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darklight572 · 4 months

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"Catradora is Toxic"

Is a claim i've seen spread...heavily here, now, obviously this is disproportionate compared to the actual number of SPoP fans. This is, even if its Tumblr, social media.

Despite that, I think even folks who don't buy this interesting take could use a reminder- why exactly is Catradora not toxic?

Before we do that, we should look into: what makes a relationship toxic, how that can change, and how exactly abuse factors into all of this. Let's be clear, toxic and abusive aren't the same thing, they mean different things.

Usually "toxic" in regards to a relationships is talking about unhealthy and, sometimes, dangerous actions between folks in an relationship. For example, repeated mischaracterization. [1]

"Abuse" then speaks about when unhealthy behaviors occurs repeatedly, usually with an intent to harm the other person, and is much more actively dangerous. [1]

TOXICITY (EARLY) So then, do Catra and Adora have a toxic, or even abusive, relationship in She-Ra Princess of Power? Yes! Just not in all the instances people like to claim they do. They begin with a toxic relationship, and would delve into an abusive one toward the end of season 1 (Promise imo), then their relationship dissolves from Adora's perspective.

It starts as toxic for a number of reasons, but being brief, Adora does not fully see Catra as a person with her own autunomy but as something to protect and derive her value from. This is very much not intentional on Adora's end, but imo, Adora starts the series with a mindset with the belief that she must do acts of service to derive any value. A lot of this is expressed in her actions in the first couple of interactions she has with Catra and Shadow Weaver.

For example, choosing to leave Catra behind to find the sword even as Catra asks her to bring her. She is either: not taking Catra's abuse seriously enough, or being naive in regards to the chance of Shadow Weaver harming her for something not her fault.

Catra shows fewer troubling behaviors at this early in the case, but there are a couple- for example- when Adora asks her to come back Catra seems to disproportionately blame Adora for the violence inflicted on her. Adora is responsible for her own actions, not for Shadow Weaver's she is still a child. I want to be clear, Catra is not inherently in the wrong for being mad at Adora for not realizing Shadow Weaver was a piece of abusive shit, but shifting the blame of the abuse itself is.

If you wanna learn more about that early dynamic, I recomend Five by Five's [2] "Trilogy", "Why Adora Matters", and "Why Catra Matters". Some of my points and ideas are informed by those videos.

ABUSE (STILL EARLY) So, when and how does this become abusive? A lot of people might point out that Catra harms Adora physically pretty early in the series- I would like to point some mitigating factors in this. Catra is a CHILD, 18 at oldest, who is being repeatedly physically and mentally abused and probably violated (See: Shadow Weaver's ability to mind wipe people). It is impossible to say that Catra's seeming agreement in bringing Adora back is uncoerced.

Especially since she showed signs of leaving the Horde until she recieved seemingly safety from Shadow Weaver in some small part by becoming a Force Captain. So, in my mind, a lot of Early Catra is easily explained. We see this most clearly, imo, in No Princess Left Behind. Not only does Catra give Adora her sword back when she could: have attacked the weakened princess, pulled more alarms, etc- and it would have- at least in her mind- given her validation from Shadow Weaver.

Yet she doesn't, because while their relationship is toxic, it is not abusive at this point in time.

I think the tipping point of abuse (as mentioned previously) is Promise. This is where we see, again imo, undisputable evidence of Catra intentionally harming Adora with no seeming coercion. Letting go of her at the crevisse. Maybe she thought Adora would be fine with She-Ra, but that absolutely doesn't excuse her here. Then, the physical harm she continually perpetuates against Adora is at least- in part- uncoerced, as we see here.

MIDPOINT (ALL THE OTHER SHIT) We have to look further into Catra's abuse against Adora- and to what extent it is Catra. I think a point that too many people miss is that throughout the majority of the series Catra is in a system which repeatedly abuses her specifically, she is not just a child soldier who grew into a commander, she is one targeted uniquely by multiple of the higher ups. This does not excuse Catra's behavior, but it makes it A) more understandable, and B) less reprehensible.

So, what does she do? Mostly attacking Catra and mentally manipulating her while in battle- some of this is her trying to survive against She-Ra's enormous physical stature- but she seems to gain some amount of satisfaction from it all. Despite this, even though she has multiple opportunities to have killed Adora, she never does. This is, to be clear, a very low bar- but it does demonstrate that some claims of Catra "leaving Adora to die" are extremely overexaggerated. Adora doesn't fight particularly well in a lot of scenes, and Catra could have very easily chosen to slash her throat instead of kicking her. Catra does not want Adora to die.

One of her greatest harms is when she pulled the lever for the portal. Although, there are several mitigating factors which makes it not quite comparable to Glimmer's actions a season later. First of all, after Shadow Weaver's escape, Catra assumes Shadow Weaver's place- and Shadow Weaver is replaced by Hordak as an abuser. Second, Catra is not working on perfect knowledge, she is told it could destroy everything- by who exactly? Adora. Who she has seen consistently not recognize threats properly in the past, and has been able to outwit consistently. What she actually knows is that pulling this will hurt Adora because she didn't listen to her, to me, its unclear how much of the situation actually dawned on her.

This, again, does not excuse the situation- but it explains it. While Catra shows self-harming behavior, I don't think its at all consistent with her character to want to destroy everything- we see her contradict that with her literal every action. No, this action is much better explained as a judgement call of Adora. One of the worst actions she actually does is send Entrapta to Beast Island. While Entrapta percieves this as a "positive" later on, to Catra, Beast island is a death trap and that is her intent when she does this. This action is mitigated at least slightly by the fact that Entrapta was directly standing in her way of doing what Hordak wants. Catra knows how that ends, pain or death (through suffocation or beast island itself).

While its more than possible Entrapta could have convinced Hordak not to pull the lever (this is contentious), Catra is very clearly not thinking here. Some like to use Catra's manipulation of Hordak later on as proof she has some massive plan but uh- her plan was to nearly destroy the world then lose to Adora, and then manipulate Hordak? No- clearly she wasn't thinking, and was trying to justify herself to someone that could harm her, keeping her security. Does that make any of this right? No. But again, it provides context.

ANALYSIS (WHEN IS IT OKAY TO FORGIVE?) So, looking at ALL of this, how could there be any doubt? Catradora is toxic and abusive, the claim is correct, no? No.

Because while toxic, and further abusive, describes Catra throughout most of the series, it does not describe her throughout the ENTIRE series. And, her acts of abuse have consistently been muddled with manipulation. Earlier, I left out a small detail, even during Promise- Catra was being actively manipulated by Light Hope. Her memories were being changed, Catra is being violated. That changes a lot doesn't it? Throughout the series Catra's safety is conflated with an end-goal. Taking over the Horde with Adora, retrieving Adora for Shadow Weaver, being a Commander for Hordak.

This does not change the fact that she was abusive, but it puts Catra into a context as someone who is not necessarily doing so of her own will. Of course she grows more and more angry at Adora, in her mind, Adora is actively refusing Catra's safety. This is still a very toxic mindset, but it is a deeply understandable one considering Catra's childhood. This changes the entire dynamic Adora and Catra have. We see everything from Adora's perspective, we understand thats not her intent, and not even what she's doing. But Catra doesn't. The abuse, fundamentally, comes from a lack of perspective. [2]

So, Season 5, the biggie in the room. This is what most critics of Catradora seem to either ignore entirely or dismiss without thorough examination. Well, they also ignore all of the context of seasons 1 through 4 but i've already discussed that. Its notable that here, for the first time in a long time, Catra's power is something she knows not does not protect her. It allows her to consider her own perspective as unbiased as she has ever been able to. She is isolated from most anyone she could abuse, and the one chance she does have she chooses not to.

Here, she finally recognizes that her own perspective is rooted in a flawed understanding of their childhood. Not just from Shadow Weaver, or even from Light Hope- but from herself. This is extremely important, Catra- in realizing this- is not just taking accountability for her actions but the mindset that lead to it- and immediately takes action to correct herself. She rescues Glimmer, and in the process is violated again, this time even more severely- and is mind controlled by Prime. Adora saves her anyway. Because even abusive as Catra was, Adora understands the context that Catra was abusive in, and through her action to save Glimmer, see's the goodness in her return. As Catra couldn't kill Adora, Adora can't let Catra die.

So, Adora rescues her, Catra reacts negatively at first- but of course she does- her mind was just taken from her without her consent. But even then, Catra wants distance, asks Adora to drop her off- to isolate her. Adora refuses. This is important, too often people outside of a situation or even the perpetuator try to claim ownership of how to help the people they harmed- thats not up to them- its up to the person harmed. Adora doesn't want Catra gone, because she see's the context which shackled Catra has been- literally- eradicated. Catra proves to us that Adora isn't just being optimistic here.

As they move around, Catra ceases her violent actions against her, she barely even bickers- when she raises her voice she immediately apologizes and displays accountability for her anger. She helps save the world from Horde Prime. I think looking at Shadow Weaver's behavior creates a nice dichotomy between what someone actually changing looks like versus someone who wants to appear as changed. Shadow Weaver is still manipulative, still actively trying to get Adora to do everything she wants- and Catra- doesn't take her shit. She calls Shadow Weaver out, repeatedly sticks her own neck out against her former abuser in order to save Adora.

Catra does eventually get emotional with Adora, but there is not manipulation happening in "Heart Part 1", Catra is correct- Adora will die if she does this herself- Catra doesn't want Adora to die. Is this the most healthy way of doing this? Absolutely not, but again, they are fighting an evil space empreror. When she realizes Adora is going to die, she immediately course corrects and goes to find her, attempting to and successfully rescuing Adora from herself and Prime.

Does this make what happened before, okay? No. It doesn't. None of what I've explained here should make you dismiss what Catra did, Catra certainly doesn't, but I want you all to think about what creates the abuse and toxicity in the first place. Is Catra actually the origin? Or is she a tool for a system of perpetual power to inflict violence through. She isn't completely cleared of her part in her actions, she has choices, but in such a system your choices are limited and often coerced. Catra was actively coerced at literally every step, and had her options limited from day one. She was different, and Shadow Weaver didn't like the, even toxic, relationship she had with Adora.

Highlighting that a lot of the initial toxcitiy is from Adora helps illustrate my point more clearly, it is not Adora being a "bad person" it is the oppression of the Horde using Adora as a tool. Adora has the privilege (through the Sword and her lack of physical danger) to escape it, Catra- at least, in a safe way, didn't. Catra didn't have the power to fight off the Horde when they came looking for her, at least, she didn't think she did. What we see throughout the series is Catra trying in vein to reclaim some small amount of safety she had when she was with Adora and failing because she was playing the system's game.

Adora knows this, of course she does, thats why she's so quick to go back after Catra once she see's the glimmer of goodness in her (heh). What makes Catradora so good in my opinion, is that it doesn't just show how people who were abused can move on, but it shows how systemic oppression differs from individual abuse. Is their relationship going to be perfect at the end of the series? Absolutely not. Will it abusive? No. Not from the context we see in Season 5. Is it okay for Adora to forgive Catra? That depends on the person. Fundamentally, Catra's situation is extremely complicated, with no real analog to our real world in its entirity. We have to understand that metaphors can only go so far, I've tried to explain as much as I can, but there's absolutely nuance missing here because Etheria isn't Earth, and the Horde isn't like any massive corporation or even military on Earth.

