#sorry i do like catra but she was never a good friend to either of them so

[stanlunter]

I'm kinda curious why you don't like catradora? Is it just not your thing or do you have reasons? Just kinda curious as I almost always only see the "they were enemies! And that makes it too toxic!" But I saw you like catra/glimmer so yeah, just curious as someone who personally likes it but also hasn't watched the show in ages

Thank you for your question

Yeah, I do hate it, mb not its fans (or at least not all of them, cuz most of them are actually super annoying, but anyways) tho. Also sorry for my bad English

As for the reasons, there are actually many reasons:

Starting with, like you said

1. Being toxic. But the difference with Glitra is that in their way It's not like Catra abuses Glimmer, no, they hate each other mutually, there ia no "abuser x victim" dynamic, bc they hurt each other mutually. Also there are no manipulations, guilt-trips, gaslighting and etc, they are completely honest with each other. While with Adora, their dynamic is rather "abuser x victim" than "enemies to lovers" bc Adora never wanted to hurt Catra, she was always only ensuring what Catra's doing and saying. Adora was always holding back, never tried to kill Catra or make her feel like nothing or hate herself and all her fights were litterally either self-defense or defense of her friends or other people who were attacked by Catra. While Catra always tried to hurt Adora, both mentally and physically, tried to kill her many times, tried to make her hate herself and etc, etc. She was the reason why Adora had such a strong hero complex and always wanted to sacrafice herself. Adora litterally had panic attacks bc of Catra. And the whole "it was a war" argument doesn't work here bc being a war criminal doesn't make Catra any better and bc Catra was toxic to Adora even when they were on the same side. She was always jealous, controlling, possesive and didn't want Adora to have other friends. She wanted Adora to belong to her, which was shown many times. Also she physically hurt her many times, gaslighted her and etc. So their relationship would be much more abusive than Glitra relationship. And what makes it even worse is that Catra has learnt all her abusive traits from SW - recognized Adora's abuser. Catra litterally copies everything the main abuser who has traumatized Adora in the forefront does, which is actually creepy af too. Even she tortures Adora in s4 she says that she took the idea from SW. So she just takes the abuse she (and Adora) has been throught and intentionally uses it against Adora

Even if you have a kink for abusive ship, you should write them well and not put them in a kid show, normalizing abuse by this. There are examples of good enemies to lovers in kid shows which aren't abusive and It's fine (like Dipper/Pacifica, Talon/Penny, Bubblegum/Marcelin kinda, Amaya and Janai (It's good and It's wlw too), even Glimmadora would work since they were enemies too and etc).

2. The whole being "basically adoptive sisters" thing. They aren't actual sisters, but they were actually implied to be so. I won’t even mention every time the CREW referred to them this way (however, there were many times), but the main problem is that their whole relationship is fully based on the "Skapegoat & Golden child" dynamic. And SW is a mother figure who loves one child and hates the other one, who always tries to earn her love and jealous and hate the favourite child. Some people say SW was just a teacher and not a mom figure, but it would be a lie at least bc 1. The crew has stated SW as a mother figure, so It's canon anyways 2. It was said by Adora that SW was like a mother to her 3. You don't try to earn your teacher's LOVE like Catra does 4. The whole thing that SW sees herself in Catra and wanted fulfil her ambitions throught Adora. Also SW wasn't a mother figure for other cadets, it wasn't actually her duty to teach Lonnie, Kyle, Rogelio and others. She was a right hand, not a teacher and she was there only for Adora bc she decided so and for Catra bc Adora wanted so. So, even if you're trying to ignore it, It's a huge part of the plot and a base of their relationship. Oddly enough, but many catradora shippers actually love to admit that "SW was a bad abusive mother", "Catra & Adora have mommy issues", "Adora is a favourite child" and etc, yet when you point it out, they start denying it. I find it strange.

Another thing is subjective, just my personal vision, but I highly dislike all "childhood friends" ships (mb with exceptions if they always actually had feelings for each other, but in catradora case we find out about it only later, especially from Adora's perspectice). Also there is a biological theory that if kids know each other since the age under 6, they see each other as siblings anyways, especially if they grow up together in the same house, especially with the sams parent figure. So, even tho it's subjective, It's an important reason to ms. And I actually did thought of them so and thought everyone does untill I joined the fandom. So even if I don't recognize "see each other as siblings" thing when it comes to usual friends who haven't been grown up together, I do with those who have. Flr example, Renora. This ship was always weird to me and when they become canon, it didn't make me love it. I don't think It's problematic, but it absolutely does make me feel uncomfortable. Like, if you haven't developed your feelings for each other for during these 10 years you were together, where are the feelings suppose to come from later?

But yeah, childhood friends thing is my subjective reason

3. Catra's redemption arc was horrible. And redemption arc is one of the most important things when it comes to enemies-to-lovers, since It's the thing that suppose to help them become canon. Everyone immidiatly has to forgive Catra and no one calls Catra out for what she has done. Even Glimmer, who's mom was killed bc of Catra or Adora who has been abused by Catra for years. And so Catra doesn't even actually changes. She just swaps sides and immidiatly becomes Adora's gf. That's the problem. If you write enemies-to-lovers, do it well

4. The whole way the shis was handled. It just doesn't make sense and completely ruins the whole development of almost all characters. Adora's development is getting destroyed and she just comes back to s1 Adora. Her whole arc was about stopping blaming herself for Catra's actions, separating from her abusers and getting a life. But she just ends up forgiving Catra and considering Catra a victim of herself. And starts blaming herself for "leaving" Catra again. They just forget everything they've been throught. And what about Catra? Catra was obsessed the whole time. She hated Adora and liked hurting her. Catra was litterally addictive to Adora. It wasn't love, it was possesion. And giving an addict a drug isn't a way to go. Catra should separated from Adora, learn how to live without the idea of being "either with her, or againt her". That's why I think her leaving the Horde with Scorpia and going to a Crimson waste would be the best happy ending for her. She would get a life, get what she wanted (being loved), what she needed and what she deserved and let her issues go. So they just aren't good for each other. Having Adora around was always hurting Catra, Catra never was able to fully show herself when Adora was with her in the Horde and she even saya that Adora leaving gave her a chance to fulfil her actual potential, so Adora leaving was the best thing happened to her. Even if Catra wasn't fully agree with her own words, it was basically truth, bc Catra actually did feel bad bc of Adora when they were together (it wasn't Adora's fault, but still). Catra was always blaming Adora for her problems and didn't stop even in s5. So It was bad not only for Adora, but for Catra as well

Also Adora never even loved Catra before. If Catra's possesion can be called love at some point, it doesn't work this way with Adora. Yeah, Adora cared about Catra as a friend, but DT was right, Adora didn't need Catra. She didn't have such big problems with letting Catra go. After s1 she forgot Catra and never recalled her as a friend, only as an enemy. So her whole "I love you too" thing just came out of nowhere and was a lie. Just like "I never hated her" bc Adora did and it was shown. Adora got new friends who care about her and getting Catra was absolutely unnecessary for her. It doesn't work even as a Stockholm Syndrome or a trauma bond, bc it was never shown and Adora got a development

Actually, if it did make sense, mb I would like it, but unfortunately it really doesn't and only ruines everything the show has been building for years, which is sad, cuz I used to love both Catra and Adora

It's also strange to me how shippers compare catradora to so many actually good wlw couples like Korrasami, Harlivy, Caitvy, Lumity, Bumbleby, Chaggie and etc, while in reality their relationship is much closer to Tauradonna (which is actually hated by Bumbleby shippers, which is ironic) and Citrus and actually Shin Soukoku and Simon/Grace, or even some actual/ almost actual siblings like Vi/Jinx, Zuko/Azula, Rapunzel/Cassandra, Claudia/Soren, Qrow/Raven, Maki/Mai, Nightwing/Red hood, Thor/Loki, White queen/ Red queen and etc.

But I would prefer to compare it to Shin Soukoku tho

So, these are the main reasons. Actually I don't understand why can't catradora shippers just admit that their ship is problematic and enjoy it as it is, bc it doesn't really make sense to just make ship a full ooc and make it romantic and sweet to like it, bc it litterally goes against the whole point and everything it always has been. So I have a big respect for those shippers who do admit the problems and enjoy it without lying to themselves and gaslighting others tbh

Anyways, thanks for a question, it was actually interesting to answer it and you can feel free to asnwer, desagree or agree, Im not a hater or smth

#Anti catradora #Anti c//a #anti spop s5 #spop criticism #spop critical

[anti-spop]

spop stans rewriting canon to make everything about c//a. what's new?

i know it's a joke post but when has bow and glimmer ever left adora out or made her the third wheel? all of three of them were always close, even though glimmer and bow were childhood friends, they still always included adora in everything.

not to mention, if catra ever felt left out in the horde, it's because she treated everyone like shit and refused to let anyone get close to her. scorpia and entrapta wasn't even that close. they were friends, sure, but 90% of the time, scorpia was trying to get close to catra while entrapta was preoccupied with tech.

idk it just really annoys me when stans act like either adora doesn't care about glimmer and bow, or they don't care about her, when that was the only realistic friendship in the entire series.

👏🏼 STOP ERASING PLATONIC RELATIONSHIPS FOR THE SAKE OF a shitty ROMANCE 👏🏼

(Sorry for not replying before!)

Do not harass the OP of the post if you happen to find it.

Goodness, this post annoyed me so much. Bow and Glimmer always did their best to include Adora and I'm sure they would still do that as a romantic couple. Like, the way they're such good friends to her sometimes makes me want to cry. Take when they went to Mystacor for instance, Bow and Glimmer were lying down at the beach with Adora and they reassured she would be okay. When Catra left Adora in s5, Glimmer and Bow were there to comfort Adora as well.

I personally never really bought into the Super Pal Trio. Scorpia and Entrapta enjoyed each other's company, but you're right, Entrapta was more focused on tech and she spent a lot more time with Hordak. Catra might have grown a little close to Scorpia later on, but then she was awful to her after the Portal.

I don't know why SPOP stans love distorting the characters. And although this was a joke post, I'm pretty sure plenty of fans actually genuinely believe that Bow and Glimmer are awful friends that don't truly care about Adora, and that Catra is left out because no one likes her, when it's not entirely true considering how much Scorpia did to get close to her. And Scorpia also gradually learned to respect Catra's space, too, but you'll see stans shitting on Scorpia and implying that she deserved to be treated like crap.

#asks #anti stans #anti c//a #it's also funny considering adora never seemed to miss catra or open up to glimmer and bow about her #you only see adora talking about catra with light hope #as far as i remember

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

See, this is the frustrating thing. Catradora COULD'VE been good enemies to lovers but, like someone wrote elsewhere, if both of them thought that the other was brainwashed.

"Catra, what the Horde is doing is wrong! Come with me, we'll escape together!" "What? No! Did the princesses brainwash you? Oh no they brainwashed you. Look, I'll just bring you back home and it'll all be okay."

"Catra still believes that the Horde is doing the right thing. I need to defeat her but I don't want to hurt her too badly." "Adora still believes that the Princesses aren't the villains here. I need to defeat her but I don't want to hurt her too badly."

Cue whole episodes of vaguely piney battles where both of them are holding back and eyeing each other longingly.

(Someone wrote somewhere that the incest could've been avoided if Adora was raised by Hordak and Catra by SW. This would also tie Hordak's and Adora's arcs together via "okay so I was born to become a weapon/soldier but fuck that I'm so much more than that.")

Princess prom allowing them to temporarily forget about the conflict and have fun like they used to. The dance is more reciprocal than "Catra smirking down at clearly uncomfortable Adora."

Shadow Weaver: alright, Catra, you suck at bringing Adora back. Let's just brainwash- uuuh, I mean magically undo the brainwashing the princesses did to her and bring her home. "But I don't wanna brainwash he-" DID I STUTTER.

Catra targeting Glimmer and Bow bc she perceives them as fake friends who have brainwashed Adora. All the spiel about "they don't really care about you they care about She-Ra's power" isn't manipulation, but something she genuinely believes.

Catra advancing at force captain and taking on more power, but in the process gradually realising that what the Horde is doing IS wrong. Cue an internal crisis because oops, everything she's known all her life is a lie. No, no! She refuses to accept that (Aka breakdown time) and kickstarts the faulty portal.

The portal Catra is twisted and deeply unlike herself, at her absolute and utter worst.

Post-Portal, Catra wakes up and, instead of doubling down, realises that she made a MASSIVE FUCK OFF MISTAKE and spends all of season 4 working on her redemption arc, having moral crises, beginning to feel more and more terrible about the past 3 seasons.

She joins the alliance at the end of s4 (gasp, cliffhanger!) and the rest do the cast slowly grow to trust her throughout the season. That's when she realises that Adora really wasn't brainwashed and APOLOGISES for all the things she did and thought.

"Hey Catra?" "Yeah?" "It's good to have you back." [cue blushing as C and A realise how badly they missed each other now that they have no more reasons to fight]

Catra being gradually incorporated into the best friend squad and she, Bow AND Glimmer all help Adora break through HPrime's virus thingy in a parallel to season 1 where Adora is supported by ALL her friends, not just her gf.

Hooray, the evil is defeated! Uh, what now? Okay, either they come to the conclusions that they lcoe each other separately and confess after HPrime's been defeated and there's nothing in their way anymore, or there's like a mid-combat confession played for laughs like "this is mad sweet of you but we don't have time for this!" "WE MIGHT NOT SURVIVE TO HAVE THE TIME LATER" and a tender moment after the battle where maybe Catra is patching Adora up in contrast of all the times they spent beating the crap out of each other.

Shit, Bow could tentatively give her tips on how to be a good friend!

She'd have a harder time with Glimmer because Glimmer never forgave her for the Angela thing, but Catra tries and feels bad and maybe even begs her for forgiveness. (please, I didn't know it would come to that. You can punch me if you want.) And feeling genuine remorse. (My mother figure was shit. Yours looked okay. I'm really sorry for taking that away from you.) Etc etc

This really isn't a hard character arc to plot, Nate. Look, I did it in like 15 minutes while dicking around at work. Easy peasy.

this! all of this.

(also i was the one who suggested the idea of hordak being adora's parental figure)

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

[swearyshera]

I want to say I really respect how you're handling Glimmer's arc, her interactions with Bow in particular. Them dealing with the emotional fallout of this in a harsh and awkward but earnest way is really gratifying. I feels like pulling teeth in the best way possible. Glimmer's arc still rings amazingly to me and somehow hasn't diminished since the apology bit.

Is it weird that I "respect" Glimmer's redemption more than Catra's? I guess I always thought Glimmer's heart was in the right place despite like... everything she had going on. I never once felt Glimmer couldn't be redeemed and frankly my opinion on if Catra really "deserved" redemption still flips every time I think about it. If i thought I had a way to annihilate the people who took my family away, I don't know if I'd hesitate to top-rope elbow drop the Big Red Button even as much as Glimmer did. I guess that was Catra's rationale too on a deeper level, but at least Glimmer wasn't fine with the world dying once confronted with that reality, as sad a step up as that is. I feel like the fact I don't feel much sorrier for Catra reflects very poorly on me.

The series had a bad habit of Catra's choices having their more catastrophic potential consequences avoided so her redemption could go down smoother, my most prominent example being the corrupt shera virus. I'd pay damn good money to see how the story could even begin to salvage Adora and Catra's relationship if Adora killed someone like Glimmer or Bow under the effects of that. (not to mention the portal only kills one, albeit very important, person, Adora just happening to survive falling a pit, the story conspicuously forgetting about Angella etc) This sort of thing makes me think the author is cheating or working backwards from the ending they already want. Other characters were involved in some of those choices but that only expands the problem imo.

Glimmer's doesn't kill the universe either, but there's still disastrous consequences for Etheria and people she cares about, pretty much all of s5, and her story is all about understanding what she brought on them, and becoming a more responsible person to her friends/people. I really liked that. The only person Catra is really held accountable to is Adora, and maybe Perfuma on Scorpia's behalf. There's Entrapta but I dont think she operates in terms of blame/forgiveness, at least in canon. I know she literally forgave Catra explicitly, I guess I'm too mean to believe people could let go of stuff that "easily' and write it off like it doesnt count.

I know Catra's arc wanted a more intimate scale and they didn't have time to litigate all this, but my deep gut reaction is "tough shit, you shouldn't have had Catra do all that if you weren't gonna make her face what she'd done", especially since Adora makes a point that Catra is afraid to face people she hurt, then Mermista, Micah and Scorpia are conveniently chipped until the last minutes of the damn show. HP really did Catra a solid there. Glimmer's arc felt more willing to make her culpable in dire shit and not pull punches about it, even less so here, so sincere gratitude from me there. Not that Adora and Catra weren't put through hell but their s5 relationship seems to happen in its own little bubble safe from outside responsibility apart from Adora's martyrdom pathology.

Anyway, very excited to see how the Catra reunion will be handled given everything so far, and for Glimmer and Bow stuff. You've never done wrong by us yet. Sorry for this fucking thesis. Please feel free to point all the ways I'm being a myopic dumbass.

I always see Catra and Glimmer as two sides of the same coin - the same person but treated very differently by those around them. Glimmer had love and forgiveness from the people she grew up with, particularly her mother, whereas Catra had none of that outside of Adora.

But I think the end of season 4, start of season 5, we see a little bit of a flipside of that, and that's what starts making both of them wiser, more mature, etc. Up until then, Glimmer had never really had to deal with consequences for her actions - her mother, outside of grounding her, didn't appear to really punish her when she did things wrong. Even Bow, at least until Fractures, felt he always had to support and agree with her (and his own arc played into that). But when Glimmer decided to plough ahead with her plan to activate the Heart and ignore her friends, she actually had serious consequences for once. She had to deal with losing friendships, attracting Prime. And that wasn't something she'd really had to deal with.

Catra, by contrast, always had negative consequences to even the slightest of actions. Usually by Shadow Weaver, and then by Hordak, she was punished for her mistakes. But in season 5, she gets shown kindness and forgiveness despite her actions, and it too, becomes a turning point for her.

I also don't really see the story as 'redemption'. It's not about Catra or Glimmer redeeming themselves, it's about accepting you've done wrong and making the choice to be better. Yes, they do have apologies to make, wrongs to right, and we don't see a lot of that in the show. But we don't need to. What we see is Glimmer becoming more levelheaded and choosing to use that in place of recklessness. We see Catra choosing to return to Adora in Heart not for herself, but for Etheria. Both these young women have done things that have had a huge negative impact on other people, but they both end up trying to do better, to be better.

Redemption is based on how other people treat you. This is a story about how you treat yourself. Both are important.

[cyndavilachase]

Marcanne happening in season 3 could be a good thing for the characters and the shows’ themes as a whole

I don’t usually post my theories here on tumblr these days as traction has died a lot, so they all end up on twitter. But since tumblr is essentially just my art archive I thought I’d give a recent one of mine a go from a couple days ago, regarding marcanne:

The entire time that I've watched Amphibia and shipped marcanne it was mostly for fun- not that I thought it impossible, but I never expected it to happen. However, with recent trailers, promos, and interviews released, I really do think marcanne is now a high possibility.

I will be using Shera as reference-- particularly Save the Cat, and Glimmer & Bows relationship development, but you don’t need to have watched Shera.

We still don't know for sure at this point if Anne and/or Sasha is going to rescue Marcy, or if Olivia & Yunan will, but either way, it’s highly likely it'll happen by or on the mid season finale- in order to give enough time for the characters to make amends and heal in season 3b.

In order to give the audience a satisfactory conclusion to the characters’ developments, Anne and Marcy need a lot of time to talk, for Anne to forgive her, and for them to go through the healing process for the rest of season 3b. When we compare Anne & Marcy to Glimmer & Bow, as well as remember the pace of Anne forgiving Hop Pop, this will take a number of episodes. We can get a glimpse of how this will play out.

Marcy fucked up. Anne is and will continue to be hurt, and it'll take a lot of time (way more time than with Hop Pop) for them to make proper repairs even if Marcy says sorry again and explains her reasoning. Things will be awkward and their dynamic will have changed entirely.

However, there is this added layer of childhood best friends, Anne being protective of Marcy, as well as Marcy being stabbed and now, possessed, like Catra was. They're gonna want to go back to the way things were, but things have changed.

At this point in Shera, even after Bow and Glimmer reconciled, things were different and despite them healing and going back to being close and touchy-feely, they obviously had to overcome this huge hurdle. They managed to do that which strengthened their relationship and made them closer than ever. After that, it became evident that they were in love with each other since they were both willing to put the work into getting through a really rough spot. 

With that in mind, it wouldn’t feel unnatural for Anne & Marcy to go through the same thing, as there has been a lot of romantic subtext a la Anne blushing at Marcy in New Wartwood, and the fact that they are the most physically affectionate out of everyone in the show. It can be read platonic, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t romantic. We don’t know that yet.

