[ID: the Gotta Be One of My Favorite meme, an image of a man standing in front of a car, looking to his left, and holding his folded hands up to his chest.
The top of the image has text that's been edited to say "Shout out to physically affectionate m/f platonic friendship fr 🤞🏿" And the bottom text says "Gotta be one of my favorite genders."
Throughout the meme are 14 images include:
Hooty stretching around Lilith for a hug from The Owl House
Vanessa and Finral from Black Clover high-fiving.
Steven and Peridot from Steven Universe sitting together in the cockpit of the gem drill.
Nobara and Yuji from Jujutsu Kaisen holding hands.
Jesse putting a hand on Lake's shoulder in Infinity Train.
Sprig on Anne's head from Amphibia.
Luz resting her head on Hunter's should from The Owl House
Ochako grabbing Tenya's shoulders from My Hero Academia
Willow and Gus from The Owl House linking arms
Jaune hugging Ruby from RWBY
Douxie putting his hand on Claire's shoulder from The Tales of Arcadia
Gray patting Lucy's head from Fairy Tail
Norma and Barney hugging from Dead End Paranormal Park
Bow holding Adora's face from She Ra and the Princess of Power
/End of ID]
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currently brainrotting over: how She-Ra does such a good job conveying a true break from the abusive (and self-abusive) behaviors and patterns you were taught to perpetuate growing up, and it's because of how directly it interacts with and seeks to address the cause of those patterns
(hell yeah we're talking about Catra's arc again babeyyy)
this is what I think the dichotomous "explanation not an excuse" language often misses out on, even among those of us who like Catra and use that language favorably -- it's not just that Catra's bad behavior has an explanation, it's that it has a cause that can be treated, and that does get treated, that Catra comes to treat herself
it's not just identifiable, it's actionable, and the show is about her learning to take that action
we have it spelled out for us in Promise that she has grown up with a deeply-rooted core belief that she is worthless on her own, that her value hinges on Adora, and that she can never count on that value to be stable (because Adora is, in fact, her own person who can do as she pleases and who may one day decide that she doesn't like Catra anymore)
and the action she's taking until Season 5 is to lean into this core belief as hard as she can -- scramble for power and security because Adora being gone means she's vulnerable (which gets reinforced over and over again by both Shadow Weaver and Hordak), keep everyone else at a distance, lash out at Adora for leaving, and double down on the turmoil that comes from all this even after she figures out she doesn't actually want any of it
and it leaves her despondent on the ground, completely without friends or even allies, telling Sparkles to just fucking end it for her already
but then, the first few episodes of Season 5 happen... then, Corridors in particular happens... and Catra gets presented with the opportunity to take the action that is actually going to treat the cause of her bad behavior
she sits and talks (and laughs!) with Glimmer, trades stories with her of Adora thrashing around during sleepovers, listens to her express her regret for how she left things; she aligns this experience with her memory of Adora trying to get her to come back out and play nice with Lonnie too; she has it laid out for her in these parallel experiences that Adora truly didn't stop caring about her just because she made other friends
she looks her lack of trust in Adora in the face, and she decides to defy it -- she decides to be good to Adora in the spirit of the trust she is deciding to have, against her upbringing, against her patterns, in Adora's care for her
(and she decides to do it by saving Glimmer, this person who is so symbolic of so many of those insecurities to begin with by virtue of being the one Catra perceives Adora as having left her for)
and it brings Adora back to her.
it gets her what she wants the most.
and faced with the question of what to do with that trust going forward, Catra tries to rescind it at first, because trusting is unfamiliar and potentially unsafe in all the ways she's afraid of... but ultimately, she doesn't. she can't. she knows now, really knows, what everything will come to when she withholds that trust, and she can't live like that again
so she keeps trusting ("Adora, wait. Please. Stay.")
and it opens her up to healthily mitigating her anger, taking others' distrust of her on the chin without running from the guilt that causes, extending olive branches of her own accord, making genuinely friendly connections within the Rebellion, and finally, finally, breaking free of Shadow Weaver's hold on her
Catra at the end of the show has comprehensively rewritten the core belief she started with -- and that's different from consistently acting on the new belief, as any of us who are in therapy for that kind of thing will know (and as the show itself demonstrates by having her leave at the end of Failsafe), but the steps she has taken to rewrite the old belief are steps she can't go back on without serious effort
and I don't know if I'll ever really be able to express how powerful it is for people to have this narrative in their lives when they're like her, when they need to take the same steps, when they need to do that same work
whether or not everyone puts these words to that power (and who knows if these words are even the right words, they're just the words that feel right to me at the moment), they can feel it and understand it and use it to take action for themselves
and a whole lot of people are going to live a whole lot healthier lives because of it, which I think is pretty beautiful
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“catra is a complex poc” fuck that. here are some ACTUAL poc animated characters who are just as, if not more complex than catra. (pt. 2)
mako (the legend of korra) • mixed (japanese and chinese)
min-gi park (infinity train) • korean-canadian
zuko (avatar the last airbender) • japanese
caitlyn kiramman (arcane) • bi-racial (east asian and presumably scottish)
miles morales (spiderverse) • puerto rican, afro-latino
amaya (the dragon prince) • east asian (ambiguous)
marshal lee (fionna and cake) • half-black (technically, marceline is black too but i figured marshal would be considered better representation)
carmen sandiego (carmen sandiego) • hispanic (argentinean-mexican)
toph (avatar the last airbender) • chinese
callum (the dragon prince) • half asian (ambiguous)
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