That shorter time range actually worked better for the fic, it’s just an insane premise for the real show. 90 Day Fiancee has more realistic expectations! Come on!

⦁ Okay, I know the women pull up to the mansion in a limo, but for some reason while writing it I thought it was all in different limos which doesn’t even make sense. Anyway, after I verified that I edited the language around it to make it more clear they were coming from the same car.

⦁ I also think the host is usually there to greet the women too, but it doesn’t matter how those greetings normally go in this case, because it was a unique moment and Hope was going to be there regardless so she could partially guide it.

⦁ I also have no idea if someone’s ex coming on the show has any precedent, but I’m saying for Etheria it’s a first.

⦁ “-a dashing magicat’s body” Listen, Glimmer is aware that Catra is hot.

⦁ When Glimmer asks “how could you not tell us” she isn’t meaning in a hurt “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me” way but in a “how did you hold that in?” kind of way.

⦁ Canned phrases I know from this show are “Can I steal you away?” (to get one-on-one time), “Here for the wrong/right reasons” (when someone is ‘suspected’ to only be there to get famous rather than get married), “I want to focus on us” (focusing on your relationship with the bachelor/ette instead of all the other contestants and drama getting in the way), and then something like “Trust the process” (you know, cult mindset cutting out questioning the establishment and contrived doctrines).

Chapter 2: Here of the Wrong Reasons

⦁ That first night at the cocktail party I imagine as being a lot like Princess Prom, with Adora trying to focus on getting to know all these new women and figure out who she has the best chances with but she keeps getting distracted by glimpses of Catra through the crowd. The other contestants didn’t know what to make of it, but the ones that overheard Catra was Adora’s ex told others until it spread through the crowd. The consensus among the women at first was this was a TV thing and they probably didn’t have to actually worry about Catra too much. That slowly changed.

⦁ Damn near every season DT goes undercover at the first cocktail party. One of the lead’s brothers did this as a bartender once and I think it would be an interesting way to gather a bit more info to further their storylines. Because of this, Adora barely saw them on the first night.

⦁ I went back and forth on how I was going to handle the other contestants: if they were going to be the other princesses, or largely a blank mass, or a more detailed cast of originals. I ended up somewhere between those last two. I also considered having the other characters from the show working on set, but when the idea for a watch party came to me (because I really wanted to show what people at home were seeing here and there), that cemented where the other characters would be and left me with OCs for the other women.

⦁ Names came from… All over. I hate coming up with them, so I did the lazy thing and scrolled through the characters list on Wiki Grayskull (I know, fuck Fandom [company], I’m sorry). Elmora is a minor character in the OG series. Veena was Grayskull’s queen in the He-man reboot I saw 5 minutes of in 2002. Serenia is a folk hero in the reboot (and the name of the constellation that helped them locate Darla). Swen is the (fake, but presumably real somewhere else given DTs impersonation tendencies) piano player from the Enchanted Grotto. Faith is a recurring Random OC Name in my fics and also just ironic. Melendy Britt was the VA for OG Adora and Catra. That one is honestly an homage since she voiced like a fourth of the women in the OG series.

⦁ Originally the fic was supposed to roll straight from the first chapter into the confrontation night, but that pacing seemed too sudden and I wanted to explore more of the TV side. Also, Adora needed a horse riding date and there wasn’t one anywhere in the other plans so I put it in here.

⦁ When the horse riding date idea came up I had to be like “wait… could Tali do this?” and that’s when I found out that prosthetic arms have come a lot farther than they were the last time I looked into them. Tali can absolutely go horse riding.

⦁ For years after the show, Adora will joke that being on it was worth it just for the horseback riding day, even when she’s literally holding hands with her wife.

⦁ Storm is the actual name of Catra’s horse in… the toys at least? I’m not actually sure if that made it on-screen in the filmation version but it’s from the OG canon regardless.

⦁ Catra did not intend to sabotage the horse date. At first. She was mad at Adora for bringing her somewhere she knew Catra would be scared, but said fear meant she fully intended to spend the entire date refusing to play ball. That lasted until she saw Adora and Serenia kissing, and especially how excited Adora looked, realizing that if she wasn’t going to play along Adora might turn to someone who was.

⦁ The horse debacle got cut so it looked like Swift Wind just bucked for no reason and it gave Tali and Adora a cute moment together. They could have made it into a whole thing, but once Catra won, they cut the interviews implying anything happened there. The other girls never really knew if anything happened, but the crew definitely did. They caught a little bit of it on camera (although not well), they goaded even more of it, and one of the staff retrieved the crop afterwards as the smoking gun.

⦁ The first group date of the week (horse riding) was mostly people Adora wanted to connect with, the second was production’s orchestration (the softball date that didn’t make it into the fic because Catra wasn’t on it), and then Erika got a one-on-one “because she hadn’t had time with Adora yet” (actually because she and Lauren were making out the night before and Catra was onto them, but only had a hunch, so she could look all jealous and spurned on camera when Erika got picked). Adora also gave Lauren a rose because 1) production told her she should and 2) she actually did want the resulting one-on-one time with Lauren to sus her out.

⦁ Glimmer eating popcorn with chopsticks was actually in chapter one but I was worried people were gonna call it stereotyping or something when I know people who do it IRL, and then I talked to them and they said it’s the superior method so I just stuck it in anyway. I eat popcorn with a spoon sometimes for the same reason, but chopsticks really are better if you can use them, my hands just shake too much to be reliable.

⦁ Melendy was one of the last girls to arrive at the mansion because production didn’t want to muddy the waters for Catra’s arrival. Catra assured them she and Adora were very serious for a long time before it broke bad and Adora would remember her immediately, but they wanted to get that moment of instant shock from Adora with her hopefully not even thinking about Catra’s existence and suddenly being faced with her. If Catra was telling the truth about how important they were to each other, even the sight of another magicat might have put her on Adora’s mind.

⦁ Melendy was supposed to be a potential rival, but in a less orchestrated way than Lauren where she was playing out a storyline at production’s direction. Melendy was an actual potential relationship they thought might stand a chance with Adora, and in that case Catra would have really hated her and it would have been great drama, but Catra could tell from the beginning that while Melendy would be sticking around for a while, she wasn’t exciting or challenging enough for Adora. Which is good, because production was absolutely right about the kind of rivalry they would have had and it would have made Catra look a lot worse than getting defensive over someone “cheating” on Adora.

⦁ I kind of assume bedroom locks are a no-go on reality shows in general because, well, what if they lock the camera out from some drama? But they’re also renting places like the mansion and it seems like those houses would Have Locks and they wouldn’t install different doorknobs just for the show. Idk, but I am saying that if they don’t usually have them they gave Catra and Lauren rooms with locks so they don’t actually kill each other. (Although, conversely, they put Catra and Melendy in the same room partially to up their drama — and partially so they only had to worry about one room that could accommodate magicats).

⦁ I’m not actually sure on the use of mic packs vs boom mics on reality TV. I know there’s pool/beach/bikini dates on the Bachelor though, which by necessity require a boom mic since you can’t put a mic pack on a bikini without pulling it off, so I’m leaning towards them usually using a boom unless a mic pack is required. Initially I had them using mic packs and throwing them out the window, but I decided that was just a little unnecessary.

⦁ I mentioned the window both because of that and as a hint towards how Catra saw Faith getting up to some business.

⦁ Catra looks uncomfortable not because she’s telling the truth, but because she’s finally confronting the fact that she doesn’t want Adora to send her home.

Chapter 3: Can I Steal You Away?

⦁ This and chapter 2 were supposed to be one as I said, but then it got reeeeeeally long, and cutting to the watch party meant reshowing — from the TV perspective — some stuff that had already happened, so it seemed a good place to cut them and use that as a “recap.”

⦁ The “we need to talk” was actually a dub-over that Adora recorded later and they just modified to sound muffled but still understandable. They kind of just barely picked up the “no cameras” part but the rest of the conversation was murmuring at best. Part of how Adora kept from getting in (much) trouble was giving them the voice over and just generally complying with all the fall out that came from it like interviews and reshoots.

⦁ The shots of Catra pacing were in fact reshoots, but that did happen, it was just behind a locked door first.

⦁ Catra was up in the room for close to an hour, only coming down when she thought she might be in danger of missing their chance to talk (or at least making it seem natural). She spent that time having a small crisis over how much she didn’t want Adora to stop chasing after her, even if she was doing it with suspicion.

⦁ I actually have no clue where the bachelor/ette stays when the girls are at the mansion, so I just kind of went, eh, guest house? I know they’re not allowed in the main house without a camera, but it seems like a hotel would be pretty far.

⦁ “I’m not an ***hole who can’t see my ex happy,” that is exactly what Catra told herself she was the whole time, but if she can lie to herself she certainly can lie to the camera.

⦁ The rose reshoot cut from the real footage at the moment Adora went off screen, then to the new footage of her walking up to the vase and selecting a rose, then to real but carefully cropped footage of Catra’s reaction so you can’t see the flower she’s really accepting, and then to a further back reshoot of Catra holding the rose as Adora redelivers her line. They used the initial audio and reactions where they could.

⦁ Melendy was nesting because she was anxious after the Very Weird night. There was also a part of her that said “well, if Adora and Catra patch things up, then I’m out” because she was used to things like this only “needing” one token magicat, but obviously Adora doesn’t feel like that. They did look a little similar in human eyes (IDK if the description of Melendy ended up staying in the fic, but: brown coat, dark brown hair, two yellow eyes, no stripes) so Melendy thought it might also be weird to Adora from that angle if she did end up rejecting Catra.

Chapter 4: Right Choices

⦁ I found out that strip dodgeball exists on the Bachelorette and went, yeah, so I can use that. People didn’t refuse to answer often so “Bare Your Soul” never got too racy, but some clothes did come off.

⦁ Tali just calls Jewel “queer” because he is gay, even though what he realized back in middle school was actually that he was trans. She wasn’t going to say that on television, though, because he wouldn’t want her to. He didn’t mind people knowing he was generally queer, though.

⦁ Glimmer’s comment about Veena not posting proves that she did follow Veena before that happened, because otherwise she would have no idea. She actually followed all of them from the moment she knew the casting but tried to resist the urge to do too much digging on them since the show had already wrapped shooting and her research could just end up taunting her with knowing someone is super wrong for Adora that she then had to watch go all the way to final three. And well… that still ended up happening in a way.

⦁ They did cut the exchange about how the show was crazy, but they did use Catra’s “I’m only here for you” audio for some promos which some eagle-eyed fans noticed was never actually in the show. I’m sure that’s not uncommon though.

⦁ Hope didn’t question Adora’s request for two reasons: 1) Adora actually asked to do it on camera rather than trying to sneak down for whatever it was, 2) if she stopped Adora to ask questions, Adora might think about what she was doing, and having someone in an emotional fugue state usually makes for better TV. Everybody could tell the vibes died as soon as Sylvia implied that she didn’t want to date a cheerleader so it was obvious that Adora was questioning something when she called her up.

⦁ I learned a lot about the show listening to that recap podcast (which covered a few seasons of the Bachelor, the Bachelorette, and Bachelor in Paradise until… that summer), but it’s also been years since I’ve listened to it/it was canceled. I based most of the pacing for women getting eliminated and when hometowns and shit would happen off of the episode summaries for recent seasons I found online. I wasn’t worried about doing it exactly since this is Etheria and it varies between season (see: Clare running off with “her future husband” in episode four), but I didn’t want to do something wildly wrong either.

⦁ My general (not set in stone) idea for the show’s timing was week one was obviously introductions, week two was horseback riding, football, and Erika’s one-on-one, week three had the confrontation with Catra, week four had the coming out date (amongst others), week five had the Sylvia drama and cheerleading date, week six was the two-on-one, and week seven was hometowns. Week eight was fantasy suites, the women tell all happens (I don’t see a lot of people saying they like the wo/men tell all specials. There’s a reason I mostly left it out of the fic. It’s a boring rehash), and then week ten was the long-ass finale. I’ll be honest: the coming out and cheerleading date were supposed to be the same week but I think you’re not supposed to give the same person two dates in one episode. Showing that transitioning perspective from the viewership angle was important, though, so the whole Sylvia thing and an extra week got added in for it.

⦁ Melendy was actually still sharing a room with Catra during the night visit, they just kicked her out before Adora got there and no one brought it up until Adora was leaving and noticed the second bed.

⦁ No one says anything after Adora says she was letting the other girls sleep because she was admitted that Catra was staying without realizing. Now, this was incredibly obvious, but Catra still needed to process it.

⦁ Adora stayed awhile just cuddling and murmuring a bit to each other, but eventually she started feeling really tired and reluctantly left Catra’s arms for her own room.

⦁ Adora sent home Serenia, Elmora, Swen (mostly cut character, but she was supposed to be the main butch rep that season that Adora still kept when there was little chemistry was, again: representation!), & a rando I guess. I didn’t want to introduce twenty women’s names to keep track of, so I tried to come up with enough to have variety in the date composition without bogging things down or getting confusing. You can tell which ones you’re supposed to remember by the fact you could recognize their names going in lmao.

Chapter 5: The Dragon Slayer

⦁ Chapters four and five were also supposed to be one chapter, so I’m really following in 12 weeks’ footsteps with the two-part chapters LOL

⦁ Production was fine with Adora letting a bunch of girls go at once because it was dramatic and she was explicitly doing it to focus on the girls she felt better about (she had actually hung onto girls a bit more than they expected until then), but they couldn’t let both of Catra’s rivals go at once because then there would have been no conclusion to that plot at all and it would have felt really weird from a TV perspective, so they put their foot down on Faith.