Some extra treats for y’all shippers out there:

-Some of the crew has liked a pretty decent amount of lowkey marcanne and sashanne fanart, but mostly leaning into marcanne.

-Matt and crew have explicitly avoided answering any questions about the girls’ sexualities or if their feelings will ever be romantic. When you think about it, not confirming this is odd since Matt and crew are incredibly active in fandom, taking feedback and applying that to the show. Many members of the team are also queer so it would be odd to continue letting fans feel as though they're being queerbaited (not saying Marcy and Anne are queerbait, just that it would make sense to say whether or not they are early on since it's so popular).

-Back in last year's Reddit AMA Matt stated that the show is "an ode to old friendships." Old friendships can in fact turn into something else!

-It recently came out in an interview that Disney aged the girls down to 13 years old; they were originally going to be 15. While they were “aged down” absolutely nothing about their characters, interests, and personalities have been changed from the original writing. So despite the studio saying they’re 13, they’re basically high schoolers. This means dating isn’t partially out of the question, since tween dating can be a weird topic.

-The best one: Matt said in another interview that he knows that fans are hoping for certain things to happen, and without stating what will happen, he did say “it do happen."

As for why this development would be good for the characters and the show as whole- I know a lot of people don't like the idea of romance being thrown into the show, but Amphibia is about the girls’ growth & dealing with change.

Sasha in particular has issues with feeling left out & being in control, and Marcy and Anne getting together could only boost that insecurity as now they would have a new, personal dynamic without her involved. We know she’s going to be hanging out in Wartwood for a while. She will likely be redeemed a la interactions with the Wartwoodians. If Marcy and Anne get together and she’s actually totally cool with a dramatic change like this, it would be a fantastic development for her and a great representation of that idea.

Now, I always leaned into Marcy moving away to show that she has accepted change and getting over her fear of abandonment. However, with Marcy being stabbed and now possessed, it seems rather cruel to take her away from her friends. From her personality alone, we can assume that Anne and Sasha are her only friends and she may struggle a lot with making true friends at school because she’s so high energy. By the end of the show, the three of them will have gone through way too much to be separated in my opinion. 

I really think Marcy going through her dynamic with her friends changing because of her mistake will be enough of a lesson for her. 

If she does move, her and Anne could still do long distance.

Even BETTER is the fact that the show can totally show that romantic relationships and platonic relationships are equal. Third wheels are common but they're also garbage. I couldn’t ever see Anne and Marcy prioritizing themselves over Sasha if they decide to stay friends with her. Sasha is likely going to still be important to the both of them if they decide to stay friends after her redemption. This would be really different from the usual trio of a cartoon having the main character and his girl best friend slammed together at the very end, and entirely positive. It isn’t uncommon for two in a trio of friends to start dating in real life and remain stable as long as the work is put in! I know from personal experience.

Overall, there’s many possibilities for where the writers are headed with these characters. Romance or not, I’m really excited to see what they do.

#marcanne #amphibia #the dork speaks #theory #meta #amphibia theory

[catrasredemption-moved]

can I ask a prompt with some ppl giving pregnant catra a hard time? (is it still okay for pregnant catra? if not then it's okay too)

Vomiting TW

Time didn’t heal all wounds.

Catra was aware of it, and she didn’t take it personally when people glared at her or made comments. She drew the line at people trying to physically hurt her, but usually at that point Adora was between her and whoever was taking a swing, and she didn’t have to worry too much.

Even ten years later, Salineas was still the worst place to go. The kingdom had recovered nicely (due in no small part to the hours of sleep Catra had sacrificed to rebuild it), but memories lasted.

Mermista’s word trumped all feelings, though, so when Catra was invited to Salineas, no one could really protest.

“I’m still not sure why we couldn’t teleport,” Glimmer grumbled. “Pretty sure the boat is worse for Catra.”

It absolutely was. Catra had spent most of the journey leaning over the edge, or resting limply against it while Melog tried to comfort her. “Are you sure she’s okay?” Bow added, raising an eyebrow as he looked at her. Adora rubbed the back of her head nervously.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course I’m sure. I’m just... going to go check on her.”

She scrambled across the deck, joining Catra, who was starting to look a little green. “Maybe we should’ve just let Glimmer teleport us,” she said uncertainly. Catra shook her head furiously.

“No. No magic around the baby. Not like that.”

“Then can we at least tell Glimmer and Bow why? They’re worried.”

Catra raised her head to look blearily at their friends, who weren’t even trying to pretend they weren’t staring. “Maybe later,” she mumbled, dropping her head back against the edge. “If I survive this trip.”

They hadn’t told anyone outside of Mystacor they were trying to have a baby, and they hadn’t told anyone when they’d found out last week that Catra was pregnant. They were going to, but she was only six weeks, and they wanted to just wait a little longer, to be absolutely sure. They didn’t need pity if anything went wrong.

“We’re almost there. Just take a deep breath.”

Catra did as she was told - then groaned when the smell of salt water hit her sensitive nose. “Bad idea,” she groaned, leaning over the edge again. Adora rubbed her back pityingly.

It was a relief to finally dock, even if it took Catra an extra few minutes to collect herself and get up. They weren’t that far from the palace, but Glimmer still offered to teleport. “Nope,” Catra said, squaring her shoulders. She was not going to spend the rest of the night locked in the bathroom.

She felt a little better by the time they arrived at the ball room. It was Mermista’s birthday, which was pretty much the event of the season in Salineas. Catra was sure she would have reluctantly accepted if Catra had played sick to stay in Bright Moon, but... who was she to turn up some of the best sea food in the kingdom?

“Yeesh, I figured you guys would get here first,” a dry voice said as they walked into the already crowded room. They looked at Mermista, who was watching them with a dry smile and a raised eyebrow.

“Happy birthday!” Bow and Glimmer hugged her tight.

“Catra insisted on not teleporting for some reason so we had to take a boat-”

“What, was two hours of being sea sick better?”

“A little fresh air never killed anyone,” Catra said dismissively. Mermista rolled her eyes.

“Sure.”

Catra went straight for the food table, dragging Adora with her. “Well at least you’re feeling better,” Adora teased, squeezing Catra’s hand.

“Oh shut up-”

“She-Ra!”

Every time, without fail. Catra rolled her eyes, sighing, as Adora was waylaid by several admirers. She wasn’t about to wait - she was starving. And the baby was demanding shrimp.

And she wasn’t alone for long. Scorpia and Perfuma were already at the table, talking and snacking. “Hey Wildcat!” Scorpia said happily, scooping Catra into a hug. She winced, but smiled, patting Scorpia’s back.

“Hi Scorpia. You mind? I’m dying.”

Scorpia set her down, letting her get to the table at last so she could eat. “How was your trip?” Perfuma asked. “Bow mentioned you were taking a boat.”

“Yeah, enjoying the sights, you know.”

“Did you develop some love for the ocean?” Scorpia asked doubtfully. She’d seen Catra on boats a couple times. It never went well.

“I mean...”

Her attention was torn between Scorpia and Perfuma and the food, not to mention the din of the party. She had almost no warning before a rough hand grabbed the back of her shirt, throwing her to the ground. She landed hard, head snapping back with a crack. The world went blurry for a minute.

“-tra? ...okay?”

Perfuma’s voice drifted in and out. Catra grimaced, blinking a few times to clear her vision. Perfuma was kneeling beside her, trying to help her sit up, while Scorpia held Adora back from punching out the chef who had decided it was a crime for Catra to be enjoying herself in the kingdom she had destroyed. She sat up, grimacing, one arm crossing her stomach. Six weeks. She wasn’t fragile by any means, not like she would be in about six months, but that didn’t mean she could just be pushed around and thrown into floors, either.

“Hey!”

Mermista’s voice reverberated in Catra’s head. The princess cut through the crowd that had gathered, furious. “Adora, stop trying to murder my chef and take care of your wife. Sea Hawk, put him in cell.” The chef started to protest. “You don’t think you get to assault someone at my party and get away with it, do you?”

Sea Hawk appeared to take the chef away; there was no further protest. Adora knelt on Catra’s other side, gently sliding an arm across her back to support her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Catra took a few deep breaths. Her head hurt, but she was fine. The baby was probably fine. It wasn’t even really a baby at this point, just a bunch of magically bound cells trying to make a baby, it would suck if something happened, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. It wasn’t like Catra hadn’t already taken to talking to her stomach when she was alone, or poking it experimentally, thrilled about the little life growing inside, or-

“Catra? Catra, hey.”

She was shaking, her breath coming a bit too fast. Adora had a hand on her cheek, trying to get her attention. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Does something-”

The world turned over in a sickeningly familiar way. Catra pressed her face into Adora’s shoulder, groaning, as soon as they were settled wherever Glimmer had taken them.

“Glimmer-”

“I’m sorry, I just wanted to get you both out of there.” Glimmer sounded nervous. Catra wanted to look at her, but her eyes were still squeezed shut and she had no intention of opening them. “I’ll... I’ll be right back.”

She teleported away. “There’s a bed,” Adora said quietly. “Do you feel okay moving?”

“Sure,” Catra muttered through gritted teeth. That turned out to be a lie; she forced her eyes open as she was moved, and the world was spinning. Nope. “Adora-”

A small trash bin was forced into her hands before she could finish the sentence. And of course Glimmer chose that moment to return with Bow, Scorpia, Perfuma, and Mermista.

“Should... I get a doctor or something?”

Adora rubbed Catra’s back as she heaved. “No... maybe? I’d rather take her to Mystacor-”

“For a head injury?”

Catra cracked an eye open to look at Adora, who was watching her uncertainly. She nodded miserably, returning her attention to breathing and trying not to freak out. So much for keeping it to themselves.

“Well, she’s um... she’s pregnant, actually.”

Dead silence followed the words.

“I’ll kill him,” Glimmer declared.

“I’ll help.” That was Scorpia, surprisingly.

“Okay, okay,” Bow cut in. “Maybe murder isn’t the right idea...”

“Let’s not out-rule it completely,” Mermista said darkly.

“It’s probably fine,” Catra mumbled, setting the trash bin aside. “I’ve been sick for like, two weeks, this isn’t exactly a new development.”

“Seeing a healer might still be a good idea,” Perfuma pointed out. “When you’re ready to move.”

“Is this why you didn’t want to teleport?” Glimmer asked. Catra ducked her head, refusing to answer. “Why don’t I go to Mystacor and get someone, and if they  say you’re okay, I can take you home - that has to be better than suffering on the boat.”

“I didn’t think the boat would be that bad.” Catra sighed. “You guys don’t have to stand there and stare at me. Go back to the party - I mean, yes, get a healer first.” She’d feel better just confirming that everything was okay. “But it’s stupid to stand around staring at me.”

“It’s not stupid to want to make sure you’re all right,” Bow said. “And what about our future niece or nephew?”

“Why don’t you stay, Glimmer goes to Mystacor, and the rest of us can go back downstairs,” Perfuma suggested. She had spent enough time with Catra to know when she was starting to get overwhelmed. Scorpia started to protest, but stopped when Perfuma placed a hand on her claw.

“I’ll send up a staff member in case you need anything,” Mermista compromised. Catra nodded, since it didn’t seem like she had much of a choice. She knew her friends cared, though.

Everyone left, and Bow immediately joined them on the bed. “I didn’t know you guys were trying to have a baby.” He was doing a very good job at restraining his excitement and not shouting. “How far along are you? Do you have thoughts about names?” He gasped. “Will they have little cat ears?”

Catra smiled slightly, dropping her head to rest on Adora’s shoulder and letting Adora handle the questions. She knew her wife had been dying to talk about the baby with someone besides Catra, and it was nice to listen to their excited chatter fill the silence.

(Everything was in fact fine, save for the slight head injury, and the healer assured them that it was perfectly safe to teleport with Glimmer. Catra vehemently disagreed with that last part, but that was an on-going debate.)

#MAN that got long I'm sorry #anyway um #here? #pregnant catra #askbox fic #Mystery Person #Sam Answers

[soranis-sunshadow]

Entrapta deserved better

My posts are usually either detailed analysis or memes and shitposts.

I’ve re-watched the show and this will be an angry rant…  

With every viewing of the show, Entrapta’s arc makes me progressively angrier because I empathize with her so much.

She is introduced to the show as being a reclusive scientist, known throughout the Maker’s guild for her genius. Even her staff is weary of her. She spends all her time alone with her robot friends in her lab within her isolated castle.

The alliance interacts with her with the explicit purpose of recruiting her into their war effort. They want her for her ability to build weapons for them. That’s as deep as the relationship goes this far.

Entrapta has no stakes in the war, the Horde hadn’t attacked Dryl. She joins them because she wants to be their friend; she wants to help them in the only way she knows how, using her technological prowess to their benefit. Due to her isolation (and her being autistic), Entratpa struggles to understand interpersonal dynamics. Human interaction is a skill she has had little practical experience with. She understands the concepts, the rules of the game, so to speak, but she has seen it in play only as a third party rarely ever practicing it herself.

She’s invited to the Princess prom due to her princes status but she’s an outsider there too. No “friendly” princess seeks her out to hang out with her as a friend would. The only person who does so is Catra, and she does it for her own reasons…

With Glimmer abducted, the alliance mounts a half-baked rescue operation. Everything Entrapta did in this episode had a purpose, it looked like she kept getting distracted when in actuality, she was studying horde tech, rescuing Seahawk and furthering their mission and she had no time to explain herself (it also occurs to me that Entrapta might not explain herself because no one asked and no one ever understands her reasoning anyway) The princesses try to control her because she’s being “difficult”. They don’t care why she’s being difficult, they want her to conform.

Once they rescued Glimmer, they don’t even come back to check if Entrapta’s actually dead, or to get her remains and put them to rest respectfully. They allready have the princess they came for.  

Entrapta is all alone with her new robot friend Emily in the Frightzone vents, expecting that she’d get rescued because “no princess left behind” but rescue never actually comes.

Catra uses this new abandonment to convince her to switch sides. Entrapta didn’t jump ship because of her tech hyperfixation, she switched sides because Catra used her skill at pinpointing someone’s weak-spot and poking at it. 

Catra may not have been Shadow Weaver’s favorite ward (she was her scapegoat and punching bag, the poor girl) but she did learn from her and repeatedly put those skills to “good” use.

Once they find out she’s alive, the alliance wants to rescue her but she’s made new friends in the Horde and she think that they understand her fascination with science, friends that actually interact with her directly. She actually feels included here and as such, she’s not eager to return to the alliance’s side.

Entrapta befriends Catra and Scorpia but even in this trio, she is the third wheel. Catra is focused on herself, her ascension in The Horde and on her missing Adora. Scorpia is focused on Catra and on pinning for her.

Once Entrapta and Hordak start growing closer together, Catra stops talking to her. Perhaps she was hurt because Entrapta “broke her promise” to not go in Hordak’s sanctum, perhaps she was envious of her closeness to the Horde leader, or perhaps both, either way, the friendship is broken from Catra’s side. Entrapta still sees her as a friend and fights Hordak over the decision to send her to Beast Island. Despite his grouchiness, he considers her request and grants it.

As recompense for saving her life, Catra backstabs Entrapta when she tried to stop Catra from triggering a potentially world ending event and then sends her to the fate Entrapta saved her from: exile on Beast Island.

When faced with the choice between Catra and Entrapta, Scorpia choses Catra. Hordak is lied to so he doesn’t know to look for her, he believed she used him and is heartbroken about it.

You can actually pinpoint the moment his little heart breaks in this scene:

 Even so, he spends most of season 4 wanting to face her; he’d rather see her as an enemy than not see her at all.

After Catra proves herself a bad friend, (after months) Scorpia finally decides to rescue Entrapta and goes looking for help, deserting to the alliance. She has this little realization:

Adora is the only person that actually wants to go right away and rescue her. Bow wants to rescue her because they need her tech savvy and Glimmer says that they can rescue her after the war or something… (the Island she’s on is a death trap, she might not live that long for all they know)

she said this 

then this

She knows that this is a time sensitive issue but she wants to put it off  despite the urgency, if that doesn’t sound like friendship to you, then what does?  *sarcasm intensifies*

Contrast this with how the villain of the show reacted to the news of her being sent to Beast Island:

On Beast Island Bow gives her a longwinded speech about how she’s supposed to work harder at friendship. I know he’s projecting his own issues here but it still makes me so damn angry. Entrapta’s trying; she’s trying so hard, no one ever tries back! No one makes the effort to understand her (except that one clone but we’re not talking about him), she has to conform to their expectations, the reverse is never applicable.

Anyway, stuff happens and Glimmer is abducted again, by Horde Prime this time.

Then that whole “Lauch” episode happened. Entrapta is distrusted by the alliance more than Scorpia is. She is seen and cold and interested only in tech, she has to explain and redeem herself in their eyes after they treat her like rubbish. They don’t connect the fact that helping them with tech is how she shows her friendship. 

It’s the only thing she thinks she’s worth to them. She wants to be accepted by them so badly.

 Entrapta gets emotional over rescuing Glimmer! 

The person who when faced with the same prospect, said she’d do it later…

Even Catra’s apology to Entrapta for trying to kill her is a blank “I’m sorry”. Pls say what exactly you are sorry for Catra. Entrapta deserves that much. Bow received a better apology for far less of an offense.

All she ever does in the show is work towards furthering someone else’s goals, her own are always a second thought. As @cruelfeline​ pointed out, even a small scene with her discussing what happened with Hordak, her reaction to it and the gang focusing on Entrapta’s troubles for ONCE , even if it’s just offering her emotional support, would have meant so much.

Why is the show trying to tell me that Entrapta should work on being a better friend?

That's a terrible message!

She doesn't need to work harder on her friends, she NEEDS BETTER FRIENDS.

So many of us ND people end up being third wheels at best and we blame that on ourselves, we internalize the reasoning that our friendship fail because we’re weird and we’re not doing it right. That we’re the ones that have to try harder to be understood and that our concerns should come second.  That is a terrible thing to internalize, we are blaming ourselves constantly because we try to understand others and they never try to understand us back. 

With age, I’ve grown out of trying and being different so that other people would like me. They’d end up liking the mask I project, not me anyway. I’ve found people that understand me and that like me for who I am, but only after I’ve stopped trying to be “better” for others to accept me. With being honestly “weird” with those around me, I’ve been accepted far more than for trying to fit in. And I’ve realized that people that shun my otherness are not worth the effort to try and befriend in the first pace .

 That is what young autistics need to hear, not “git gud” at friendship.  You are not wrong, you are not defective or broken, you are you and you’re beautiful just the way you are. If other people don’t see that, then the failing is theirs. Don’t change, just look for people that see you. 

#Entrapta #SPOP discourse #rant on how society expects autistics to conform to normality

[queenangella]

How did you feel about shadow weavers sacrifice? I don’t think it redeemed her, but I also think that was the point. And she basically resisted everything she ever wanted for adora and catra, so she gets brownie points for that!

Hm. It’s been a full day and I’m still not quite sure how I feel about it.

Before season 5 started, I was absolutely convinced that Shadow Weaver:

had only ever sought power for herself at the expense of others,

did not love Adora–or if she did, it was a twisted form of affection since she knew Adora would one day be powerful, and

never loved Catra. 

I think these were pretty character-consistent conclusions based on her actions as a sorceress in Mystacor, her whole history with Adora and Catra, her heartbreaking betrayal of Catra in season 2, and how quickly she shifted her sights to Glimmer (and her power) in season 3.

Importantly: She never expressed any regret for her actions.

Even up to the end. 

She actually thought she was a good guy, and after this sacrifice she might be regarded as one… which is just… ugh. I don’t like it. 

It’s true she does give up the Heart’s power and sacrifices herself for Adora and Catra, but seriously, she was never going to go back for Catra of her own volition. The only reason she did is because Adora left to save Catra, and so Shadow Weaver went to save Adora. That, or she was just trying to make sure the failsafe Adora was carrying made it to the Heart. 

Either way, they’re more altruistic intentions than we’ve ever seen from her, which I suppose is… something.

Shadow Weaver has some kind words for Catra, even tells her she’s proud of her, which is all Catra ever wanted–but after all the years of being told otherwise, those words are hollow. (I haven’t had it half as bad as Catra did, but I can still tell you that much.)

Still, when it’s something you’ve wanted for so long… yeah, it’ll make you emotional. Especially when Catra and Adora have seemed to care far more for Shadow Weaver than she did for them.

Except in this final case. (Possibly.)

Honestly, I’m not sure where the turnaround came from. Based on Shadow Weaver’s actions in seasons 1 through 4, this came out of left field for me–and I’m not a giant fan of the “suicidal redemption” trope. It almost always feels like a cop-out, and I don’t like the way it robbed Adora and Catra of the chance to move past Shadow Weaver and her abuse on their own terms. 