I think, given all the context, and Catra's later repeated displays of growth and goodness- that Adora can forgive Catra. I feel, for a lot of reasons, a lot of relation to Adora. I can say, at least from my current understanding, that I would forgive Catra.

That doesnt mean my take is automatically correct, but, the continued insistence that Catradora is toxic has largely ignored a massive portion of context and development on Catra's side and seemingly completely missed the fact that some of the toxicity came from Adora before it came from Catra, and therefore missed the system ultimately responsible.

[1] "What is a Toxic Relationship." Elizabeth Scott, 2023 https://www.verywellmind.com/toxic-relationships-4174665

[2] "Five by Five Takes" Youtube Channel, Sar (Specifically Trilogy, Why Catra Mattesrs, and Why Adora Matters)

One Little last note: I have absolutely missed a LOT of things, Glimmer's actions in comparisons, some of the specifics, Catra's toxic (platonic) relationship with Scorpia- but - most of that isn't necessarily relevant to this anaylsis. What happens with Scorpia is much more complicated than Catra just abusing Scorpia, but I think the situation with Entrapta is much more poignant and relevant for what we're discussing here.

#catradora #spop catra #she ra spop #toxic catradora?

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edge-lorde · 1 year

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more spop world building notes

i was talking with an irl friend about my brightmoon head canons and mentioned to them how odd it was that the boats in spop don't seem to sit in the water, as can be seen from this screenshot of sea worthy:

they also float in the air sometimes i guess.

example of them in the water:

my friend noted that the fins look like hydrofoils , something i hadn't known about. theyre basically fins that go on the bottom of a boat and, qutoe from the wiki--

"As a hydrofoil craft gains speed, the hydrofoils lift the boat's hull out of the water, decreasing drag and allowing greater speeds."

real hydrofoils look like this:

the resemblance is even better with hydrofoil boards.

real hydrofoils have structures that go under the water in order to give the boat/board the lift to be able to rise up like this

but what if the same effect could be achieved a different way?

we know that there's a stark difference in technology between the horde and the rest of etheria, but Horde navel vessels also appear to float just over the surface of the water despite looking much heavier than the other etherian ships we see.

we also know they have other floating land vehicles like the skiffs.

much of their other vehicle technology has a scorpion aesthetic, as it was adopted or stolen from scorpias former kingdom. examples:

we also know that first one's technology combined magic with regular technology, and entrapta seems to be the first person to have been able to reinvent this kind of tech during the events of the show.

We also know that the galactic horde doesn't use magic in its technology at all, as its a major plot point in season 5.

other people have made theories that i agree with, (but don't feel like trying to dig up their posts) that when hordak arrived on etheria, he did so at a time when anti-princess sentiment was already high and was adopted into an existing conflict because he brought with him stronger technology that could even the playing field with people with magical powers. he then would joined with the scorpion nation in this effort in some way-- whether it was mutually beneficial or not.

this is the image of the scorpion nation being taken over by the horde that light spinner showed micah as a child to convince him to help her grow her own magical abilities

it should be noted that light spinner/shadow weaver was at this time a powerful sorceress in illusory magics and is a villian well known for manipulating children in her care (adora, catra, micah). The scorpion kingdom take over could have happened like this or been more of a mutual endeavor and this is just what she chose to show micah because she knew it would compel him to action. Evidence could point either way. Scorpia is the only living scorpion person we ever see in the show, but she's also been treated well (has her own room with a picture of her parents with her on display and a closet full of dresses) and been given status beyond her abilities in the horde. she's supposed to be a force captain in season one, before even catra is made one, and yet when she is left in charge of a crew of soldiers its played for laughs, as if she's never had to do that before in a meaningful way. at least to me, speaks to there having been an alliance between the growing Horde and the scorpion kingdom at least at some point, and maybe a promise to take care of a young princess that was honored.

the textual evidence in support of hordak bringing advanced tech to an old conflict is scorpia mentioning before the prom that the other princesses didn't like her kingdom even before the war, the face that the horde cadets grew up being fed anti-princess propaganda despite the horde harboring a known princess in a position of authority, and the tech that the horde has. As i said before some of it has a scorpion motif like it came from the scorpion kingdom, but some of it does look like what we see of galactic horde tech, notably hordaks lasers and the green forcefield prison cells present in both hordes.

we also know that hordak himself is an engineer, having made many technologies presumably by himself-- such armor to hide and manage his medical condition, something he did not want other people to know about. So its my opinion that all of the tech we seen in the etherian horde is an amalgamation of scorpion tech, galactic horde tech adapted by hordak as well as new designs he invented. none of which use magic before entrapta joins the horde.

so what is my point? well, the other etherian kingdoms other than dryl dont seem to use any modern tech at all, at least at the structural level. like bow and his parents have a data pads they can call each other with, but much of the way people are living in etheria looks almost medieval. the princesses dont seem to have any ground vehicles at all for example.

and yet both sides have floating boats.

one could say the princesses boats are magical while the horde boats use some kind of magnets or some other floating technology we don't have.

you know what they do both have?

FLOATING ROCKS

so all of this to say...

what if they put rocks in the boat and it make it go up instead of down????

#and this is a technology that predates the horde which is why they both have it #but simple enough they dont need the secrets of first ones tech to do it #spop #shera #rambling #scorpia meta #hordak meta #spop meta #thoughts #sorry #this went on for way too long lol #i had a bit about hordak inventing the internet #i left it out cause its too long as it is but theres not much more to it than that #i just think it was him

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kaiwuzherenz · 5 months

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(non rushed version on this post)

-under the cut is the non rushed version, but skip it if u dont give a shit- Dont mind me just rambling, so if you dont rambling just keep scrolling (dont say i didnt warn u, i mean i think i even go off topic prob)

So everyone who has watched she ra s5, knows that chipped catra is catra fighting adora (and not holding back) under horde primes control.

and so chipped catra was just fighting under horde primes control, not holding back (head-canon!: i would think that catra could see everything "she was doing" but coulnt stop it). Chipped catra did fight adora for a bit, damaging adora alot with the potential scarring outcome. But for chipped catra to make a kill swing

........just what

if adora didnt dodge (barely), then she would most deferentially be dead and boom! Horde prime just won

but adora did get to catra about bringing her home. That would have hit the "normal" catra and thats when the chip was quickly deactivated for catra to say "Promise?"

you could see how scared adora was to the idea of having to hurt catra to live. but getting to catra with her words (adora is good with her words) Horde prime could see what was gonna happen. Horde prime makes catra say her "final words"

Now what i think happened (im not sure bout it tho) is that when catra said her "final words" Horde prime did a certain thing. Since the chip was on catras neck, that has one of the important nerves in her body, leading straight to the brain. thats why horde prime put it there. When he turned off her chip and cut the connection, he sent something to her brain, cutting off that nerve. killing catra.

now if ur like

heres a simple version.

the chip on catras neck was ontop of something that helped her body work, when horde prime turned off her chip, he cut the line from her brain to that important thing, killing her.

so quick some up, one of these 2 wuz gonna die when catra was chipped. Catra by horde prime killing her, and Adora if catra landed that kill swing

off topic time:)))!!!!!!!!

so yeah, adora saves catras life. adora gave catra a chance. Catra gave back that favor almost

Catra accpeted her death in the final episode, almost to die with that monster thingy that was stopping adora to get to the heart. But as we all know, shadow weaver jumps in

Shadow weaver dies so Catra could live and adora could make it to the heart

Catra feels this act by Shadow weaver the hardest (in my mind) because shadow weaver made catra who she was, and why she has her ways and things around people... Catra was gonna die right then, she accepted only for shadow weaver to jump in.... EVEN AFTER EVERYTHING ADORA HAS DONE TO CATRA, SHE WAS STILL READY TO DIE FOR HER....THAT BASICALLY JUST PROVES HOW MUCH CATRA LOVES ADORA!!

ALSO Prime saying "YOUR Adora will die" and the terror on Catra's face, and we know by now how explicitly Catra wants Adora, makes the fact that Prime previously said "your Adora" to Catra and "your Catra" to Adora hit so much harder, they really did belong to each other

I STARTED CRYING BECAUSE AS MUCH AS ADORA LEFT CATRA FOR THE REBELLION, CATRA LEFT ADORA FOR THE HORDE BUT SHE REFUSED TO LEAVE HER AGAIN EVEN IF IT MEANT SHE'D DIE WITH HER CATRA WOULDNT LEAVE ADORA, EVEN WHEN ADORA LEFT HER 3 YEARS AGO!!!!!!

#she ra #catra #adora #catradora #spop catra #cat rambling #she ra catra #shera #shadow weaver #rambling #nate stevenson

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solarisquid · 4 months

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JUST THIS ONCE... (Catradora)

Rating: General Audiences

Tags: She-Ra Season 5 Spoilers, Dark, Self-Hatred, Catra POV, Angst with a happy ending.

WC: 642

Notes: Bolded parts are whispers by Adora that Catra perceives as yells.

Read on AO3

"You look out for me. And I look out for you. Nothing really bad can happen as long as we have each other."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

That was the last memory that crossed Catra's mind before the pain.

"It was time I did justice to that promise myself. Stay safe, Adora..."

And those were her last thoughts before being forced to submerge inside the green glowing pool. Before the shadows took over and all she could hear was Horde Prime's voice, soon enough joined by thousands upon thousands of voices in the darkness. The hivemind. Their sound was deafening and Horde Prime's will was even sicker than any punishment Shadow Weaver had ever inflicted upon Catra. So she withdrew deep into her soul, far deeper than anyone could ever reach, to slumber for eternity as Horde Prime used her as a mere puppet.

Anyone but Adora. Suddenly, a light. And Adora was there. Somehow she had managed to break Prime's mind control. She didn't remember doing so. But soon enough, Prime took over again. This happened many times in a lapse of time way too short and Catra was hurting.

The last thing she saw before being surrounded by darkness once again... Was the abyss. A deep, dark abyss. Horde Prime wanted to end her life.

The darkness surrounded her, once again. She could also feel the grip of Horde Prime, restraining her whole mind. And the shadows started to grow bigger. And bigger. And bigger.

She was dying. And all she could think was... That she deserved it. She had ruined way too many people's lives. She had broken people, and pushed them away. A single good action couldn't redeem a monster like her. She deserved nothing, but death. The whole universe would be better off without her.

And then, among the shadows, she heard a voice. A shout, a yell. Accompanied by a light, so bright that the shadows started to retreat. So bright, that Horde Prime's light seemed like a shadow itself. So pure that she could feel Horde Prime's grip weakening, as he was burned by the light.

"Come on, Catra, you're not done. Not yet!"

She knew that voice. She knew it as well as she knew that the sun would rise every morning. Her heart skipped way too many heartbeats.

"Adora?"

"We're going home, Catra! You have to wake up!"

Then, Catra saw it. A bright, glowing door, calling her from within the shadows, attracting her. And Adora was there. Trying to reach Catra with her hand.