⦁ The reason they planned for Catra and Melendy originally, though, was that they did expect Faith to be gone already. Adora cut so many girls at once they had to pick their battles, so they decided to keep the biggest villain rather than worry about the rest of it. If Catra and Faith went on a date together, it would have been fireworks, but at that point it would have been obvious who was going home. Catra and Melendy, on the other hand, would be two girls who were final four material, so people Actually Invested In Adora’s relationships would have been highly invested in the date.

⦁ Originally, Adora went into this chapter with Serenia still on her roster too (she stuck by the rules and let her keep her rose) and Catra, unaware of what had happened between them, included her on the list of girls she gave Adora, in the same category as Melendy. Adora then worried about Catra giving her four names, implying she was ready for Adora to send her home, but Adora couldn’t help offering a rose to Catra anyway, and she was obviously happy to accept. This whole exchange still happens, just with a little less weight since Catra going to hometowns was obvious with only four non-cheaters left. However, last chapter got more dramatic in exchange with Adora taking her rose back from Serenia and seeming to invest in Catra emotionally instead, and I just thought it made more sense for Catra to intend to go through hometowns to really get her message out there before going home.

⦁ Lou (the vineyard owner) is named after Lou Scheimer, a VA for a lot of the male characters on the original She-ra, namely Swift Wind and Light Hope (who was like a sentient beam of light. Listen, just go with it).

⦁ Catra’s allergic to grapes in this because I randomly give her cat allergies when I feel like it and I recently remembered cats and dogs are Kind of allergic to grapes where sometimes One is okay and other times even that is toxic so it’s best to not. Absolutely make sure they never get a hold of a second one, though, and in general you should protect grapes from them.

⦁ Okay, in general, I think the girls are responsible for their own wardrobes, but I do think production probably intervenes here and there, and in Catra’s case she kept wearing suits and the like. For this specific date, DT dropped a hint that she should show up in something ravishing, so Catra borrowed a dress Melendy was saving for Fantasy Suites because she wanted to make it harder to mic her so she could try to get some whispers to Adora. Since they were dropping back home first, Melendy could swap for something new and didn’t mind the loan knowing exactly what Catra was going up against since she told her the night before and Melendy was also mad at Faith for it.

⦁ The “losing focus” comment was both a play on the canned phrase previously mentioned and a reference just for me and my friend.

⦁ Production, in general, was trying to get the clout of a queer season while changing as little as possible, which is a bad call for several reasons, but part of that meant making sure all the women were conventionally attractive and dressed in the way viewers had come to expect. They had all of Three butches on the season, Catra qualifying as one of the soft butches who put her foot down and wore a suit or similar in almost every episode. Adora didn’t mind wearing a dress most of the time even if it wasn’t her usual, but she also insisted on wearing pants sometimes as part of her representation thing (and also just being authentically herself).

⦁ Okay, so villains on the show often end up with a “nemesis” (or just a self-appointed good guy) who eventually warns the lead about their bad behavior. This is the dragon slayer: they don’t win, but they provide a character role and help the lead with things that they wouldn’t know otherwise because production certainly isn’t telling them. This season plays the jealous ex angle at first (for its own drama as they originally intended, and to try to make Catra’s behavior “understandable” once she turns over a new leaf) but as her feud with Lauren grows, Catra starts to seem like the dragon slayer, especially once Adora goes to her for advice on what to do with the other girls. People read that one of two ways: the way the watch party did, or the “oh, they’re not feeling the romance coming back so Adora is going to her for advice like you would with a friend.” This date coming up seems to reinforce the dragon-slayer narrative, but it’s the rare case where telling on someone works out. It helps that what she was telling on wasn’t just something like a hunch about someone wanting to get famous.

⦁ “All this because Catra got horny” Mermista you should see the stuff that happened in other universes because of that. This is nothing.

⦁ I did googling on the spelling of mic as a verb and mostly I got a lot of people with loud — incorrect — opinions. And by incorrect opinions, I mean people saying “it should be this, ‘mic’d’ is stupid,” which is completely missing the point. Language and spelling is not about what “should” be, mic is the accepted term used in the industry. Niche words like this come up all the time and it’s the people who invent those words and use them day in and day out that decide what those words mean and how they’re spelled, not loudmouths on Reddit. Because of all that though, I couldn’t find a consensus. I had to phrase it as “mic’d” though because that’s what the industry says. The people filming wouldn’t have phrased it another way (another suggestion from people on forums online) so I had to find a way to spell it. Consensus seemed to be either mic’d or miked, but the latter does Not look right, so I ended up settling on mic’d.

Chapter 6: Hometowns

⦁ Adora and Teela really had a more kinda “big sister” relationship, but they were both only children and Adora had no concept of family, not to mention they were on a show all about finding romance, so they were kind blinded to it. On the hometown date, they didn’t really talk that much about marriage despite production prompting them around it because they were kind of subconsciously blocking that and also having so much fun together they didn’t question it. Adora wanted to spend time with Teela and thought she was super cool, Teela had a lot of fun and wanted to show Adora all the cool things she experienced and open her up to a new lifestyle she was clearly enamored with, and no one questioned that further because they were getting the gushing confessionals they wanted. Teela’s parents saw such a small cross-section of them they just saw them having fun together and didn’t second-guess it.

⦁ By the time of Catra’s hometown, production had figured out that Catra was going to be final two (even though Adora hadn’t). Adora hadn’t even fully processed that Catra was going to Fantasy Suites with her since Melendy got cut. Production knew they really had to humanize her, which had been a slow shift in narrative behind the scenes the more it became clear Adora was actually giving Catra a chance now, but this was when the scramble happened. They were lining up their editors and ready to get Catra anything she needed for her hometown, even if it ended up untraditional. This was their mold-breaking season, after all, and even though they followed the formula pretty well for most of it, there were some big moments, and this ended up being one of them.

⦁ I’m like 99% sure volunteer dates have been done on the show before when the star was an activist or something but I can’t think of any examples so I can’t back that up. Either way, it’s definitely not common, but it was Catra trying to get a positive message out there, like she talks about in her Fantasy Suite.

⦁ Adora weird texts were because she needed Glimmer to at least be open to being in Catra’s corner considering the bombshell they were going to get later.

⦁ Usually hometowns are for sussing out 1) if someone is being real with you because what their families are like and what they say around them tells you a lot, 2) if they’re ready for marriage (it seems like every season there’s someone in the family who tells the lead their child/sibling/nibling/etc isn’t ready for marriage or doesn’t seem like themselves around them), and 3) if you’re really in love. Sometimes people do get left dramatically mid-hometown (like the one in season 19 where the bachelorette realized she wasn’t ready to meet his family when she got there and left him on the street to VISIT THEM ALONE comes to mind oh my god. Like she wasn’t wrong to not lead him on but that sucks. I found out about this after writing the Melendy shit btw lmao) but usually someone is only cut at the end.

⦁ I didn’t include Tali’s hometown, even though it could have included some good angst, because 1) I really wanted to end on that line about disappearing into the trees, 2) all the internal debate Adora had during it was just a Less Aware™️ version of the angst from the Final Rose chapter so it felt repetitive. I know that made it “more obvious” who Adora was going to choose but… if you didn’t know that from chapter one I can’t help you.

Chapter 7: Fantasy Suites

⦁ The conversation during the watch party speculating about the order the show was using for the girls is kind of the prelude to them picking up the subtext in chapter 9.

⦁ The mentions of their final dinner tie into a cut scene I might post separately, but then I came up with new context which is my actual in-universe explanation: their first date didn’t involve dinner. However, there was a family restaurant the football team would go to for victory dinners sometimes, dragging some of the cheerleaders along, and of course wherever Adora went Catra did too, so they had eaten there before, just never on their own.

⦁ It wasn’t until I was editing this scene that I realized you might not know what the date cards are if you hadn’t watched the show but like. I was too lazy to add an explainer lmao. I’ll do it here though: basically the host (or the lead) gives out date cards every week with a little ~teaser title~ on it and the list of names for the people going on in (for instance “Bare Your Soul”). Kinda punny/foreshadowing names like that come up. For Fantasy Suites, it’s basically a card inviting them to go up to the Fantasy Suite together.

⦁ I was picturing a specific hotel in Thailand for their resort, but I don’t know what this hotel is or when or how I saw it. I remember seeing video touring the whole thing at some point though. Anyway it quite literally backed onto the forest with monkeys running all over and stuff. I don’t know what the technical difference between forest and jungle is but my brain says if there’s monkeys and a bazillion percent humidity it’s probably a jungle.

Chapter 8: Interlude

⦁ The reason Light Hope is the host and not DT is two-fold: 1) I cast Hope for the host/producer role because of her manipulative role in canon, before my brain caught up with the fact that hey, this is reality TV, why isn’t DT here? And 2) the in-canon reason is DT needs to manage all these story lines, which means they are the one that needs to be available off camera at all times to prod someone at just the right moment or manage things to create dramatic moments, and they have more opportunity for that if they aren’t the one hosting. I did consider having them be the host of just the Wo/Men Tell All special, but tbh Adora would have accidentally blurted out spoilers if DT was around to goad them so it had to go this way lmao.

⦁ I watched a bunch of Bachelor/ette anouncements on YouTube (again, having never seen the show, recaps usually sum it up as “[the host] announces [x] is our new Bachelor/ette”) and wow there is no consistency to them. Almost every single one was a little different and set up differently, but a common model was “Your new bachelor/ette, [x]” followed by applause as they walk out in evening wear, so I went with that but added in a bit like the contestants normally do when coming out of the limo because that felt fitting both with the franchise and with the fact that this was Adora’s introduction to the franchise. In the announcements I saw, not once did they use a last name because everybody watching already new who “Joey” or whoever was from watching the season, but again, Adora was brand new to the franchise, so a full name and bit made sense for her.

⦁ Deena was one of my “potential names” that I didn’t end up using/needing, but it was some… IDK, Twiglet or NPC or something in the original. The real reason I picked it is because I has used “Dee” as a random generic background character name before (for those curious: it was in OTOS’s sequel, BYLM).

⦁ I know the show has discussed stuff that happened on Instagram and shit repeatedly so I decided they would probably be willing to acknowledge things that happened “off camera” if they were important and alluded to in the show like the cheating.

⦁ A lot of people were speculating on who the “other two” on the camping trip were but the real reason it was a four-bed cabin is I’ve never seen a three bed cabin XD The ones at the park near me are all four-bed in the sense they all have two bunk beds lol. It were just Adora, Teela, and Catra.

Chapter 9:

⦁ I don’t remember if I ever said this in the fic at this point, but Catra has short hair in this one because she gave herself a dyke cut after coming out to rub it into Weaver’s face.

⦁ Adora was picking up on the vibes and griping about it, but Catra said she wasn’t bothered and then climbed in Adora’s lap to “distract her.” And yeah she was too distracted for Glimmer’s next text lol.

Chapter 10:

⦁ There was voice over as Adora went through the ropes and their meanings both explaining some details on what they meant (since the concept is familiar, but in a mostly abstract way, to mainstream audiences). The narration talked about how important the tradition was to Catra and how Adora could never take her this far and not look over the meanings. It made it kind of ambiguous whether she was legitimately considering the ropes or just showcasing this thing that was important to her once-best friend.

⦁ Adora looks at the camera after Hope mentions keeping Melendy because she’s thinking about Melendy (potentially, she would totally understand if she wasn’t) watching along at home and what she would want to say to her that she didn’t get to before.

⦁ Hope’s “sometimes you follow your heart” line is 100% canned and something she regularly regurgitates from a script when the moment calls for it. In this moment, however, the follow-up was a quiet disapproval for picking Catra. Hope was never going to directly interfere with Adora’s final choice — it seemed obvious that Adora had to decide independently or the relationship was going to blow up fast and make them look worse than Adora picking the “wrong” option for their preferred narrative — but she still didn’t want Adora to pick Catra, so she has occasionally let slip something to that effect in private conversations off camera. Usually not to Adora, but Adora has long figured out what production actually wanted out of the season.

⦁ The camera suddenly cut to Adora and Tali after Tali mentioned Catra because Hope twitched from someone spoiling her show (even if like, come on, everyone knew Adora was going to ask Catra Something and Catra would say yes). There quietly controlling her inner rage was something Adora could detect after working with her for so long, which is also why Adora was giggly (well, that and relief). That’s also why Hope was so aggressive jumping back into the conversation, because she was trying to take control of it again.

⦁ Adora looked more serious/neutral because she had her whole speech prepared about the things they needed to work on and the fact this was, in essence, conditional, so she was gearing herself up for that and didn’t want Catra to think that she was ignoring everything she had planned to do.

Chapter 11:

⦁ I went back and forth on Catra’s phrasing following the “Rebuild with me?” because Catra’s response doesn’t work as well from Glimmer’s perspective, but it’s so important for her to respond like that because it’s Adora saying “Rebuild and try with me” and Catra saying “Yes, I want to change” so I kept it.

⦁ Adora told Catra about the whole ropes debacle that night and Catra was both annoyed — at production, and sy how much the delay made her worry — and found it funny. After Catra pulled her into the limo following the proposal, they went back to the hotel, packed up, and Catra joined her in her suite again that night before they had to fly back home at 4AM. They did some catching up and making out but mostly they just held each other and were Done.