Either way, she’s gone, and I certainly won’t miss her.

(P.S. check out this extremely good post-s5 fic my friend wrote. It deals a little bit with how Catra might process Shadow Weaver’s sacrifice.)

#oh damn i hadnt thought of it that way! #but it makes a lot of sense tho #spop. #spop spoilers #meta

[princessofgayskull]

Hi sunflower, what's your thoughts on T Swift's Betty being a catradora song???

Me, taking a break from spop to focus on my mental health and setting better boundaries:

Me, reading this ask:

This ask woke me up from like a deep, sleeping beauty type slumber, not joking. I don’t get asked to talk about Taylor Swift often, despite being a fan of hers since I was nine years old (I’m 22 now *wink*) and we are about to find out why. But I pride myself on taking any fiction piece of media I interact with and connecting it somehow to Taylor Swift. I can do so to varying degrees of success (usually depends on the ships and romance of the world) but there are so many songs of Taylor’s that have just fit Catradora so well for me, both in and out of canon. 

Some of my favorite examples: out of the woods (AND IT KEPT ME UP AT NIGHT WHEN NOELLE SAID THIS WAS HER TAYLOR SWIFT SONG FOR CATRADORA LIKE GAH CASUAL TS LISTENERS WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND) bad blood, lwymd, don’t blame, dancing with our hands tied, the archer, breathe, you’re not sorry, the way I loved you, forever & always, should’ve said no, safe & sound- I could go on.

But I won’t because I wanna stay on topic and talk about betty. Now I have a number of songs from the folklore/evermore series that are for me catradora songs (we’ll get to that in a minute) but this one is… challenging. Because I could be like “yes, because [insert casual reason here]” or “no, because [insert casual reason here]” but I can’t because Taylor feeds her children well and there’s several aspects of this song I feel like should be considered.

This biggest one to be considered, for me, is the love triangle aspect. Folklore features at length the betty/james/Augustine love triangle, each of them having one main song on the album from their POV. Betty's is cardigan, augustine’s is august, and james’ is betty. (also I’m going to throw out the gender component for a second; I know taylor says that Betty is about a guy’s apology and I totally vibe with her reasons why she wanted to write a song about a boy apologizing BECAUSE HOW GREAT WOULD THAT BE?) The love triangle makes the application of Catradora iffy at best. Because it’s like, who would be who? I am going to go out on a limb and assume that you’re seeing Catra as James? I think that personality wise, Adora as Betty and Catra as James is not a stone’s throw away from fitting actually really well. Adora’s canon journey is one of coming to realize “I know what I want and I know that it’s okay to want it” and a big part of Catra’s arc is her being like “Well shit… there goes my plans. Kind of feeling like a dumbass rn” especially in s4/s5. 

(That s4/s5 distinction is important; I’ll show why in a second) 

But for me, there’s no augustine. Or one that’s obvious anyway. I never imagined that either Catra or Adora dated or even had any inclinations with anyone else during the five season run- that’s just my personal opinion, people are completely welcome to feel free to disagree. I don’t think Catra acted even out of distraction with Scorpia or DT, and I think Adora was so focused on being She Ra that when she wasn’t thinking about failing/abandoning Catra when she alloted time to do so, she was thinking about the crushing weight of her responsibilities. So you know, not that much time to get back out there. So I rule out what causes James to apologize in the first place- cheating.

Side note about James cheating- I’m pretty sure Taylor confirmed this, in the long pond studio sessions doc, when she’s telling Jack Antonoff (MY BOY JACK) and Aaron Dessner ( GRAMMY AWARD WINNING KING) that James “was a fool!” And James did sleep with Augustine as confirmed in august, but cardigan makes it seem like he was definitely dating Betty before the summer. Maybe Taylor took inspiration from friends and they “were on break.” I also believe that the kiss in the Heart is the first kiss, that Catra and Adora were never ‘together’ together before Adora found the sword and defected (again, that’s just an opinion, but Adora just looks so wonderfully gobsmacked), so…

We can rule out cheating, and I think we can accomplish this and still reserve the essential meaning of the song of “I did something wrong, I see that now, I apologize for doing it, and I still love you” by widening the lens of what the “did something wrong” was (or “did something bad” you know *wink*). In that wider lens really you could fit either Catra or Adora into the song, but I’m still going to assume Catra is the James in this scenario based on how much of her redemption arc is formed around her refusal to say sorry and then eventually doing so. Of course there is no standing your porchlight but rather standing while wrestling a bunch of murderous clones…. Hmm….

But there are some stupid friends! I wholeheartedly believe Catra is James because of the dissing of Betty’s friends. That’s what Catra does to Bow, Glimmer and the rebellion et al., for most of the show and by the end of s4 she has no friends for Adora to even mock (terrible and cruel of me, I know, but it’s true). Also I know people are like “he called her friends stupid and then expected betty to take him back?” but I scream sing the line “WILL YOU KISS ME ON THE PORCH IN FRONT OF ALL YOUR STUPID FRIENDS?” every time. It brings me serotonin. 

Along those lines we can ask “Who’s Inez?” in this situation. When I think gossip no one from the show really comes to mind, well, expect for Double Trouble. But Double Trouble doesn’t ever speak to Adora about Catra. This happens vice-versa, and in Betty, James reveals that Inez told Betty he cheated on her. 

I want to say something controversial… Glimmer comes to mind when I think “who’s the Inez?” And this is based off of two things: 1) Inez’s closeness to Betty, and 2) Inez drags James out to dry, rightfully so. And when I think of that I think of Glimmer screaming “Do one good thing in your life!” directly in Catra’s face. James gives Inez a bad wrap in Betty. Not cool James. 

Of course there’s the pivotal, “would you tell me to go fuck myself?/ or lead me to the garden?” To me this a fun way of showing there’s vulnerability to what James is doing, so automatically I’m led to is the scene where Catra asks Adora to stay, or each time in s5 when Catra risks, basically an identity crisis to let Adora in how she really feels, but there’s always the potential that Adora could spurn her by not returning her feelings or rejecting her outright. 

I think the best argument that can be made for “is betty a catradora song” can really be encapsulated by the lyric(s): “the worst thing that I ever did is what I did to you” and “the only thing I wanna do is make it up to you.” That is what about the song SCREAMS Catra to me. And yeah, it could be argued that Adora hurt Catra pretty brutally (Shadow Weaver makes that point EVEN THOUGH SHE HAD NO RIGHT TO) that she messed up by abandoning Catra- but Adora feels guilt for... literally breathing. Adora is the quintessential embodiment of “pick your battles, no that’s too many battles, put some back,” but Catra picked one battle first and foremost (yes, she had a few others but this was the one) and that was Adora. Everything that motivated her was surrounded around a narrative of surpassing Adora for a multitude of reasons, and because of that she pretty much hurts Adora every chance she gets after Promise. Adora is really Catra’s first casualty, it makes sense that she has to be her first apology. And I think that after being vibed checked back to back by DT and Glimmer and realizing “oh hey fuck, I’m still in love with her” and then almost dying just to not die because Adora saves her, I think much of Catra’s motivation shifts to “how to do I get Adora to want to stay?” 

That’s my logic for how Betty could be a catradora song in canon. Now not all of my Taylor associations are with canon catradora, many of them do belong to uws catradora, because it’s a lot easier to apply the more modern details of Taylor’s songs to a modern au. The song Breathe is big that way. (it’s in Upper West Side, it’s the song Adora listens to and cries to after that first ride, I just never mentioned that it was taylor because my conditioned reaction to bringing up taylor is to have my head bit off with someone’s semi incorrect and slightly sexist opinion that I never, ever ask for) And this ask got me thinking about what it would look like if I applied not Catradora to Betty, but Betty to Catradora. What would it look like if Catra skateboarded and wore black lipstick, Adora wore a cardigan and they had homeroom together until Catra really messed up? What would it look like if they were seventeen when they admitted their feelings for each other instead of 21? What would it look like if they spent a summer fighting but dreaming of each other? What would their love story look like if Catra and Adora were in that town where Taylor envisioned this “same event that affected three people in different ways?”

I think it’d look something like this. 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31141973/chapters/76952048

what do you guys think?

quick but INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT thank you to @gimme-tea-bitch for helping me with this, being my beta, and listening to me talk about folklore/evermore.

#I am literally SHAKING as I post this you guys have no idea #like vibrating through a wall shaking #i've been working on this for like the past two months #and I know everyone wants cruel summer but my goblin brain is like #AHHHHHHHH WRITE A FOLKLORIAN AU FOR CATRA AND ADORA YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO #IT'S 23K WORDS NO ONE WILL NOTICE #this was supposed to go up with two parts but tbh with you guys i have high key been feeling when jenny slate said #'i don't get the love until something beautiful goes out' #please be gentle with me

[galemalio]

3 Examples of Racial Bias in Animation Storytelling

It’s not hard to grasp that a white person, while not explicitly or consciously racist in the sense we might usually imagine, is still inherently racially biased because they benefit from and grow up used to white supremacy.” - Scottishwobbly, Tumblr

This is nothing new. This is something POC (People of Color) have been talking about in separate fandoms. Nevertheless, it needs to be acknowledged by those unaware.

This article is not made to say that some of the animations that I will use as examples are bad. But in the hopes that we, as consumers and creators, will do better in the future in handling characters that are POC. 

Most often, racial bias in storytelling is when the narrative treats white or light skin toned characters better than darker skin toned characters. The darker skin toned characters are often POC-coded or actual POC.

White creators often do not notice their racial bias in their storytelling as they benefit from and grow up with white privileges and white supremacy. This can also apply to light-skinned POC who have light skin priviliges. 

Some of us don’t often see it but real people who relate to the characters of color do. Especially when it reflects from their experiences with racial bias, microaggressions, colorism and flat out racism.

So when they speak up, it’s important to listen to them to unlearn the racial bias we may have in ourselves. 

I will be emphasizing “the narrative” for I am criticizing how the story treats its dark-skinned characters and not because I am criticizing the characters themselves.

This article is critiqued by @visibilityofcolor​ as a sensitivity reader once and then additions were made before publishing. If you’re looking for a Black sensitivity reader, you can contact her. 

This article is a 14-minute read at average speed so buckle up. Unless you want to skip to your show mentioned below. External Tumblr Resources will be put in the reblog.

Here are three examples that I was made aware of. 

Example #1: The Narrative Treats the Light-Skinned Character at the Expense of the Dark-Skinned Character

Steven Universe was one of the animations that pushed lgbt+ representation in cartoon media. However, there are narratives here and there that showed racial bias. 

SU creator Rebecca Sugar was raised with "Jewish sensibilities" and both siblings observe the lighting of Hanukkah candles with their parents through Skype.[1] Rebecca Sugar also talked about being non-binary.[2] 

But as a white person, she (and the rest of the SU crew) is not aware of the inherently biased values from growing up and benefiting from white privilege. 

One example is the human zoo. There are people that have spoken up about this such as @jellyfax​​ of Tumblr who pointed out that the Crewniverse mishandled a loaded topic and reinforced a white colonist propaganda where the captive humans of mostly black/brown people are naive, docile and childlike in order to subjugate the people that they colonized. .

What I’m here is how a character of color from the main cast is more obligated to the lighter-skinned character. 

In the episode, Friend Ship, one fan had spoken out about how Garnet, who had been validly angry at Pearl, was compelled by a dangerous situation to forgive Pearl. Garnet is a Black-coded character. While Pearl is a light-skinned character.  

Garnet was mad at Pearl for tricking her into always fusing with her. Then they were trapped in a chamber that was going to crush them. In this situation, they have to fuse in order to save themselves but Garnet refuses to because she was still angry at her. 

In the end, they were forced to talk it out, for Garnet to understand Pearl’s reason for wanting to fuse with her and everything worked out well.

The narrative focused so much on Pearl’s self-worth issues at the expense of Garnet’s right to be angry. 

Yes, it showed that Pearl is trying her best to make up for it but Garnet should have been allowed to work at her own anger at her own pace instead of being obligated to consider Pearl’s feelings over her own. 

I wouldn’t have noticed it until someone had mentioned it. Because it was never my experience. 

But it’s there, continuing the message that it’s okay to put the emotional labor on Black people and disregard their own feelings for the sake of the non-Black people who have hurt them -particularly light-skinned women. 

White Fragility and Being Silenced White Woman Tears

Again, racial bias in animation storytelling is often not intentional because white creators do not experience it due to white privilege. 

Without meaning to, that scene alone shows Garnet as the Angry Black woman trope that is ungrateful and rude to Pearl who then ends up in tears. Without meaning to, Pearl with her light skin, became the tearful white girl trope that had to be sympathized over.

The Angry Black Woman trope is a combination of the worst negative stereotypes of a Black woman: overly aggressive, domineering, emasculating, loud, disagreeable and uppity.[13] 

The Tearful white girl trope comes from the combination of the stereotypes of white women being morally upstanding and delicate and therefore should be protected.[13] 

Which, unfortunately, many white women have taken advantage of.

These two tropes are harmful to WOC (Women of Color) because they experience the "weary weaponizing of white women's tears". This tactic employed by many white women incites sympathy and avoids accountability for their actions, turning the tables to their accuser and forcing their accuser to understand them instead.

(Image by Виктория Бородинова from Pixabay)

In "Weapon of lass destruction: The tears of a white woman", Author Shay described that white tears turns a white woman into the priority of whatever space she's in. "It doesn't matter if you're right, once her tears are activated, you cease to exist." [11] 

White woman tears have gotten Black people beaten and lynched such as Emmett Till. Carolyn Bryant who had accused 14 year old Emmett Till of sexually harassing her in 1955, admitted she lied about those claims years later in 2007.[15]

In Awesomely Luvvie's "About the Weary Weaponizing of White Women Tears", she states that the innocent white woman is a caricature many subconsciously embrace because it hides them from consequences. [10]

In The Guardian’s article, "How White Women Use Strategic Tears to Silence Women of Colour", Ruby Hamad shares her experience:

"Often, when I have attempted to speak to or confront a white woman about something she has said or done that has impacted me adversely, I am met with tearful denials and indignant accusations that I am hurting her. My confidence diminished and second-guessing myself, I either flare up in frustration at not being heard (which only seems to prove her point) or I back down immediately, apologising and consoling the very person causing me harm."[4]

This is not to say that all crying white women are insincere. But as activist Rachel Cargle said:

“I refuse to listen to white women cry about something. When women have come up to me crying, I say, ‘Let me know when you feel a little better, then maybe we can talk.’”[3]

One of the most quoted words in “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.” is this:

“It is white people’s responsibility to be less fragile; people of color don’t need to twist themselves into knots trying to navigate us as painlessly as possible.”[3]  

When white women cry in defense, instead of taking accountability, People of Color are then gaslighted into thinking they’re the bad guy. This is emotional abuse and a manipulation tactic. 

People of Color shouldn’t have to bend backwards to accommodate discomfited white or light-skinned people who have hurt them. 

How She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (SPOP) Did It Right

Despite SPOP having good lgbtq+ representations, there are other biases in the show. Such as Mara, a WOC whose only purpose was to sacrifice herself for the white protagonist. There was also the insensitive joke in their stream regarding Bow’s sibling that perpetuated an Anti-Black stereotype which Noelle Stevenson has apologized for.[14]

But the scene I have encountered where the Black character was validly angry and his feelings were treated well by the narrative, came from SPOP.

Bow, a black character, was validly angry at Glimmer, a lighter skinned character. Glimmer made a lot of bad decisions, one of them was using Adora and their friends as bait, without their knowledge, to lure out and capture Catra.  

Glimmer tearfully apologized in Season 5, Episode 4. Adora readily forgave her. But Bow didn't. 

They faced dangers along the way but the story didn't put them in a dangerous situation where Bow has to forgive Glimmer in order to get out of it. 

This was Glimmer's words of apology:

"Look, I know you're still mad at me. Maybe you'll be mad at me for a really long time. I deserved it. And maybe... maybe we'll never be friends like we used to be. But I'm not going to stop trying to make it better. I made a mistake with the heart of Etheria. I should've listened to you and I'm sorry. You get to be mad. For as long as you need to be. But I'm not going anywhere. And when you're ready, I'll be here."

In short, Bow was allowed to take the time to be mad and not just get over it for someone else’s sake. The story validates his feelings and he was allowed to take his own pace. That is emotional respect the story gave to him.

Example #2: The Narrative Gives Better Endings or Portrayals to Colonizers than Their Victims

Avatar: The Last Airbender has handled dark themes well such as genocide, war, PTSD, disability and redemption with great worldbuilding.

However, I never noticed the racial bias in ATLA until people spoke up of the double standards in ATLA’s treatment of light-skinned colonizers compared to their dark-skinned victims-turned-villains.

The characters in question -Iroh, Azula, Jet and Hama- are all flawed and well-rounded in a believable way. But how the narrative treats them is unequal.

General Iroh is an ex-colonizer who gets to redeem himself and not answer for his past war crimes, living a peaceful life as a tea shop owner. The only reason Iroh changed was when he was personally affected by the negativity of their military subjugation -his son’s death. It wasn’t the harm of the Fire nation ravaging Earth kingdom villages or cities and affecting millions of people that opened his eyes.

Azula, the tyrannical daughter, had closure of her mother's rejection when she was a child and was able to escape imprisonment.

Jet and Hama, victims of colonization who have done bad things, did not get similar conclusions to their stories OR compensation for what they have gone through from the Fire Nation's colonization. 

Jet was given a second chance but was arrested for trying to expose Zuko and Iroh being firebenders -firebenders who were their enemies for conquering their villages. Then he died from the injuries of the person who had brainwashed and mind-controlled him. 

Hama was imprisoned for life. 

Compared to the sins of the light-skinned colonizers, the narrative didn’t give Jet and Hama the development where they could heal from their trauma, receive compensation for what happened to them and really have a chance in life. 

The dark-skinned victims of colonization just became a lesson to the viewers how they shouldn’t hold grudges for being colonized. The end. They have received consequences for their actions but there is no continuation to their stories after that. 

It almost seems like the narrative is saying that because they have harmed colonizers who have no part in their trauma (and in Jet’s case, some Earth kingdom villagers), they are therefore unworthy to be given an actual chance in life. 

While Azula and Iroh, who have actively participated in conquering, colonizing and attacking the Earth Kingdom itself, were.   

Someone once said that if indigenous people have control over Hama’s story, it would have been done differently. But the ATLA crew are white, non-indigenous people who prioritized redeeming colonizers instead.

The narrative has also affected how the ATLA fandom thinks. If most fans are asked who they would want to be redeemed, the popular option would be Azula over Jet or Hama.

Once again, I don’t think the ATLA crew noticed it due to their racial bias. But still, the harm is done and the racially biased message is continued: 

The colonizers and their descendants don’t have to make amends for the colonizers’ crimes. Or if they do, only lightly since it’s in the past (no matter how recent that past is). 

The colonized who rebel will tend to hurt innocent people and then get a grisly end for getting in way over their heads.  

I would venture as far as to say that the narrative may have the  added subconscious desire to quiet their white anxiety on the vengeance of the colonized. As I have learned when writing about Vodou stereotypes and how they have stemmed from the history of white anxiety of Black vengeance, of Black fetishization and of dissolution of the white race through intermarriages.

In @visibilityofcolor’s blog, someone asked:

 “So I saw some of the really heated debates on here and on twitter about how if Iroh and Azula can be portrayed sympathetically despite their actions then characters like Jet and Hama should've been given a chance too. Do you think that the writers understood the implications of only redeeming characters from the colonizer/fascist nation but not giving the characters who suffered because of their fascism a second chance too?”

To which VisibilityOfColor replied:

“No, because at the end of the day, the writers are white. When it comes to stuff like this, it’s no surprise when we see white writers redeem problematic characters before they actually redeem victims of those racist problematic characters. For instance, Dave Filioni, who worked on both avatar and star wars rebels, did the same thing when redeeming agent kallus who was an soldiers in the imperial army and took credit for a genocide. where as victims of the empire were still painted in negative lights. i really don’t think they understand.

They have this ‘be the better person’ view on things, which is what a lot of white people tend to emulate when it comes to people of color standing up to their oppressors. and unfortunately, these are ideas passed on to children, esp minorities. that they should forgive people and communities who hurt them and ‘be the better person’. this is why white ppl don’t need to write narratives for people of color.”

Example #3: The Narrative Favors the Light Skinned Character Than Dark Skinned Character in Similar Situations

I would like to reiterate that racial bias in storytelling is often not intentional. I am not saying the creators and the people who support them are bad people. No.

However, I encourage that once a racial bias is made known in our work, it is our responsibility to change them to stop the perpetuation of its harmful message.