"Adora... I'm worthless. I hurt people. Why would you come back for me? I wanted you to be safe... To uphold my end of the promise for once. Leave me. You're better off without me."

"No, no!"

The sheer emotion in Adora's yells was enough to made Catra look at her. She was crying.

"I was the one who failed you! I broke the promise, while you always looked out for me, even after I left! So don't you dare blame yourself for that!"

"But..."

"Don't you get it!? I know I don't deserve it, but I'm begging you! I will never leave you again, so please, just this once... Come with me!"

Adora wasn't able to continue as she burst into tears. But her words were more than enough to make Catra feel something she hadn't felt in a long time. Hope for a better future. Hope for herself. Hope... For redemption. A will to live.

So she struggled with Horde Prime's weakened wrap. She struggled through the shadows, through the pain and through the darkness, reaching for Adora's hand, as her face filled with surprise.

When she opened her eyes, Adora was there. Leaning on her chest, feeling mentally exhausted and vulnerable... She said the only thing she could think of at the moment.

"Hey, Adora..."

AO3.

Kudos and reblogs are appreciated 💛

#catradora fanfic #spop #spop fanfic #spop fic #catradora fic #catra spop #adora spop #catra she ra #adora she ra #fanfiction #fanfic #writing #adora x catra #adora/catra

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anti-spop · 6 days

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https://www.tumblr.com/vickysaurus/647094531216605185?source=share

“Did she already understand, but have a moment of shock and jealousy that Scorpia instantly got it while it took Adora a couple seasons to get why Catra was hurt when she left?”

why are c//a stans so hellbent on making it seem like adora is either dense or insensitive? of course adora knew why catra was hurt that she left the horde. she had to apologize multiple times even though it wasn't her fault.

what makes no sense is why catra didn't leave the horde as well, especially after shadow weaver left the horde. there was nothing holding catra back. she sure as hell wasn't afraid of hordak. even if she didn't want to join the rebellion, she could have just.. gone somewhere else. no one was forcing her to continue committing war crimes.

either way, even if adora didn't understand why catra felt hurt, that's not an excuse for all the shit that catra did. but when it comes to the spop fandom, every single thing boils down to how it affects catra and how her actions could be justified.

Do not harass the OP of the post linked.

Wow, people really come up with absurd interpretations to make Adora look stupid. I mean, hell, Adora wanted Catra to come with her because she knew the Horde was awful to her. IN SEASON 1, both in Sword - Part 2 and Promise.

Yeah, for instance Huntara went to the Crimson Waste after leaving the Horde, she didn't go to Bright Moon. Catra could've done the same thing - they even hinted at it through Scorpia. But I guess Catra just wanted to make Adora suffer, honestly.

#asks #anti stans #anti c//a

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swearyshera · 2 years

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You should drop a top 10 sweary-SheRa moments that decimated the fandom

Here’s my votes for Bow’s first swear and Scorpia saying “fuck” and not apologizing immediately to go somewhere in the top 5

~ @sammys-magical-au

Sure! Listicles are the backbone of our society now, so I present to you all, in no particular order (and naturally with spoilers for everything I've made...up to now, anyway):

6 Times Sweary She-Ra Made You Want to Yell At Me

When Catra and Adora got 'married': People had been wondering exactly how Catra and Adora seemed to have been married for a long time - did the Horde sanction child marriages? Did Shadow Weaver don a vicar's outfit? The reality was both cuter and darker, as we saw the two of them as young children use Adora's half-knowledge of marriage to make a promise to each other that they'd always stick side by side in their little corner of Hell.

2. When Frosta really was a demon: Frosta's little ongoing make-believe about being a demon from another world was cute... and then we found out she wasn't playing at all. Trapped in our realm and cut off from the fiery depths of home, Frosta found herself stuck in the body of a small child, but managed to partially transform just long enough to show Glimmer who she really was.

3. When Bow came out to his dads and got the most Dad response: This was one of those lines that could never have been anything else. Bow was so sure his Dads would be disappointed that he was bi and not gay, that he went to some great lengths to cover it up. But ultimately, he told them the truth, and they supported him in the only way they know how - awful jokes.

4. When Scorpia said 'I love you' to Catra: The Crimson Waste was quite an experience for all of them. But no-one more so than Scorpia, whose infatuation with Catra finally seemed to be returned. And so, she summoned up the courage to tell Catra how she really felt - but didn't quite get the answer she wanted.

5. Angella's final words: Since the earliest episodes, Adora has reflexively called most older women 'Mom', but no-one was more deserving of that title than Angella. She took Adora in and looked after her in the first months at Bright Moon, but generally tended to ignore Adora's name for her. That was, until she sacrificed herself to close the portal - as well as telling Adora to make sure they all looked after each other, she left her with one final instruction: Call me Mom.

6. Scorpia tells Emily her secret: Scorpia believing, beyond all logic, that her family were just 'on holiday' was a funny, if sad, running joke. But it became a whole lot sadder when Scorpia revealed that she knew what had happened to them all along, and the lines about them being on holiday were simply her lying to herself as a way of not having to think about the truth. It put a lot of lines in a much darker context.

7. Bow swears: I'd mentioned a lot that Bow would swear exactly once in the series, and it's during his argument with Glimmer that it finally happens. There's F-bombs and then there's F-bombs, and Bow dropped one with the power to destroy planets.

And I know I'm going to be able to add to this list again multiple times this season and next! Because let's not forget we soon have:

the 'depression vines' of Beast Island

Double Trouble's mic drop with Catra and her lowest point

Heheheheeee

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spop-romanticizes-abuse · 2 months

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shadow weaver's relationship with adora intrigues me because on-screen, we only ever see shadow weaver being "nice" to adora. nice is in quotations here because obviously she was abusive and manipulative as fuck, but she often masked it with an air of kindness or concern. she often praised adora and discreetly pushed her towards a future she never asked for. it was all definitely done in a manner that would ensure that adora would still trust her and think that this was all for her own good.

but then, we get an entire episode dedicated to how terrified adora was of shadow weaver. she wasn't just slightly uneasy or anxious. she never thought about trying to reason with shadow weaver because she was too scared to even do that. if shadow weaver really was being discreet with her manipulation and control over adora, wouldn't adora be less openly scared and distrustful of her?

it's weird, especially considering how catra was a lot more openly hostile and cruel towards adora, even before she deflected, and adora still viewed her in a positive light for a long time. she still believed that catra had some good in her, and trusted catra not to take things too far.

of course, there are different ways abuse victims deal with their trauma but different types of abuse elicits different responses. considering how shadow weaver has always put on a mask in front of adora (literally but also not literally) i feel like adora's approach towards her realistically would have been more anxious and guilty than outright frightened and distrustful. basically something like “shadow weaver has always looked out for me and raised me like her own daughter, i should be grateful but i disappointed her instead”. you know what i mean?

so either shadow weaver was openly abusive to adora also and it was never showed on-screen, or the writers wrote shadow weaver as a pure evil character and wanted adora to despise her as soon as she left the horde.

#idk if this is really an spop salt post #it's more of an open discussion really #spop #she ra #spop discourse #(i put that tag because i dont want the other part of the fandom commenting here)#long post #because i was trying to make my point without coming off as insensitive or stupid

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catras-witchy-girlfriend · 1 year

Text

Finally Free | Catra x Reader

Content Warning: Meltdowns, self doubt, self destructive thoughts, no gendered pronouns used for reader but Catra does refer to them as "princess"

"Catra! You have to stop!" Adora shouted from the pillar she was tied to.

Catra was unhinged, breaking apart at the revelation that Shadow Weaver had abandoned her for Adora. That Shadow Weaver, the monster who raised her, got a happy ending and she was still stuck in this hell hole!

"I-its always the same with you, Adora! Isn't it? I have to do this! I have to do that! But this time, I'm getting what I want!"

Your heart was racing as you processed it all from the side. You felt lost and scared as the portal frame glitched and sparked. Saying that it looked unstable would be an understatement.

"Catra! If you turn that portal on everyone will die-"

Your heart sunk.

Was Adora telling the truth?

Why would she lie?

This...this isn't a good idea.

"C-catra..." Your voice trembled under the weight of the tension in the air, so you cleared your throat and tried again: "Catra! W-what if she's right? W-we'll all-"

"I-I don't care!" Catra hissed, her chest rising and falling fast as though she was hyperventilating. "I don't care! I don't care if the whole world ends I-I..." Catra turned to Adora and growled, "I won't let you win!!! Not again!"

Catra grabbed the lever but before she could pull it, you rushed up and grabbed it yourself.

"What are you doing, Cadet!?"

"I..." Your head was spinning as though it was trying to predict every outcome. Catra looked so lost, scared, angry. Her thoughts were screaming so...you tried to whisper, "I don't know but...I-I'm scared Catra..."

You put your free hand on top of hers that held the lever and allowed yourself to break into a pout as your face twisted in concern, "P-please Catra, w-what if she's right?" You asked again.

"I don't care-!"

"Everyone is going to die..."

"No, I won't let you or Adora get in my head again!"

"Catra, that means Entrapta will die..."

"She-"

"It means Scorpia will die..."

"Stop it, C-cadet!!"

"It...it means I would die..."

"Y/n..."

"Y-you...you will die..."

She laughed bitterly and hissed, "Who cares!!! I don't care if I die!!! I don't care!!"

"I CARE!" You raised your voice for just a moment as you grabbed her shoulder and then whispered, "Catra please...I don't want to lose you either..."

"S-she can't-" Catra turned her head to look at Adora but you gently pulled her face back to yours.

"Don't look at her," you whispered. Despite your nerves, you tried to stand tall. Your voice was warm and welcoming, "Just look at me, Catra...please."

"S-shadow Weaver left...me...for her!" Catra hissed, "Adora left for people she barely knew for a day!!"

Her voice was breaking as her overly exhausted body began to shake, but she was trying so hard to keep up her tough facade.

"I know...and...I-I'm so so sorry, kitten," Your nickname for her slipped through your lips before you could really stop it, even though you weren't supposed to call her that in public. "But...that's their loss!"

You smiled through your tears, "You don't even see it do you? Look at all you've done, Catra? If it weren't for you, the horde would've crumbled years ago! You...you're the best force captain the horde has ever had!"

Catra whimpered so softly it was hardly audible, "I-its not enough! It's not enough, Y/n!!"

You thought for a split moment, weighting your words carefully, "W-what do you want, kitten?"

"I want to see Adora fail-!"

"No." You said sternly, "You're more than who you were to Adora! You're more than what Shadow Weaver says! What do you want! You! Forget Adora, forget Shadow Weaver, they don't matter, you YOU matter!"

Her beautiful multicolored eyes widened in response.

She was silent for a moment before a single tear fell down her cheek, then another and another and she began to shake, "No...no I don't..."

She looked back up at you: distraught, lost, and broken. "We both know it's true, Y/n...I...I don't matter!"

"You matter to me!" You exclaimed. You began tearing up as you realized what Catra really needed. "C-catra...listen to me, because it's very very important, okay?"

You took a deep breath, "Catra...I love you."

For a moment she looked shocked before her jaw set and she hissed, "No you don't."

Your heart sunk, "Yes, I do."