⦁ Okay so they haven’t told their therapist how the show ended, it’s just incredibly obvious. They’ve told her they can’t legally tell her anything that happened until after the corresponding episode has aired, but then they’re going to therapy to build a healthy relationship together and work through past obstacles like Catra’s jealousy and Adora leaving her behind and expecting Catra to follow her along — especially since that’s kind of still happening, only for better reasons now and when they can both be more mature about it — so it’s kind of really obvious what the end result was lmao. Their therapist watched two episodes for context but with how heavily edited it is, it wasn’t actually that helpful.

⦁ I never brought up their jobs because… they weren’t working for months lmao, but Adora works for Angella as he day job so she could get the time off and at the start of the fic Catra is a graphic — and website, to some degree — designer primarily working for Entrapta’s robotics business, though she does work on the side for other clients.

⦁ Glimmer’s ambush wasn’t actually coordinated, Perfuma just saw it happening at a volume that seemed calm and quietly assisted letting it play out. She wants them all to have healthy relationships now, but she wants to protect her friend too.

⦁ This final chapter took so long despite being written before I even posted chapter 9 because I knew something was missing from it but I’m so busy I’m kind of creatively stalled out so I couldn’t really pinpoint what vibe was off. It turned out to be a rehaul of the confrontation and adding in the party scene to have a bit more closure on that angle since it felt like Glimmer accepted it too quick for her. It allowed circling around on the marriage aspect before the final scene too. It ended up making this the longest chapter of the fic though.

⦁ Melendy… deserves a break. She left Adora’s season knowing she had to focus on her own happiness and getting to a good place with her family. After her parents drove Adora away, she had a fight with them about them preferring to ruin her happiness over it coming from something they didn’t approve of. Things were really tense with them for a while but they started trying to work on being more open so Melendy would be comfortable sharing her life with them even if it didn’t go how they wanted. When Melendy had a few awkward dates that didn’t work out and then eventually decided to go on the show again, they were hopeful that they wouldn’t have to confront any of it further since she was going on a man’s season. Obviously that didn’t work out, and it was upon meeting the bachelor and him being a lot less concerned with things like Melendy’s ear positioning that made them face themselves a bit more given how parallel the situation was to how they met Adora. Melendy sat them down and had a really long talk before her season about how she was going to have guys and girls on it and they had to be prepared to meet and support both in the finale or be prepared not to be there at all. They tried to open themselves up to it more. Melendy was really excited about being the bachelorette and having one last shot at happiness. Despite being near all the manufacturing of the show twice now, she believed in the love story still, and she was the kind of person who liked structure around dating. It was easy back when she was in school, but once it was down to meeting random strangers out in the world and on dating apps, she struggled with it a lot more, so she really thought the show could bring her happiness if she gave it one last chance as the lead. It did, btw. Her final three were Duke, one of the fighting girls, and another girl who was kind of a surprise to her but things suddenly started to heat up with her near the end. Duke pulled an Idiot and basically eliminated himself when one of the producers talked him into going to her after their Fantasy Suite and telling her on camera that he wasn’t comfortable with her sleeping with the other girls. Melendy was seriously considering him and might have been willing to decide on him and make that concession if he brought it up in the privacy of the Fantasy Suite, preferably before they had sex so she could really consider the whole picture without a fucking camera on her. It felt manipulative — probably because he was manipulated into doing it when a producer caught him stewing over the upcoming dates — so she told him she wasn’t making that promise and they parted ways really tensely. He basically knew he was going home when the next girl stayed the night with Melendy. There wasn’t any dramatic early exit, which gave him and some of the viewers hope, but it was an eventuality when she gave the roses to the other two girls. Her parents were disappointed, but they’d prepared themselves for this situation and were a lot more open than they had been with Adora. They ended up endorsing the surprise contestant — half because she seemed really sweet, and half because she was a magicat — and Melendy was thrilled to make that decision with her parents’ support. She wanted to be proposed to, so the girls went with it, and though Melendy personally would have been happy either way, the surprise girl passed her parents’ final test when she brought ropes rather than the ring the other girl picked out (which, to be fair, she did knowing Melendy was okay with it since she was unsure about the rope thing in general and asked Melendy about it). They have a much more whirlwind married in nine months kind of relationship the producors are really looking for, but luckily it worked out for them too.

Original Outline:

This fic was originally a lot shorter. Basically, I had a few big moments and then not more plan of what (if anything) would go in between. The original idea was the limo entrance, cocktail party confrontation, the coming out Bare Your Soul date, a later addition of the vineyard date, Catra’s hometown, and then Catra’s fantasy suite, the ropes, and the proposal.

Originally, it was a lot more ambiguous how Catra was feeling about Adora until the Fantasy SUite. She was a lot cooler to her throughout it and they didn’t get stuff like the soft moment late at night in Bright Moon that they ended up with. In the original outline, Catra’s plan was a bit more manipulative, with her original (conscious) idea being to try to make sure Adora got her heartbroken however she could, even if that meant luring her in again and breaking her heart at the end herself. That lasted about five seconds, and as I thought about the idea I realized that wasn’t really how I was picturing the intent or function of Catra’s plan, but it did mean I lost the line of “The plan was to break your heart on national television.” I did my best to get something close because I loved that line.

Catra was also supposed to be a lot more cagey after the reveal because she held onto her plan for longer and thus had a harder time sorting out the actual feelings she buried beneath it, so she couldn’t say what she did for the show and what she did for her plan or when she stopped trying to hurt Adora, but when the plan softened, so did the fallout from it too. The show was then supposed to roll right into the ring/rope selection with Adora’s time with the final girl specifically not shown but its absence making it clear she didn’t make up her mind regardless of what happened in the Fantasy Suite, but it needed more fleshing out by the time I reached there in the story, especially since I knew who the other girl was at that point. The fic was supposed to basically end with the proposal, but I couldn’t have stopped there once I reached it and it wouldn’t have been the right call anyway lol.

Upcoming:

I might have more meta coming for this (see: cut scene mentioned above) but aside from that I’ve got some ideas competing and a low creative pool at the moment so I’m not sure which fic will be next. I’ve got some fun ideas and some specific ass weird ones.

#r&t #fic notes #ficmeta

[candyskiez]

ok character bingo

Hmmm

Catra and Willow

Also uhh Mob?? Is that the guy's name?? The bowl cut guy

LETS GOOOO

Willow:

My brainrot for her will probably resume more once I've rewatched, I'm kinda flickering on toh rn. Whoops.

Catra:

Look I know she's overrated I know but LISTEN. Her design? Perfect, love character growth shown through design. I don't trust the fandom with her. She makes me violently ill. I've never been the same since promise. I quote her religiously. I have problems.

And. Ofc. Mob.

OHHHH MY GOD. Oh my god. Please, for the love of everything WATCH MP100. He's such a good fucking protagonist. He's such good autism rep I have legitimately never related to a character THIS much, I love him so much, he makes me ugly sob. I love my boy. He's such a good kid. He's just a BOY I love him. Genuinely if you like toh I highly recommend mp100. The characters are so flawed and messy and they're allowed to make the absolute worst possible mistakes, the narrative is so fucking KIND to its characters, there's so many frequently demonized mental illnesses shown that...aren't demonzied at all. Do you see me. I love this show. His dynamic with Reigen makes me so ill. I love him. Oh my god. I want to chew on glass.

#toh #mp100 #she ra

[aprillikesthings]

I think I finally have the energy for more rewatch

We're on the home stretch now folks

*cries*

s5 ep9 An Ill Wind

Me when I started doing this nearly two months ago: oh my god I can't do this for every episode it'll take me MONTHS to watch them all I want is to refresh my memory of the show enough to write my damn fic

Me now, having done this for Yes, Every Fucking Episode: I'm not ready for the show to be over ;_; Also I am devastatingly obsessed with Catra and learned I have a specific kink I didn't know the name of before and I keep practicing eyeliner like every night so I can cosplay Catra :D

ahahahah oh god

also from here on out I am going to not read the synopses

(I didn't do that for most of the episodes anyway tbh)

Glimmer can teleport relatively far distances with multiple people again but Catra is NOT a fan

also they're toUCHING

Adora, looking into the woods: hey come look at this

Catra: *still suppressing puking from some form of motion sickness caused by teleportation*

oh they find the empty torn up camp

Glimmer: maybe they went to Bright Moon or Mystacor? Catra: dude you know they could all be chipped so maybe we should be careful Glimmer: oh you don't trust princesses? Adora: Catra's right Catra: *grins in satisfaction*

just look at her

the fuckin. lack of subtlety here. as always. *chef's kiss*

("ugh they didn't HAVE to be so obvious don't you think it's Too Much" listen I've literally seen people who've watched Arcane be surprised to find out that people are shipping Vi and Caitlyn. "Really? I didn't think that was romantic." You didn't? Did we watch the same fucking show??? The one where those two have romantic tension so thick you could carve it with a KNIFE? The one where they had an overdramatic breakup scene in the rain even tho they hadn't kissed or anything? The one where they lay on Caitlyn's bed and talked about Vi's past while making significant eye contact and holding hands and Caitlyn pet Vi's face? That scene where they hug on the bridge and Vi does that like, face pet thing before walking off and they're clearly both in AGONY at being separated?! Are you really that fucking oblivious??? Jesus H Christ. Yes She-Ra made it SUPER OBVIOUS because some people are BAD AT PICKING UP THIS SHIT also She-Ra is aimed at kids and they haven't learned subtlety. Arcane was aimed at adults.)

no really I've seen people express surprise that people think they're going to be a couple. when that ^ was after they'd known each other like two hours

(seriously tho, if you can handle violence (there's a LOT ngl, it is not a show for kids) then you should watch Arcane, the people who make it have made it pretty clear that it's gonna be canon, and the next season is out in November; but also leaving shipping aside it's just REALLY, REALLY GOOD)

ANYWAY back to other animated lesbians

lol Glimmer teleports them all again without warning and Catra really does look like she's gonna hurl

And Erelandia ain't looking so good, oops

(but also yes Adora helped Catra up again)

intro is the same as the last episode

AHAHAH a dozen planets are rebelling against Horde Prime he's so pissed. And they apparently all mention She-Ra

yeah I am again surprised at how much of the actual plot I forgot lol (but I remembered that Glimmer liked to sneak into the kitchen to eat cake with her hands. Y'know. Important things.)

given his tiny facial reactions I think that's Hordak-Hordak. Our Hordak. Not the Wrong Hordak. I think.

once again I ask myself: where did y'all get those outfits

Entrapta teaches Wrong Hordak how to wink and it's so cute. I also love that she explains what it means--because I'm sure she had to consciously learn it, too: "It signals unspoken intent behind my words. In this case, our mutual deception of the Horde. Now you try."

awww

but yeah everyone in town is terrified and won't talk to them, and especially doesn't want to talk about any princesses

"should I buy property here?"

"...go team."

C'MON THAT WAS FUNNY, GUYS

Also, note to self, Melog definitely understands human speech--they split up, Catra is told to stick with Entrapta and Melog (and Catra frowns at this, just barely) and Adora tells Melog to keep them safe and it does a little noise of affirmation. (wait is Melog a he or a she or a they?)(fan wiki says it's an it but dang I feel weird using "it")

Okay so the scene where Glimmer, Adora, and Bow hide in a shop and then end up arguing with the shopkeeper is like, fascinating on multiple levels

Because on the one hand: I can't blame the townspeople for just keeping their head down and trying to get out alive. On the other hand, reporting them to the Horde isn't cool; they could just pretend not to be suspicious of these guys; there are in fact lots of places on the spectrum between "actively collaborating with one's oppressors" and "mounting a full-scale armed rebellion."

But on the other other hand I also think it's interesting that Adora's the only one of the three who's like "nah dude just let these people live their lives omg," something about Adora having lived in an oppressive environment for her whole childhood maybe

poor Adora someone get her an ibuprofen

Anyway Spinerella found them ack

Also Melog steals an apple for Catra, just magically takes it from someone's basket and into Catra's hand, which implies they're communicating non-verbally more than just moods, though I suppose "hungry, that apple looks good" is a mood

speaking of things that would make ANYone motion sick--

(Adora is saying it) Catra's right there, dude. You spent the last four seasons fighting her. lol.

Oh I paused it too soon lol Catra says this line:

LOLOL

Back on Horde Prime's ship, Hordak keeps looking at the chip thing Entrapta gave him and gets caught by Prime, whoopsie

oh hey, lore: Horde Prime can't access ALL the memories in his previous bodies without going into them, and he keeps his old bodies around in that green goo, that's fucking weird and gross, anyway he plugs a connection into his old body

Horde Prime: "The First Ones sought a new source of power of ancient worlds. Why? Why bend themselves to the whims of magic and myth?"

Poor Hordak has flashbacks to Entrapta and the Fright Zone. Mostly Entrapta. Including a moment of her looking at him fondly--I think it's the moment when she says "Imperfection is beautiful."

Horde Prime: "The fools took their secrets with them when they died. But I will find another way."

(I've seen a fan discussion suggest that there aren't actually any First Ones left--that when Light Hope made it so Adora came through the portal, the portal itself went back in time. I like that explanation in part because it means in my fic I don't have to figure out why Adora doesn't go looking for her birth family. Which tbh most fic-writers don't worry about anyway lol.)

Back with the rebellion, poor Catra is once again trying not to lose her lunch because they've all teleported.