Hazbin Hotel is a popular cartoon with whimsical designs and its concept opens the conversation about redemption. The creator, Vivziepop may not have noticed the racial bias in her cartoon as a white Latina [5] that grew up with and benefits from white privileges, along with the Hazbin crew. 

In the Youtbe video, "Hazbin Hotel - How Art took over Writing", Staxlotl states:

“I understand that there was a lot of time and effort put into this pilot, almost three years worth of effort. But I think most of that time was spent into the art and visuals when it should’ve gone into polishing the writing in the characters.”[6]

Once again, I’m not here to critique the characters but how the narrative treats its dark-skinned characters.

The story treats Charlie, the white-skinned, “Disney-esque” protagonist princess differently from how it treats Vaggie, the dark-skinned, more outspoken and protective Latina girlfriend of Charlie who supports the princess’ cause. 

In its pilot episode, both girls experience humiliation. While Charlie is portrayed by the story as someone the viewers have to feel sorry for...

...Vaggie is portrayed in her humiliation as the butt of the joke for the viewers.

While they both didn’t like what Angel Dust did, Charlie was sympathized over in the narrative as a moment... 

...while Vaggie’s angry but valid callouts were dismissed and ignored as part of the comedy.

While Charlie was someone that needs to be protected in the narrative... 

...Vaggie is left to fend for herself. 

Again, I don’t think the creators noticed the racial bias of their cartoon. However, this racial bias is reflected in the harmful perceptions that dark-skinned women, particularly Black women and Black girls, are more mature, tougher and need less protection at a young age.[7] 

This adultification bias perceives them as challenging authority when they express strong or contrary views and are then given harsher discipline than white girls who misbehave.[8] And this continues when they grow up.

In a 2017 study, Black women and girls aged 12-60 years old confirmed they are treated harsher by their white peers and are accused of being aggressive when they would defend themselves or explain their point of view to authority figures.[8] 

This bias also coincides with the Spicy Latina trope of a brown-skinned, hot-blooded, quick-tempered and passionate woman.

Everyday Feminism described this trope as "Although objects of desire for many, the spicy Latina may have too much personality to handle. So much so that she is often viewed as domineering or emasculating." [16]

Sounds familiar? (Look at Angry Black Woman trope above.)

Why is it that a light-skinned character, Charlie, is allowed to be vulnerable and be sympathized while the dark-skinned Latina character, Vaggie, is mocked, dismissed and expected to tough it out?

Severina Ware had to remind the world in her article that relates to the bias against dark skinned characters:

“Black women are not offered the protection and gentleness of our white counterparts. We are not given permission to be soft and delicate. We are required to exhibit strength and fortitude not only because our lives depend on it, but because so many others depend on us. Black women should not be charged with the responsibility of saving everyone when nobody is here to save us.”[12] 

As @cullenvhenan​ of Tumblr has said in her post:

“if you're a white creator and your brown/black characters are always sassy, reckless, aggressive or cold and your white characters are always soft, demure, shy and introverted you should think about maybe why you did that”

(Image above from Iowa Law Reviews’ “Aggressive Encounters & White Fragility: Deconstructing the Trope of the Angry Black Woman”)

Detecting Your Own Racial Bias

It would be hard. No matter how much you edit and create, you may miss it because it was never your experience. 

So how do we prevent our racial bias from creeping into our creations?

Listen to POC and their feedback.

As @charishjb from Instagram has shared, here is one of the things that we can do (tumblr link here) [9]:

Consider POC voices. Listen to their experiences. Hire sensitivity POC readers. Put multiple POC voices in positions of leadership in creative projects.

Then we can stop the racial bias that perpetuates again and again in the media. I hope for that future.

#racial bias #racism #colorism #animation #steven universe #su #pearl #garnet #atla #azula #general iroh #jet #hama #hazbin hotel #hazbin vaggie #lynching mention #lynching tw #writeblr #artblr

[nny11writes]

Glitra for the shipping meme ✨🐱

Sorry for the late response, had my job interview this week and recovery from that took longer than expected! (Let's just say things went wrong, but I think I'm the top candidate in part because of it)

send me a pairing and I’ll tell you who:

falls asleep on the couch

makes friends with the neighbors

is the adventurous eater

hogs the covers at night

forgets to do the dishes

tries to surprise their partner more often

leaves dirty laundry on the floor

stays up til 2 AM reading

sings in the shower

takes the selfies

plans date night

Under the cut 'cause it's a lot of answer! :D

Catra falls asleep on the couch, she can curl up into a little ball on one seat but prefers to sprawl out on it once Glimmer has sat down. Glimmer physically can't fall asleep on it, and kind of hates that fact. Both of them make friends with the neighbors, although in wildly different ways. Glimmer is the more classic friendly neighbor who welcomes everyone (secretly in order to get dirt on them and gossip with Catra), while Catra is kind of the reclusive neighbors dream person. Glimmer will bring you tray of food when you aren't well, and Catra will shovel your drive free of snow and deny ever having done that while pretending to ignore you. Glimmer is the adventurous eater! She runs by a try everything thrice rule and delights in finding new combinations. Catra isn't adventurous (sensitive stomach and all) but people think she is because she eats combinations that most people find unpalatable. No Catra, adding mushroom powder to vanilla pudding does not make it taste like a cold cream of mushroom soup. And yes, Glimmer has tried to eat it three times over the years and banned it from the house. Glimmer hogs the covers at night. They start of sharing which is great since Catra is usually cold right before bed, but she'd overheat if her partner didn't steal the blankets. So Glimmer turning herself into a burrito works out perfectly. Glimmer forgets to do dishes more often than Catra. She never had to do them growing up, so it often doesn't cross her mind until a meal is done. By then she's tired and vows she'll do them in a little and just forgets. Catra does forget them on occasion but her nose is sensitive so she'll tackle it no problem either way. If Catra's done the cooking, Glimmer has no problem doing the dishes while she cooks so they can chat the whole time. Catra tries to surprise Glimmer more often. She's more nervous about how people perceive her giving gifts or doing nice things, so she prefers to do it as a surprise thing instead. This can be something as simple as leaving a sticky note in Glimmer's lunch with something sappy written on it, or as elaborate as planning a vacation. Glimmer likes to surprise Catra too, but Catra doesn't always do as well with surprises so she tries not to do it too much. Glimmer leaves dirty laundry on the floor. If Bow or someone else doesn't pick up after her, she genuinely doesn't mind clothes on the floor. Thanks to her super sniffer, Catra refuses to leave dirty laundry anywhere besides the hamper which is not allowed in the bedroom or bathroom due to smelling disgusting. Catra stays up til 2 AM reading. She has trouble sleeping a whole night through anyways and has determined that going to bed later helps her get more consecutive hours of sleep in. But she doesn't want a bright screen or sound keeping Glimmer up, so she reads by dim light (ah, the perks of cat eyes). They both sing in the shower, the only difference is that Catra sings quietly if she thinks someone is home whereas Glimmer often pretends she's on a giant stage and just belts it out. They both love hearing the other sing, and they're both damn good at it. It's complicated on taking selfies. Glimmer has the better phone camera, plans the shots, and asks for the selfies more than Catra ever would. But Catra has got slightly longer arms than Glimmer so she's often the one begrudgingly holding the phone. So technically it's Catra, but really it's Glimmer. They both plan date nights! Catra often plans surprise dates but simple and complex, but when they agree in advance to have a date night Glimmer demands to plan it. She often checks things with Catra when she does, surprise or not, to make sure it'll actually be fun. They've both had to change plans part way through and enjoy planning the rest of the night together.

#glimmer #catra #glitra #she ra #spop #ask game #ship game #thanks for playing!

[etheriadearie]

“Promise”

Why can't you just… Promise ?

Today's goal is an in-depth look at one of the most beautiful and breathtaking episodes of She-ra: "Promise"

Storywise, it's incredibly important to the series, and focuses entirely on Catradora. It's the first time since Adora left Catra behind to seek out the sword that the girls really have an opportunity to talk, and things are not going well. Both of them are royally pissed off at the other, with good reason.

For Adora, we're gonna deflate that proud hair poof of hers a bit, as we'll take an honest look at her as a person at this point in her life. And Catra... she's really guarding her feelings closely, as she's already deeply angry with Adora. But we will use the combination of Catra's younger self in the memories they see, plus looking at other times in the series that relate to this episode, where she was less guarded, in order to understand her as a person at this time. Also: warning: tl;dr, best enjoyed while cozy with a drink..

To get started, we skip to when they end up stuck together…

After Adora takes drastic measures to ward off the security spiders by collapsing the tunnel, the girls are now stuck together, and so… they talk...

We immediately see how incredibly irritated they are with each other as Adora chides Catra for being in the Crystal Castle, since the monsters will continue to attack them as long as she's protecting Catra… only to have Catra retort that she didn't ask for protection. Some snippy bickering back and forth happens, then...

Adora asks: "Does Shadow Weaver know you're here?" Very deadpan assertion from Adora. She knows Catra must be disobeying orders, she just doesn't know why.

"I'd say Shadow Weaver has bigger problems right now". Catra is already starting her move against SW back at the Horde. With SW abusively blocking her every move within the Horde, and now that Catra knows that SW was going to mind wipe Adora, Catra has decided she must deal with her abuser.

Adora puts on her telltale sideways grin, and Catra chafes at Adora's flirtation, saying "I told you it's not because I like you” downplaying Adora’s suggestion that this was the reason she let her go. Catra freely admits here that she does like Adora, but it's not the real reason she did it. Still, Catra doesn't explain further, and we see later that Catra often lets Adora explain away her actions this way... but that Adora constantly misses the deeper truths.

"Where are your new best friends? I thought you did everything together". She's very snarky and dismissive of Adora and her flirting. She's mad about Adora leaving her for her new life.

"The ones you let SW imprison and curse?" Adora is angry at Catra for what she did, which was a sudden escalation of things by Catra.

"Yeah obviously, what other friends would I be talking about?" An obvious dig at Adora for leaving her, everything behind. She deadpans this, staring back plainly. Catra is obviously really angry at Adora... while Adora is legitimately mad at Catra for doing something so nasty to Bow and Glimmer...

::Let's take a moment to talk about Catra's feelings about Adora's new friends: Catra feels horribly betrayed by this. Adora completely tossed her aside, and replaced her with Bow and Glimmer. What comes to mind is at the end of Sea Gate, Catra is thrown in the water and then looks up at Adora, who is celebrating and cuddling with Bow and Glimmer. Catra is emotionally forlorn watching this, as Scorpia comes to drag her off to safety, Adora doesn't even look back towards her.

She's forgotten, Adora showed no love towards her at all in that scene (and then hardly any at Princess Prom, either). Adora ignored her plea for her to return, she didn't reach out to Catra at all. And now she watches her cuddle with her new friends: everything Catra thought she had with Adora meant nothing, and she's been replaced with these feel goodie goods who are fawning all over Adora.

Suffice to say, Catra couldn't do this, she's got way too many issues with emotional intimacy and touch aversion. So she watches Adora, seeing that what she offered her wasn't good enough, knowing because of it she's forgotten. Catra was trying really hard to be a close friend to Adora in spite of her issues, but as we will see, Adora wasn't trying to understand what was going on with Catra. And because of this, Catra was too afraid to express her affection openly, and yet here's Adora... accepting all of Bow and Glimmer’s love, for which Adora really did nothing to earn. Adora took Catra’s friendship for granted while ignoring her deeper needs, as will be explained, then completely abandons her, not even seeming to miss her. Catra is deeply hurt by the unfairness of this.

>Catra stares back at Adora, frustrated when she doesn't even acknowledge their lost friendship.

"Well, we don't need to go together. You do your weird little magic quest thing I'll find my own way out". Catra looks resentfully at the sword on Adora's back as she says this. Catra is laying down boundaries, except it's useless since they are trapped together. But, boundaries are important to Catra and as the episode progresses, Adora shows that she doesn't really understand Catra's.

>As they walk along, both girls' shadows loom equally tall. The symbolism is that in this story, both are equally important... it's also a shockingly beautiful sequence. (pic above)

After entering the room of infinite darkness, Catra tries to separate from Adora but the door is gone, they are stuck together. Weird things start happening. As the Fright Zone appears, both of them are confused. Adora decides to suspect Catra, after all, she attacked her friends. But as Adora grabs Catra, Catra is surprised and confused... Catra doesn't like being touched unexpectedly, Adora knows this but is ignoring that and attacking her. She gets treated as an enemy when she clearly hasn't done anything wrong, and it sets the tone for the two of them: Adora has constantly treated Catra as an enemy since the very moment she defected, not even trying to understand Catra's point of view. And so Catra increasingly emotionally distances herself from Adora. Catra angrily casts Adora's arm aside, not liking being vilified by her, and Adora doesn't understand why Catra is so upset. Catra slips away to explore, needing space from her.

The way Adora immediately suspects and then attacks Catra is symbolic to the whole episode: by defecting to the Rebellion, Adora chose to start treating Catra, and her entire unit, as enemies, backing it up with hostility. But Catra doesn't really agree that the horde is evil... in her experience, it's just how life is.

>The two girls, now separated, call out to each other. Adora hears Catra's call, then another: young Catra is behind her, looking lost and insecure. Catra joins Adora as their first memory has just begun…

~DISCLAIMER TIME~ A lot of information in She-ra is inferred by emotional context, so if this seems a bit head-canon-y, I assure you, I have data! Please ask questions and seek clarifications, I promise to answer back! ~EtheriaDearie

>A worried and hurt young Catra runs to young Adora's side. She is emotional and needs support. Adora checks her out then gets the real deal: Catra was in a fight with an adult. It hints that Catra always had to deal with people messing with her, even before SW began her abuse. This is a guess, but it's probable: this is likely a happy memory of the two of them right before the hurting began. Along with the "promise" memory and the moments immediately preceding their entering the Black Garnet chamber, these scenes set the baseline for what their friendship was like before Catra suffered SW’s abuse. Also, this memory is a happy one, and how Adora remembers their friendship: it was likely triggered by her memories. The next ones are not, as I believe they are triggered by Catra, who is trying to explain to Adora what was so painful about their childhood...

>Catra doesn't know what to expect when she shows Octavia to Adora. She probably expects Adora to try to apologize on her behalf, or to give her a hard time about what she did. Instead, Adora sticks with her friend and yells “Hey Octavia, you're a dumbface." This brings young Catra much joy, Adora is sticking with her, not passing judgement. The two young girls run together hand in hand, experiencing childhood bliss, but it doesn't last. The present versions of themselves return, holding hands...

They share a brief moment of connection before Catra pulls her hand away in anger. Adora is surprised at the strength of Catra’s reaction. They are not on intimate terms any more, in fact, I suspect they had been struggling for a while before Adora's defection. Adora doesn't want the moment to stop, but Catra does. It hints that the gulf between them is already wide.

"How can you deal with all this magic stuff?" Catra has a deep distrust of magic, as it was used in her abuse. She resents it, and throughout the series whenever anything magic happens that she doesn't see coming she gets creeped out.

"I'm only dealing with it because I need to figure out how to heal Glimmer after someone got her cursed." It's a valid criticism, but Catra deflects it.

"What do you want? An apology? You're not getting one." We don't get the full story on this moment until season 5 when a young Catra tells Adora she'll "never say sorry to anybody, ever." Adora doesn't like Catra just refusing to explain, and as Catra pushes her away, Catra is full of reproach at Adora's judgement.

::As an abused child, Catra was continuously vilified and abused by everyone but Adora. And when Adora would suggest she apologize throughout their lives, she can't understand why Catra won't. It comes down to literally everyone in the world judging Catra and being cruel. Not once did any of them apologize to her, even though she didn't do anything to deserve the abuse. Except Adora... but that has issues, too. In fact, SW literally tells her "I won't apologize" regarding her abuse of Catra. Can you imagine the hurt at that?

[pic caption: Catra refuses to apologize, Catra often shows her deeper emotions while blinking, in this case: the incredible pain she experienced from SW’s abuse.]

So no, Catra won't apologize, she had a thing she was trying to do by kidnapping Bow and Glimmer and taking her sword, and it ended badly. But she felt she had a good reason to do it: she wanted to force Adora to see her, to make her acknowledge how big of a part of Adora’s life Catra used to be. And it's not like anyone has been helping Catra, she's had to make every single decision on her own her entire life and live with the consequences.

Also, mistakes for Catra have an entirely different meaning than they do for Adora. Whenever Adora made a mistake, she was given an opportunity to fix it. This is a theme of their relationship: Adora expects Catra to let her fix her mistakes. But for Catra, she learned that any mistake she made was dangerous, as when she did make a mistake, SW would torture her for it. And if other people saw it too, they'd use it to perpetuate the notion that she's some kind of no good fuck up. So Catra is extremely careful to not make mistakes, and if she does, she tries to cover it up, distance herself from it. (note: this isn't the same as Catra's intentional rebellions against this system where she was unfairly targeted for abuse-). This is why Catra simply cannot forgive Adora easily for breaking her promise: in Catra's world, she had to be perfect, or she could have been dead by SW's hand. She wasn't allowed to make mistakes like Adora is, she is what is clinically known as 'hyper vigilant' and always preparing for the worst. And so she applies this standard to be perfect all the time to Adora, and therefore she won't give Adora the same license to make mistakes with their friendship. Catra thinks Adora should know better, and see the consequences of her actions.

>Adora lets it go: when Catra seems to shut down, Adora does her best to try to accept her. Adora tries a different track. She asks Catra why she let her and Glimmer go when SW had them imprisoned, when it could have resulted in Catra getting in trouble. Catra walks ahead, trying to distance herself from having to answer. But the magic of the Crystal Castle intervenes: as Adora slips and begins to fall, Catra saves her. It's a symbolic moment: Catra has always tried to protect Adora, to save her from pain. It's why she changed course to give the sword back to her, partly.

"Did you really think I'd just let SW erase your memory like that?"

"I don't know. Probably." Adora shows such little understanding of their friendship. It shows Adora really is thinking of Catra as an enemy, not as the complicated person stuck between protecting her friend, and the cruel necessities of her life.

Catra looks at Adora with disappointment. "Yeah, well, you never did have too much faith in me." Adora tries to understand Catra's emotions, fails.

"Huh, can you blame me?" Ouch. Adora smiles at Catra, trying to show love for her roguish quirks. But it just shows how little Adora understands: she is repeating a negative stereotype of Catra that everyone in their old life believes and perpetuates. And Adora should know better, instead of just assuming the worst about her. That persona is one which Catra uses to protect herself, partly from her own emotional feelings, but also as a necessity to protect herself from SW. She had to act like she doesn't care, doesn't try, so SW wouldn't see her power.

"Psh, not really." As Catra turns away, again she deadpans this but you can see pain and disappointment leaking past her indifference.

As she walks away she trails her tail across Adora's hand, flirting and drawing Adora's attention to her butt. It's a cute little moment of telling a truth to counter the lie: 'Adora, you should know me better, and also, I like you.' Still, it's only a half truth: Catra couldn't let SW win because SW is Catra's true enemy. But, Adora takes the flirtatious hint, as always. She accepts it and doesn't dig deeper.

Catra asks Adora about their childhood, trying to understand how Adora could just throw it all away. Adora gives a very direct and impassioned speech, she looks Catra in the eyes, trying to convince her and make her understand why leaving was the right thing to do. Catra hides her emotions, weighing Adora's answer. She doesn't agree with her sentiment, in Catra's experience good and evil are relative and exist as such everywhere. Also, she's right: we meet many people in the Horde who aren't evil. And Adora's finding the sword is one giant sinister manipulation by Light Hope. Moral grayness is a constant theme in this show. Still, this isn't really why Catra chooses to stay with the Horde.

Adora sees her explanation failing to convince Catra, so she tries reminding Catra of their deeper friendship, telling her she misses her too. Catra is temporarily taken aback at being called out before remembering to deny it. She tells Adora to get over herself, and Adora tells her she won't stop until Catra says she likes her. They flirtatiously rough house, and Catra smiles during it: yeah, she does. But she denies it anyways.

::Adora often tries to be respectful of Catra's personal space but is making an exception here: she's telling her that she finds her desirable, and if Catra wanted it, they could be together. Adora can't understand why Catra feels the need to resist this, but she knows doing it helps her friend feel wanted. Still, this shows how casually Adora views their attraction.

Yes, they should be together. And actually, they had an unspoken agreement that they would be. But Catra's not going to open herself up to that just to serve her desire. She wants more from Adora, for Adora to show her that she really does see her, and cares about her. If she did, maybe Catra could open up about some of her pain. Being intimate without doing that would be impossible, and so far Catra's life still isn't safe enough to risk her feelings. Adora's promotion could have meant the beginning of something new between them, where they worked together to build a more secure future together where Catra didn't have to be fearful all the time. But instead, Adora left her.