"No!" She growled, "Stop it! You don't love me, h-how could you-?"

"I-I didn't tell you because...because I was afraid you'd...I don't know...you'd hate me or that you wouldn't want to be friends anymore." You looked up at her, "but I'm not afraid anymore...I can't be...because you need to know it."

You squeezed her hand, "Y-you need to know that there is someone out there who loves you. You need to know that you've made my life better just by being in it, kitten!"

"S-stop..."

"I know...I know it's a lot, but...I'm not saying it because I want something from you. Y-you d-dont owe me anything. You don't have to say anything. You don't have to feel the same, Catra."

You smiled warmly, "I'm only telling you because it's true. No strings attached. I just...I need you to know that...I want you in my life, kitten!" You giggled through your tears, "I need you to know that you matter to me! So listen to me...listen to me and take it in..."

"...I love you..."

"...I love you, kitten...and-"

You slipped your hand off of hers that was holding the lever and backed away, "-I trust you...."

She looked between you and the lever. Her face was distorted with distraught as she looked to Adora and then to the lever.

You inhaled sharply as you saw her go to turn the portal on-

-but then her eyes found yours and she froze.

Finally, the fog began to fade, and she saw you, truly saw you. You looked scared, shaken, desperate but...hopeful. You had so much hope for her and so much love and care it practically screamed out for her to finally see it.

Catra's eyes watered again as suddenly everything made sense. The way you always tended to her every need, the way you always tried to make sure she was healthy, the way you were always by her side, the way your face would turn red when she teased you, the way you always defended her, the way you called her different pet names, the way you always reached for her hand, and the way you always came to her when you were scared.

You loved her...

Her head was still too foggy to say for sure if she felt the same, but she knew one thing without a doubt. She cared about you. She really did...

...so she shut down the portal and fell to her knees sobbing.

As soon as she shut it off you ran back up to her and held her in your arms. You didn't care about anything or anyone else in the moment. Adora, Hordak, the princesses they didn't matter, all that mattered was Catra.

You hid her face behind your arm, so she could fall apart without the fear of everyone watching. You nuzzled your face in her hair as you whispered gently, "It's gonna be okay, kitten, I promise. I'm so proud of you..."

Her claws unknowingly dug through your sleeve and into your arm, but you didn't mind, infact you hardly even noticed.

"I'm sorry...for everything."

"it's okay," you whispered back to her, stroking her hair softly, "we can worry about that later, but right now just...just exist with me, okay?"

"Thank you, Catra," Adora butted in as she strained against the cords that kept her down, "you did the right thing-"

Catra scoffed and hissed at her, "Save it, I didn't do it for you..."

She then looked at you as though she wanted to say something but seemed to stop herself.

You smiled and continue stroking her hair and then begin to clean the tear tracks from her cheeks with the end of your sleeve.

Hordak began walking to Adora and grabbed her by her face to force her attention to him, "Don't for a second think you've won, Shera. Prime already knows where we are, and when he gets here, Etheria will be at my feet."

"L-lord Hordak, what's our next move?" Catra asks as she dusted herself off and stood tall beside you.

He snapped around to her and you knew nothing good would follow. "Our next move? No. You disobeyed me, you shut down the portal before it could bring us to big brother, you are a failure-"

Your face twisted with anger, "Are you joking?" You scoff, "Catra is the best force captain the horde has ever had, if it wasn't for her the princesses would have won years ago!"

"I did not give you permission to speak, cadet-"

"-and I didn't ask for it!"

The words left your mouth before you could stop them, and quickly you realized you had signed a bill you weren't certain you could pay.

Hordak began marching up to you, "How dare you speak to me like that, cadet!" He spat as he continued "You are below me, you are insignificant, you are nothing!"

You started to tremble as you stood but tried to stand as tall as you possible, but then as Hordak raised his blaster on his arm towards your face, Catra kicked his arm down to the floor and ripped a glowing pink diamond from his armor that started to weaken him.

"C-catra?"

"We have to go-"

"What?"

She shoved the diamond in the small satchel attached to her belt and ran past you, grabbing your hand to pull you along. "We have to leave before he gets back up!"

"W-what about Adora?" You asked nervously.

Catra looked back for a moment before shaking her head, "The princesses will come and save her, trust me, but us?" She squeezed your hand as she hurriedly lead you to the hover scooters before turning around to face you, "No...no one is going to come for us...we need to protect ourselves so please..."

Catra hopped on the vehicle and turned it on before hesitantly holding out her hand to you, "trust me..."

You smiled warmly as you looked into her brilliant yellow/blue eyes. Your heart warming in your chest as you confidently took her hand and she helped you on the floating ride.

You wrapped your arms around her waist and told her, "I always have, kitten, and I always will..."

She opened her mouth to say something until you both jumped from hearing Hordaks raging scream and saw the distant sight of on coming princesses.

"Wanna finally ditch this place, princess?"

"Thought you'd never ask, force captain~"

With a soft chuckle Catra revved up the engine and you both sped off into the whispering woods.

Neither of you quite knew where you were going, Catra simply kept driving and you trusted her to get you both somewhere safe.

You sighed and laid your head down on her shoulder. "Are you scared?" You asked her quietly.

There was a moment of silence before you felt her shoulders drop from their tense position, "Honestly? A little..."

You nodded before squeezing her midsection assuredly, "Me too...but...no matter what happens next...I'm with you, Catra..."

She simply nodded her head in response until she was met with a large clearing in the woods.

Catra then lifted her arm behind your head and pulled you closer to her to place a soft kiss on your temple and your cheek.

When you looked up at her with hopeful surprised eyes she smiled at you warmly and said, "Just for the record, I love you too, princess~"

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aprillikesthings · 27 days

Text

can I finish this before I gotta get ready and leave for the Maundy Thursday service let's find out lol

(Edit: Nope.)

THREE MORE EPISODES LEFT

*cries*

s5 ep11 Failsafe

someone hold me

I have to actively suppress the urge to read the synopses of the episodes at this point

oh also lol this is just funny to me, I saw a post Elsewhere Online where someone watched all of spop the first time and they HATED the dumb names everyone has, and I think they mentioned Castaspella specifically.

And like FIFTY PEOPLE responded with "dude they had to use the original names from the 1980's series" and I was the only one there old enough to have watched the original series and I had to point out: the original series was made to sell toys. The vast majority of cartoons in 1985 were only made to sell toys. They gave everyone those dumbass names because it was easy for kids to remember and beg for the toys."

That's also why all the female characters in the original series have the exact same body type. Yeah the body shape itself was due to 1980's-era sexism, but also? It was so much cheaper to animate the show AND make the toys that way!

But also, it's hella ironic to me that the 2018 show has so little official merch!

And now, back to crying over cartoon lesbians:

good question

ugh I hate her

Shadow Weaver: "While you were traipsing around in space,"

OH MY GOD they were saving a few people's LIVES and it was kind of IMPORTANT but WHATEVER

"--some of us have been working to stop the Heart of Etheria from falling into Prime's hands. And we discovered the same thing you did. Rumors of a Failsafe that will break the restraints the First Ones built and set the stolen magic free." Glimmer: "Are you kidding? After everything that happened last time, you're still going after the Heart of Etheria? And you're helping her?" Castaspella: "We're trying to free the magic for all of Etheria so we can be strong enough to fight Prime. I'm doing this for your father and for you. Shadow Weaver is the lesser of two evils."

I love that she says this right in front of Shadow Weaver. Like "girl I hate her too"

nice

okay ngl I have mixed feelings about this one because unfortunately she's not entirely wrong here but also, shut the fuck up

(something something people are responsible for their own actions but also she wouldn't have done all that godawful shit if Shadow Weaver hadn't been such a shitty parent)

but yeah Catra gets up like she's about to fucking throw some hands and Adora's like It's okay bb

;_;

but also they do need the information Shadow Weaver and Castaspella have

so it turns out Mystacor was built on top of a First Ones' citadel? huh

Castaspella: "Beneath Mystacor, there are many secret tunnels and rooms, forgotten and sealed off. No one has been able to access them in centuries, but there are whispers of what they contain." Shadow Weaver: "An artifact known as the Crystal of Arxia, hidden there by a group of traitorous First Ones." Castaspella: "You said I could do it!"

lol they bicker like old marrieds

Adora: "If you figured it out on your own, why come back here? Why do you need us at all?" Shadow Weaver: "Because Mystacor is controlled by Micah, who, you may recall, is controlled by Horde Prime."

they've been TRYING

"If he seizes the Heart, it will all be over."

Stop toUCHING HER

oh god Adora turns around to ask Catra to help out--and she's gone

YOU'RE THE REASON SHE'S FUCKING "SULKING" and you fucking know it, why are abusers always so god damned surprised to find out their kids don't want to be anywhere near them

(I mean I know why, they think they should be able to control you forever)

aaahahaha Adora's just like Nah I'mma go look for her tho

anyway roll intro!

omg look at Netossa and Spinny on the bottom left awwwww

she looks so sad

well okay sad and angry

their conversation here is so good, because Catra's fully aware of why Adora's doing this, but is really struggling to push past how much she (justifiably!) hates Shadow Weaver and hates being around her

I actually do kinda wish I'd kept a list of all the times Adora does the self-sacrificial thing, separated into "someone asked her to do it" vs "nobody asked her to do it" lol

BUT ADORA EXPRESSES A NEED oh nice that's progress

Adora: "Hey, she can't do anything to us anymore. Please, come. We--I-could really use your help."

two things I really love about this: One, she doesn't say that she doesn't like Adora, just that it's not the reason she's going. Two, I feel like Adora knows damn well Catra's not being 100% honest here.

Like, to some extent Catra's saying this as a way of attempting to protect herself a little. She's taking baby steps towards vulnerability, and it's terrifying! And I think Adora can see that and is fine with it--not JUST because she's like "any crumbs are better than nothing" but ALSO because she doesn't want to push Catra.

Because yeah, if there was any actual doubt that Catra does like Adora--

WELL.

Entrapta was able to get Spinerella's chip out but says it had started fusing with her nervous system and they're running out of time to safely un-chip everyone.

But she's been digging around the network that connects all the chips to Prime, hoping to figure out how to disconnect everyone at once, and Bow gives her a little encouragement, it's really sweet.

OKAY so everyone who can, teleports to Mystacor with Melog making them invisible. (Apparently Catra doesn't get motion sick from it anymore which is nice lol)

I love the way they animated them being invisible

oh GOD okay

Catra turns around and says "looks like there's no sorcerers here" while, unfortunately, a sorcerer walks into the room. Shadow Weaver grabs Catra and puts her hand over her mouth to keep her quiet, and Catra (understandably!! but unfortunately!!) jerks away in fury and yells

And her fury causes Melog to drop the invisibility

And now the chipped sorcerer knows they're all there

they manage to duck the attack but Adora goes to transform into She-Ra--and can't do it

she had this issue last episode aaaugh it's not from being near Shadow Weaver she wasn't there

okay but also Adora runs behind a pillar to hide from an attack with Catra and it's cute

girl help why is this giving me so many emotions

y'know it's funny how often I've bumped into posts of people who are confused as to why Adora starts trusting Catra again so quickly, and I frequently wonder if they forget all the childhood flashback scenes of these two. To varying extents they both spent their entire childhoods seeing the other as their only consistent source of comfort and (something resembling) safety, and with some notable exceptions Adora's spent the last four seasons (which was like three or four years) visibly holding out hope that one day she could trust Catra again. This despite the fact that she now has other sources of safety and comfort and love!!! Being with Glimmer and Bow and everyone else was healing, sure; but it never erased her grief over losing Catra. She always, always held out the tiniest flame of hope that Catra would change sides.