And Netossa is like WTF IS THAT BITCH DOING HERE

Melog doesn't like that

Adora: "It's a long story, but she's with us now" Netossa: "...really??" (Catra in the background: hisses)

BAHAHA and then Netossa spots Wrong Hordak and they have to explain, no that one's with us, too 😬

But yeah p much the entire rebellion has been chipped except like Netossa and Perfuma

Adora and Bow have a guilt trip about having been gone for so long (...to rescue the queen! and also Catra)

and Catra's remembering what it's like to be chipped :(

Glimmer gives them all a ra-ra little speech

Adora just makes the sword appear in her hand without transforming lol that's cool

but they're doing the "I'm in" "yeah me too!" thing and

like, on dates?

(lol)

yayyy

Anyway the team heads back to Erelandia and starts kicking some ass

there's a great moment when Catra's like "you go deal with Spinnerella we'll take care of the bots" and Adora says "be careful" and Catra grins and says "always am!" like ma'am that is a LIE

Spinnerella is torturing some poor villager, and Netossa is worried her wife isn't still "in there"

Adora would know. From literal, personal experience. ;_;

She transforms into She-Ra and Netossa literally does a whistle of appreciation and says, "New look?" and She-Ra grins back. And somehow that is, like. Super queer. Like literally just one lesbian to another, in a flirty-but-not kinda way. Like I have *had* those interactions, where the underlying meaning is "I know we're each in a relationship, so I'm not actually hitting on you; but as one queer woman to another I want you to know that I see what you're putting out there and I like it." It's one of the best things??????

Netossa gives a little speech to Spinnerella about how she loves her and Spinnerella actually comes back for a few seconds ;_; but then she's gone again, but She-Ra and Netossa convince her to disappear for a while at least? And the locals rejoice.

And Catra would know. ;_; (She rubs the back of her neck after saying this.)

Anyway word gets back to Horde Prime that She-Ra is back on Etheria :D and he's so fucking pissed he's going to go there

...and Hordak spends a long moment looking at that chip from Entrapta again

They go to where the rebellion is actually hiding out, Glimmer and Catra recognize it

and I'M BLANKING ON WHY THEY'RE REACTING THIS WAY HELP seriously I have spent like ten minutes trying to figure it out, I don't think they talked about it while on Horde Prime's ship? Fuck!! IF YOU KNOW PLZ TELL ME

Any Perfuma ties them up and makes sure they're not chipped and then it's Happy Reunion Time with everyone :D

Adora to Catra: it's time for you to meet everyone Catra: are you sure??

I got that one without trying I didn't know it was coming lololol I was trying to get a shot of Catra looking hopeful

poor thing

Adora: long story but she's with us now!!!

Adora (well, as She-Ra) gives them all a little pep talk

ANNND EPISODE OVER

and I don't have time to do another one tonight and I won't have time tomorrow until like after 6:30pm aaaaaaugh

ON THE UPSIDE I only work two days this upcoming week.

Because it's Holy Week. I'm going to be in church like every day starting Wednesday and twice a couple of days ahahaha including an hour in the middle of the night on Thursday.

It is DEEPLY HILARIOUS to me that I'm going to end up watching the last episodes of She-Ra mere days before Easter. Like I literally have four left. Assuming I watch one tomorrow, I could end up watching the next one Tuesday night and watching the last two BEFORE GOING TO CHURCH ON WEDNESDAY how tf am I gonna focus for SHIT lolol

#april rewatches spop #an ill wind

[haemosexuality]

insanely long analysis of the ep promise of she-ra <3

(first a bit of S1e10- the beacon)

[Adora is talking to the woods as she-ra.] Just let me fix this, please!  I-I can’t let anyone else get hurt. [she transforms back into adora and sits down] Fine. You win. You want me to be weak? Well. I am.  And I’m afraid. Because, I-I’m no good at any of this.

God doesn’t that hurt immediately off the bat. “just let me fix this, please” is a perfect summary of adoras entire character. She is so, so desperate to be useful- she needs to help other people, she needs to fix everything and save everyone. She cant let herself be a person, shes a vessel (HRUAHHRAGHHH season 5) to help others, shes a tool and a means to an end. Shes the hero. But shes bad at that, because no matter how much she represses herself, she feels and wants things so strongly all the time. She hopes and begs for direction and destiny but shes terrified of not having control. She will desperately try again and again to be the perfect hero-sacrifice that will heal the world and keep her friends safe but she doesn’t want that, not really, what she wants is to go to parties and hang out with her friends and catra, but she feels she doesn’t deserve that. She cant let herself have anything she wants. But she still does. Shes afraid and shes weak and shes too young for this. Her wanting things so strongly is what ruins everyones plans, shadow weaver’s and light hope’s and horde prime’s. its what saves everyone. This doesn’t have anything to do w the scene I was talking about anymore oops. “I’m no good at any of this” just confirms that, shes bad at being your standard self sacrificing selfless hero in the same way catra was bad at being an unfeeling purely evil villain. She just cant stop being a person

Ok now onto Promise: the ep starts immediately after that scene, with adora going inside the crystal castle looking for answers on how to heal glimmer, and catra following after her looking for tech that she can use (and also to spy on adora bc that might not have been her primary objective but shes not gonna pass up on that chance lol)

“You are not ready yet. You must let go.” “let go of what?” [camera pans to catra] will always be so. Ugh poetic cinema

How did anyone ever trust light hope lmao immediately from the first time she shows up shes all like “free yourself of all of your earthly attachments and join my hero training course”. Also, again, adora’s attachment to catra (and glimmer and bow) has always been the main thing saving her from falling head first into self sacrificial bullshit. She cant let go of her. She will never fully let go of her.

Catra: What's going on? Why are those things trying to kill us?

She-Ra: They're trying to kill you. This place sees you as an invader.

Catra: Well, can't you tell them to stop?

She-Ra: [incredulously, frustrated] No, I can't tell them to stop! Clearly nothing in here is listening to me!

Oh I just realized something. The crystal castle is a place that was made for adora and caters to her, and it sees catra as an invader. Much like how in the Horde, adora was favoritized and shadow weaver’s center of attention while catra was mistreated and discarded. Seen as an invasion, a corrupting force in Adora’s life. The one thing adora cant control in the crystal castle is how it reacts to catra, it activates security protocol no matter what she does, like how adora could never fully protect catra from shadow weaver and the others. Even throughout the episode and at the end, we see catra fighting tooth and nail to survive everything the castle throws at her while adora undermines her (“I had it.” “Sure you did.”), and by the end all her fighting pays off and she comes out victorious, like how she goes up in the horde until shes effectively its lord. The crystal castle (im just gonna call it CC) literally becomes the fright zone throught the simulation too I cant believe I didn’t get this before

Catra: Anyway, what are you doing here? [angrily, sarcastically] Where are your new best friends? I thought you guys did eVeRyThInG together.

The similarity between this and the flashback scene where we see a child catra say “go eat with your new best friend lonnie! I know you like her better than me. Youre supposed to me my friend” really shows how immature they still are I think. Not as a like, inherent character flaw or smth, they just weren’t raised in a place where emotional maturity is a thing you learn. They were never taught how to deal with their emotions in any way, other than “repress it really hard, hit someone and blow up a civilian”. Of course theyre emotionally stunted. This probably also contributes to both of them’s very black and white way of thinking. Also theyre still in the 17-18 range so like literally theyre teens. Just goes to show that them being separated for a while was necessary, bc they needed to break off their codependency to be able to grow as people and mature emotionally, that would never happen if they stayed together and just enabling each others toxic traits, instead of being able to have a healthy relationship like they do after the end.

Something I also never considered before is why the CC showed them the memories it did? Like. Was it light hope that chose those? I assume so since she not only has shown she can do that but also watched adora her entire life so she knows all her memories. Did she specifically pick out painful memories that she thought would tear them further apart? It seems obvious now but I just never thought ab this before. The first memory shown does go against that tho, its just baby adora and catra being cute. Maybe she wanted to show them how much their relationship had deteriorated?

↑ gay

↑ gay

↑ gay

Ooooouough this is when it starts to hurt pray for my emotional stability

Adora: ...Can I ask you something?

Catra: Can I stop you?

Adora: ...Why did you help me escape after Shadow Weaver captured us?

Catra: Not this again.

Adora: It's the one thing I can't figure out. You didn't have to do that. You could've gotten caught...why risk it? [Rock on the edge crumbles beneath her; yelps] Whoa, whoa, whoa--!

Catra: Did you really think I'd just let Shadow Weaver erase your memory like that?

Adora: I dunno. Probably.

[Adora grunts as Catra pulls her up]

Catra: Yeah, well, you never did have too much faith in me.

Adora: Can you blame me?

Catra: Not really.

This is so. Ugh. I love adora but especially in the first season shes so.. girl what are you doing!!!! How can she be so ignorant. Obviously I know how but. Augh so much of catra’s hurt stems from this… when I say that adora was fully, totally brainwashed by the horde, I don’t mean just that she believed their propaganda about the war, or whatever bullshit shadow weaver ingrained in her about her purpose. She also believed what they all said about catra. To a lesser extend, obviously, and she loved catra with all of herself- but she did still believe catra was a bit lazy, kinda disrespectful, uncaring, etc. and I cant even totally blame her, because catra actively tried to make herself seem all those things. Catra didn’t want to let anyone know how hard she tried, how much she hurt, so she played up the “aloof, lazy student/soldier who doesn’t care about anything” role as much as she could. But still, god, the way adora treated her must have hurt so much. “you never did have too much faith in me” absolutely breaks my heart. Catra cared about adora so much. She cared about adora more than anything in her life. Obviously she would do anything to prove herself once she can, look at how even the person who loved her the most thought about her. Im gonna talk more ab this later there are better scenes for that. But also I CANNOT BELIEVE ADORA IN THIS!!! GIRL WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!! WDYM CAN U BLAME ME YES I CAN (ignore the part where I said I couldn’t) DON’T JUST SAY THAT SHE SAVED YOUR LIFE. OH MY GOD ok. Being a catra, an adora, and a catradora stan means sometimes u really want to slap s1 adora in the face. For multiple reasons. and the fact catra agrees too…. Catra hates herself so much. She truly honestly believes shes a bad person and it breaks my heart. And unfortunately for everyone, catra has shown that she'll always play a role that shes assigned to the max. everyone believed that shes a villain, she believed that shes a villain, so by fucking god shes gonna be a villain.

putting the rest of this under a readmore bc its longggg

her tail touching adoras hand i am on the floor

Catra: It wasn't all bad growing up in the Fright Zone, was it? I mean, you still have some good memories, right? (dont trust the subtitles in the pics theyre wrong)

THIS scene destroys me. Catra’s so- she always knew the horde was evil, ok, she always knew their childhood was bad. But she endured it for adora. To catra, all the happy memories they made growing up were worth it- all for adora. It didn’t matter what they did. Only to see adora throw all these moments away the moment she realized the rest of it was bad? God, catra mustve felt like she was garbage to adora. Something that wasn’t even worth thinking about once she had the opportunity of something better. Shes very aloof here, as always, but she probably feels a bit desperate- was it worth it for you too? Did any of it matter to you? Where you just miserable the entire time?

Adora: Of course I do. But it doesn't change the fact that the Horde is evil. I had no choice. I couldn't go back.

This is adora’s biggest problem tho. She had no choice, she couldn’t go back. She never feels like she can choose anything based on what she actually wants. Shes always, always driven by this need to do good, the right thing. And this is where theyre most incompatible at first, because while catra only cares about adora and that’s her priority, adora has Morals and puts the greater good over her personal relationships, which to catra makes it seem like she doesn’t care about her. Her happy memories were absolutely worth it to adora, but theyre not more important than the good of the entire world. (I don’t think adora having a sense of morality and not wanting to side with a military empire is a bad thing, catra was the villain of the show for a reason and the reason is that obviously working for something that wants to take over the world is bad. Im just explaining how this is what drove them apart, how catras mind works, and to an extend why you can understand her side and emphatize with her even if she was in the wrong. That trait of adora’s does get bad when she starts acting like she needs to kill herself for that greater good tho.)

them taking a moment to play-fight in the middle of all of that makes me want to sobbbbb 😭😭😭

TINY LITTLE BABIESSSSSSSSSSS Young Catra: What was that? Way to gang up on me!

Young Lonnie: You were fighting dirty. I was just leveling the field.

[Catra shakes and growls in anger as Adora walks up and places a hand on Catra's shoulder]

Young Adora: Hey, you were awesome! Did I hurt you?

Young Catra: No, I'm fine. You're just lucky I let you win.

Young Adora: Riiiiiiiight.

Young Catra: I'm serious! [scoffs] If I came in first, people might expect me to actually start doing stuff around here. Trust me, second place suits me just fine.

Young Adora: Yeah, okay.

EVERYTHING I SAID BEFORE. you can see catra was obviously extremely upset that she didn’t win, but admitting that would be admitting defeat. She shrinks herself to fit into this “no im fine, im chill, im not even trying in fact. I don’t care” attitude, because that hurts less than admitting that shes trying so, so hard but no one believes in her and she keeps losing to adora (mostly bc the other cadets and staff favoritize adora over her, and discriminate against her, making it harder for her to succeed in anything). And adora believes her. “second place suits me just fine” was the mantra catra kept telling herself through her entire life to try and feel less hurt about living in adoras shadow.

though it wasn’t working, and her resentment towards adora kept growing more and more.

oh this scene could be ab so many things. Catra literally slipping through her fingers. A parallel to earlier, when catra held onto adora and helped her up, while here theyre torn apart by a force stronger than them. How adora tried but couldn’t save catra. Aughh

:(

and here, we see how capable catra is. Shes both extremely strong (able to rip herself out of… whatever that is) and extremely smart, even under pressure (in seconds she figures out where she has damage this thing shes never seen before so it stops working)

only for adora to come in, “save the day” after she had already saved herself, and act all. “sure you did” about it. Again, making absolutely clear catra knows she doesn’t believe in her.