So begins the second memory. The two girls, now teenagers, compete against each other in sparring. It's clear they are flirting, and neither is fighting all out. When Catra taunts Adora by putting her finger to her forehead, she shows how much better she is at fighting. She full heartedly laughs, Adora enjoys this and then throws a purposefully weak strike to restart the fight. When Adora seemingly turns the tables through brute force, Catra plays hurt to exploit Adora's naiveness. As Adora tries to show concern, Catra turns the tables back. She wants to teach Adora a lesson: that not everyone will play fair, as Catra knows all too well from SW's abuse. But Lonnie interrupts her. Catra doesn't appreciate this and makes quick work of Lonnie, showing just how good she is. Adora attacks, getting the predetermined win. Catra doesn't enjoy the beat down but accepts Adora's help up. She heads to Lonnie as Adora receives compliments from their commander.

As Catra confronts Lonnie, she tells Catra "you were playing dirty, I was just leveling the field". Catra will hear these words again when she leaves Adora behind in frustration near the end of the episode. They are significant: these are stereotypical views forced on Catra, and those views ignore that Catra was just doing something she felt was important: teaching Adora about the harsh realities that exist in the world. Real enemies don't play by the rules, and will be unpredictable.

As Catra’s anger rises at this, Adora puts her hand on Catra's shoulder to calm her down, then compliments Catra on her fighting skills. Catra ever so casually tosses the comforting hand aside. She's saying 'I can handle my emotions without your help, but thanks for asking.' As she tells Adora she let her win, Adora tries to tell if Catra really is ok.

Thus starts one of cutest exchanges between the two of them: as Catra tries to explain why she lets Adora win, Adora puts on her sideways 'you like me' grin while she playfully denies that Catra let her win. Catra gives a very animated and obviously made up explanation about not wanting to have people expect things from her. Adora grins along, and halfway through her lie Catra leans in, staring at Adora's lips before looking up into her eyes. Once again, Catra is undoing a lie by telling a truth: she let her win because she likes (loves) her. But it's only a half truth, once again...

Adora accepts the explanation, keeping her sideways grin: 'it's so cute how you like me'. Catra's explanation done, Adora moves on, wanting to catch up with their unit. Catra lets her do so while excusing herself. As Adora leaves, a huge amount of meaningful information passes across Catra's face…

First, Catra feels bad about having to lie to Adora, and it shows. Then, as Adora leaves to socialize, disappointment and rejection shows: Catra had hoped Adora might look deeper, and try to see the deeper truth. As Adora turns away and leaves we see a look of total love and adoration on Catra's face. She really, really loves Adora. She's the light of her life, a real idiot no doubt but Catra will always love her for exactly who she is.

The girls remain their younger selves as the rest of the memory plays out, Adora staying to accept praise while Catra separates to deal with her internal feelings which Adora always fails to see: the hurt and aloneness she feels.

>A frustrated young Catra cries, expressing her repressed emotions. It would be easiest to assume she cries because she's sad about losing, but we have to look ahead to the next memory to find the real truth.

Catra is sad because she never had a choice. SW took that choice from her, and while Catra is happy to let Adora win because of the love she feels for her, it hurts that she never really got to decide. And Adora doesn't see that, doesn't see the pain Catra is bearing, hiding. And so she cries for that, too. The one person who should love her doesn't really see her. As she looks up in the mirror to see herself, since no one else in her life seems to see her pain, she sees her present tearful self looking back. The pain of the past is real in the present, and while she's older now and won't let herself give in to tears, she feels the pain as she did back then. (pic 1, below) She sees the tears and it snaps her back to her present self, totally unnerved by the simulation as the security detects her and attacks. A fearful Catra screams, wanting help, wanting Adora.

>Adora snaps back to herself, having been participating in the replay of the memory post Catra excusing herself. She tries to run to help Catra, full of worry. She sees a terrified Catra trapped by the spider. As the spider begins to drag her away the two girls lock arms, trying to free Catra. But it's too strong, and as we see their grip start to slip, Catra looks to Adora wanting, pleading for help. As Catra is pulled away, Adora feels helpless, knowing she couldn't help her friend. She thumps her head in frustration that she wasn't there for Catra.

The scene speaks to an obvious truth: Adora has never quite been there enough for Catra. She's always less present, less aware of Catra's reality than she could have been. But since Catra was experiencing a painful memory when this happened, her reaction shows her vulnerable emotional state, and so she called out for help: Catra just wants to feel safe, for Adora to be there to help her. But she wasn't.

>As Catra is dragged away, she feels helpless, and calls out mournfully for Adora. But she's long gone; Catra is alone and scared, as usual. She screams out her frustration, the realization that she’s never gotten the help she needed, she always ends up alone. She cries tears for the suffering and anguish she feels from that. (pic 2, below) It’s a moment that shows us the real inner Catra: She feels deeply, whether it be her desire to be seen, loved by Adora, or the fear she feels in this moment and others. She tries her best to act confident in herself, but it's a lie: she needs support, yet is left behind by everyone, including Adora. She was willing to bear her pain for Adora's love, but she has become increasingly aware of how tenuous that really was growing up.

>Catra digs deep, like she's always done. She will handle this, won't take the abuse lying down. She shifts her mentality to being the survivor, the person who has survived years of abuse. She frees herself and gets to her feet, accessing her foe, determined to defeat it. She attacks, using her anger to deal damaging blows, seeking to destroy her enemy, to make sure she survives. She stands back, confident she's won, proud of herself for it. She doesn't quit, she always perseveres against those who want to destroy her. (pic 3)

Adora shows up, finishing the monster. Catra doesn't drop her mentality, this person who has lived a separate life from Adora and survived on her own, doing the hard things like winning fights and resisting Shadow Weaver's abuse.

Adora walks forward, seeing Catra's anger, determination. She looks blankly, trying not to upset Catra. She's trying to get a read on Catra but not having any luck, so she's being cautious. She asks if Catra is ok, casually pulling webbing off Catra's shoulder, trying to exist in her physical space without upsetting Catra further. "I had it" says Catra, not dropping her fighter stance, mentality at all. Catra is very much feeling the aloneness of her life from everyone, including Adora.

Adora tries to casually put aside Catra's assertion that she had it, she smiles diplomatically. She tries again to touch Catra, to break down her animosity and get her to calm down. It doesn't work. "We need to make sure we stick together from now on." As Adora touches Catra, she tenses, uncomfortable. Catra has strong touch aversion, and Adora knows this but she also knows doing it sometimes helps Catra shift her mentality, so she's trying to get Catra to connect emotionally, to get her to accept care.

"Will you stop telling me what to do?" An exasperated Catra says. We see a look of total dismay cross Adora's face. She's not understanding why Catra has so much animosity in this moment. (pic below)

As Adora looks at Catra, she hunches her body, looking misunderstood and isolated. Adora has consistently failed to see Catra's emotional states and so Catra is feeling more and more apart; that the mentality of the survivor she's feeling now is the right one. Adora didn't really help her at all growing up, and she doesn't see her for who she really is, either. Adora always took the easy explanation, like saying that Catra did things for her because she liked her. Never looking deeper, trying to see her struggle. And so Catra doesn't drop her combative pose, she stays in it because she feels in control, less vulnerable.

As for the words "stop telling me what to do", that's an essay in itself but consider: just now Adora became frustrated when she lost Catra, and now tells her they need to stay together. But they didn't, they never did, and even when they are together Adora is no real help to Catra. So she reacts in anger to Adora trying to direct her. After all, in the next scene we will see that Adora leads Catra into danger, and then doesn't really help her as she gets abused. Adora is no great leader, not according to Catra's experience.

::Adora is having a total loss, here, as she tries to understand Catra, why she's angry at her: It's because she has never really known this 'survivor' side of Catra. Adora wants to comfort her and calm her down, but Catra isn't having it. I think this is when we first see Adora begin to realize that there is something is very wrong with her friend that she has completely failed to see, and she's deeply worried by it. (pic 2)

[pic cation: Adora can't read Catra's emotions, Adora realizes Catra is deeply angry. Outside SW’s chamber, Adora wants to take Catra’s hand.]

Adora loves Catra, but can't seem to get through to her: Catra is holding herself apart from Adora. Again, Catra pushes Adora's hand aside, frustrated. She expresses her exasperation at the situation, saying she's sick of what's going on. Adora follows along, confused. As Catra seemingly purposefully leaves her behind, Adora demands to know what Catra's problem is, saying that she was trying to save her. Catra looks down at her confrontationally, frustrated with Adora's lack of vision. "For the last time, I don't need you to save me. I've been doing just fine on my own. No thanks to you." Uh oh.

The words "no thanks to you" are especially cutting. Adora has totally failed to see the struggles Catra had all her life, she didn't understand the hurt and abuse Catra was fighting against. And so Catra did it all on her own, protecting herself and trying to remain strong. Her love of Adora might have helped her have hope, but fundamentally Catra overcame the abuse by not giving up on herself, believing she had worth, and not letting others tear her down.

Adora runs to Catra's side, taking her arm in one hand. Feeling her friend becoming increasingly distant from her, Adora tries authentically telling Catra her feelings, hoping to make her friend see her desire to help and understand her. Adora explains that she's sorry for leaving and that she did it because she couldn't stand the war the Horde has pursued. Her next words are telling: "but I never wanted to leave you". 'Want' is an important word in this series, and it comes up again in season 5 when Catra asks Adora "what do you want, Adora?”. By choosing to leave the Horde, Catra feels that Adora wanted that more than she wanted what they had together. Also, promises are not something you're supposed to break over a 'want'. And Adora so casually breaking their promises makes Catra think she doesn't matter to Adora. It's not the truth, but this belief still determines her reaction in this moment. Even though Adora dearly loves Catra, including at this point in the story, she hasn't shown it in a way that Catra can see as meaningful. As Adora finishes saying this, Catra looks back, feeling alone and unwanted, seemingly thinking 'but you did leave me, Adora.'

Adora tries to appeal to Catra to join the rebellion with her. Then she says "I know you're not a bad person, Catra. You don't belong with the Horde." Catra must be thinking 'Ok so at what point did you become the authority on whether someone is good or bad, Adora?' Adora has shown no interest in understanding Catra's position, she treated her as an enemy without fail since she left her, literally in every single case including at Princess Prom when Catra was trying so hard to romance her. And Catra doesn't accept Adora's naive black and white view of the world. Think about it: when Adora defects she begins treating all Horde with hostility, including her dearest friend, she judges them all and doesn’t even try to see them as the complicated people that they are. So when she suggests Catra doesn't belong with the Horde, Catra looks back at her, feeling totally isolated from Adora. Even though Adora's plea is earnest, Catra declines it.

>As the next memory begins, we see Adora now has both hands on Catra's arm, she's desperately trying to hold on to her bond with Catra and show her desire to fix things between them. Catra doesn't drop her wary demeanor at all, and Adora looks lost and anxious over this as a young Catra runs by.

The memory starts out full of childhood innocence as the two of them play together. When the girls see that the Black Garnet chamber is open, young Adora remarks "we're definitely not allowed in there." Young Catra looks at Adora, seemingly asking if she wants to go in, trusting her. Young Adora runs off, and Catra follows her in. Yes, Catra participates in the decision, but she's not the one who runs towards the chamber, and that's important to what happens next.

A worried (adult) Adora looks to her friend who seems so distant, stoic. Anxiously, Adora tells Catra "You don't have to go in there." Adora knows what happens next is very bad, that this is a hurtful memory for Catra. As an unwavering Catra begins to walk towards the chamber, Adora looks down at Catra's hand. [pic above] She wants desperately to reach out and take it, to hold Catra back from this terrible moment, to tell her she's sorry for messing up. Adora knows now that she screwed up, that she's let Catra down, somehow more than she ever realized. She doesn't know what to do about it… she follows Catra inside.

The young girls explore, Catra touches the black garnet and gets shocked. Adora has second thoughts, she realizes they're trespassing.. but of course, SW returns, so they try to hide. As SW takes off the mask, Adora cries out, taken aback... young Catra looks at her in dismay. She's about to pay for Adora's mistake with a lifetime of suffering. Offended, SW tells them to "Get out!" but rethinks. She puts the mask back on, and decides to use this moment to instead abuse the girls and use the crime of their trespass against them. As SW tells Catra to stay, Adora turns around, seeing that Catra is caught, and she's scared for her friend. She really did make a poor decision, and as a highly empathetic person, what happens to Catra scars Adora, too.

Held powerless by magic, Catra tries to explain that they were just playing. SW's words to her set the stage for a lifetime of physical and psychological abuse: SW leans over her menacingly, telling her "Insolent child, I've come to expect such disgraceful behavior from you, but I will not allow you to drag Adora down as well." Again, it's not Catra who decided to go in, so it's really not her fault. SW disparages her and heaps blame upon her for Adora's bad choice, ignoring the truth.

Adora weakly tries to protect Catra, saying "SW, it wasn't her fault. It was my idea too." It's an understandable response, as they're just little kids. Still, Adora could have taken the blame for their trespass, since she led Catra inside. But it's about to get a lot more hurtful for Catra...

SW's voice echoes through Catra's head as she trembles in terror: "You have never been anything more than a nuisance to me. I've kept you around this long because Adora was fond of you but if you ever do anything to jeopardize her future, I will dispose of you myself. Do you understand ?" Catra trembles in fear, her eyes unfocused, the room empty but for SW menacing her. She's in a dissociative state, terrified and helpless. I think some people probably feel like this must have been a idle threat, but it isn't: SW abuses Catra many times after this for her mistakes. And the depiction of the dissociative state helps us understand just how damaging it was. While Adora seemingly goes on to not realize the importance of this memory, for Catra it is formative to her entire life.

Again, Adora tries weakly to stop what's happening, putting herself between them. She tells SW "please, stop" then looks over at Catra, full of concern. Running over to SW, she tells her "she didn't mean to". This is so hurtful, as young Catra is very smart. Catra knows Adora has blown it again, after all, what is it that she "didn't mean to" do when it was Adora's idea to trespass? Adora isn't getting the magnitude of the situation, and Catra is very much left to fend for herself.

SW then does a very insidious thing to Adora, a very directed abuse that's meant to work against her personality and empathetic reactions to others pain. She tells her "Adora, you must do a better job of keeping her under control. Do not let something like this happen again..." SW follows this up with years of manipulation to make Adora even more susceptible to abuse. But in this moment, SW again heaps the blame for Adora's mistake onto Catra, who did nothing wrong. For Catra, she comes to believe that what she did doesn't even matter, nobody cares what the truth was. Even Adora. But for Adora, the hurt goes deep as well. She made a bad decision, her friend gets hurt for it, and she never comes clean... instead, she's told she has to do a better job of controlling her friend, and that she has to be perfect so that it doesn't happen again. It's a deep and hurtful moment for Adora, just like it is for Catra. But the hurt is much less direct, and more sneaky. Nonetheless, Adora struggles with this moment, this abuse of her, in the most intimate and painful ways all throughout the series.

Young Catra watches on as SW completes her manipulation of Adora. For Catra, she's left with the feeling that nothing she does matters, she was blamed for something she didn't even do. And Adora seemingly took the easy out, spreading the blame. But she doesn't realize this moment is so insidious for Adora, that it attacks and manipulates her at her emotional need to help others. From this moment on, Adora is afflicted with a desperate fear that she can't protect others, and must lead perfectly so they don't get hurt. This internal conflict erodes Adora's self worth, and causes her great emotional pain throughout the series. Catra, instead, believes she is being told she has no worth, and isn't even allowed to make her own decisions. It's hurtful, and it's part of why she tensed so badly at Adora for trying to tell her what to do earlier. We see this realization cross young Catra's face: she feels forgotten in this moment.

We see the young girls walking away from SW's chamber, Adora with her hand around Catra's shoulder. This comfort is not enough... Catra really needed Adora to stand up for her there, to come clean, and she didn't. Trying to comfort her now seems hollow. As they flash to their present selves, Catra knocks Adora's arm aside in frustration, accusing her of needing to play the hero.

Adora responds, saying she was only trying to protect her. Catra's next words tell the real truth of their childhood: "You never protected me! Not in any way that would put you on SW's bad side!" Adora at first chafes at this statement, feeling like she did try to protect her, then crosses over to confusion at the strength of Catra's assertion. Catra is telling Adora she was blind to her pain. She wasn't there for her, and this is very much at the core of Catra's disappointment with Adora: the fact that she never stayed, never tried to understand. Adora let SW control her, make her ambitious, and so Catra was put to the side of that, and over time Adora grew apart from her. Catra’s exact words here are important: she says that Adora ‘plays’ at being the hero, yet always seemingly protected her status as the favorite, never standing up to SW and risking harm onto herself in order to save Catra from pain.

And so, the fact that out of seemingly out of nowhere, Adora decides to risk everything and defect in order to fight for people she doesn't even know, insults Catra. Adora abandons and consequently fights against her own people, leaving Catra behind, unilaterally treating her as an enemy. Never, in their whole lives, did Adora ever fight for Catra, only offering affection afterwards to make up for the cruelties that happened to Catra. So no, Catra doesn't want Adora to save her, or her sympathy, when she seemingly cared so little about her pain. Adora was no hero to her.

Now an obvious question might be: if the manipulation is that Adora is supposed to protect and control Catra, then shouldn't she have had to see SW abuse Catra for it to work? The first part of the answer is that it was never really about that, once the idea was put in Adora’s head, SW used it to manipulate her further into a mentality where Adora would accept praise, promotion on her path to becoming a force captain.

The other is that when someone is being hurt like Catra was in that moment... if the one person in the world who is supposed to get it doesn't get it... then it becomes very hard to ever bring it up to them again. It's a specific type of hurt and abandonment: for Catra, she goes on to believe that this is her burden, that somehow she alone is supposed to learn these hard lessons. And so she doesn't tell Adora about the abuse. Also, keep in mind that they are small children, and Catra doesn't want Adora to hurt like she does... so she's actually protecting her, in her mind. But the fact that time goes by and Adora never seemed to care, to stop and see Catra's pain, was very hurtful to her. And Catra’s feelings of betrayal at Adora’s not seeing the hurt are justified: in episode 1, we see Adora watch SW menace Catra, then happily run off to accept her promotion, only remembering to check on Catra as an afterthought. Catra needed Adora's support, and never really got it.

[pic caption: (left to right) Adora’s apparent willful ignorance of the abuse.]

So Catra believes she learns these hard lessons so Adora won't have to, but is left alone in her pain. This also means that SW specifically abused Catra at times and in places so Adora wouldn't be aware, which again, tells us it was never really about making Adora responsible for Catra's decisions. No, the reasons were much darker, and Catra bore it all alone.

The girls flash to their younger selves, and Catra accuses Adora: "Admit it, you love being her favorite." Catra is telling Adora that she was disappointed and hurt that Adora kept accepting praise and privilege from SW, after that moment when she so clearly should have seen how SW abused her, and the maliciousness of the death threat. In Catra’s mind, Adora could have rejected SW. As painful as it is for a small child to be without any parents, it would have been the right thing to do, for Catra. SW was no good to Catra, and they could have shared the pain of being orphans who only had each other, but instead Catra ended up bearing all of the abuse while Adora was given privilege.

Adora denies this assertion, and yet she did accept the privilege SW offered her. Catra's next words show how ignorant Adora was to the realities of their lives as they flash back to their present selves: "Oh yeah? When you left, who do you think took the fall for you? Who was protecting me then ?" Catra bore all the abuse and punishment for Adora's leaving, and Adora wasn't there to see it. Catra did this bravely for Adora, in fact, up until before Princesse Prom, Catra did everything she could to cover for Adora, just like she asked, protecting her, hoping she'd come back to her. But Adora shows no understanding at all for what Catra went through, she didn't even think about what must have been happening to her. Adora has never taken the time to think about how her actions affect Catra's life.

Adora counters, suggesting that Catra could leave the Horde, and therefore get away from SW's abuse. Catra just glares back at her, disappointed. Catra knows running from the abuse won't solve anything.

::What this comes down to is a totally different understanding of the world. For Adora, she thinks she became a hero for leaving the Horde, and becoming She-ra. She doesn't realize she was lucky to fall into the situation she did, with Bow and Glimmer helping her gain acceptance and protecting her. She's totally unaware that the reality that her becoming She-ra is a manipulation born out of evil intent. For Catra, she's always known that the world is harsh, and that bad people exist who will try to destroy you. She's not afraid to fight, she's had no choice learning these harsh truths. It's a jaded view that negatively affects her perceptions of people, but it prepares her for the worst, and so she relies on it. So when Adora suggests she run from it, she rejects her as naive. They flash back to their younger selves after Adora suggests Catra can leave like she did, and Catra accusingly points out that she doesn't need to follow Adora around. That they're children is relevant to the previous memory where Adora led Catra into danger, and then didn't protect her. Catra isn't interested in following Adora blindly after she's put her in danger so badly in the past.