And Catra basically tried lighting her own grief on fire (metaphorically and kinda literally) over and over and it just didn't go away, and I feel like when she saved Glimmer and apologized to Adora she had sort of come to terms with the fact that her grief over losing Adora couldn't be burned away, but of course by then she figured she'd fucked up so bad Adora would never forgive her or trust her again. And rather than take it out on other people or suffer any longer she was willing to just die, instead. She really did think that sending Glimmer to Adora was going to be her last act, and she wanted Adora to know she was sorry before she fucking DIED. And I don't think her saving Glimmer was consciously meant to be proof that she meant her apology, but it was. And that's part of why Adora trusts her again.

The fact is, even after everything that happened, both of them had a hole in their hearts shaped like the other. ;_;

And that's why Adora runs and hides behind the same pillar as Catra. (I mean yes, it was also closer, but that's not tHE POINT)

Anyway, this is all why, as I previously noted, Adora's not being pushy. That failed on her, spectacularly; the couple of times she tried it. Asking Catra to come along on this mission is the closest she's come. And even then, it wasn't "you're a good person deep down and you should change sides because I think I know you better than you know yourself," It was "please do this for me, because I need your help." And Catra is fully aware of how hard that is for Adora.

And these two still have a lot to work out post-canon (like, Catra has still got to deal with her need to not just be seen as Adora's sidekick/shadow, and lbh right now some of the rebellion is like "we're only putting up with you for Adora's sake" as if Catra was Yoko Ono) but that's part of why I'm writing a fic lolol

I have so many feelingssss on a related note I spent like fifteen solid minutes last night in bed having taken an edible and listening to my playlist and staring at this gifset lolol

ANYWAY Castaspella knocks out the chipped dude and they run for it

AAAND lol I gotta get ready to go to church. There's still 17:30 left on this episode. Pfft.

BACK FROM CHURCH I washed someone's feet, they washed mine, they stripped the altar, I go back at one or two in the morning for the overnight vigil

In the meantime: gonna finish this episode

(what is my life sometimes)

Entrapta plans to find a bunch of clones so she can figure out how their signals to Horde Prime work. Swift Wind is like Ugh, fine, I'll go with you, someone's gotta save your ass

Entrapta: "Thanks, bird horse!"

lol how many times have they had that convo

A family can be a sorcerer and her evil ex, a girl and a boy, two traumatized lesbians, and a cat

But also it looks like something out of an episode of Scooby Doo

Shadow Weaver opens a magic door

ngl that's PRETTY. like it's obviously about the Heart of Etheria but wow!

(and there's a dinosaur???)

Adora notices how stressed out Catra is and says "It'll be okay...Trust me." ;_;

Shadow Weaver: "There's no time to waste!"

"...disturbance."

The disturbance was your fault, dumbass. I am reminded of all the times my dad got angry at us for being afraid of him. And would hit us. For being. Afraid of him. Because y'know. That's how you stop a kid from being afraid of you. By hitting them.

In any case Shadow Weaver is still trying to get between them and separate them and I just really need this bitch to stop.

(Yes yes I remember she dies later)

Castaspella: "We're on the right path. The Crystal of Arxia was rumored to be the key to reaching deep magic within Etheria."

"But those who hungered for more power have long sought other ways to obtain the deep magic...with disastrous results."

HIT THE IMAGE LIMIT lemme reblog

#april rewatches spop #failsafe

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tenaciousdecapitator · 2 years

Note

Entrapta, like Catra, has all the foundations for a corruption arc. Pre-existing deviance, a solid motivation for revenge, climbing up the enemy ranks until she is the head boss's left hand, and then gaining powet over Hordak himself. Like many villain scientists she assists and joins with the good guys from time to time.

What makes Entrapta different is that, through all of this, she ISNT a mastermind, morally grey ends justifies the means scientist. She is in fact a complete cinnamon roll who's hurt by what happened but doesn't hold a grudge at all and has joined the villains because they gave her sense of belonging, and a place to foster her love of science. So you have the top dog villain at the start of season 3 when shes finally got power over Hordak, and she's using it to tell him to love himself, to show him that our flaws are what make us beautiful and they shouldn't be masked, especially if we need help. And in season 5 she's not the sneaky ex villain getting a questionable redemption, she's literally leading the front lines in terms of converting people to the Rebellion, pulling one clone of a million clones out from under Prime and immediately being able to connect with him, being the one to tell Prime to his face he will never understand love, wrecking his brainwashing network, her connection with Hordak leading to Prime's death.

It's... so OPPOSITE to Shadow Weaver, who joined the rebellion about the same time Entrapta overtook Catra in the horde and then disappeared. Weaver has the standard "redemption" arc but doesn't learn a damn thing in her life, has no humility, and is constantly fucking with people's heads underneath her silver tongued words, all stuff Entrapta literally cannot do.

So you have this very compassionate pure of heart character influencing the iron cold leader of the villains, and this incredibly manipulative abusive character influencing the leaders of the heroes.

I think it's interested how shera plays so hard with tropes.

Yes! Exactly! One of my favorite parts about Entrapta’s character is that, in seemingly direct contrast to Shadow Weaver who looks, talks, and acts like a fairy tale Disney villain evil witch 24/7, with even her attempted ‘redemption martyr moment’ just piling more mental scars onto her surrogate daughters, everything that we’re presented with in the first few minutes System Failure gives us the idea that Entrapta is this typical (albeit sweet-toothed) Mad Scientist soon-to-be-if-not-already-villain. She lives in a classically evil scary castle on a mountain, it’s full of traps, secret passageways, and (conveniently timed) robot zombies, and there’s mutants in the sewers apparently?!? Especially since some fans know her old incarnation was a shallow villain, once she finally crawls out of a vent like a goddamn Xenomorph with welding mask eyes glowing with menace the audience thinks they have her character figured out, and then she subverts these expectations by greeting our heroes with a genuine, cheery, hospitable welcome that still acknowledges the immediate danger they’re facing and her direct involvement in it. And ever since then, all she’s wanted to do is help people and do science (and hopefully make friends with people by doing those two things). Even when she learns She Ra’s most direct and effective weakness, even when she’s given the chance to use that weakness *again* after she thinks the BFS and Princess Alliance left her for dead, she still doesn’t take the opportunity to go full "They laughed at my experiments, but now I’ll show them all! Brand New Day! Muahahahaha!” etc etc. Shadow Weaver WISHES she could’ve climbed the evil corporate ladder as fast as Entrapta did, and ironically she accomplished it by doing the exact opposite approach to SW: Being 100% genuine and honest about her opinions, knowledge, and feelings. And Hordak establishes time and time again that he hates dishonesty in his ranks (mostly because he’s not great at subterfuge and trickery himself) and gains valuable knowledge and self-worth from Entrapta’s genuine honesty. I may be forgetting something, but I’m pretty sure the one and only time Entrapta intentionally, consciously lies about something is that bit in System Failure where she find the lab and says “We’re here! Uh, I mean, of course we’re here, we were never lost.” Of course, just because she never even considers taking steps towards actual, conscious Villainy and Vengeance doesn’t mean we can’t think up AUs where she does go down that path a bit. One concept that I’ve yet to make into a proper fic is an alternate ending to Season 5 in which she has a more active role in usurping Prime, fully disconnecting him from the other Clones before Hordak does the Darth Vader/Emperor reference, then taking over the Velvet Glove’s army of clones, droids, and drones in order to collect data on the flora, fauna, and magic of Etheria before expanding her DC Brainiac style "data collection” to the rest of the newly entered galaxy.

anyway thanks for prompting and then coming to my Ted Talk

#not technically a question but hey I'll take it #cracked open the Pandora's Box with this one #thanks Tipsy #entrapta #she ra and the princesses of power #she ra spoilers #character analysis #shadow weaver #hordak #she ra season 5 #Cartoons #netflix #longish post #asks answered

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n7punk · 11 months

Text

"Superzero" Fic Notes

Superzero, my secret superhero AU, is finally done! As usual, it went way longer than predicted, but I had a lot of fun with it so thanks for being along for the ride. The fic notes are… long.

Epilogue Life:

Scorpia takes longer learning her powers than is “typical” as a result of the crack in the garnet, but it does slowly heal over in her care. Her powers are also just a particularly dangerous set, but she learns to aim them at the technology and weapons of those coming at her rather than the heart. It takes a bit of training, but eventually she joins them in the field. The entire Alliance considers her the most likely to compromise them, but she’s one of the fold, so they take her in.

Catra continues to train alongside her and eventually the papers pick up on a secret member of the Alliance between some odd occurences and the name Ghost being thrown around. It’s still just speculation that’s never confirmed, but Catra is a part of the plan.

With the Horde dissolved, they do still see the odd supervillain or group attempting to rise up in their place (the Crimson Waste, for once) so they still have superheroing to do, not to mention natural disasters to help out in, but they aren’t as busy as they were before. They have more time for each other. And also studying. Catra of course finishes law school and passes the bar, eventually becoming a lawyer. Adora is stupidly proud of her. She works in a clinic for a while before becoming a full vet herself, but she gets there too and they do end up with that bayview apartment she wants eventually.

Chapter 1: Chance Encounter

⦁ Adora was Going Through It™️ when she fought Shadow Weaver, as the breakup was still fresh and she needed an outlet, which ended up being Shadow Weaver’s face. The Alliance had been fighting her for years, and she was personally responsible for the incident that caused Adora to miss their date, so the next time Adora fought her, she was pretty much screwed. Years of terrorizing the Fright Zone and one interrupted date gave She-ra all the motivation she needed to take her down.

Chapter 2:

⦁ Melog’s capture was originally the button on this chapter, but I didn’t want them to be captured for that long so I decided to imply the library attack’s purpose earlier

Chapter 3: Overworked

⦁ “Catra can’t tell she’s looking at her cleavage” Well she couldn’t until Adora’s eyes snapped to meet her and then she felt the change. She didn’t know where she was looking but like, come on. She’s so lucky Catra was so tired.

Chapter 4: Movie Night/Return

⦁ The mentions of the kitchen light are a reference. Even if you have good taste you probably won’t draw the connection though lmao.

⦁ Originally, Adora was always supposed to use the window. In fact, in the first draft of chapter one (which ended up almost entirely rewritten), Catra’s backpack got left at the library so Adora had to bring her in through the window and that’s what established the pattern, but then I tried to write that and realized how logistically dumb that was. I still intended for her to switch to using the window pretty quickly, but I was basically just waiting for a good time for them to have the talk about her neighbors possibly seeing and by then I realized that my early idea for roof meetups just made more sense.