Adora: What is your problem? I was just trying to save you.

Catra: For the last time, I don't need you to save me. I've been doing just fine on my own. No thanks to you.

That says everything on its own. Adora doesn’t understand why catra is hurt/angry, she doesn’t even understand how what she said undermines catra. And catra is extremely bitter that adora keeps acting like That. Also, something I haven’t touched on is that adora leaving the horde put catra in so much danger. She was the only thing providing catra with even the slightest bit of protection, which catra -hated- but absolutely depended on, since shadow weaver had made clear that catra was -only ever kept alive because of adora-. Adora defecting put catra in danger not only of the other cadets targeting her, but of death. Catra was left all alone to survive in those conditions, and she did, and now adora keeps acting like catra needs her to save her.

Adora: Catra, wait. ...I'm sorry for leaving. I couldn't go back to the Fright Zone, not after I saw what the Horde was really doing. something that must have stung too is the idea that adora saw innocent people suffering, and that led her to realize that the horde was bad. But she had seen catra being abused by the horde their whole life, and yet still thought the horde was good. What does that say about how adora saw catra? Did she think catra deserve it, wasn’t innocent enough for that violence to be unwarranted? Was her suffering not enough for adora to realize how fucked up that was? (again, we’re able to know that it wasn’t that, adora was just as abused as catra, watching someone be physically abused is also extremely traumatized and kids will learn to justify the abuse theyre experiencing to themselves or others and might not realize its wrong u cant expect a kid to know how to act in a situation like that she was in as much survival mode as catra was and her trying to keep herself in shadow weaver’s good side was just her desperately trying to keep herself safe etc etc this is from catras perspective) I never wanted to leave you. ...You could come with me! You-you-you could join the rebellion! I know you're not a bad person, Catra. You don't belong with the Horde.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA this hurts so much. Adora might have internalized some of what the horde said ab catra and catra might have felt that 10 times as strong than it actually was but adora never actually believed catra was a bad person. Shes probably the only one (before scorpia and entrapta) that Didn’t think catra was destined to be a disgrace, to be bad. And its so sad bc even with all their flaws she loves catra so so much and she wants catra to come with her so much. Adora now has access to a life where she has the opportunity to be happy and she so desperately wants to give catra that same life. She knows catra deserves better and she can see that now more clearly than ever. But its too late, catra is too hurt and too angry to follow her and even if at this point adoras words might have some effect on her, its about to get so much worse. :(

Fuck this next part is going to hurt. Ok

Shadow Weaver: [screams angrily] Get out!

[Young Adora cries out in alarm as dark magic encloses the exit]

Shadow Weaver: Catra... [young Adora turns to see young Catra's form enveloped in a paralyzing, zapping magic] ...you stay.

[Young Catra grunts as she is forced to stand]

Shadow Weaver: What do you think you're doing in here?

[Shadow Weaver makes young Catra turn, feet squeaking on the floor as she does so without picking up her feet; Shadow Weaver clicks her mask back in place]

Catra: [fearfully] We were just playing.

Shadow Weaver: [hatefully] Insolent child. I've come to expect such disgraceful behavior from you. But I will not allow you to drag Adora down as well.

Adora: [pleading] Shadow Weaver, it wasn't her fault, it was my idea, too!

Shadow Weaver: [hatefully, still talking to Catra] You have never been anything more than a nuisance to me! I've kept you around this long because Adora was fond of you, but if you ever do anything to jeopardize her future, I will dispose of you myself. [slowly, enunciating] Do you understand?

Adora: [runs between them, throwing her arms out to protect young Catra; pleading] Please stop!

[The dark magic dissipates back into Shadow Weaver's cloak as she groans and moves back toward the Garnet; Young Adora and young Catra share a look before young Adora runs over to Shadow Weaver]

Adora: She didn't mean to!

Shadow Weaver: [placidly, attempting to soothe] Adora, you must do a better job of keeping her under control. [Shadow Weaver finally lets young Catra out of the paralyzing magic and she grunts as she falls to the ground] Do not let something like this happen again. [she pats young Adora's head as young Catra looks on]

Transcripts and screenshots cannot properly convey the dread of this scene. In a flashback, catra and adora are caught by shadow weaver playing in a place they weren’t supposed to be in, and shadow weaver paralyzes catra with electric magic we know is extremely painful to be caught in, and threatens her life. Catra and adora look to be like, between 6-7 years old in this scene. Theres so much happening here. This lays the foundation to basically everything that happens in the show.

First off, shadow weaver singles out, physically hurts catra, and blames her for something that adora initiated. then, she makes it clear that she sees catra and someone that is bad, and she doesn’t expect anything else from her. And, she says catra is a bad influence in adora’s life, tainting whats perfect, and that tells her that every time after this that adora “acts out”, will be catra’s fault.

she tells catra that, if she ever feels like catra is “ruining” adora, she will get killed. From now on, adora’s friendship is literally what is keeping catra alive. This will, understandably, fuck their relationship up a little bit and also make catra incredibly dependent on adora. She will do anything to keep being adora’s friend and she will have to make sure that shadow weaver doesn’t feel like she is making adora behave out of line or that she isn’t becoming better than adora, isn’t taking her number 1 spot away from her.

she goes on to tell adora, who has been watching all of this, that its her job to make sure catra is kept in line. She’s seen what happens when she doesn’t. this will make adora feel incredibly responsible for catras well being, and like she has to constantly save catra and beg for catra to act right, otherwise catra will get hurt and itll be her fault. On the other hand, adora is a child who just saw someone get tortured, and subconsciously shes gonna make sure to always stay in shadow weavers good side, not only bc if she doesn’t then catra gets punished but because she does not want that to happen to her too.

catra, who was frozen and electrocuted and berated, saw adora get gently talked to, “reassured”, and receive physical affection.

that results in catra growing up both extremely attached and extremely bitter of adora, for “having it easy” and always acting like shes her savior, while she has to constantly walk on eggshells (on a minefield, honestly) so she doesn’t get physically abused. She starts resenting adora as anything she does gets blamed on her, and shes forced to live as her shadow, her bad influence, the devil to adora’s angel. And in adora having a major savior/messiah complex, she feels like shes responsible for saving everyone, and every time someone gets hurt its her fault. She will live the rest of her life trying fix and save everything, because if she can’t then what good is she?

understanding that this is where all of their motivations, flaws, traumas and personalities come from will help u understand the entire show better tbh. It all comes down to shadow weaver. [Young Adora and Catra are walking down a hall in the Fright Zone, just after this incident; they walk past a pillar and become Present Adora and Catra again]

Catra: You always need to play the hero, don't you?

Adora: I was only trying to protect you.

Catra: You never protected me! Not in any way that would put you on Shadow Weaver's bad side.

[Scene transitions to Young Adora and Catra in the same place]

Young Catra: Admit it. You love being her favorite!

Young Adora:  That's not true!

Young Catra: Oh, yeah? [glitches back to Present Catra (and Adora)] When you left, who do you think took the fall for you? Who was protecting me then?

Adora: You don't have to let Shadow Weaver treat you like that anymore. You can leave--[glitches back to Young Adora and Catra]--just like I did!

Young Catra: Oh, because I need to follow you everywhere you go?!

Young Adora: I didn't mean it that way.

[glitches back to Present Adora and Catra]

Catra: I don't. Want. To leave. What don't you understand about that? I'm not afraid of Shadow Weaver anymore, and I'm a better Force Captain than you would've ever been.

[glitches back to Young Adora and Catra]

Young Adora: You always said you didn't care about things like that...

Young Catra: [crying] Well, I was lying, obviously!

[glitches back to Present Adora and Catra; Catra begins to walk away]

Adora: Catra, just wait!

Catra: Why do you think I gave the sword back to you in the Fright Zone? I didn't want you to come back, Adora!

That scene lays out everything I said so perfectly I don’t even have anything to add.

This scene where catra is running through a simulation of all her most painful memories and desperately screams LET! ME! OUT OF HERE!! perfectly represents what spiraling like that feels like

[a younger Catra, maybe 5 or younger, is crying and hiding her face in a blanket on their bunk in the Fright Zone]

Young Adora: [peers from around a doorway] ...Catra?

[Young Catra continues to sob as Young Adora walks to her; Young Adora peels back the cover from Young Catra's face, and Young Catra hisses]

Young Adora: Catra, it's okay, it's just me. It doesn't matter what they do to us, you know? You look out for me, and I look out for you. Nothing really bad can happen as long as we have each other.

Young Catra and Present Catra: You promise?

Young Adora: I promise.

And then the promise. Everything catra went through, all the abuse and bullying, she put up with all of it because of this. She held onto their promise until the end. But the moment adora decided to leave the horde, she broke their promise.

as the memory-simulation ends, young catra gives a look to present catra. One that probably said, remember this. Remember how much you mean for each other. Don’t break your part of the promise. But this isn’t how catra takes it at all. all this tells catra, all that this entire day has told catra, is how terrible adora is. Adora ruined her life. Adora lied to her, said they’d be together forever only to abandon her. Adora forced her to be in her shadow. Adora is the reason shadow weaver never treated her right. She looks at her younger self and thinks, I'll avenge you. Im never gonna let anyone hurt you ever again. Im going to show all of them how strong I can be, ill rise to the top and ill be unstoppable. Im never letting anybody put me down ever again.

(and then is season 5, seeing a younger version of herself is also what makes her realize how wrong she was, how this isn’t the path she wants to take. Its what motivates her to get better, be better. Thinking about herself as a child kickstarted both her descent into being a villain and her redemption arc/recovery.) [Adora is holding onto dear life to some ropes or smth that are keeping her from falling off a cliff. Catra shows up]

Adora: [hopeful] Catra?

Catra: [holding the sword, rubs a finger along its side] Hey, Adora.

Adora: [pleading] Catra, help me, please...

Catra: [contemplatively unhurried] This thing wouldn't work for me if I tried, would it? It only works for you. Then again, you're special. That's what Shadow Weaver always said.

Adora: Catra...what are you doing?

Catra: Ah, you know? It all makes sense now. You've always been the one holding me back. You wanted me to think I needed you. You wanted me to feel weak. Every hero needs a sidekick, right?

Adora: [desperately] Catra, no, that's not how it was...

Catra: [laughs humorlessly] The sad thing is, I've spent all this time hoping you'd come back to the Horde, when really you leaving was the best thing that ever happened to me. I am so much stronger than anyone ever thought.  

I wonder what I could've been if I'd gotten rid of you sooner...

[Catra cuts the last of the rope holding Adora up; Adora shrieks as she falls, catching a rock handhold on the way down]

Adora: I-I'm sorry! I never meant to make you feel like you were second best! Please don't do this!

[Catra looks at the sword, then tosses it into the chasm; it clangs on the way down, Adora gasps lightly]

Catra: Bye, Adora. I really am going to miss you.

 And then she fucking lion kings adora. The fucking episode ever number 1 villain origin story of the century catra you will always be everything to me. Writing this took 6 hours im so tired. And then the episode ends with light hope once more telling adora she needs to let go AUGH so good. I need to go to sleep. if you read all of this i love u i hope u liked it <3 also u might like this post also

#writing this was exhausting omg #its 5:30am i begun writing this before midnight #sorry ab the quality of some of the pics i had to make sure this fit the 30 pics limit #also i am not a writer! i apologize for how messy this is! #theyre literally everything to me.. #she ra #catra #adora #catradora

[sashkapi]

What are your OTPs from other shows besides kindall? (especially love/hate ones)

(Forgive me im so slow)

Oh my here u go >:D

Love/hate ones:

Jimmy and Cindy (The adventures of Jimmy Neutron: boy genius)

This one kinda started it all. Their rivalry was funny and I kinda felt bad for Cindy because she is genuinely smart but what is it if your opponent is a genius  Also hey, blonde and bitchy, my type :) Won't say a lot about this one tho because with all my love for them - there's nothing much I can tell you if you watched the show

Manny and Zoe (El tigre: the adventures of Manny Rivera)

Ok, this one is weird because as a kid I just loved Zoe so much (Her Black Cuervo design, like c'mON LOOK SHES PURPLE) but also liked Manny and Frida together Idk, fandom skewed me later to Manny and Frida but hey, hero-boy/villain-girl dynamic is fun too and I still remember fondly how Manny was immediately smitten by her in "Enter the Cuervo" (Apparently Zoe would end up with Django and honestly? That pair is pure aesthetic, good for them good for them) (Also I'm so mad that I watched this show dubbed because I didn't know english at the time like THEY TOOK ALL CHARM. NO ACCENT, NO SPANISH WORDS IN CHARACTERS SPEECH AND SOME NAMES WERE TRANSLATED IN THE LAMEST WAY POSSIBLE)

Helga and Arnold (Hey Arnold) (can you tell I am a nickelodeon kid yet?)

Ok, this one is more of the one sided love/hate on Helga's side but if you watched the show then you know that she went all in with both love and hate.  Seriously, Helga is such an interesting character. She is amazing and I love her (another bitchy blonde to love yay) Can't say much from Arnold's side. He was oblivious to her crush for the most of the show. He is a kind and understanding boy so jgkkdjgkh I just really wanted Helga to be happy 🥺

Anya and Damian (Spy x Family)

New one and also kinda one sided on Damian's side  Listen These two?