Flashing back present selves, Catra tells Adora she doesn't want to leave. As she says this her face conveys her anger at the world, her drive to face SW instead of flee. She says "I'm not afraid of SW anymore, and I'm a better force captain than you ever would have been." Let's take this in parts: Catra won't run from her abuser, she's already planning to take her down. Doing so is important to Catra, as it fixes her world in an important way. And that Adora can't see this just shows how far apart they are now. In Catra's mind, Adora was supposed to stay, and as they rose to power together, they would have supplanted SW, fixing Catra's world. The two of them would have been stronger in the end. But Adora did leave, so Catra impatiently tries to get Adora to see that she won't just run away. If Adora doesn't want to help Catra overcome this evil, then she'll do it on her own.

Her disappointment in Adora for abandoning this fight is apparent, what comes to mind is when Catra calls Adora weak in the Sea Gate episode. And now Catra knows she's got the power to do this, she's a force captain, and if she can just find a reason to depose SW she knows she has the station and fighting ability to take her down. She always knew she could lead, but was happy to let Adora have success because she really didn't want that responsibility. So she points out her superiority, not to show that she's better than Adora, but to tell Adora she was blind to Catra's worth, and to be hurtful to Adora for abandoning her.

They flash back to their child selves: Adora looks at Catra, hurt and confused "You always said you didn't care about things like that." Adora is feeling hurt by the idea that she was unknowingly taking advantage of Catra, because Catra has seemily just told her she was lying.

Now, this next part is important, and it's important that we are seeing Catra's reaction as her child self: Catra looks sad and lonely as Adora finishes her question, and she's crying. Something adult Catra would never let herself do. So we're seeing a much more authentic expression of Catra's hurt and emotions than if it were her present self. What you need to understand here is that those emotions don't really match her words... Catra tells her "Well I was lying, obviously!" But her face says she's angry and hurt at Adora for not seeing her pain.

As she delivers those words her face is full of accusation and insult, she's being dramatic, something we will see Catra do time and time again. She stares down Adora, eyes scrunched up, showing Adora how betrayed she felt by her insensitivity. Then we get sadness, disappointment. Finally, we get a lonely kind of furious sorrow: all that time feeling alone and Adora didn't bother to understand is written on her face.

The tears are still flowing, but as she turns away they shift back to their present selves. Adult Catra looks totally alone, heartbroken.

Ok but how we REALLY know Catra isn't telling the truth is this: almost word for word, this moment exists in episode 1. ANY time you see that happen in this show, you need to look back to find the meaning of it.

>We will need to look in totality of this scene in episode 1: An excited Catra pounces on Adora, asking her what SW said. She sees the badge and takes it. Here's a funny thing, because we see Catra jump on Adora you might think Catra is always like this, she just comes into Adora's space as she pleases. But once Catra has the badge, we see no anger or jealousy. Just total wonder. She shows nothing but exuberation and happiness for Adora's promotion (pic 1, lower left fyi).

Catra knew this could be the turning point she's been waiting for, that Adora was due for promotion. And so she's jumping all over Adora, full of joy. We only see her attitude change once Adora tells her SW isn't letting her go on missions. And so, we can infer a lot of information from this...

Catra expected this moment to change their lives for the better. That Adora's rising in rank means freedom, the beginning of something new. Some many new things, in Catra's case. But Catra definitively shows us in this scene that she doesn't desire the success for herself. She only shows happiness for Adora, for them together, and she's ecstatic. (pic 1, fyi)

This, in Catra's mind, probably means the start of their romantic lives. If Adora is the force captain that brings them to victory, SW won't be able to just trample all over their lives. Catra can begin letting down some walls, maybe even let Adora pursue her romantically. If they're together, and Adora is on her side because of that, she becomes safe from her abuser. It's a much better outcome than trying to fight SW, but that's not how the story goes. No, Adora leaves her instead. How's that for emotional whiplash? All of these truths are laid bare in s3ep5, when we see Catra's perfect reality, when she and Adora are together romantically. Catra only wants to be safe and to be loved, but when Adora leaves her she loses trust in the goodness of Adora, and in people in general.

> Adora tells Catra she shouldn't be surprised she's been cut of of the mission because she's so rude to SW, to which Catra responds by calling Adora a people pleaser, then storming off in anger...

::Note, as this is important: Adora is taking SW’s side, and not Catra’s, which is entirely opposite of their early childhood memory of Octavia. It shows how Adora had started listening to the negative judgements others placed on Catra...

>Adora goes after Catra, finding her sulking on the roof. Catra is angry, betrayed by the world, at the injustice that SW is in her life. Adora asks "I didn't even think you wanted to be a force captain?" Catra tossed the badge at her, saying she doesn't. Then she folds her body up, holding herself. Adora sees this, but doesn't touch her. She's being careful to respect Catra's boundaries. But the anger Catra feels here isn't about being denied the chance to be a force captain, it's at all the hurt that SW has dealt her and continues to do so. And Adora doesn't see that, which disappoints Catra. But, she's unable to verbalize it herself, she is too insecure in her emotional vulnerability, so she lets it slide.

What we have here is two different instances of the same question with two different answers, but in both cases Catra is telling the truth. In episode 1, it's the truth that she doesn't care about being a force captain because of her love for Adora, and the promise, in her mind, that they will eventually be together. In episode 11, Catra then says she lied, and this now is also true: Catra did think about what she was going through, all the pain and sacrifices she made for Adora, which were done in the name of love. But Adora doesn't love her the way that Catra loves Adora, instead leaving her behind. And so now that Adora didn't ever see how excellent a person Catra actually was, how dedicated to her she is, and the pain she was willing to bear for her sake, it does matter. Because that's shitty of her, and so now Catra will survive on her own by her own excellence, her strength that Adora never stopped to see. So Catra is guilting Adora, trying to make her see how blind and unfeeling she is.

>Back to ep11: Catra tries to walk away from Adora, who desperately chases her, trying to understand why Catra is becoming so distant, wanting her to tell her what's wrong. She reaches out for Catra's shoulder in one last attempt to get Catra to talk, she knows touching Catra could maybe get her to be more open. But the truth is Adora has been far too easy on Catra, she needs to be more forceful if she wants Catra to talk, which she later comes to understand... she's been coddling Catra, and so Catra is allowed to wallow in her unhealthy mental states.

Catra takes Adora's hand, forcefully holding it away from her and delivering a hurtful line: "Why do you think I gave the sword back to you in the fright zone? I didn't WANT you to come back, Adora!" This hits Adora like a load of bricks, her dismay is evident. And it's all true, which is the sad part. Catra was already preparing to cut ties with Adora, as even by that point she had come to a realization, a decision: if Adora doesn't want to be with her, then she'll do it herself. She will do the hard things on her own.

She turns away from Adora, looking hurt and betrayed. And Adora is at a complete loss, she doesn't know this side of Catra, this part of her that has survived hardship all these years... she lets her leave, not knowing what to do.

Adora is then attacked by the security, which takes up her time. As that happens, we see memories only shown to Catra. Catra runs, emotionally overwhelmed as all the unfair judgements, the abuse, and hollow apologies ring out around her. All the years of frustration and sadness weigh on her, she tries to keep it together, lashing out at the holograms. She falls to her knees, fighting back emotion and trying not to cry, her inner, vulnerable self is near the surface, and she's trying not to break down in tears over all of the hurt she's had to bear...

… and then she hears soft crying...

She turns to see her younger, tiny self, crying. Then, a tiny Adora joins the tiny Catra. Unlike the other memories, Catra never flashes into her younger self, she just watches...

The tiny Adora pulls the blanket down, Catra hisses at her... Adora sits down next to her tenderly. And we finally get the promise, the two parts that Adora has so tragically broke...

Adora tells her "It doesn't matter what they do to us, you know? You look out for me, and I look out for you... nothing really bad can happen as long as we have each other." The tiny Catra looks at Adora, wanting to trust her, to believe in her. As she says the question, present Catra echos it: "You promise ?" This was a sacred moment that gave Catra hope as a young orphan, that maybe she would be ok.

And so, the present Catra echoes it. Adora tells her she promises, as the skeptical present Catra looks on. Tiny Catra is still sad, insecure... she hugs Adora, needing this. Adora suggests they go back out to play... and we see tiny Catra look at her, still afraid, reluctant, wanting to stay. But she decides to trust Adora, and so they walk out, holding hands. Then something unique happens. Tiny Catra stops to look up at her present self: note, this is entirely a unique moment in the simulation, it never happened in reality... and yet Catra is given this moment...

The innocent child stares up Catra, making her see her. It's a look full of meaning, it doesn't carry any specific emotion... only innocence. Catra is having an inner child moment. That most deep and innocent part of her, her vulnerable self who feels love, is communicating with her. It's asking her to see it's vulnerability, and it's pain. Catra sees this, all of the pain Adora has caused her, the breaking of the promise, the promise that this innocent part of her was holding on to desperately with hope. She is forced to acknowledge Adora's disloyalty to her, her carelessness. Catra is reflecting on how she did her absolute best to keep that promise, even after Adora failed to look out for her in SW's chamber. Catra was so loyal and so good to Adora all of their lives; she made sure Adora had a good life, and she played by SW's rules so Adora could be the chosen one, wanting to protect her. All in the hope that they would be together, and that their love was real. But Adora couldn't even do that much, she left her. And Adora doesn't understand her, she doesn't even seem to miss her.

[pic 9: Broken Promises, Catra’s inner child, The Hero goes Her Own Way].

Present Catra watches her tiny self leave, coming to the tough realization: that she's never been able to trust Adora, not really. Her love isn't reciprocated, not by her standards.

…. which makes Adora a deeply unsafe person to Catra...

Catra survived SW's abuse, learning to believe in herself, protect herself because no one else would. All while keeping this hope of love in her heart, this vulnerable core of herself that has tenderness and loves Adora, and needs love back. But, her need for love goes to such a deep vulnerability that giving in to it and then again being rejected or forgotten by Adora would simply destroy her. SW held the threat of death over Catra’s head her entire life, and Catra resisted it, got through it by being tough and trusting in herself. So now she sees she can't trust Adora: everything that happened since she left her behind, the fact that Adora always treats her as an enemy, that she seems to show no lingering desire for her, and doesn't even seem to miss her while replacing her with new friends, seems to confirm her worst fears. Fears that have been building over the years, starting when Adora broke their promise in SW's chamber, and then as Adora pursued her success while accepting praise and privilege from SW, ignoring the abuse Catra bore because of it. She decides she can't trust Adora. Love is a lie, a weakness. A weakness that could destroy her last bit of individuality, and belief in the world.

And so, Catra, The Survivor, makes the decision... in her mind it's the brave one, just like way back when and she decided to bravely stand up to SW's abuse and not let it destroy her: she will stand up to the threat that is the weakness of her love for Adora. Adora is selfish, she doesn't deserve Catra's love. She was stupid to believe that love was even possible, for someone like her… who has always been ignored, and told she is unworthy of praise or even existence. There's only one thing left for her to do: she will be alone, strong on her own, for herself.

Her gaze hardens... that part of her that has made sure she survived SW's abuse, and made sure she won fights when she was threatened, is now the decider. It will protect her from her vulnerability, and reject Adora for her. I suppose you might be confused as to what I'm referring, or maybe not... If you haven't had to fight for your life, whether physically, mentally, or otherwise, you might not know this side of yourself well. But we all have it, it's The Survivor. And while I knew mine would protect me, I didn't accept it as my real self, I didn't accept its necessary but vicious deeds as my own. This is very much how Catra is, and as the series goes on she puts this survivor in charge of more and more decisions, we watch her deteriorate as this part of her gets out of control, protecting her from darkness with more darkness. All the while her vulnerable inner self suffers, watching the horrible deeds and becoming more and more alone, desperate for affection.

>Adora is outnumbered, eventually ending up hanging from the cliff's edge by spider webs. She hears Catra return, dealing with the spiders. Adora looks up, hopeful because Catra has returned...

Catra saunters in. Let me say a few things before we go through this part: Catra is about to say a lot of things that aren't really true. They are instead meant to be hurtful to Adora, Catra is being intentionally mean. We shouldn't take her exact words as her authentic beliefs, because they're not... no, Catra is doing what she believes she has to so she can be apart for Adora, and be safe from her. The truth is, Catra needs to be away from Adora. She's too scared of the vulnerability that is her love for Adora, because Adora hasn't shown her that she cares. And she can't do that by defecting, no, she must stay with the Horde. It's the only thing she feels there is left for her to do.

Now, let's go through this: and heads up: I'm getting at something very powerful that's going on here that you may not have realized. This speech is, in fact, a heroic moment. A heroic moment... for Catra. Not Adora, for Catra. And you just need to open your ears to hear it...

"Hey Adora."

🎶 is sad

"Catra! Help me, please!"

"This thing wouldn't work for me if I tried, would it? It only works for you... then again, you're special... that's what Shadow Weaver always said..."

🎶 is melancholy

"Catra, what are you doing??"

"Ah, ya know, it all makes sense now... you've always been the one holding me back... you wanted me to think I needed you, you wanted me to feel weak."

🎶 has even tone

"Every hero needs a sidekick, right?"

"Catra that's not how it was.."

🎶 rises, falls, sad (“Promise” begins playing)

*Catra chuckles* "The sad thing is I've spent all this time hoping you'd come back to the Horde... when really you leaving was the best thing that EVER happened to me..."

🎶 lowers, is dark, is dramatic. -Note: we see Catra seemingly become deranged as she says this line. This is Catra deceiving herself out of perceived necessity.

"I am so much stronger than anyone... ever... thought." *she cuts part of the web*

🎶 begins to rise, uplifting

"I wonder what I could have been if I'd gotten rid of you sooner." *she cuts the rest of the web, Adora falls, catching herself*

🎶 rises, is dramatic

"I'm sorry! I never meant to make you feel like you were second best. Please, don't do this."

🎶 is still rising, uplifting

*Catra stands proudly, nobly, looking at the sword. She looks down at Adora, then she casually tosses the sword past her...

🎶 is rising, hopeful, heroic.

"Bye Adora, I really am going to miss you..."

🎶 is heroic, violins now playing, adding depth

*Catra turns and walks away from Adora, proudly*

🎶 has risen to its height, crests, is heroic.

"Catra... Catra, no!!"

🎶 remains high, cresting, heroic

*Adora cries, sad, confused by Catra's leaving her...*

🎶 crests again, fades out...

Ok, so... let's talk about what just happened here. The undeniable conclusion is that this was meant to be a heroic moment, and a damn heroic moment... for Catra. The writers are telling us that Catra leaving is an important part of her hero’s journey, and that it was the right thing to do. You might be wondering, how can that be? The short answer is, Catra is on a hero’s journey unlike all the other hero’s journeys normally portrayed in fiction. All of it, even her darkest deeds, all her cruelty towards Adora, will be part of a very... important... and powerful... journey. One which will forge her into a hero in this series, in her own incredible right... how this is, what she is, is yet to be revealed... but make no mistake, she's a hero. Just not the one you expect…

We see Adora open her eyes, and see Light Hope. She tells Adora to let go. She means of her emotional attachments, as we find out. Adora cries for her lost Catra, that she couldn't bring her back to her. She lets go...

BIG ASSERTION TIME: Now, I know it's a common theory that these memories were all just an elaborate manipulation by Light Hope to divide the girls from each other, but I don't agree with that. No, I believe this was a memory journey guided by Catra, subconsciously, to help her tell Adora why she couldn't come with her, why she has to be apart.

Take for instance the memories and visions that Adora sees when she's on her way to the Heart of Etheria in season 5: this system exists apart from Light Hope, who dies at the end for season 4. This simulation comes from somewhere more primal: in my belief, it is the deep magic of Etheria being visualized through the First One's tech. We see the simulation show Catra the promise memory, something Adora isn't shown at all, and then allows her to see her inner child's hurt. Something deeper is going on here, and you should consider how strongly the magic of Etheria is resonating with Catra when it does. Because the magic of Etheria will again speak directly to Catra, this isn't the last time... In short, the magic helps the two of them to understand each other, because Catra is an important part of Adora's true She-ra journey.

I also believe that a theme of this series is that abusers, like L. Hope, are not perfect vindictive manipulators. They are flawed, and L. Hope in particular, I believe, is no genius: she fails time and time again. That L. Hope uses the moment to get Adora to let go is her using the moment to her advantage, she didn't play ultimate control over it. She just piggy backed on Catra's hurt to do it. So that last memory really was for Catra... Furthermore, I simply cannot believe L.Hope would understand the concept of the inner child… as she can't even understand sarcasm.

But now, because of this, Adora now knows of Catra's pain... and this is the beginning of Adora's long journey back to Catra, of her repairing their bond…

Let's address the obvious counterpoint: Adora now knows that Catra is hurt, but she doesn't yet understand why. And it's not really her fault, as Catra doesn't know how to talk about her feelings, among other things. But it's apparent that Adora doesn't remember these crucial memories as well as Catra does, even though they were critical in her development as well. Adora is a mess of emotions, just like Catra, and (if) she has ADHD, it might be one reason why she doesn't really get Catra. Especially if her parental figure has been manipulating it against her. Adora very much vibrates between stimuli anxiously, so SW might have made her forgetful by distraction over time. Also, the way in which Adora treats Catra as an enemy when she doesn't accept Adora’s (totally rushed, afterthought, and hollow) ultimatum that she defect with her, is a reflection of Adora's ingrained Horde war training… this is something she has to unlearn, as it is wrong. But Adora is a good person, she really, truely, is, because Adora never stops trying to make it better. And so, she slowly, but surely, comes to understand Catra’s trauma.

We get one last scene of Catra returning to the fright zone. We get to see Catra's truth here: She walks, as if she's not even there, she's deadened by the sorrow and the inevitability of what her life will now be: one of hard work, and zero joy. She will try her best to stand on her own, and put Adora out of her heart, slamming its doors shut against love. It doesn't work, but that's what she's trying to do, nonetheless. This is the beginning of a profound depression that builds over the next 3 seasons, and combined with new traumas, nearly takes her life.

But the tech Catra has brought back will end up giving her what she needs to face down and depose SW, just like she needed...

::Here is another complicated twist that's so essential to She-ra as a series: Catra, in fact, protects Adora by taking down SW. Catra may go on to command the Hordes forces so effectively that it pushes the Princess alliance harder than it's ever been pushed before, but her deposing SW is extremely important in the story. She both removes SW’s ability to attack Adora, and then denies her any sorcerous power by taking the Black Garnet from her, since SW needs an external source to draw power from in order to use her vampiric powers...

Ok so more theory time: it's a common belief that Catra stays with the Horde, and goes on to try to conquer the world out of some deep need to externally validate herself, and to prove she was the better child by beating Adora. I don't think any of these explanations are true. Catra may go on to play such a character on a surface level, but every time she professes to have any such ambitions, she is either in the presence of Adora, or under incredible stress. In the one case, she's saying those things to try to hurt Adora, and make her see how naive and foolish Adora always was, especially now that Adora thinks she can fight against her.

In the other case, it's actually her survivor mechanism trying to take over, to make her world safe. In every case where Catra says something about ambition, somewhere in that scene, Catra shows the distinct emotions of her true inner self: generally, these emotions are sorrow, fear, and loneliness. They don't exist on screen long, they are what is known as micro expressions. (See below for a short discussion of Catra’s micro expressions.)

To put it simply, the only reason Catra stays with the Horde is so she has somewhere she can be separate from her feelings and heartbreak over Adora, and then she climbs the ranks in order to find safety, first from SW, and then Hordak, once he threatens her life with his temper tantrums. That she fights against Adora is just a collateral consequence, she isn't out to get Adora, but nor does she care if Adora gets hurt, because she’s hurt her. Catra does fight against the princesses, though (including She-ra).

A core feature of Catra's character is indeed one of personal power. She's a person who is told to hurry up and die at an early age, but refused to do so. So her arc, her issue, isn't a cautionary tale about chasing validation, it's about her overcoming her fear of vulnerability and allowing herself to rely on others in a way that lets her be safe without needing to combat the darkness with more darkness. But vulnerability scares her because of the abuse she experienced.

As for validation, the only person she would want that from is Adora. This is because Catra believes in herself already: that she has a sacred right to exist, no matter what SW and others may tell her (note: Adora struggles with this, she's actually the one who seeks validation). But, she also needs love, and she is too fearful that Adora doesn't really love her and is afraid of being hurt by that. It's also why I think she's so chaotic towards Adora: her inner child tells her adult self to protect her from her love for Adora, which it tries to do, but that same child misses and needs Adora in so many ways. So she's trying to be mean to compensate for the incredible desire she feels towards Adora. I love it when Adora calls her a brat in season 5, it's such a well deserved line, mmhhmmm.