Chapter 5: Rooftop

⦁ Initially the fic was supposed to start here. I really wanted to write this fic for The Scene™️ (more on that later) so it kind of made sense to start the fic with Catra already friends with She-ra and then I’d get a chapter or two of these secret meetings and flirting, and then I would get into the kiss. When I went to write the fic, though, I decided I should show the initial rescue in a prologue kind of thing and then do some skipping forward through their friendship. I started writing chapter 2 though and it just kept continuing “in real time” and I absolutely couldn’t skip that angst because it was fun, so I ended up just writing the whole thing and having chapter 5 be more like what I thought 1 & 2 would be initially.

⦁ Catra assumed She-ra was stopping by when she had Alliance business in the area, and that is partially true, but Adora was also swinging by when she could disappear for a few hours without her roommate noticing/questioning it, which was easier said than done.

⦁ There was a line all the way back in chapter one that I cut for being awkwardly phrased, not realizing it was the establishing line for the fact that She-ra has been missing for a few hundred years. It was only when it came up again in chapter five that I noticed, and by then I had already posted almost everything leading up to it and there wasn’t anywhere to put it back in early. This is one of those things were, if this was a book, I would fix that on the second draft but you don’t really get a chance for that with fanfic. I had already posted chapter three by the time I realized so the earliest I could have added it was chapter four, and by then I decided to just wait until chapter five, since the part where that would actually become relevant wouldn’t be for a few chapters anyway, it just should have been set up sooner.

⦁ Adora immediately assumed Catra was talking about her when she mentioned a breakup, but she was also kind of worried she wasn’t and there had been another relationship in the interim that she didn’t know about. The whole conversation was rough for her. She was trying to comfort Catra while subtly encouraging her to think more about what could have actually happened, and she completely meant it when she said Catra deserved better (…than she had treated her).

⦁ While “breakup haircut” isn’t a phrase I’ve heard exactly, the concept of cutting all your hair off when you go through a big change — often a breakup — is definitely one I’ve seen around a lot. There’s entire songs about coming back into an ex’s life as a blonde. I mean, how many of us shaved our heads during the pandemic. Of course there was the added factor of not being able to get a haircut, but trauma haircuts — or hair dyes — are a definite thing.

Chapter 6: Mistake

⦁ As implied in the fic, the spell-storm was a side effect of Shadow Weaver trying to drain Melog’s magic. She couldn’t control it and it manifested physically in the environment.

⦁ Writing this fic was a really interesting challenge because of the unusual dynamic between Catra and She-ra. It was so weird to write Catra falling for someone who wasn’t Adora, but also was; not to mention She-ra backing off at weird times because she thought she might out herself to Catra, etc. Catra was wary of She-ra and she would have been way more so if she wasn’t a) a literal superhero and be) reminded her of Adora. The whole dynamic was really complicated, but it’s part of what made me want to write this in the first place, so even if it was really hard and I had to rewrite a lot, it was a good challenge

⦁ … That was part of what made me want to write this fic. The rest of was The Scene™️, which was the kiss and fall out in chapter 6. Pretty quickly Catra finding Melog and then the smug introduction with the Alliance became the “secondary” Ccenes that I also pushed towards when the rewrites were getting to me.

⦁ I had so many different ideas for how the reveal conversation could go I couldn’t possibly hope to fit them all into one and not have it be like twenty minutes of extended arguing, so after trying a couple variants, I settled on the lines that worked the best.

Chapter 7: Hindsight

⦁ This fic is interesting because, while I never really mention it or make it too explicit, it is partially nonlinear. The scenes with Melog, especially, were never intended to be signposted as taking place right where the other scenes were in the story. Another example is the kiss scene partially playing out twice from each perspective, and the start of chapter 6. Catra’s spiraling lasts well into the night whereas Adora’s following scene with Glimmer takes place earlier, right after Chapter 6 cut off.

⦁ Initially there was supposed to be an extended beat in this chapter where Adora thought she was being quietly kicked out of the Alliance (not completely, but that they were going to stop trusting her with anything other than punching). It didn’t end up fitting with the timeline, so it got dropped to like one line of speculation on her part in the Netossa scene, but the idea was going to be that the team gets called to another emergency like four days later and they don’t invite Adora. Now, that was actually because she was just recovering from being sick and walking around like a zombie, but she thought it was proof they were done with her and thus she went down to the Alliance sanctum to punch it out. A relic of this plan that I ended up keeping is when Adora says “I don’t care. I’m not doing this,” in the scene with Glimmer. The second half of the plot beat was, at the same time as Adora thought she was kicked out, the Alliance thought she might be quitting. They were giving her space both to recover and calm down, but with how badly she broke then, it seemed like she might have decided that she wanted to be done with the thing that had totally ruined her life. No one thought she would actually stay away, but they were giving her room to cool off.

⦁ Speaking of the punch-out scene, that was initially written all the way back in chapter 2. Basically I wrote the very beginning (Netossa tells her to talk and offering her the easy way, ending with the “drop the goddess act” part) with the idea being Adora was angsting over Catra, but pretty quickly I was looking at the set up and going oh this would be so much better later when she’s really angsting so I cut it out from there, tossed it in my Scrivener doc, and then reused the structure of it for this scene.

⦁ April 26th is the day season 2 of SPOP dropped. November 13th is when the show premiered. The other dates are made up bullshit.

Chapter 8: I Like the Idea of You

⦁ Which name Catra is using for Adora (Adora vs. She-ra) is important in this scene. She is considering how she knew them as separate entities and using each name depending on that at first, and then she’s trying to just sink into the She-ra fantasy, and then she starts losing herself. She uses She-ra when Adora is especially confident, flexes her strength/powers, or Catra can’t see her face to contradict it — basically whenever Adora plays into her initial She-ra fantasies — and she uses Adora when she is being soft/gentle/meek, when Catra has an emotional connection to what’s happening, or sometimes just because she’s seeing her face and that’s Adora’s face, not the mask she pictured for She-ra. A weird example of this is the, uh, you know, spit string moment, where Catra is actually having an internal reaction to seeing Adora debauched/debauching her like she used to fantasize about. She’s also looking at Adora’s face again for the first time after looking away. I know there’s a lot of name-changing in this scene, but it all has a purpose, and part of my editing was making sure the right ones were being used for each moment. By the time Catra was really getting into it, though, the scene/Catra were getting away from me and taking control, and thus using Adora for every name, and I had to fix that in a few small places.

⦁ At this point I’m writing things in smut just based off the if I haven’t done it before. I’ve always written a range of stuff , but when writing this I found myself just doing things because they were new without much other reason as long as it still served the purpose I wanted for the scene.

Chapter 9: Ripples

⦁ The glamor is actually lowkey a reference to an earlier version of the fic idea where the Alliance just straight up didn’t wear masks and it was a Superman situation. The idea was there would be a glamor (similar to the Mist in the Percy Jackson series) that would make it really hard to recognize someone for who they are, but could still be fought through. It was one of the contender ideas but I quickly settled on just having them wear masks. The way the glamor actually works in-universe is that it makes it hard to notice similarities. So before meeting She-ra, Catra straight up couldn’t notice “hey, the Alliance is led by a trio that matches the description of Adora and her friends,” but once she saw She-ra’s face she had enough to be like “that’s Adora.” Conversely, if She-ra had been someone she didn’t actually know well like just one of her classmates she didn’t actually talk to, she still might not have been able to recognize her without the mask on. The glamor is not inherent to the runestones, but is a manifestation of their power that has come over the last four hundred years of the princesses living in secret. If a princess chose to be open with her identity, the glamor would ease as the runestone learned it didn’t have to help her hide. Basically, it’s a learned behavior of the runestones, not innate.

⦁ Usually in canon fics I have Adora tend to refer to She-ra as if she’s a third person (because Adora has a lot of issues feeling like she’s not living up to what She-ra should be, or putting She-ra and her duties above herself) and Catra reacts like she finds that weird. The truth is Catra partially does, but she’s also training Adora to recognize she is She-ra, she doesn’t have to do anything more to be worthy of being herself, and she is the only one who gets to decide what She-ra’s duties are. This only really comes up in post-canon fics, where they both have had some Realizations™️. In this fic, Catra starts off trying to distance She-ra from Adora, so she reacts completely opposite to how she usually does and refers to She-ra as a third separate person for herself. Adora does this too, just like she always does. Catra only starts coming around slowly and changes her mind later.

⦁ Micah had his suspicions and he probably would have come even if he had known just because he would have been worried and felt like he could handle himself. The other princesses trying to comfort Angella with that at the time is part of why Angella turned to Castaspella. She also felt like she deserved to know the truth about how her brother died, even though that context really had nothing to do with it. At the end of the day, Micah made the decision.

⦁ When the comms are turned on, they’re constantly broadcasting to each other, but the microphones are set to be partially muted so they (hopefully) mainly just pick up the person who is wearing them talking. When the button is pressed, it turns up sensitivity and also bumps the broadcaster’s volume up so their orders can come through clearly. Catra could just barely be heard over the comms, but of course Adora caught something, and then she saw Entrapta when Bow fired his arrow, who she recognized in conjunction with Catra’s voice (her hair is kind of distinctive). She asked Bow “What’s going on? Is Catra here?” and that’s when he said not now. After the robots were dispatched, she immediately landed beside him and gave him her Firm Commander look and he explained the brief interaction. Once the scene was completely cleared and they had teleported back to the sanctum, Adora agonized over Catra before ultimately deciding to text her. If Catra hadn’t responded, she would have had Glimmer bring her over to her apartment (which Glimmer would have done with minimal complaint, because there was a real chance Catra had gotten injured trying to leave the scene) but Catra texted back fairly quickly. She didn’t respond to Adora’s second message, which she would have liked just to know what was really going on, but she took what she could get.

⦁ Guesses for who Melog actually was were really interesting. I thought that either people were going to be onto me immediately due to the pronouns or be completely unsure due to assuming I was using they/them pronouns to obfuscate it. I saw a mix, though I don’t think anyone really guessed Melog by name in the first chapter. For the first couple chapters, guesses seemed evenly split between Melog and being unsure. Other guesses were DT, Shadow Weaver/shadow spies, Micah, and the First Ones worm (or maybe elemental?) from Glimmer’s coronation trial. Sorry to everyone’s Melog comments I ignored, but I wanted to maintain the mystery.

⦁ On a similar note of future guesses, no one commented a correct guess on Catra finding out the exact way that she did. There were some interesting theories that I enjoyed, and a few more along the lines of how she would potentially join the Alliance that were exciting to see so early on.

⦁ Catra started to say “Good boy” and then realized that was wrong for several reasons and probably demeaning, so she just pivoted.

⦁ Catra finding Melog under the dumpster was the second Scene™️ for this fic. It was one of the first things I outlined for it. Actually it might have been the first because I never wrote out an outline for the kiss scene, I just pictured it in my head a dozen times starting back when I was still writing AMLAIT. The Melog scene was, in the very initial idea, taking place after a chance attack Catra happened to get caught up in, but as soon as I started writing the fic and used that plot device in the opening I didn’t want to use it again, so the Entrapta thing formed because I already had the technopath subplot set up for later. Very little changed about the scene except how Catra got there and a little dialog tweaking, but originally Catra was supposed to hide Melog in a backpack she was carrying. I didn’t want to write one into the brief “chase scene”, so I gave her a gay flannel instead and had her wrap up them in that.