Just plain funny

Anya punching him in the face and Damian falling for her for that? Hilarious Anya being oblivious to his crush despite being an esper because Damian is in denial? Amazing. Good stuff.  They are just so cute and funny, look at them!!!

Catra and Adora (She-ra and the princesses of power)

Ok, I wouldn't consider myself a catradora shipper anymore but God, their dynamic in the first seasons is everything. Like darn, they had drama. Actual enemies to lovers and THE TENSION

Aaaaand season 5 destroyed it all. (Spoilers for she ra ahead)

Some people dropped the ship after season 4 finale because Catra would rather destroy the world than let Adora win, but for me it was THE THING I LOVED LIKE YES, MORE DRAMA, MORE CONFLICT, NOW CATRA MUST TRY REAL HARD TO GET ON ADORAS GOOD SIDE AND THAT MEANS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, I WONDER HOW IT WILL GO and they just??? Kinda forgive her??? I'm sorry, yes, Catra purring on Adora's lap? Sweet. The kiss was also dramatic. But it all felt so undeserved I guess it's because of the limited time the writers had. But damn, introducing a bigger threat in Hordak Prime and kinda handwaving her crimes isn't a redemption for Catra.  But again. First seasons? Good ass dynamic. 10/10

Knuckles and Rouge (Sonic the hedgehog franchise)

THIS ONE IS  AH NICE If you followed my kbsd art then you probably know that I also love Sonic (lil guy doing cool stuff - my weakness) Wouldn't call knuxouge love/hate ship at this point that much tho. They started as this but now they are more of a flirts-a-lot/flusters-a-lot type of pair. Also, we don't talk about "dumb" arc SEGA was putting Knux in 2010's Anyway funni echidna and funni bat my beloveds

Non love/hate

Sanford and Deimos (Madness Combat)

Ok, so the series is about violence, fighting, and bloodshed, right? And then I saw these two in 0.5 episodes and my brain went "OK, but what if they kiss?" And I spend 2021 rotating these two in my head. Violently. (The way Deimos doesn't attack Sanford in "dedmos adventure" still makes me sad from time to time)

Dr. Fox and Hawkodile (Unikitty!)

I was in a weird place of mind when I was obsessed with this show. Looking back at it - its really silly.  I'm gonna be honest, the biggest reason I loved this ship is because it's a big warrior type of guy having a huge crush on a nerd girl and being really silly about it. After a few episodes with this topic I got kinda tired of it tho. 

Still, they are cute.

I might be forgetting some but honestly, if I was to list every ship I enjoy - we'll be here forever This also kinda made me realize that I haven't seen any proper love\hate pairs in recent media. Might be just me tho.

#ask #these were in my inbox since the start of january im so sorry #not tagging every fandom here im too lazy

[nny11writes]

12, 14, shera. 13 entrapta (because this would be funny to see). 13 catra also. 15 shera. 15 star wars. listen. just tell me your unpopular opinions on everything please

For the salty fandom ask game, which tumblr is not letting me link to but oh well I guess??? SHE RA

12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

This is a hard one because the fandom at large likes every arc, it just evens out across the encampments of shippers lol. I feel like the most unpopular arc is probably Glimmer's descent in season 4 which I enjoyed a lot because, I mean, c'mon, getting to see Glimmer not fight with herself and instead just selfishly choose things was fantastic. She really just started doing what she wanted without actually considering anyone else or any other options, and it was so fascinating to watch her go for it after several seasons of this side of her being hinted at.

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

We can WAAAAAY too much about shipping and want to make it everyone's problem.

"That isn't canon!" "I don't think there was enough subtext!" Blah blah blah, and?????? Shut the fuck up my dude.

Stop tagging your anti-whatever shit with shipping tags, block that tag on your side and move along. I don't care why you think C/A is abusive, I don't care why you think A/G is abusive, seriously shut up or keep it in your corner of the fandom.

I've been in fandoms that break down into smaller fandoms (star wars is by era ususally, zelda is by game, etc) and every fandom I've been in has done a good job of keeping their negative opinions contained to spaces where it's others who share it. She Ra is the first fandom I've been in, and I've been doing this 20 years now, where people really couldn't live and let live because they like this ship and if you don't then you're an awful abusive asshole to fit their narrative of victimhood.

I'm sick of that shit. To death.

You want to know what one of my favorite rarepair crackships is? Catra/Bow. But if I dared to explore it at all, in any fashion, I'd be murdered. The only fic I've ever taken down due to harassment after posting what an explicit Catra/Bow/Glimmer fic where they, as two consenting adults in a poly relationship, agreed to have sex with one another in large part to turn on their girlfriend Glimmer for her birthday. TERFs found that and gave me hell.

Like, you could probably find some of the really awful and explicit shit I posted when I was 13 and had no fucking business writing explicit fic or posting it, but now I'm locked out of my old accounts and can't actually remove them. But no, let's go wild over the C/B/G fic instead!

Ooooooo, you can probably tell that this pisses me off just because I keep rambling on, but god I'm tired. I'm a multi-shipper, ship what you want to, tag it appropriately and post in appropriate spaces kind of person. Don't like, don't read, and fuck off with your purity bullshit.

...This is pervasive enough that I'm actually fully expecting some people will unfollow me for that answer lol.

13. Unpopular opinion about XXX character? (Entrapta and Catra)

I feel like I don't have any unpopular opinions about Entrapta over all? Probably the most controversial thing is that I like that the Princess Alliance was shown mistreating her by leashing her. It's very much portrayed for laughs, but whether they meant to or not think it helped set up another difference between the alliance and the horde. Yeah, at first she's chained up in the Horde as a prisoner and we see how long that lasted, but she is literally given more trust and freedom with the horde. Where's Entrapta? Who knows! As long as she shows up again at some point we don't care. Is she distracted by tech again? Annoying, but alright she IS the tech person. Then Entrapta goes back to the alliance and once again they are just trying to control parts of her because they don't understand. IDK, I like the contrast of it, so even though it wasn't put in respectfully it gets a weird pass from me.

Unpopular but not in the circles I run? Catra did more than enough for a "redemption" on the show. It is amazing how many people hate that take.

Unpopular within the circles I run? Not sure this counts or not, but Catra really is a lot like Shadow Weaver/Light Spinner, and I don't think we lean into that nearly enough (either in the show or fandom tbh). Light Spinner especially really reminds me of Catra in early seasons, and seeing S5 Catra by the end is like seeing what Light Spinner could've been under different circumstances. But Catra is also a lot like Shadow Weaver, she is not wrong or lying when she says she sees herself in Catra. I think we spend too much time trying to justify why Catra is nothing like her, when they are really very similar. And I think that's a big disservice to the narrative of abuse in the show. No one wakes up one day saying, "Well gee golly, today I think I'm going to start being an abuser!" They slide into it and eventually start making justifications to themself for why it's okay/they're allowed/whatever to do what they do. Catra could've been the next Shadow Weaver easily, pretending otherwise lessens the impact of her choices to try and change her own behaviors and thoughts.

15. Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?

The best friend squad is boring. Sorry y'all, S1 and S2 of the BFS are really not that interesting to me. It feels super basic, and the conflict has to be shoved onto them from other sources to have their dynamic work. I think there should've been more infighting and especially with Glimmer jealousy issues. Like, you don't have to go wild with it or anything, but they only start to become interesting to me in S3 when Shadow Weaver starts fucking shit up in the background.

They are cute and fun and I enjoyed their stuff! They just! Are also! Really boring!

(I used to actively filter out any fic that was too focused on the BFS, Glimmer, or Bow. At times I even blocked Adora because I live for the personal conflict drama and that was only even explored with Catra during S1-2)

STAR WARS

15.Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?

I like that TCW never really talks about the way the clones are treated. TCW is mostly set from the perspective of the Jedi Order in some way, and I wish there had actually been more jokes made in show about it to be honest. The way clones are treated is horrifying, objectifying, and disgusting. I wish we could've seen more of how awful they were treated side by side with how no one seems to care.

Yes, the Jedi care about the clones, but they are so busy trying to survive themselves that there's nothing left in the tank to try and help them out in a meaningful way. Some members of the Senate care about the clones, but they are either focused on other peoples lives or are too afraid of losing their army to do anything. I love that. I love how fucked up that is, and I love that there are so many times in TCW that something horrible happens to a clone but then gets overshadowed by something else.

The citadel, of course comes to mind. I really love that there were troopers who died horrifying deaths during that rescue, who's bodies are left behind, who are quickly mourned through a wince and then abandoned. Then a Jedi dies and "Well hang on now, we gotta carry his body and give him a proper farewell!".

It's messed up, and I love it.

#salty ask game #ask game #thanks for playing! #enjoy my horrible opinions! :D

[lesbian-in-leather]

1, 12, 23, 37

1. Who is/are your comfort character(s)?

Oh my god so many. This tends to change with whatever media I'm fixating on, so it's been Esmé Squalor (ASoUE) for like... the last year. This fixation shows no signs of slowing down. Old comfort characters include (but are absolutely not limited to) Morgana Pendragon (BBC Merlin), Catra (She-Ra), Regina Mills (OUaT), Nesta Archeron and Mor (ACoTaR), Tiffany Aching (Discworld), and Effie Trinket (Hunger Games). Let's not read too much into what the amount of villains on that list says about me

12. What kind of day is it?

I think this is asking like, emotionally? If so, not a great one my guy. It was already questionable and it recently got worse. However, I am choosing to try and focus on the positives, which is that productively it's going quite well! I finished a WIP (it's here on my art blog in case anyone's interested lmao) and I am now listening to very loud music in my headphones while I edit the earlier chapters of a different WIP (my eslaf fic that I was talking about on here a little while ago) and I making pretty good progress with it ^.^ So overall I feel like it averages out as an 'eh' kinda day lmao

23. How do you feel about chilly weather?

I adore it! Especially if I don't have anything to do, and I can just sit curled up in a jumper or wrapped in a blanket, and eat snacks while I watch a film or do something creative. It's really nice :)

37. Someone in your life, other than a relative, you’ve known for 10+ years?

Nope! I have a friend I met in my first year of secondary school, so it's been like... eight years? We don't talk super often anymore (tragically) but she def counts as my oldest friend and I do love her a lot

#i actually saw my friend the other day!! #complete coincidence but it was really nice #even if we didn't get much time to talk #i should message her #weirder asks #the lesbian herself #nakedbluenailpolish #thanks for the ask!!!!

[lem-cup-rev]

2.7 | Reunion

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)

🌸🌸

Oh… my god… I couldn’t stand this one.

All of the interaction was exaggerated in a way that I found so annoying. The entire episode was a predictable deception sketch where every acting choice was just “lies like a lying liar”.

I’m trying so hard to be constructive about my opinion, because lots of things that are extremely simplistic and straightforward can be lots of fun for lots of people, and I constantly praise this show for the same.

Maybe this particular tone just isn’t what I expect and enjoy in She-Ra. The cartoonish fumbling was ratcheted up so hard that it made no sense in the established tone. Everyone seemed very dumb, and it felt like nothing anyone said registered with anyone else. Adora really started to seem halfway in her giggly drunk state and I don't really know why.

The Horde side suffered from the same problems. One moment just shot me with disappointment, where Catra lies to Hordak, and she just puts on an obvious cartoon liar face, when I really expected her to say it in her steady, serious way, giving us one of those chilling moments where we know she’s making a choice that will affect the rest of her life.

This episode is about Glimmer being shocked that Bow keeps secrets. I think one reason that fell flat for me is that we, the audience, never had any other idea of Bow’s life. It’s never, ever come up. This is the first time we’re learning about it, so it just isn't a twist to us.

I also think the dads’ library has an interesting blankness of location and context. I think it’s all but the only commoner location we ever see besides either cute towns or rough bars. I have no idea where it is, what community it belongs to, or where they think Bow’s university is. It seems like Adora and Glimmer found it five minutes from Bright Moon.

I actually loved the lore. It felt really cool and creative finding out that Sirenia was a mythological figure, who was a constellation, so the characters have to learn what stars were.

I also loved the final scene with Catra and Hordak. Catra being laid out by the basic need to breathe makes her seem fragile in a powerfully scary way.

I always really loved the story of the Horde cycle of abuse. Hordak’s unflinching cruelty makes every other character destroy each other fighting for his approval. It makes me think of this incredible quote from Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo speculating that driving every insecure, violent man is a more powerful violent man he’s afraid of. Anyway, I sure hope that throughline doesn’t go in any weird directions after this!

Let’s check in with our tally.

Catra messed up big time in this one. Do I even have to say it? She yelled and got mad without even realizing an impressionable little baby was listening.

Catra’s Crimes: 25

Next time: Teach me your witchy ways!

#review #no spoilers #episode #2⭐️ #she ra and the princesses of power #spop #she-ra and the princesses of power

[gayfandomblog]

I remember the minute It was like a switch was flipped— I was just a kid who grew up strong enough To pick this armor up And suddenly, it fit God, that was so long ago, long ago, long ago... I was little, I was weak and perfectly naive And I grew up too quick Now you won’t see all that I have to lose And all I've lost in the fight to protect it I won’t let you in, I swore never again— I can't afford, no, I refuse to be rejected

[...]

Here I am, pry me open What do you want to know? I’m just a kid who grew up scared enough To hold the door shut And bury my innocence But here's a map, here's a shovel Here’s my Achilles' heel I’m all in, palms out, I’m at your mercy now and I'm ready to begin I am strong, I am strong, I am strong enough to let you in.