Actual discussions of how these particulars play out in the show are better left for another time, but there you have it.

Promise sidebar discussions: Catra’s micro expressions; Catra nearly dies at the Battle of Bright Moon

“White Out” microexpression discussion: [see pics below] This is the first time since the Battle of Bright Moon that Catra and Adora meet. So it's a good time to talk about Catra’s micro expressions. Picture 1: Adora says “Hey, Catra” out of the blue and Catra is completely blindsided, she figured she wouldn't be bothered out in the middle of nowhere. She's anxious and unhappy to be seeing Adora. Along with her suspicious absence the episode before in “Roll With It”, the answer is obvious: Catra has been avoiding Adora. She may have cut ties with her in “Promise”, nearly bested her at the Battle of BM, but she doesn't want to see her. She doesn't know what she feels about her.

Picture 2: Enraged monsters are decimating the base, and a battle breaks out over the corrupted disc. Catra is desperately trying to protect it, because she can control Adora if she has it... and she needs this chance to have her back. As Catra reaches to pick it up, she's facing away from everyone and so no one can see her desperation and sadness from missing Adora. (pic 2) Shortly after, we also see her clutch the disc desperately to her chest in a way that's very endearing, right before the monster attacks her and makes her drop it. Then, as she's about to die in its jaws because she doesn't want to give Adora up again, Scorpia breaks the disc and saves her life. We see in this episode as Catra completely loses track of her emotions, and now realizes she has to come to terms with the fact that she's so desperately sad from missing Adora, she was willing to die just for a chance to have her back.

Pic 3: Catra hates working for the Horde. She HATES it. She gets zero joy from the job, and she’s already figured out that Hordak will kill her if she screws up too badly. She didn't want this job, plain and simple, but now feels stuck with it. None of this is the life she wanted. Combining this knowledge against Catra’s declaration to Adora at the end of Promise, we know she's not happy that she had to go her own way...

Catra’s near death experience at the Battle of Bright Moon

At the Battle of Bright Moon, Catra leads Adora (She-ra) away. They battle, but then Catra retreats and instead starts listing out every single worst fear of failure she thinks Adora has. It's a dark moment, she's acting much like SW did to them as children, and we watch her manipulation take root in Adora. Finally, her words are too much, and as Catra looks down at Adora's (She-ra's) back, we see Adora become deranged, overcome with her fear of failing everyone... (pic1, above) she picks up a boulder and throws it directly at Catra. Catra is knocked flying, and only by the barest of margins does she keep from falling to her death. Adora nearly kills Catra. And so, as Adora drags Catra up from the cliff and slams her into the wall, we see a totally heartbroken and emotionally crushed Catra. In this moment, Catra believes all of her worst fears are confirmed: Adora only cares about being She-ra, so much so that Adora would kill her in the name of being that hero. Catra uses this moment, this belief, to justify her division from Adora. Sadly, she's wrong... she's ignoring the seriousness of the threat that the battle poses, and as Adora was facing away from her during that moment, she doesn't see the terror and desperation Adora experiences due to her cruel words…

Oh, and one more thing before we go: when Catra says “What, did you really think this was about you ?” SPOILER ALERT: It was. Because She-ra is one big Catradora story… and we love it.

As always, thanks for reading. <3

~EtheriaDearie

P.S. :: as I am new to tumblr, if you enjoyed reading this, please consider giving me a reblogg! Thanks!! 🙇💛

#she ra #spop #she ra and the princesses of power #catradora #happy birthday Catra #catra #she ra shadow weaver #shadow weaver #adora #my writing #thanks for reading #she ra synopsis #she ra fan theory #she ra meta

[pennamesmith]

For Want of a Skeletor

Entrapta hosts a Princess Alliance meeting at the Crypto Castle and absolutely nothing goes wrong. More Skeletor stories!

*

The lights were on late in Dryl. 

Stars shone outside the windows. Entrapta sat hunched over her desk, studying datapads and readouts. A polite cough from the laboratory door caused her to look up from her work.

“Oh! I’m sorry Hordak, did I wake you?”

Her partner stepped softly into the room and shook his head. “Imp did. You know how he gets when either of us take too long to come to bed.” 

Hordak crossed the cluttered floor and joined Entrapta at the desk. He was holding Imp in his arms, and the smaller, winged clone whined plaintively when he saw her. Entrapta kept her screens on, but leaned gratefully into Hordak’s side and curled a tendril of hair around his waist. She yawned, despite herself. 

“I know. I just want to make sure I get everything right before the other princesses come over tomorrow.” She glanced back at the data, nervously tapping her fingertips together. “I’ve never hosted an Alliance meeting before! And this rescue will be our biggest mission since… well, you know. I don’t want to mess anything up.”

Hordak smiled. “Your diligence is admirable. But I also seem to recall someone telling me that imperfections are beautiful.”

Entrapta stuck out her tongue. “No fair.” 

“I’m afraid the science is sound. Come to bed, my dear.” 

The scientist scoffed, but she did not protest when Hordak gathered her up in his arms. She wrapped more of her hair around him, and Imp settled sleepily in the resulting nest. Entrapta could already feel herself drifting. 

“You will be a shining star tomorrow,” Hordak promised, as he carried his family back to rest. 

“Tomorrow,” echoed Imp.

*

The next day saw the Crypto Castle’s largest meeting room filled with princesses, dignitaries, and other honorary Alliance members. While Scorpia and Perfuma admired the tiny refreshments laid out for everyone, Mermista split her time between groaning at Sea Hawk’s boasts and trying every available chair to find the most comfortable one. Glimmer and Bow stepped uneasily around the edges of the room, watching carefully for anything that might be a trap, and Frosta followed their lead. Netossa and Spinnerella tried their best to find a chair Swift Wind could sit in. 

Adora and Catra, wearing increasingly baffled expressions, were conversing with two domestic-looking robots who sat at the head of the table next to Entrapta. One was tall and skinny, and the other wore a welded-on handlebar mustache. 

“Entrapta has parents?” Catra was asking, her face a galaxy of disbelief. 

“Adopted, technically. Or adapted,” the skinnier bot explained. “We’re Entrapta’s parental units. She built us when she was six. You must have seen the painting in the foyer.” 

“Yeah, we’ve been here pretty much the whole time,” the mustachioed model added. “You kids sure made a racket during your last few visits. What was that all about?” 

“Uh,” Adora faltered. 

To her immense relief, Hordak swept into the room at that very moment, flanked by Imp, Emily, and the reprogrammed Horde drone Entrapta had dubbed ‘Skeletor.’ 

“Welcome, everyone,” Hordak boomed, bringing the gathering to a respectful hush. 

“Witless fools! I’m in charge now! And if you know what’s good for you you’ll do as I say!” Skeletor shouted. 

Hordak scowled and shooed the fussing robot away from the table. “Pay no mind to that one,” he grumbled once he’d regained the floor. “Now then. Please allow me the honor of introducing the unparalleled mind who has made this operation possible, Princess Entrapta.” 

“Thank you all for coming!” Entrapta started, while everyone took their seats. “I know you’re all excited about what we’re planning, but there’s still a lot of preparation to do before we can take off. As the chief science officers for this mission, it’s vital that Hordak and I gather as much data on your abilities as possible! Interdimensional travel is severely unpredictable and —” 

“Hold on,” Mermista interrupted. “Exactly how high are the chances of us getting mutated by cosmic space energy or whatever? Because I only want cool mutations, not gross ones.” 

“Maybe thirty, thirty-five percent?” Entrapta guessed. She shrugged. “A lot of this is theoretical. You guys will be like my guinea pigs! By which I mean the small robotic animals in the castle I protect and care for. And experiment on, sometimes.” 

She laughed heartily. Glimmer and Bow shared a nervous glance. Perfuma turned slightly green. 

Entrapta regained her composure and pointed back to the display board. “Ahem. Anyway, the good news is we already know some things about where we’re going! Probably.” She shuffled her notes, gaining confidence as she spoke.

“Before Adora found the Sword of Protection, historians debated ancient records of She-Ra. Some claimed she was called ‘Her-Ra’ and fought for the ‘Power of Grayskull.’ But I theorize that what those archaeologists actually uncovered was evidence of —”

“I have a question!” Frosta yelled. “Will there be hunky guys in the other dimension? I’m asking for a friend.”

“It’s funny you mention that, actually,” Entrapta replied. “Listen, just let me finish and…” 

Unfortunately, anxious impatience had already gripped the assembled Alliance members. They clamored with questions, all talking at the same time. Entrapta shrank back in her seat and pulled her welding mask down, seeming to reach for something under the table. 

Hordak stood up. Just as it looked like he was about to do something violent, a loud alarm sounded and the lights in the room flashed red. 

“Uh-oh.” Entrapta glanced around at the assembled company. “Um, get ready to tuck and roll everybody!”

“Get ready to what?” Mermista cried out, but it was already too late. Multiple trap doors swung open across the meeting room floor, and with flailing limbs and startled shouts the guests were sent tumbling down chutes in every direction. In moments they had all vanished.

“I always feel so much better after doing something bad!” Skeletor cackled. “Now we begin phase two!” 

*

Adora and Catra, who had clung to each other as they fell, landed with a bump in a darkened, underground space. As soon as they arrived, bright lights flickered to life and a huge screen lit up against the wall. 

Entrapta’s face appeared on the monitor, larger than life. “Oh good! You’re alive,” she chirped when she saw the other two. 

Adora clambered to her feet. “Entrapta! What’s going on?” 

The scientist glanced away. “Well, I guess Skeletor didn’t like that we were ignoring him. So he stole my map of the castle and activated the security systems! Which means we’re all lost in the labyrinth until I can catch him. Isn’t that great?” 

“It’s something,” Catra groaned, rubbing her head. 

“Exactly! Now, without my map I can’t come find you. But if you can make it through the traps, the hallway you’re in should take you back to the meeting room. Then you’ll be safe until I can fix things!” 

The screen dimmed again before Catra or Adora could protest. Left with few other options, they turned to get a good look at whatever dangers lay ahead. 

They were standing at one end of a long corridor. Square blocks floated along its length, suspended in midair with anti-gravitational tech. An interrogative punctuation mark flashed on one, while a squat robot with painted-on angry eyebrows shambled slowly back and forth beneath it. 

Catra took it all in. “You have got to be kidding.” 

Adora had already drawn her sword and begun to venture forward. Catra was about to follow her, when something made her ears flick. A suspicious frown crossed her face.

“Hey, Adora!” Catra called. “Listen!” 

“What?” 

Catra pressed her ear to the wall. “There! Do you hear that?” 

“Obviously not,” Adora huffed. “Now stop dawdling, the first puzzle looks pretty easy.” 

Catra stayed where she was. “Hold on a second. This part of the castle feels familiar. I remember walking through here back when, uh, back when it was still Horde territory.” She coughed awkwardly, and then reached up to tilt the frame of a big-eyed kitten painting. “Look!” 

Something clicked and the wall slid open, revealing a new passageway. Distinctive laughter could be heard coming from the other end of it. A purple neon sign reading “Secret Entrance!!!” buzzed to life. 

Adora sighed and rolled her eyes. 

“One time Entrapta had me and Scorpia over for a life-size Snakemen and Ladders game that got a little out of hand,” Catra explained as they entered the tunnel. At the far end there was a brightly lit office; inside, it was filled with laboratory equipment, video monitors, and a humble but dignified desk. 

Hordak was sitting at the desk, in what appeared to be a smaller version of his old Fright Zone throne. It swiveled. Entrapta was sitting on the desk, and she waved as the other couple entered. 

“Myaah! Sleep gas and stun-rays only, my evil minions!” muttered Skeletor, who was busy working the video monitors. On closer inspection, Adora realized that each of them showed some of the other princesses as they traversed the castle labyrinth. 

“Welcome to mission control!” Entrapta sang, spreading her arms wide. “Hordak didn’t think you’d find us, but I had a hypothesis you might.” 

“It was a ruse!” Adora gasped, scandalized. “You’re not lost at all!” 

“You really need to hang out with Entrapta more if that still surprises you,” Catra observed. She looked at the monitors. “Ah, are they gonna be okay?” 

“Better than!” Entrapta sprang off the desk, hanging by her hair as she showed off multiple datapads. “Everyone was getting a little… distracted upstairs, so I just decided to speed things up a teensy bit! The princesses using their powers to escape the maze will let me get all the readings we need, and then we can have a nice little party! I had the baker make tiny cakes.” 

“I made sure Hordak’s doomberry pie was especially tasty!” Skeletor piped up. 

“And it’s all perfectly safe!” Entrapta promised. Discreetly, a ribbon of hair reached out to push a blinking button. On the monitors, Mermista and Sea Hawk were rescued from a robot shark attack by a convenient change of the currents. 

“This is hilarious,” Catra laughed, looking more closely. On one of the screens, Swift Wind was gleefully running loop-de-loops along a curving racetrack. “I think they’re actually having fun in there. Can we stay and watch?” 

“I’m afraid not,” Hordak said. She-Ra’s — and your — assessment is the most important of all. But we’d love to have you over to the castle for dinner soon. Shall we say eight o’clock next week?” 

“That sounds nice!” Adora chimed, before Catra could stop her. 

“Splendid. I’ll cook,” Hordak concluded. Then he pressed a button on his desk, and a trapdoor sent the younger women plummeting through the floor. 

Catra and Adora yelped in surprise, only for their fall to be cut short by an enormous pile of pillows on the level below. They struggled to their feet. Another corridor stretched away in front of them, filled with further challenges. Floating gold coins, each about four feet tall, indicated a pathway. 

“Try not to have too much fun,” Hordak called good-naturedly as the trapdoor slid shut. 

“Use the warp zone! It’s faster!” Entrapta added. 

“Have a nice trip down!” said Skeletor. 

*

Hordak settled back in his chair (it had soft armrests, and a cushion for lumbar support) and watched his partner at work. Entrapta flitted from screen to screen, taking notes and making adjustments. On one display, Bow and Glimmer had met up with Netossa and Spinnerella while navigating a cage minefield. On another, Frosta was making an ice bridge to help Perfuma and Scorpia cross a slow-moving spike trap. 

“I’m sorry you had to use your backup plan. They really are utter fools if they ever doubted your genius,” Hordak mused. 

“Different people have different strengths and weaknesses,” Entrapta replied, without looking up from her work. “And a good scientist collaborates whenever they can! Even if that requires a little creativity sometimes.” 

Hordak nodded. “Fair enough. Nevertheless, I would not blame you if you wished to have nothing more to do with the Princess Alliance. Even their attempts to help you can seem… insensitive. You’re not obligated to forgive that.” 

Skeletor looked up from his control panel and shook a fist. “Don’t you get awfully tired of being a hero all the time? Don’t you ever feel like doing something evil?” 

“They’re trying to be good friends,” Entrapta defended. “And so am I. And if I really did need their help, maybe things would be different. But I’ve got it all under control!” 

She vaulted across the room, flipping switches and turning dials along the way. On the monitors, Perfuma’s fall from a tall platform was gently broken by a sudden anti-gravitational field. 

“Besides, forgiveness isn’t always about the person being forgiven. It’s also about taking back potential energy that was lost.” 

“Did you learn that in my brother’s therapy group?” Hordak asked. 

Entrapta smirked. “Actually, he got it from me.” 

A pleasant ding sounded and Entrapta clapped her hair. “Hooray, everyone made it back! I’ll calculate the high scores and then we can continue the social experiment!” 

“You astonish me every day,” Hordak purred as he rose to follow her. Entrapta put out her hand, and he took it. 

“Wait for me!” Skeletor cried out. “You might get lost by yourself!” 

*

One week later, a much smaller gathering of royals met in Dryl. 

Catra and Adora sat together in one of the Crypto Castle’s least intimidating dining rooms, listening with barely-contained delight as Entrapta’s parental units thoroughly embarrassed their former boss. 

“...And so I said to him, ‘I have charging ports Hordak, can you download raw data offa me?’ Ha! Oh, you shoulda seen his face!” 

Hordak slouched in his chair. “I do not think we need to bore our guests with the details of this particular story,” he protested, feebly. 

“Oh, I’m not bored at all! I want to hear everything,” Catra said. She leaned forward, grinning. “So, was this before or after you hooked him up to the lie detector?” 

Entrapta giggled, and gave Hordak a gentle pat on the shoulder as she reached for another helping of his tiny quiche. All things considered, the night was going surprisingly well. 

It was exactly what Entrapta wanted. 

After dinner, wheeled bots carted away the leftovers and dirty dishes. Hordak poured coffee for himself and Adora, and the parental units retired to wherever it was they lived in the cavernous castle. Entrapta, lost in thought as usual, felt a familiar feline presence approach her. 

“Thank you,” Catra said, sincerely. “Not just for this. For everything. For being so nice all the time. For making this mission happen. It means a lot to me.” 

Entrapta smiled softly. “To me, too. Everyone makes mistakes. It would be a shame not to learn from them when we can.” 

“Did you say something?” Skeletor squawked, suddenly materializing in the doorway. 

Entrapta, unbothered, immediately produced a datapad. “Oh we’re just talking about the big rescue mission! Actually, you should probably take a look at my data, Skeletor. I haven’t told you much yet, and we might need you!” She held the blinking screen out happily. 

Skeletor looked at the datapad. At first he seemed confused; then he boggled as he registered the information in front of him. “Eternia?” he gasped in disbelief. “Grayskull?” 

His voice rose to a fevered pitch. “He-Man!”

For once, Skeletor had no words. He shrieked incomprehensibly instead, fists shaking. 

Hordak chuckled. “It’ll be just like the old days!” 

Skeletor screamed. 

#spop #skeletor #entrapdak #entrapta #hordak #Catra #Adora #the princess alliance #smith stuff #fan fiction #thank you for reading

[lotusthekat]

They spun a web for me

Fandom: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Rating: G

Relationships: Adora & Kyle

Characters: Adora, Kyle; other characters are only mentioned.

Summary: With everything falling apart, Adora shares a moment with yet another person they ended up rescuing from the Horde.

Takes place after No Princess Left Behind (s01e09), but Kyle joins the Rebellion.

Word count: 1.447

AO3 / Fanfiction

A/N: so this is my first SPOP fic! Though I admit it’s a little vent fic as well... please be aware of the trigger warnings and disclaimers below. I hope you enjoy it!

TRIGGER WARNINGS - abuse/bullying mention and trauma

*NOT CATRA/C*TRADORA, LONNIE AND ROGELIO FRIENDLY!

--

Once again, she feels like a complete screw-up.

Adora’s mask falls as soon as the door of Glimmer’s room closes behind her. Her friend insisted she would be fine, and that she and Bow had things to catch up. After that, Glimmer would recharge so she heals.

Which, due to Adora’s experience with Shadow Weaver, doesn’t convince her in the slightest.

Adora stares at the sword, the one given to her by the very person who’d stolen it. Just like the first time she wielded the weapon, Adora is… perturbed. Not that she dislikes being She-Ra, but everyone still gets in trouble because of her. Glimmer and Bow did. Entrapta did. It’s the way it’s always been, right?

But she can fix things, she will… Adora will heal Glimmer with her sword. She’s She-Ra, after all.

Even though Adora has absolutely no idea how, but she should figure it out in no time.

When she gets inside her room to train, she does jolt at the unknown presence sitting on her bed – and as an instinct, Adora lifts her sword to attack.

“W-Wait! It’s me!” They yell.

Adora drops her stance and feels stupid for completely forgetting about Kyle.

“Oh, Kyle! Sorry,” Adora sighs. “I have a lot in my mind…”

Kyle ignores the scene, instead asking, “A-Are your friends okay?”

Adora blinks and her expression falls deeper in her despair. “Bow is, but Glimmer…” She shuts her eyes for a moment and continues, “I don’t know what Shadow Weaver did to her. And I don’t know if I can…”

Adora falls quiet because she shouldn’t question it, she should focus on getting the answer to help Glimmer. But Adora is so lost, about her being helpful at all, her role as She-Ra, as a friend…

Her silence is deafening, yet Kyle speaks up.

“Adora… I’m sorry,” he says, “if it weren’t for us, she would’ve been fine. Y-You wouldn't have lost Princess Entrapta, either. We shouldn’t…” Kyle gulps, “I shouldn’t have helped kidnap them. I should’ve done something.”

The blond girl gazes back at him quietly. Adora doesn’t know what to say.

“Listen, you… you don’t have to trust me. I understand,” Kyle argues. “I hurt your friends, I helped hurt so many people…”

Adora doesn’t blame him. Not much.

“I… I trust you, Kyle,” she says. “It’s not like I’m the best example here,” Adora smirks sadly.

Kyle can’t help the smile either. It fades quickly. “Still, it doesn’t erase everything I’ve done…”

“Yeah, I know… But I’m glad you got out,” Adora tells him.