Chapter 10: Cause and Effect

⦁ Normally I uppercase krytian, but for this fic it was a species name like “human” so I (un)capitalized it as such.

⦁ Melog doesn’t know a lot about krytians due to a mix of their age when they were orphaned and the language gap. Melog’s parent never said to them “We are krytians, we were victims of a genocide by a human religious sect” they said “We are us, but others are dangerous. They hunted us, and now we must live in secret.” Krytians think of themselves as we and everyone else as them. They don’t have pronouns because they are I, you, or us. It’s combination of their culture and their communication method that makes it that way. Melog had no idea what the world would know them as until Catra told them. Shadow Weaver called them it a few times, but again, Melog didn’t know what that meant. It wasn’t until Catra found them and helped with their memories that they understood their jailer was named Shadow Weaver.

⦁ Okay this is something I had to cut from Chapter 10 because the whole thing it was included in dragged on, but I’m really SAD I had to cut it because it is, well, sad, so here it is, to hurt you with for posterity: “Krytians forms are so reliant on magic, they don’t even leave bodies behind when they die. They dissipate back into the area when they die. When Melog lost their parent, their tombstone was a slowly fading well of power. Melog was the only one to ever know that they lived or died.”

⦁ For this fic, I considered having Shadow Weaver just be a supervillain and Catradora grew up in some Anonymously Rough group home together to set up the right experience for their current insecurities and mental issues — I even went back and forth on some edits early on to leave more possibilities open — but once I had the whole Melog plot getting Catra into the Alliance, it only made sense for her to have someone to fight with them, and setting up Shadow Weaver as a ghost from their past worked perfectly for that. Plus, I couldn’t resist the “I was raised by a supervillain” line.

⦁ A big part of Catra’s struggle with Adora in this fic, after she finds out the truth about what happened, is neglect. She knows that Adora didn’t drop her and she had reason to be busy, but it was still a pretty shitty way to treat someone even before you get to the ‘lying about it’ part. Catra (as she later demonstrates) is capable of understanding and even sharing Adora’s commitment, but it wouldn’t be fair for Adora to continue to put absolutely everything first aside from Catra, and the fear that she would do that again was a big thing keeping Catra away. Adora loves her and she makes that rather clear, assuaging one of Catra’s fears, but loving someone and actually treating them well — especially the way they consider treating them well — are two different things. I brush up on this a lot in my Catradora fics (BFM comes to mind) but I feel like it’s especially important for this one.

Chapter 11: Peace Talks

⦁ The Swift Wind thing came from a comment exchange on Chapter 4 where I said that I wasn’t planning on it, but the way I would work Swift Wind in would be for Adora to “deputize” a police horse in battle and for him to then work on freeing all the animals used by the police. It would kind of be a random thing to include in the fic, but I really liked the idea, so it was kind of in the back of my mind and I formed the idea of it being a story the Alliance tells rather than a scene on its own. I was really happy to be able to work it in. I think sometimes I go “that’s a distraction/irrelevant to the fic” but like… it’s fic. “Regular” media can have one off jokes and this is fic where I can do whatever I want so communist horse it is.

⦁ As is… just expected at this point for my fics, half of the contents of chapter 11 were supposed to also be covered in chapter 10, but that thing hit 8k before they even explained anything, so it had to be broken up.

⦁ Chapter 11 is basically the end of my main planning for the fic. After that point, it was all new stuff I came up with to serve the ending of the story that had been written so far. My big outline point for everything after chapter eleven was basically just “take down the horde. Be superheroes. Kiss & make up.”

Chapter 12: Movie Night?

⦁ Given that I just said 11 was the end of my planning, it feels weird to say “12 wasn’t supposed to exist,” but it really wasn’t. My planning by then was for the story to shift into Catra and Adora cautiously taking up texting while she set Entrapta on the Horde’s scent — basically, Chapter 13. The first scene of Chapter 12 started as an ending button scene for Chapter 11, but then I got the idea for the movie night (which actually originated back in Chapter 10, where the initial draft of the chapter included them explicitly planning the horse movie thing) and — more temptingly — the secret kisses during it, so then I had to write it. The scene with Glimmer was also unplanned (when I first tried to write it, the idea was that Catra actually stayed the night because it was “too late” to go all the way back home, but then the gap between the movie and the morning was too big for conversations to not have taken place), but showing Catra open up a little to more members of the Alliance was important for when she joined them later, so I wrote it.

⦁ Catra says the new place “wouldn’t work with Melog” for two reasons: 1) it was another studio, and she needed more options for privacy, especially with Adora around, and 2) it didn’t allow pets. Now, she had no intention of paying the pet fee or ever revealing Melog’s existence, but if a neighbor was to hear Melog meowing or pawing at the door, they would just assume Catra had a cat and had paid for it, instead of possibly snitching about her sneaking one in.

⦁ “Princess isn’t a thing for her” *proceeds to immediately outline why it’s a thing for her when Catra says that*

⦁ Obviously Catra was worried about She-ra finding out Entrapta was a technopath before because her entire apartment looks suspicious as hell, but knowing it’s Adora, she knows she’ll listen to her if she says Entrapta isn’t with the Horde. Otherwise, there’s a very real chance of somebody thinking she’s the one building their bots.

⦁ If you’re capable of not crying during the train scene in Spirit then you’re heartless.

Chapter 13:

⦁ The line “[Trust] can be lost in [a year], too” is in reference to Catra and Adora, not the Alliance.

Chapter 14:

⦁ Glimmer stalled telling her mom because she wanted school to be busy so Angella couldn’t say or do much because it would distract me from finals, mom.

⦁ Shadow Weaver ran the home for every reason Catra listed and more. Maintaining a secret identity (as long as absences didn’t become conspicuous) helped her fly under the radar. It also made her not entirely reliant on the Horde (she didn’t trust Hordak, though if anything he shouldn’t have trusted her). When the kids hit their late teen years and were about to age out into the world, she knew exactly who, when, and where to target them (as Shadow Weaver, or via proxy with another member of the Horde) for a recruitment pitch. She was especially looking for magic children who might have a future in the Horde — or who might be capable of becoming princesses and inheriting/fixing her runestone, or using another one if they ever managed to track down She-ra and Spirit Ember (both runestones clearly lost, but Shadow Weaver didn’t know if that was permanent or a situation like how she acquired the Black Garnet and thus she hoped to find more). She saw that opportunity in Adora, which is a reason why she targeted her and Catra in particular. Finally, Catra is kind of right that she did it for her own “enjoyment”, but it was in a very different way — at least to her. Shadow Weaver legitimately saw herself as helping the kids who crossed her doorstep and thought the world needed her and people like her to prepare these poor, unloved, unruly children for the future. She thought she was a hero and any sliver of remorse she had for the Horde’s more extreme actions she could dismiss with “well look what good I’m doing with this home, it balances out.”

⦁ “It’s a nice dream” Yeah Horde Prime’s line like that still fucks me up and I had to slip it in.

⦁ There’s a dampening spell centered on the door so other people in the archive don’t hear it opening and closing (all the secret tomfoolery would be pretty ruined if people heard a bookshelf being dragged around in the next room all the time) but it also lets me surprise Catra, which is a rare opportunity.

⦁ The alarm at the computer goes off at the same time as a mid-level priority message to all their phones so someone will check the news/hub to see if it’s something they need to deal with, but since they were in the room with the alarm, no one heard/cared about their phones buzzing.

⦁ Melog’s ability to warp the world around them as they travel the paths is inspired by Little Nightmares 2 and that’s all I’ll say on that because it’s not a game that should be spoiled. I thought it fit well with their illusion magic, though. I think the official power is called something like object distance manipulation but relativity manipulation sounded like a better fit to me.

⦁ I was kinda surprised people asked about Netossa and Spinnerella’s codenames (which is a fair question) but no one asked for Bow since they’re all in the same spot as not having a runestone in canon. For Bow, I came up with the Cupid thing Catra mentions early on in the fic as a joke, and while I do think it’s a plausible thing for Bow to consider given his very “I love love” attitude, I don’t think he would actually pick it and it felt a little diminutive. Apollo was a late contender thank to the historical connection with his dads and his association with archery, but I thought about other bow/arrow symbolism and remembered one of the Zodiac had a bow and arrow and thus went with Sagittarius once I realized it was Glimmer’s zodiac. This meant I had to spell Sagittarius. So I fucked up there. For Spinnerella, I never ended up saying it in the fic so I kind of got away lucky, but her runestone is an amethyst. I had been calling her just “Cyclone” in my head, which of course didn’t match with a runestone so I had to add some kind of gem/mineral thing in there, but there’s a big range from the simple “Moonstone” to the slightly more descriptive “Sea Pearl” to “Fractal Flake” which is… nothing. I tried for a while to make some kind of alliteration with “Cyclone,” but there aren’t a lot of gems that fit that, so in the end I went with just Amethyst despite being a little unimaginative because I couldn’t come up with anything that wasn’t cumbersome to shout in battle. I really tried to work some kind of “Air Amethyst” type alliteration in there but it just didn’t happen. For Netossa, I thought about making her sapphire early on because blue, but that’s a Steven Universe character so I wanted to either find something else or add a modifier onto it. Coming up with modifiers related to nets is… hard. Star Sapphire and Cerulean Sapphire (bit of an oxymoron, but it felt like it fit with the naming conventions lol) were in contention. It was just hard to relate anything to nets of all things so I followed the simple route a la Moonstone and just went with Star Sapphire (the star pattern of which could represent the intersections of the ropes in her nets? Maybe? Listen that’s the best I’ve got). For Catra things were… more complex. Catra very well could have picked anything she wanted, similar to Bow, which made it a lot harder. I considered Wildcat immediately (especially with Scorpia suggesting it later and then Catra ends up stuck with it after the others pick up on it) but I didn’t want a name that reveals she’s a magicat, so I tested out a lot of things until I just settled on Ghost for the invisibility. Tiger’s Eye was my other immediate instinct for the runestone theme, because, well, obviously, but while that felt exactly like what SPOP would call the magicat runestone, I wasn’t naming “Catra’s runestone,” I was coming up with a superhero name for Catra while runestones also exist. Her name only had to match as much as she wanted it too, and it didn’t feel like she would want that. As soon as I decided on Ghost I looked up to see if there were any “Ghost something” crystals, which is when I found Phantom quartz and added it into the conversation. When I was looking at gems/minerals/elements for inspo, I saw Mercury and I thought that fit really well with Melog’s shifting powers, and as something related both to geology (okay, listen, it’s an element and that’s close enough) and astrology. Other contenders were things like Silver, Bismuth, and a red theme for/with Catra (I literally looked up a list of red shade names. Naming things is hard). Then I had to come up with joke names that were still something the character might come up with (for themselves and others), so I just made things worse for myself. I got to acknowledge that initial Tiger’s Eye instinct though, so that was good to fit in.

Chapter 15:

⦁ Sideloading an app is basically downloading it on your phone without using the system’s app store.