Sleeping at Last - “Eight”

#she ra #spop #spopedit #catra #catradora #catraedit #catradoraedit #* #fun fact this gifset came about because i took a uquiz that told me i'm a himbo prince #& I wanted to resolve the 'I don't know' answers I input so I wouldn't be a himbo. I wanted to be anything else #one of the questions asked my enneagram type. I was like wtf is that so I took an enneagram type quiz #& I was like wtf does this mean so I looked it up #and sleeping at last has an album called 'enneagram' so I listened to that #and I was like oh my god it's catra. and then I listened to this song on repeat for 2 days #I cried to this song in public. I may have made one of my friends cry when I sent it to her #when I retook the uquiz it still told me I'm a himbo prince

[incorrect-quotes-from-she-ra]

Since you got into Encanto, what would you say would be an interesting crossover beetween Encanto and She-Ra?

OOOH okay so this gives me so many ideas, let's see

- i feel like catra and mirabel would get along. mirabel would teach her how to sew and embroider and at first catra would be pretty closed off but like mirabel's personality is so welcoming, you know? they've get to talking about how mirabel was messed up because of her lack of a gift, how catra felt abandoned and left behind too many times to count, and they'd feel a sense of understanding. 'this one gets it' they both think.

- adora and luisa would. hit. it. off. no question. they both are known for taking on wAY too much and being unable to relax and they'd be the BEST of workout buddies. i can see luisa complaining to adora about how hard it is to relax when her definition of relaxing is lifting weights and adora going like 'oh my god, same. i only relax when i'm fighting something!!!'. they would probably exchange work out techniques and discuss how things can get to heavy sometimes, and adora and luisa always walk away from each other feeling a little lighter because hey, there's someone who gets how i feel. bow and mirabel would probably conspire to get them some rest.

- bow and mirabel would also be besties!! they both have that warm, vibey feeling and bow would listen to mirabel speak, no matter what, and gives her a sense of belonging. i feel like bow and bruno would get along as well because bow's really affectionate and bruno is starved of any human contact, right? so bow takes one look at bruno and goes 'okay i'm adopting this sad man as my uncle' and they have WILD times. bruno would also make sure bow doesn't take on too much [because he can forget to take care of himself while he's taking care of everyone else] and bow would be besties with bruno's rats.

- glimmer!!! and!!! isabella!!! both are 'queens', under enormous pressure to be perfect all the time. glimmer would help isabella unwind and go crazy, and isabella would help glimmer think straight and smart. it's a good pairing and they've both got wicked sharp minds and if camilo influenced them, well... the pranks would be AWESOME. we've got glimmer's scheming mind and isabella's powers to thank for that.

- perfuma and isabella as well!! they'd have 'friendly' competitions to see who could grow the best flowers and they stumble through the troubles of growing a plant from scratch together. perfuma helps isabella understand not everything she can grow has to be perfect and isabella keeps perfuma from cracking under pressure. perfuma's there when isabella is having her crisis about liking women and isabella's the one to arrange flowers everywhere when perfuma proposes to scorpia. power couple. together with glimmer, the three of them are unstoppable.

- dolores and seamista!?!?!?!? i'm obsessed with that because dolores is constantly hearing every little thing and it probably gets overwhelming a lot and seamista is just there with an arm on her shoulder and a quiet 'let's get you some hot chocolate'. her whispered sarcastic remarks will always make dolores laugh, and sometimes they're in different room so dolores ends up laughing in the middle of a serious discussion while abuela's just like 'wtf. it becomes a game to see how loud seamista can get dolores to laugh while she's in an inappropriate environment. also: they exchange a Look while mariano and sea hawk are burning things and generally being chaotic himbos and go 'okay we're bonding now'

- pepa and entrapa!!! pepa and entrapta!!! entrapta would see pepa's clouds or rainbow and immediately flood her with questions and pepa would be so shocked that someone is genuinely interested in her powers that the cloud just goes... poof. entrapta would just interrogate pepa about her powers and pepa's just like. holy shit. meanwhile she's VERY invested in entrapta's inventions and they have fun times, seeing what they can make go 'boom' the loudest. pepa can be found poking around entrapa's robots, asking entrapta how they work. entrapta would also design some place where pepa can feel every thing without the encanto facing a hurricane or a drought and she'd just gift it to pepa without understanding what an awesome gift it is and pepa just tears up and hugs entrapa who's like 'what? oh. oh this is nice.'

- also félix + agustin + bruno + micah + george + lance. chaotic dads who have low self control and WILL aggressively embarrass and support their children. they would also gang up against hordak and take him out for picnics and swims saying 'you're too pale!!! you need sunshine!!!!' ignoring the fact that he's a. robot.

- julieta, looking at catra: that poor girl needs rest and a warm hug.

catra, looking at julieta: she... she looks like a mom

basically julieta straight up adopts catra and they have bonding sessions and julieta teaches catra to cook!! and adora is like 'hey whend you learn to cook so good' and catra's like 'i've been meaning to talk to you about that... *pulls in julieta* this is my new mom julieta'. catra also helps julieta understand she's more than what she can give to other people.

- camilo!!! and double trouble!!! both shapeshifters, sarcastic, troublemakers. camilo's been having gender crisises left and right and double trouble pops in like 'hey i can help you out' and camilo's like 'i'm not sure if i want to be a girl or a boy or neither i keep changing my mind' and double trouble sits down and explains gender and tells camilo that he can be whatever gender he wants, it's his choice and they help camilo come out to their family and lends him some dresses. and camilo goes 'you're pretty neat want to help me play pranks on my family' and double trouble's like 'you're my type of kid.'

- FROSTA AND ANTONIO. frosta got the throne when she was eleven, yall. it's a lot of pressure to put on someone that young and frosta's forgotten how to be kid. she can't afford to be a kid anymore. antonio swoops in and reminds her of her childhood and in no time at all, he's giving her rides on his cheetah and asking elephants to carry her in their trunks. it's the most fun she's had in a while and she helps him with the sudden responsibility dumped on him.

- last but not least, angella and abuela. [angella is alive in this, yall.] they both look at each other and see someone so tired, tired of having to be strong all the time, tired of carrying so much grief from losing their loved ones and not having enough time to mourn them properly because they've got a kingdom/town to take care of. they're kinda careful with each other in the beginning, with abuela silently handing angella cups of tea when she sees angella withdrawing, and angella telling abuela stories about glimmer when she sees abuela returning to her shell when everything is too much, and they remind each other that it's okay to grieve. it's okay to rest when things get too much and it's okay to let your children go wild even though you want to keep them close and make sure nothing can hurt them ever again. it's okay to not be okay. even after they part, they remain the best of friends and they're still the only ones who can make the other truly laugh, a belly shaking, eyes crinkling type laugh.

okay haha this got really long hsjfhsdsj thank you for asking me this <3 it made me really happy to be able to ramble about two of my interests together!!! :DD

#she ra #spop #encanto #disney encanto #she-ra and the princesses of power #encanto disney #asks #leo answers stuff #not an incorrect quote #i am not going to tag every character i've talked about because there are. too many/ #ANYWAYS THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING ME THIS YOU ARE THE BEST. #feel free to ask my for more hcs or ideas regarding this <3 [or anything really i don't mind as long as i get a chance to ramble]

[aprillikesthings]

Man I got through that last one fast

s4 ep8 Boys' Night Out

(This one took way longer but also I stopped partway through bc Mal the cat had zoomies and I must appease him with the laser pointer)

ALSO this ended up with multiple Our Flag Means Death references, you're welcome

Glimmer etc. save a bunch of sea elf people from a little village as Hordak destroys it, roll intro

Apparently Double Trouble is refusing to tell them anything more

also they're still arguing about Glimmer going off on her own

also Mermista is taking a long bath and eating all the ice cream in Bright moon apparently

But yeah more arguing with Glimmer, and specifically getting mad at any hint of Adora telling her what to do

Which reminds me of a quote I copy/pasted into my fic notes (I do not remember where I got it I just know Nate said it)

"I think Adora has a huge character flaw where when she feels responsible for someone, she'll do anything to protect them to the point of fencing them in and accidentally taking away their agency. She thinks this is something that she's supposed to do, and I don't think she's fully addressed this part of herself. Catra and Glimmer think it comes from her ego, but she was raised to believe she was only worth anything to anyone if she was useful to them, so really she's just trying to prove herself to them. To prove that she's worth existing, even."

and like

ouch

but yeah it's hardcore on display here

Swift Wind invites himself along lol

lol

Hordak is a big dick, is gonna try to conquer more of Etheria himself so he looks all badass when Horde Prime shows up, orders Catra back to the Fright Zone

and she's stressed out and smooths out her hair D:

the bit of this character being asleep, getting elbowed awake, and iMMEDIATELY starting to play is so funny

why does Swift Wind know the words

new headcanon: Sea Hawk was a stripper at some point

*adds to "this wasn't meant to be a Sex Joke...probably"* collection

THE PHRASING DOESN'T HELP

Look I make so many jokes about cartoon bondage, and here Sea Hawk PAID SOMEONE TO TIE HIM UP AND PRETEND TO KIDNAP HIM I just

I can't even add to that lolol

something something insert "Our Flag Means Death"-based joke here

Swift Wind: I will contact Adora via MAGIC

back to Bright Moon

Adora: "what is going on with you? I know things are bad right now, but we can fix it!" Glimmer: "Why is that always your answer to everything!" Adora:

If you don't let me fix it I HAVE NO WORTH OR VALUE AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

Glimmer: we haven't fucking fixed a god damn thing and shit is getting WORSE Adora: WELL YEAH BC YOU WON'T LET US HELP YOU,

Swift Wind: "She hung up on me!"

IS IT GONNA BE KARL

playing Sea Hawk was probably fun in general but he did in fact make seagull noises

omg it is Karl

okay so Admiral Scurvy is just like I WANT MONEY which brings me back to asking WHAT CURRENCY ARE THEY FUCKING USING

mopey kitty. do you need laser pointer zoomies, too

oh no she doesn't know Scorpia has left and is pouring out her heart not realizing nobody is listening

"Listen, I'll kill you if you tell anyone this, but...I thought winning would be different. Or at least more...I don't know, fun?"

poor bb

Back to the boys: the Horde paid their ransom 😬

oh god this is great

but also Glimmer and Adora are having a screaming match and Glimmer punches LOW, including the line "Maybe your best isn't good enough! If it was, my mother would still be here!"

I took a screenshot of Adora's face in response but I can't post it it's too sad

but anyway, bigger things to worry about

Mermista: "The boys are in trouble!!"

oh hey I remember that scene

Bow: Friendship takes work!!

that is a very good point

also let's face this episode exists in part just so we get to have an episode in which three male characters get rescued by three women :D

okay I like Mermista's song ngl

omg the double meaning of "fight with friends" catching up to them near the end of the song

and Catra goes looking for Scorpia and goes into her room and

omg this is so funny and cute

I forget where I read it (I've gone through so many interviews etc at this point omgggg) but iirc the note just says "sorry"

Back on the ship: Glimmer reaches out to try to talk to Adora--who smacks her hand away and stomps off

😬 oh boy

ADORA GOD DAMMIT

Mermista and Sea Hawk are still singing and having a good time, Bow stares off into the distance singing along, end of episode

...I took way more screenshots than I expected on this one lol

#april rewatches spop #boys night out

[ssadumba55]

Is This What Love Is? (Scorpia X Reader)

Request: Hey, I saw that you wrote something for Scorpia from She-Ra, and I am IN LOVE with her!! Is it alright if I request something? Like the reader is part of the rebellion and is in a fight against the Horde and comes across Scorpia and freezes because, huh? G-giant buff pretty scorpion lady? Hello?? And the reader immediately falls head over heels for her! Oh dear, sorry if this was too detailed😅 and it’s alright if you don’t want to write it!! Btw, I love your writing! It’s so detailed! Keep up the great work!!

Fighting against the Horde was almost a daily occurrence at this point. It happened so often that you weren’t even sure you could qualify it as something exciting anymore. It was just another part of your life as a rebellion soldier.

Now, you didn’t want anyone getting any wrong ideas. You were definitely one hundred percent in support of what the rebellion stood for. Peace and freedom and all that good stuff, you just wished it involved less fighting.

Less fighting that you had to be a part of.

She-Ra was literally a magical, 8-foot-tall woman. She could probably take out most of these Horde soldiers on her own. Or even if she couldn’t, her, Glimmer and Bow could. Why did they need you?

“(Y/n)! Duck!” Perfuma called and you ducked just in time as something flew over your head. You didn’t even pause to see what it had been, in all honesty it didn’t matter.

You shook yourself off and began to scan the field for She-Ra herself. She was fighting Catra, she always was. It was like her thing. The two of them went at it every time one of these fights broke out and every time, they ended the same. With both of them alive. Seriously. Adora must really like the girl, you remember thinking, slightly bitterly when she came back from the last fight.

Ugh. That was one thing you had never understood.

Sure, peace, freedom, magic. All that stuff was cool, and you understood why it was good. But love? You had never fallen in love with someone. It was just something you’d sworn never to do. Maybe it was because your parents’ marriage had been rocky or maybe you just didn’t want to distract yourself from what really mattered.

Either way, everyone around you knew the message loud and clear; (Y/n) doesn’t fall in love. And if you ever did, you would have someone put a sword through your head immediately. There would be no doubt about it.

While you’re distracted watching Catra and Adora battle it out, you forgot you yourself are in a battle. You take a step back and trip over one of Perfuma’s plant like appendages. Stumbling backwards, you lose your footing and tumble down the side of the hill you’d been standing on. Right into a Horde soldier. Just your luck.