Kyle looks surprised and flustered at her position. Following that, he sighs exasperatedly, “Man, me too.”

Adora finally sits on the bed, that feels like home but at the same time, she knows it isn’t the same. Kyle hesitates but joins her, except he stays far from her; maybe afraid to approach her. While Adora doesn’t actually hold anything against him, she doesn’t think she deserves the comfort, either.

It’s strange, really. Adora and Kyle have never been this close. Sure, they’d been together for as long as they remember in the Horde, but they never had moments of closure, of reflection. Not while Adora had Catra, both under Shadow Weaver’s stalking presence. Adora couldn’t actually get close to anyone else.

Now is odd but… it’s not bad, either. Adora doesn’t actually want to be alone with her guilt swallowing her alive. It helps having some company.

The girl looks down at her sword, her reflection sad, regretful, exhausted, confused. Adora thought the sword would help her figure things out, but she only feels as lost – if not more than before.

Kyle must be feeling the same (under different circumstances, obviously). Especially as he breaks the somewhat comforting and understanding silence between them.

“Actually, I… I don’t know what I’m going to do now. The Horde was my entire life, you know?” Kyle opens up. “I never thought I’d get to leave it, even if part of me wanted to.”

Adora nods simply.

“When you left… I remember everyone got mad. Lonnie would say you ���betrayed’ us. Catra didn’t really say anything, but… I knew she was upset, too,” Kyle continues. “But I guess no one really understood why you left. I didn’t, until I met Bow. He was… really understanding with me. He really cared about Princess Glimmer. All of your friends went there to rescue her, and you sacrificed yourself to save her…” Kyle looks at Adora with admiration. “I never met people like you. We were always told the Princesses were awful, horrible people… but you guys really care.”

Adora thinks about Glimmer and Bow, and the rest of the Princesses. How they went lengths to save their friends, and how… how devastated they are after losing Entrapta. Maybe they haven’t been to the Alliance in years – and now they’ve left again… but Kyle is right. They care a lot.

“Then it finally came to me. The Horde… they don’t care about friendships. They don’t care about anything or anyone else. They only care about winning and conquering things, until there’s nothing left. You have to be useful, you have to fight and kill people, even who you grew up with, to get what you want,” Kyle says somberly. Adora doesn’t think he’s ever sounded this certain before. “A-And don’t get me wrong, I… I love Rogelio and Lonnie, and- and even Catra, I really do, but they don’t get it. In the end, that’s all what they think, too: that I’m a traitor. That we are the traitors.”

Adora is shocked at everything he’s just said, because she doesn’t think anyone has ever worded everything out so perfectly. Putting these feelings into words is… helpful. Obviously for Kyle, but for Adora as well.

Sometimes Adora wonders if she made the right choice at all. Sure, Madam Razz told her to follow what she thinks – but even so, Adora sometimes questions whether her thoughts are right or not. And considering she has messed up a lot, sometimes Adora doesn’t think she should have become She-Ra at all. She wonders if she should have stayed in the Horde with everyone else. With Catra.

But what Kyle said is so true. The Horde seeks to conquer everything and eliminate everyone that gets in their way. Adora… felt that in her skin. Shadows that surrounded her. Claws that sliced her back and her face. Words, endless words that wanted to entice her, that would try to draw her back to a place she was never free, and a place she was trained to hurt others, too.

Regardless, the fact the same claws gave her the sword and didn’t stop her…

Adora shakes her head. They’ve hurt her. They would keep hurting her to get what they want. She wouldn’t stand by it and let everyone else suffer. Adora chose to be She-Ra for this reason.

She will fix this.

“I… I miss them,” Kyle sighs, “I don’t think I’ll ever forget them… but I couldn’t stand being thrown away like that anymore. Nobody valued me. Nobody… valued anything else. I won’t be helping them anymore.” Kyle looks at Adora again. “If- If you want, I can help you guys. I also know about some of their plans. If they haven’t changed them. B-But it’s up to you, of course.”

Adora smiles proudly for the first time today. “We’ll fight them together.”

Kyle grins at her gratefully.

She admits she was surprised at first to have Kyle come along with the princesses… but right now, she figures out that it makes sense. Kyle is loyal, but not really to the Horde itself, she realizes. No matter how awful it was for him, Kyle would always stick with his friends. The friends that… weren’t really his friends.

Adora scoots a little closer to him and, with a few seconds of consideration, she places a hand on his shoulder. She’s not really good at this.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Kyle,” Adora apologizes. “I really wasn’t a good friend to you. I used you as a punching bag for all these years…”

“Oh.” Kyle lowers his gaze for a while. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not. You- You deserve better much better friends. And…" Adora pauses. "I hope I can be one for you now, if you want.”

She's a little startled by the boy's sparkling, tearful eyes. Before Adora can think, she’s already wrapped in the tightest hug she’s been in.

“Thank you so much,” Kyle tells her. “I’m really glad I’m here with you, Adora.”

Adora can’t help the flustered warmth in her chest. She relaxes her shoulders and hugs him back. “Yeah, me too.”

#she-ra #spop #adora #spop adora #spop kyle #abuse mention tw #bullying mention tw #vent fic #fanfiction #anti catradora #(tagging just in case jdhgjhg)

[kittyprincessofcats]

She-Ra S5 E06 - Taking Control

Yes, I am still determined to finally finish these reviews because I have thoughts on all of these episodes and still want to write them down (even though it’s been ages), so here we go. Spoilers for the rest of the season in case you haven’t watched it yet.

So let’s get into it:

- I love that they just took Wrong Hordak with them and that they’re actually calling him “Wrong Hordak”.

- Adora obsessively checking on Catra all the time is so sweet ❤️ (but also sad because she just came so close to losing her for good).

- “I honestly can NOT believe it worked.” Yeah, I’m with Bow on that. But like I explained in my Save the Cat review, I actually love that their super risky plan ends up working, as it already shows that Horde Prime is not as invincible as it seems.

- “Well, friends and one person who threw me off a cliff once.” I’m so here for all the “former enemies who now casually reference all the times they hurt each other in the past” banter, you have no idea!

- “I am honored to provide nourishment for my exalted brothers.” I love Wrong Hordak. Pretty much every one of his lines is a winner.

- Change in the opening: Only a tiny one (for now), but Wrong Hordak has been added to the heroes’ shot in the end and his expression is hilarious.

- Catra’s flashbacks to Horde Prime submerging her in that pool are so painful. (I saw a theory on here somewhere that this is why Catra’s fear of water seems even worse in season 5 compared to before. It makes sense when you consider Horde Prime tortured her in that pool. Side-note: This also makes me want to have a word with all those people who complain that Catra’s redemption was “too easy”. She literally went through extreme torture and mind-control to protect other people, but go off about how that’s “easy” or not a vaild reason for those people to forgive her, I guess.)

- Gosh, just the fact that she’s so panicked when she wakes up 💔

- I love how Adora, despite being so concerned and wanting to reach out for her, holds back and gives Catra her space.

(- Side-note: Let me take this moment to shamelessly promote what’s most likely Noelle’s fanfic: Don’t Go by Annacharlier on AO3 does an amazing job filling in the blanks between Save the Cat and Taking Control and explaining what goes on in Adora and Catra’s heads here. Give it a read if you haven’t already!)

- “I keep having this horrible vision of a blonde girl who thinks she’s better than everyone barging into my room all day.” I love how Catra’s still her snarky self, though. And how Adora isn’t even mad and just smiles at this.

- Okay, so the obvious topic of Catra not wanting to face everyone she’s hurt aside, I find it interesting how Entrapta is the only person she doesn’t use a nickname for - she calls them Arrow Boy, Sparkles and Entrapta. I think it’s a mix of her knowing Entrapta better than the others, and her respecting Entrapta more.

- The entire fight between Adora and Catra is such a good scene (as sad as it is). Catra doesn’t want to face all her mistakes (she didn’t think she’d actually live long enough to have to), is plagued by obvious guilt and still doesn’t really realize that Adora came back for her because she cares about her (hence her accusation that Adora “just loves feeling like a hero”). Adora on the other hand thinks that things should be okay now because she saved Catra and they’re together again, so why can’t they just make up? She doesn’t realize that Catra needs a bit of time to really digest everything that’s happened. And that “I never hated you!” moment? Beautiful. I think it’s a huge thing for Catra to realize that even when they were enemies, Adora’d didn’t hate her.

- Many She-Ra episodes have two plots going on at once and one of them happens to be way more interesting than the other. In season 1, it was often “the Horde plot is more interesting than the Bright Moon plot” for me. In this episode, it’s a very clear “the plot in space is more interesting than the one on Etheria” - sorry.

- I’m glad we finally got a Spinnetossa kiss, though!! This season is just bringing all the gay!

- Micah freaking out about Glimmer potentially not liking him (not realizing that Glimmer’s really not a kid anymore) is also kind of cute.

- I love Glimmer’s expression when Adora complains about Catra. She just looks so #done with all of this.

- Adora calling Catra a “stubborn brat” is amazing. (Though tbh, I misheard her at first and thought she said “stubborn cat” - which would be true, too.)

- “Did you think she was going to just instantly become a totally different person?” That’s a very good point and I’m glad the show didn’t make Catra just insantly act completely differently.

- “I believe - in Horde Prime.” Look, I could just quote all of Wrong Hordak’s lines here because they’re just too good 🤣. Also, the fact that his apron says “Smooch the chef” in first one’s writing? Amazing.

- Poor Bow being the designated driver and having to fly into an asteroid field. Love how excited Entrapta is about it, though.

- I just noticed that when Catra’s getting those flashes after the ship is hit, the first image she sees is of Krytis!

- “Once again, Catra is ruining out lives!” Okay, but that’s really not her fault this time. Though I get that Adora’s just being overdramatic here. (“Then try not to hit anything!” 🤣) Also, my first thought was Wrong Hordak was sending the trace signal, not Catra’s chip - but the chip does make more sense, since Wrong Hordak was cut off from the hivemind and Horde Prime also couldn’t find Hordak for years.

- Honestly, the group on Etheria should have left that party way sooner. Something was so obviously super off there, and they noticed it as well - but still stuck around for way too long. (But then again, they had no idea about the chips at all, so maybe that’s a bit harsh.)

- The way Spinnerella moves her neck when she says “something weird just happened” - very nice hinting/foreshadowing there!

- “Me? Why would I wanna hurt you? Ooooh, you mean because you sent me to Beast Island, stole my work and used it to rip a hole in the fabric of space and time? I get it. Hold still.” 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Have I mentioned I LOVE ENTRAPTA??? I love how she’s not even mad at first and then so genuinely proud of herself for “getting it” - but also, since this is pretty much the worst thing Catra’s ever done and something she (rightfully) feels a lot of guilt over, I’m glad the show took the time to address it. Yeah, it’s played for laughs here at first, but then the episode actually seriously addresses it.

- “We’re doing this. Then if you think hiding from the people you hurt will make you feel better, we’ll drop you off and you’ll never have to see us again. *sigh* You’ll never have to see me again.” THIS MOMENT. Okay, let’s get into this: I like that Adora’s not letting Catra get away with anything here. That she tells her straight-up that they have to remove the chip or else Prime will find them, that she questions if hiding from everyone she’s hurt will really make Catra feel better, but that she also agrees to drop her off if Catra really wants that. And I like how Catra, now that Adora is offering her what she said she wanted earlier, realizes she doesn’t actually want to lose Adora again either. Adora offered to let her go, and Catra realized she doesn’t want that. I also really like Catra asking Adora to stay: It shows that Adora’s presence still makes Catra feel safe, hence why she wants her there for the chip removal procedure, but it also nicely foreshadows the finale, where Catra will ask Adora to “stay” again. Also, all that hand-holding and blushing? Cute.

- “I’m not protecting you, I’m protecting them.” YES. And here’s where Micah shows that he does take Frosta seriously and does understand how strong she is - good!

- Catra seeing Horde Prime’s thoughts: First of all, it breaks my heart how tiny and scared she sounds when she talks about Horde Prime “using” her (but also not really because I’m evil and I’m here for the angst). Then, I like how she insists she has to do this because otherwise Adora will “do something stupid and get herself killed” - Catra is super protective of Adora. And again with the hand-holding and asking Adora to stay with her 😭. I also like that it really works and Catra ends up finding out what Horde Prime is doing and even seeing what’s going on on Etheria.

- Also: I like that Horde Prime is genuinely furious about Adora saving Catra. That the whole reason he changed his strategy and started chipping people on Etheria is because he’s genuinely pissed about that and wants revenge (something Double Trouble will again confirm one episode later).

- Can we also talk about Adora and Catra immediately reaching for each other and hugging when the ship gets hit?

- “She-Ra, if you really are out there: Are you getting this?” Okay, but that’s just the thing: She literally is getting this! I like how the two plots connect here and how Adora becoming She-Ra and defeating the ships in space also helps Swift Wind power up and save the others.

- Everyone’s already talked about this at length, but I love She-Ra’s new transformation! The symbols representing Adora’s friends (winged boots for Glimmer, heart for Bow, mask for Catra), the way better outfit and hair in a ponytail, the beautiful galaxy background with those lights, the triumphant orchestra version of the transformation music - I’m here for all of it! (Also for Catra’s little blush at the end there.)

- She-Ra destroying the ships in space is epic.

- Catra’s apology to Entrapta is such a huge moment for her and such a nice scene! I like how she technically didn’t even have to do it: Entapta didn’t expect an apology and was already on her way out. But Catra has been feeling bad about this for a long time and realized now that she doesn’t actually want to run away. And after we’ve seen Catra being awful to everyone and feeling guilty over what she did to Entrapta since early season 4, it feels so good to finally hear her genuinely apologize for it (and genuinely apologize to someone other than Adora in general). And Entrapta patting her head with her hair is so precious 😭. I love both of them.

- The scene of Catra joining everyone else at dinner is so good 😭😭😭. How she’s finally ready to face them, but still sits away from them, not expecting to be forgiven or accepted, how Bow and Glimmer make room for her and invite her to join, how her ears perk up at that, Glimmer offering her food, that glance between her and Adora... YES. Catra is someone who’s been rejected and made to feel like an outcast her entire life, and she was convinced everyone hated her now. Bow and Glimmer inviting her to sit with them here was so important.

- I love Entrapta asking if the food comes in smaller sizes. She just has a thing for tiny food and I can respect that.

- And... oh no, Spinnerella is chipped!

This was another really good episode! I like how it shows Catra’s growth and shows her working on herself. I also like how things weren’t just immediately okay between her and Adora and that she still has to work on actually redeeming herself even after her heroic sacrifice. But I also think it’s realistic that Adora and Glimmer aren’t holding a grude against her, since she literally went through hell for them. Her apology to Entrapta was really beautiful and all the soft moments between her and Adora make my heart melt.

[Previous episode]   [Next episode]

#spop #spop s5 #spop s5 spoilers #Taking Control #Catradora #Wrong Hordak #Adora #Catra #Bow #Glimmer #Entrapta #Spinnetossa #Spinnerella #Netossa #Micah #Frosta #Swift Wind #Horde Prime #spop meta #long post

[catrasredemption-moved]

Hi! How about a fic where Catra’s old injuries from Shadow Weaver and being chipped act up and Adora and the BFS help her? I love your writing btw

Send prompts maybe?

Chronic pain.

That was what the surprisingly gentle healer called it when Catra had complained about pain and Adora had practically carried her to the infirmary. She wasn’t even hurt, but Adora wouldn’t let it up.

The healer had asked Catra if she had any history of chronic pain, which had gotten a shrug and, “Yeah, I guess.” Which had led to a ten-minute argument with Adora about what kind of pain, and how long, and why hadn’t she mentioned it, and-

The poor, patient healer had interrupted then to ask Catra when it had started, which led to an unpleasant trip down memory road, recalling all the times Shadow Weaver had used magic to abuse her, right up through everything that happened on Prime’s ship. A quick exam showed nothing was physically wrong with Catra at that moment, which meant what she was feeling now was more than likely a long-lasting effect of the abuse. There wasn’t much to be done about it - she could take something for the pain, try to relax whenever it hurt too much, and otherwise go about her life as usual.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Adora demanded as soon as they left.

“About what?” Catra asked flatly.

“About... About this! About all of it!”

“You knew what she was doing to me, it wasn’t exactly a secret.”

“I didn’t know it was that bad!”

Something snapped in Catra; she whirled to look at Adora, eyes flaring. “Of course you didn’t! What did you think happened all those times we got in trouble and you got sent to bed while she held me back? It’s not my fault it took a stupid magic destiny for you to realize how terrible she was!”

And oh, she immediately regretted saying that. But it was too late to take it back, too late not to see the hurt flash across Adora’s face. Catra stepped back without a word, and Melog wrapped around her ankles, cloaking them both and giving Catra a clean getaway.

Glimmer found her on the roof of the highest tower a few hours later. Her legs were drawn up to her chest, forehead resting on her knees, hands clasped behind her back.

“I didn’t mean it,” she mumbled.

“I know.” Glimmer sat with her, looking out at the Whispering Woods. “You know it’s really fun having you around. I find new places I would never even think to look usually.”

“Yeah I’m sure I’m great to have around when I do shit like this.”

“That’s...” Glimmer paused, then sighed. “I told Adora she was a terrible She-Ra.”

“So did I, you’re not special.”

“At least you said as her enemy and not one of her best friends and the queen.” Catra peeked at Glimmer out of the corner of her eye. “And I was wrong. And I shouldn’t have said that. And I’m not sure I deserved her forgiveness, but that’s beside the point. It sucks, though, because you’re not... wrong. I love Adora, I really, really do. But she focuses on the wrong things sometimes. A lot of the time, actually. The fact that she honestly believed the Horde was good is still insane to me. That’s who she is, though, isn’t it? I mean, it’s who Shadow Weaver raised her to be. Everything is exactly as it seems and everything can be fixed.”

Catra snorted despite herself. “How many times has she pulled we can fix this on you?”

“I lost count. And it gets so frustrating because sometimes you don’t want a fix, you just want to be angry. But she’s either looking forward for a solution or looking back to see how it’s all her fault.”

That was an accurate description of Adora and Catra hated it. “Starting to think we’re the only people who understand her,” she said with a small, humorless smile.

“We absolutely are,” Glimmer agreed. “So what are you going to do, keep sitting up here and staring at your legs or tell her why you’re upset so she can understand?”

Catra’s ears went flat against her head. “I don’t even know why I’m upset,” she admitted.

“Then tell her that. Just tell her something.”

Glimmer stood, holding out a hand. Catra took it, sighing, and closed her eyes, hoping that would alleviate some of the motion sickness.

It didn’t.

Somehow, Adora was right there to catch her. She heard Glimmer saying, “Have a good talk!” then the tinkle of bells as she disappeared. Catra forced her eyes open to look at Adora. She looked guilty. Of course she looked guilty.

“I’m-”

Catra presses a hand to her mouth. “Don’t. You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

She tugs Adora to the bed, sitting and curling in on herself. “I shouldn’t have gotten mad. It’s not your fault Shadow Weaver was a terrible person and that I never told you.”

“I should have-”

“What? Known?” Catra laughed bitterly. “I didn’t want you to know and then I was mad when you didn’t know. Tell me how any of that is fair.” Adora didn’t answer. “Yeah, it sucks. And of course she did enough damage to make it hurt for literally the rest of my life. But it’s not your fault. None of this is.”

Adora was quiet for a moment, actually taking the words to heart. “Does it hurt now?” she asked after a moment.

“A little. Everything always hurts a little though. Before Prime it was just some days...” Her hands found their way back to her neck. “But now it’s all the time. It’s not that bad, though. The headaches are the worst, and I can handle those. It’s not a big deal.”

Adora gently pulled her hands away from Catra’s neck. “It’s a big deal,” she said quietly. “If it hurts you, it’s a big deal. I wish you had told me.”

“I didn’t want you to freak out. You know, like you did.”

“Okay, but I’m not freaking out now.” Adora tugged Catra close, half into her lap, kissing the scar from the chip. “And I want to know.”

Catra tucked herself under Adora’s chin, an unconscious purr rumbling in her chest. “Are you okay now?” Adora asked, absentmindedly thumbing the scar.

“Yeah. Better with you.”

That, of course, meant peace would never last. “Have you guys talked?” Glimmer demanded as she reappeared with a pile of blankets and pillows and Bow, who had an armful of snacks.

“It’s time for Catra’s first Best Friend Squad sleepover!” he added cheerfully. Catra groaned, pressing her face into Adora’s shoulder.

“Please, no.”

“Too late, this is happening.”

Adora looked over Catra’s head, giving her friends a small smile. She knew this was their way of trying to distract from the day. Even if Catra complained, she would enjoy it. And Adora was grateful.

#askbox fic #this got long sorry #Mystery Person #Sam Answers