⦁ After Perfuma suggested Phantom, I thought “you know what, that sounds cool” so I went back and forth on using that instead, but there’s no way Catra would pick it knowing the context, so I played with it a bit more in the scene where they decide her official codename — as well as giving her perspective on that bit, and introducing the beginning of Netossa kind of being Catra’s superhero mentor, which is a relationship that develops after the fic ends — but ultimately let Catra decide. It also let me introduce how the system was coded around their aliases, keeping Entrapta from instantly realizing their identities when she hacked them, though it’s obvious once you start sifting through the general channel and see them talking.

⦁ Bow lives with his dads still since they’re close enough to campus for it and that way he doesn’t really need a job on top of school and (secret) heroing. That means he spends a lot of time in Glimmer’s dorm, though, because it’s the only private place he has to go on campus. He can go to George’s office, too, but students come and go from that so it’s not really any better than a student lounge.

⦁ Adora’s voice is strained after saying she loves Catra because she’s convincing herself that Catra just isn’t ready to say it back yet. She’s in total denial that hearing it is important to her.

⦁ Kadroh is, of course, Wrong Hordak, and the guy who runs the front counter.

⦁ Entrapta was basically shouting for the entire conversation with Scorpia, but since Scorpia also tends to talk loudly, she didn’t really notice it.

⦁ The scene with Scorpia is actually the first I conceived for the fic from a different perspective, which would eventually influence my decision to switch perspective around however I saw fit.

Chapter 16:

⦁ Adora mentions her academics a lot in this fic because I was playing with the idea of her dropping out and just becoming a vet tech to reduce her stress and wanted to leave that option open, but she was so close it didn’t end up feeling right, especially after the Horde became less of a threat with their scrambling following the arrest.

⦁ Someone on crew (pretty sure it was ND) joked that Catra’s “real name” was Elizabeth, so I pulled that as the bullshit name Scorpia said. I went back and forth on her actually saying Catra’s name in hopes of being able to tell if the Horde recognized it (and thus had at least seen her) but that would have been a whole thing to Shadow Weaver as soon as she heard it and there was too much going on in the scene already to throw that in. Plus, it risked endangering Catra’s secret identity even more than Scorpia’s mere presence already did.

⦁ Okay, so obviously my instinct when giving Scorpia an alias was to use… her fucking alias, lmao, but Linda is her mom and D’Ream is her last name already, so Lynda wasn’t going to work. Lynda D’Ream was originally a reference to Scorpia’s voice actress in the 80s (Linda Gary), so I used her SPOP voice actress’s name, Lauren Ash, and threw a fucking y in there because that’s how they did it lmao

⦁ Every runestone calls out a little differently to its holder (in the circumstance where it’s not immediately passed to them). Adora saw lights in the edge of her vision, just ephemeral enough to now be there, that led her towards the stone and then it pulled her in with a mental call. Scorpia couldn’t feel the mental call with the stone cracked, but it sparked to beckon her.

⦁ Scorpia’s mask looking kind of like Shadow Weaver’s was temporary. I don’t know if I ever squeezed the joke in because I’ve been writing this fic for like two months and have forgotten, but the first time Adora transformed, it was into her season one outfit. Both she and the runestone kind of freaked out and it was only on subsequent transformations, when she knew what was happening and could exercise some control over it, that the season five/current She-ra costume appeared. Scorpia is in a similar situation where her mask will eventually take a vaguely scorpion-like theme, with the hooks down her cheeks mimicking stingers and similar ones hooking up her forehead and back over her ears.

⦁ Scorpia didn’t notice any of Catra’s attempts to touch her. Catra kept them light because she was worried about startling Scorpia and giving away their best shot at getting out of this, but that just made them easier for Scorpia to miss them.

⦁ Melog was reliving some trauma and hiding out under the table made them feel better, so when Catra was okay they were busy taking care of themselves by hiding to recuperate.

Chapter 17:

⦁ Shadow Weaver genuinely isn’t entirely certain what happened that day. She remembers Lauryn showing up, but details are fuzzy. When Black Garnet debuts, she remembers that Lauryn was the new Black Garnet since it was Kind Of A Big Deal to her, but she doesn’t remember many details about what she looks like that aren’t already public, and she doesn’t remember her transforming because it all happened so fast and then she was electrocuted and unconscious. That electrocution caused her some issues beyond her memories of that day, and between that and having no magic herself, she isn’t much of a threat when it comes to breaking out of jail or something. With the overwhelming evidence of her involvement in the Horde and no evidence she was blackmailed as she claimed, she goes away for a long time. Everybody arrested turns on Hordak trying to get a plea deal, and between the testimony and physical evidence he was the only one who could have built the robots, he gets convicted of a lot of things, especially as an accessory because that’s easier to prove.

⦁ The rooftop scene was actually initially planned to go earlier in the fic, before the big confrontation, but even though I had been planting the seeds for it, I wanted a bit more hinting and I felt like Catra running off on her own would make Adora worry even more about it, so I pushed it back.

⦁ I ended up using gender neutral pronouns for Horde members a couple times because they often wear helmets or masks that make it hard, but sometimes I chose to use gendered pronouns because I tend to default to they-them pronouns and a nebulous appearance for rando NPCs and I didn’t want it to seem like I was doing that rather than it being a part of the plot that they were disguised and ambiguous. And of course physical appearance isn’t always and indicator of pronouns etc (it certainly isn’t for me lol) but it is usually the assumed default without indicators otherwise. Also sometimes it was just easier to have a random NPC gendered, which is why I had rando Horde members be male a couple times because it just made it easier to distinguish who was who during the fight scenes LOL.

⦁ The “I’ll stroke your ego if it shuts you up” “Wow that didn’t take much convincing” exchange was in my notes before I even started writing the fic. I didn’t have a place for it planned and it only ended up coming up here at the end, but I’m glad I got to use it finally.

Misc Fic Thoughts:

⦁ I’d written a little here and there, but I really got my fanfiction start (both reading and writing) in the comics fandom. I never had a superhero AU “planned” but it always felt like an inevitable thing I would do one day when an idea occurred to me. Superheros befriending(/rescuing/romancing) people they know in their real lives but who don’t know about their secret identity is something I’m a SUCKER for, so when that idea occurred to me in early March it was like of course. I absolutely have to do this right away. I had another thing I was excited for but this jumped the line as soon as AMLAIT was done. I was actually writing this simultaneously with editing that ending.

⦁ I’ve referenced the playlist a couple times and it’s linked below, but I wanna actually talk about it for a second. If you weren’t around for it, 8tracks was a website that was basically the Tumblr version of spotify playlists. It wasn’t affiliated with Tumblr or anything, there were just a lot of Tumblr people populating it and it had a tagging system, so you could hunt down all the playlists associated with your fandom. There were some licensing/copyright issues, and they had a profitability problem anyway, I think, so after a few years it closed down and no website has ever been able to capture the kind of playlists 8tracks hosted and the quality there. With it gone, I can’t go back and find the playlist that this AU is named after. However, it was a Young Avengers playlist (it was called something like “superzeroes — a young avengers fanmix”) that I still vividly remember the cover art for. I believe it was around 11 songs long (a pretty normal length for an 8tracks playlist), and the only two songs I’m pretty sure were on it were Superlove by Charlie XCX and Kick Ass by Mika. I think there might have been a song by FUN on the playlist too? But that — like both of the other songs, really — could have come from one of my other comics-related playlists too. I did my DAMNEDEST to find a tumblr post linking to this playlist again (and in doing so, dug up some nostalgia holy shit) but in the end turned up nothing. Shockingly for how long I’ve gone on about it, I wasn’t particularly attached to this playlist. I mean, I listened to it, but it just came up as a memory when I first got the idea to do a superhero AU, so when I created a file for it I named it “Superzero AU” just intending for it to be a play on superhero, and then that Became the AU’s name in my head and I couldn’t change it after this. I need to stop doing that to myself. The name does, however, have meaning, which is kind of two-fold. First, superzero is an insult aimed at Adora. I considered having Catra say it to her face when they were fighting, showing that she can try to be a superhero to everyone else but she is still a failure, because she failed Catra (they didn’t end up fighting a lot so that didn’t make it into the fic, but the idea of superzero being a term Catra snidely thinks about Adora when they were fighting is still there). Second, Catra is the superzero, specifically a superhero with zero powers. She’s using Melog’s, yes, but she has none of her own and yet she eventually joins the Alliance in throwing herself into danger.

⦁ POV for this fic is interesting because when I was originally coming up with the concept, most of the scenes where from Catra’s perspective, but I knew I wanted the kiss scene specifically to be from Adora’s perspective. I also knew, by the time I started writing it in earnest, that this was going to a long fic so sticking to one POV was going to be impractical. I then thought about switching POV by chapter and just having the Catra chapters be longer, but there were too many scenes I wanted both their takes on. I then considered something weird which was alternating Catra POV chapters with my usual back-and-forth POV chapters, but by then I knew I wanted a scene from Melog’s perspective and maybe even one from Scorpia’s, so I decided f**k it, free POV whenever and wherever I want. This is the first time I’ve really used a POV like this in a long fic, though I did it here and there in one-shots like the soulmarks AU and ‘dawn after the long dark’ in OotW.

⦁ I had fun with this fic, but it was also Struggle Bus to write (for various reasons, from plot-related, to meta, to my own indecision, to life). All my fics (at least long ones, and it can still happen in one-shots) include rewrites somewhere, but I feel like it’s something invisible to both readers and other writers. You only see the final result, not the six tries + editing it took to get there, but this one took a lot of rewriting. I think the final result is fun though so I’m really happy with it.

Original Outline:

The original idea for this fic was very brief. She-ra would have already saved Catra in the past and they were in the weird friendship phase, there was some will-they-won’t-they and attempted friendship tension, then the kiss and the reveal, then the booty call which would start turning Catra around and they would repair their relationship from there.

Then I thought “hey this is a magical realism au, I could have Melog in here” and immediately had the idea for the scene where Catra found Melog. Everything spiraled from there. Below is the entire outline for the fic by the time I finished drafting the first chapter (during which I had ideas about Shadow Weaver’s place in this AU and such).

- meet - friendship (adora learns theres a chance of rebuilding next semester) - return (health insurance, kiss it better) - “just checking in again” (law student) - rooftop - kiss/fall out - booty call - in limbo, find melog - bring melog to BMU - priorities conversation - some fight with the horde, taking down shadow weaver

In the end, the fic followed the outline, though not always the way I thought, mostly at the end where it was more ambiguous. I don't have much to say about it (beyond what I said in earlier notes) since it mostly turned out how I planned, but I thought sharing what one of my overarching outlines looks like might be fun.

Meta:

Superzero playlist

Upcoming:

Okay so I have like, four fics I’m weighing at the moment and I’m not sure with one is going to win, so it’s hard to say which will be upcoming. If I had to guess, though? City of Angels.

#superzero #ficmeta #fic notes #i can finally read those superhero au fics i drafted ages ago because i knew i would want to write my own eventually lmao #if i know im doing an au i avoid reading others of that au to avoid being influenced or whatever #also ive been low spoons for a while and lost control of replying to comments but i will try to catch up on the last week or two if i can #ive just been prioritizing actually writing over that

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