You stand up ready to jump into battle again when you get a good look at the soldier you bumped into.

She’s really tall, not as tall as She-Ra but tall enough. Her hair is cut short, shorter than you’ve ever seen it and she’s got a muscly build. Where her hands should be, there are pincers instead. You vaguely remember someone like this being mentioned at the meetings (that you don’t pay attention to), but you can’t remember her name.

Your knees are weak they feel like they’re going to buckle underneath you. Her intimidating demeanor changes almost immediately when she realizes you’re slipping to your knees.

“Hey, I know I’m not really supposed to ask this… because we’re enemies and all, but are you alright?” She asked, her voice is not what you were expecting. It’s smooth, beautiful. But it’s also awkward and hopeful. Somehow you never imagined a Horde soldier sounding like this.

“I- I don’t…” You try to stutter out a response, but you can’t. How are you supposed to respond to this? Any of this?

The sounds of the battle around you hit your ears and for the first time since you joined the rebellion, you stop to think about why you joined in the first place. To promote peace, happiness, spread freedom throughout Etheria.

To take back what rightfully belongs to the rebellion.

If all that’s true, then why does it suddenly feel so wrong standing in front of her.

“My name’s Scorpia, you don’t seem alright. I’d hate to leave you here all alone,” she looked off in the distance towards where Adora and Catra were fighting last you’d seen them. Vaguely, you wonder if she knows Catra. Probably.

“(Y/n). Don’t leave me here, please, take me with you,” you don’t know what brings you to say this, but you need to go with her. You can’t be left behind. You have to figure out what this feeling is. Why your knees go weak whenever you meet her eyes or why you’ve been eying her muscles for the past little while.

She looked slightly uncertain but after a moment’s hesitation, nods. You throw your weapon to the ground, listening to it clatter as the two of you walk away in the direction of Catra and Adora. Over your shoulder, you think you hear Perfuma or Mermista calling your name. Maybe even Bow or Glimmer.

They wouldn’t understand.

Suddenly, a thought blared in your mind. They wouldn’t understand, just like you had never understood. God, this must be love, or something close to it.

You had a brief thought of picking your sword back up and running yourself through but no. Even if this was temporary, you could get used to it.

You had to know what all the hype was about love anyway.

#she ra imagines #she ra fanfic #scorpia imagine #scorpia x reader #adora #catra #catradora #bow #glimmer #mermista #perfuma

[wagner-fell]

“So then Catra writes on this note ‘hey Adora’ and Adora is like ‘grrrr’ and so they do this whole passive aggressive dance where you could have cut the sexual tension with a knife. Oh, and then-”

“I. Hate. History. Class.” Mari slammed their plastic lunch tray onto the table.

“Oh thank god,” said Kevin. Listening to Mari rant was much preferable to hearing about the Princess Prom episode from Astrid. Again.

Blessica hit Kevin and gave him a pointed look.

“I mean it’s bad enough I have to write essays about fucking colonizers. But now I have to sit next to this white-ass American boy? No thanks.”

“You know,” began Astrid, “if you wanted, I could kill this new guy for you with, oh I don’t know, werewolf po-”

“No!” they all shouted in unison. Astrid was mundane with the gift of the slight but she didn’t think of it like a gift. What was the point of being able to see this fantastical reality if she couldn’t be a part of it? What was the point of having three werewolves as your best friends if they refused to turn you into one?

Blessica tried to tell her that, as a downworlder, she would face a lot of discrimination. But what kinda excuse was that? Astrid was a Korean lesbian who, for most of the time, lived with her single mother. At least this branch of marginalization gave her freakin’ superpowers. The only superpower Astrid currently had at her disposal was not having to date men.

Astrid angrily took a bite of her cinnamon roll and Mari followed suit. Blessica tried to pat her arm but Astrid swatted her away.

“American?” Kevin asked. “I don’t remember any Americans. Is he new?”

Mari nodded through a mouthful of baked goods. She tucked her tie into her black-and-white uniform sweater vest so they didn’t stain it. Normally she wouldn’t have bothered but laundry had been a living nightmare lately. They promptly realized that her sweater vest was also going to get food on it. In removing it, their stomach flashed briefly. She stuffed it in her bag and set an alarm on her phone so they wouldn’t forget to put it back on before the lunch bell rang. Like that time Miss Yang made them jelly doughnuts and she got detention for a week. Mari really hated this school sometimes.

When she looked up to see half the surrounding area staring at them, they looked down at her collared shirt to see if she had gotten fresh cinnamon bun gooeyness on it already.

Astrid laughed. “It’s because you exposed your six-pack.” She moved her fork around in circles, making sure the ranch covered each piece of lettuce in her salad. Astrid loved ranch. She kept a gigantic bottle of it in her bag at all times. “You know, one time this guy asked me if you got them tattooed on. Cause girls can’t have abs and all that bull.”

“And what did you tell him?” asked Mari, amused.

“No.”

“Thank go-”

“I told him the truth. That the only tattoo you have is of Consul Lightwood’s face on your ass.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“The world deserves to know.”

“You're a hazard to society.”

“Awwwww. Mari! I love you too.”

Astrid smiled and shoved a mouthful of salad into her mouth as Mari rolled their eyes.

“Holy shit,” said Blessica, staring at something over Mari’s shoulder. “That is the second hottest man I have ever seen.”

Kevin glanced in the direction she was looking at then back to her. “What? Who?” he asked at the same time Mari drawled, “second hottest, who’s the first?” with a single eyebrow raised.

Blessica blushed as Kevin continued his search. “M-magnus Bane. Obviously.”

“Riiiiiiiight,” said Astrid, looking between her and Kevin.

Blessica blushed deeper. “Shut up.”

“Wow,” said Kevin. “That him?” He pointed and this time Mari turned around…to face Kit fucking Herondale.

Blessica, still red in the face, nodded.

“Wow indeed,” agreed Astrid.

“Aren’t you a lesbian?” questioned Blessica.

“Blessie, darling, I may rather suck on a cactus than suck on a dick but hotties can admire their fellow hotties. Gender is irrelevant in this scenario.”

Mari slammed their hands down onto the table. “Ladies! We are better than simping, even just hottie wise, over an American, white boy! We have standards! And Kevin! I know that” disgust dripped from her voice, “is your type, but resist!”

He rolled his eyes. “Jesus. You hook up with two blonde nephilim and suddenly it’s your type.”

“Yes,” said Astrid slowly, as if explaining something to a very dim child, “that’s how it works.”

Mari felt like they were missing something. Her three friends began discussing where they wanted to go tomorrow for Blessica’s birthday but they were stuck on Kevin’s statement. Something about it wasn’t quite right. It took her longer than she was proud of to figure it out.

“Wait, hold up, did you say nephilim? Kit is a Shadowhunter?!”

They all exchanged a look. “Uh, yeah. Didn’t you see the Mark on his hand?”

Mari turned back to him again. He was sitting by himself at a few tables, scrolling away. And on the hand holding his water bottle… was a voyance rune, clear as day. How did they miss that? “What is a Shadowhunter doing here anyway?”

Kevin shrugged. “Perhaps he’s here to check out London’s up-coming werewolf. I hear she’s a hazard to society.”

Astrid’s head shot up. “Really?!”

“No, sorry sweetie,” interjected Blessica. Astrid finished her cinnamon bun with an annoyed ‘hmph’.

They chatted more about Blessica’s upcoming sixteenth birthday before Kevin came up with the dumbest idea ever. Which was an extremely difficult title to earn amongst the 11th years at St. Lucy’s Academy.

“We should invite the Shadowhunter.”

Mari scoffed. “The whole pack’s gonna be there! Like hell they would let a Shadowhunter crash it.”

“Oh please. Once they lay their eyes on McDreamy, they’ll all forget about his angel blood.”

Astrid gasped. “Is that a Grey’s Anatomy reference? Are you finally watching it?” They all ignored her.

“I think it might be fun,” said Blessica. “And it’s my party so…” She stood up and walked over to Kit’s table, Kevin right behind her.

Astrid picked up her salad with one hand and her second cinnamon bun with the other. “Come in,” she said. “What’s the worst that can happen. You fall in love?”

“Haha,” said Mari, slinging her bag over their shoulder and joining the others.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @adoravel-fenomeno @im-not-ruined-im-ruination@thechangeling @thomas-gaypanic-lightwood @sofiatheskeleton @cncnbr @its-taff @ithurielkeepsgettingkidnapped @noah-herondale-lightwood @maxboythedog @arangiajoan @shelvesofgold @illusions-give-reasons-to-live @book-dragon-not-worm @the-blackdale @the-wckd-powers Lmk if you want to b adde/removed from the tag list!

#mari machado #mari Machado Sotomayor #blessica reyes #astrid yang #kevin chu #the merry hoes #kit rook #kit herondale #mari the werewolf

[sevens-evan]

prompt: bow magically gets turned into a magicat and reacts appropriately

catboy bow...listen i’m not a furry and i’m usually anti catpeople as a general rule but someone should draw this

“How come I don’t get a tail?” Bow calls, peering at himself in the mirror. He flicks an ear, and the cat ear in the mirror obeys.

“I don’t fucking know,” Catra calls back from the main room of her and Adora’s Bright Moon quarters. “I was born like this, you got cursed.” Bow scratches at one of the ears and wanders out of the bathroom, to where two of his best friends are sitting on a couch waiting for him.

“I feel like curse has a negative connotation,” he says as he emerges to Adora and Catra’s curious gazes. “This isn’t so bad, right?” Across the room, he hears a quiet, familiar pop. He looks up just in time to see a familiar burst of sparkles.

“Hey, guys,” Glimmer says, adjusting her grip on the tray of food in her hands. “I brought snacks. What’s the big—” She drops the tray. It slams into the ground, and Bow flinches at the sharpness of the sound. He covers his ears and finds that they’re already tucked back, pulling away from the noise. “What the fuck happened?”

“Bow decided to go digging in a First Ones ruin,” Adora says. “Without She-Ra around to help.” Bow shrugs, giving Glimmer a sheepish smile. It’s true. He did do that.

“You have cat ears,” Glimmer informs him.

“We all noticed,” Catra says. Bow reaches up, touching his ear. It tickles, and he flicks his ear away from his own touch.

“Okay,” Glimmer says. “Okay. Cool. Cool. What are we doing about this?” Bow shrugs.

“Wait it out, I guess?” he says. “We can go to Mystacor if it doesn’t go away on its own.”

“So we’re just cool with this?” Glimmer says, glancing at Catra and Adora. “We’re just going with it?”

“Why not?” Bow says. “There’s nothing actually wrong with me, so there’s no harm in waiting. Besides”—he crosses his arms and grins proudly—”I look adorable.” A thought occurs to him then, and he digs in his pockets, looking for his comms pad. “Guys, we should have a photoshoot.”

“What?” Glimmer says. Catra is already shaking her head, eyes widening.

“A photoshoot,” Bow repeats. “Me and Catra match now! Think about how cute it would be!”

“Absolutely not,” Catra says. Bow pouts at her, flattening his ears down as best he can. She makes a disgusted face at him, but Bow widens his eyes, and it fades slowly as she stares at him. “Adora, is that why you can never say no to me?” she asks, nudging her girlfriend. Adora shrugs, turning a bit pink.

“Is that a yes?” Bow says, already opening the camera app on his pad. Catra sighs deeply, standing from the couch.

“These photos go nowhere,” she says, pointing at him with an extended claw—and, hey, Bow didn’t get those either. The First Ones’ spell is a scam; all he got were the ears.

“Deal,” Bow agrees readily. Catra steps up to stand beside him, and Bow holds the pad up with one hand, flipping the camera and giving a thumbs up with his free hand. Catra just crosses her arms and glares at the lens. Bow doesn’t bother trying to get her to smile; he just grins at the camera and takes the picture.

“Oh my God, we’re so cute.”

#catra #bow #glimmer #adora #spop #my fics #fic: gen #this almost spiraled into angst abt catra's upbringing but you know what? bow deserves cat ears and happiness #i've done enough angst to this fandom #techtonicactivity #answered

[lady-of-snails]

WAIT FUCK I JUST REALIZED BECAUSE OF 306 THERE’S MORE BKDK-CATRADORA PARALLELS OH MY GOD

like “you saw what happened! deku chose being a hero/one for all/saving everyone over me! deku doesn’t want me...not like I want him.” or “don’t you get it?? I love you, I always have! so please, just this once...stay.” FUCK 

“stop trying to win this/be a hero on your own” from katsuki is so much like catra telling adora that it doesn’t always have to be her, that she doesn’t have to keep sacrificing herself for everyone else, but deku/adora doesn’t listen and still takes all this responsibility onto themselves and try to make it so no one else has to fight or get hurt, they’re both so much about self-sacrifice and katsuki/catra hate that because they only think about who their saving, not who they’re hurting/leaving behind. 

and all this is leading me to imagining a heart pt.2 bakudeku scene which is going to make me cry aaaaaah finally accepting help and love from the most important person in their lives who also happens to call them an idiot all the time ugh 

aaaagh this is rambling but I just want it out of my brain

#first ship obessesion vs current ship obession baby #if anyone remembers when this was a spop blog ily #bnha #spop #shera #SheRa and the Princesses of Power #boku no hero #boku no hero academia #bkdk #bakudeku #dekubaku #dkbk #catradora #catra #adora #katsuki bakugou #izuku midoriya #bnha manga #bnha manga spoilers #bnha 306