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andhereisthetea · 2 years

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About She-Ra Live action show...

Don’t you DARE to bully Nicole Kassell for the Live-Action She-Ra

Female Directors and producers already passed through a lot of bullshit and bullying from the monopoly that is hollywood, this together with fandoms and the media already, they don’t need for fans to jump at their throats immediately because things aren’t like they wanted, or because they are mentaly stuck in something else.

MOTU Revelation passed through the same bullshit from fans of He-Man 200x already online, and I am seeing the same thing right now.

This movie is gonna be something extremely specialy for us old fans of the classic 80s She-ra, some of us men and women who have passed for decades of silence regarding this character, who had also a lot of happines with the 2018 show, and now we are getting another thing to be happy about, at least the character is getting the attention she deserves after decades of having absolutely nothing.

She-Ra was the show that marked a generation of little girls who felt represented decades ago, it had female script writers as talentous as powerful as Barbara Hambly, Carol Baxter, and Brynne Stephens, they broke the male dominance and sexism whiting Mattel, and they ahd to *fight for respect* when women were treated as objects whiting the industry.

Just imagine it, an heroin at the level of Xena completely in silence since the 80s, now will have not only a modern animated show, but also a live-action show.

And we are gonna have Nicole Kassell as the director for it, which is extremely important taking into account what the old female creators and script-writers have to say about the 80s era of fantasy shows:

https://zarabithia.tumblr.com/post/178051934395/justine-danzer-creator-of-the-designs-that-would

SPOP Netflix in fact was THE ACTION that made this possible, Crew-Ra and ND Stevenson are the ones that opened the doors for this to happen, ND Stevenson is an old-school fan of the 80s show to begin with.

No, there is no reason for this project to be related to the Netflix one because it is hold by two separated companies and the one to have the ruling hand over media is Dreamworks (Netflix has the rights over SPOP 2018 only, which is the version Dreamworks allowed them to have), and Mattel and Filmation have the rights over the toys.

No, this Live-action is not an action of homphobia against the community because is not a continuation of the SPOP Netflix show, and seriously... go watch the 80s show and tell me it has something straight on it to begin with, and also:

THE SHOW HASN’T EVEN BEEN PRODUCED YET, YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT. Selfish projection is not an excuse to bully directors, producers and even actors!

Please stop bitching around about the live-action being a complete failure when it hasn’t even been produced yet, putting Nicole as the Director is A HUGE STEP forward for those who wants this show to be made, and it makes me deeply unease to see all those young people thinking there is no backstory beyond 2018. This can be a complete disasterm, is true, but at least something was done for the amazing character that is She-Ra/Adora finally.

Sidenote: This even might be the step to have both He-Man and She-Ra together as brother and sister after 35 YEARS of separation, so keep an eye open for it, because having both a he-man and she-ra live-action might be something positive after all.

#spop #shera #shera amazon #she-ra #she ra princess of power #she ra netflix #spop netflix #spop amazon #adora #catra #scorpia #glimmer #textpost #liveaction #live action

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el-ffej · 2 years

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She-Ra Live-Action Series != SPOP

Pertinent quote:

DreamWorks Animation will serve as an executive producer on “She-Ra” after recently producing the Netflix animated series “She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.” However, the live-action version will be a new, standalone story and will not be connected to the animated show.

That seems pretty definitive.

#spop #she-ra #she ra #shera #she ra and the princesses of power #she-ra and the princesses of power #she-ra live action series #she ra amazon series #catradora #nd stevenson #noelle stevenson

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dynared · 10 months

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As Dreamworks's deal with Netflix for exclusive shows expires (they first signed a deal with Hulu for exclusives and now seem to be given shows to them and Peacock), shows have begun to leave the service en masse. However, due to the nature of staggered contracts, many of these shows will not be leaving Netflix for at least a year, while others may have several years left on the service. What's on Netflix did some calculations based on when the final seasons were added and came up with some removal dates for the shows -

Voltron: Legendary Defender (N Original)December 14, 2018 December 14, 2024

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (N Original)May 15, 2020 April 10, 2026

3Below: Tales of Arcadia (N Original)July 12, 2019 August 7, 2026

Wizards: Tales of Arcadia (N Original)August 7, 2020 August 7, 2026

Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia (N Original)May 25, 2018 August 7, 2026

There are plenty of other expiration dates on that list, but these are the big ones I noticed, mostly because they were attempts at franchise creation that fell completely flat. Voltron's big-budget Amazon movie is due for a 2025 release in a best-case scenario (worst-case scenario is more Robotech-style development hell) and with the rollout of a lot of classic Voltron merchandise including the oft-mentioned Voltron beer, the plan to erase VLD from everything come the film release is well underway. Dreamworks doesn't seem to mind, since they're still the video distributor for DOTU on behalf of World Events Productions, their name is on the Voltron beer.

She-Ra is a similar story. The franchise is also with Amazon via Dreamworks, for a live-action show directed by one of the directors of the Watchmen TV show. Hopefully, whoever plays Hordak can chew the scenery as hard as Jeremy Irons did. It probably will air sometime in 2025-2026 best case scenario as well, just in time to see SPOP eliminated from everything (something Mattel is only too happy to facilitate given their release of classic She-Ra figures for their Masterverse brand of toys).

Trollhunters was meant to be a franchise but despite a lot of big names attached to it, it went absolutely nowhere and everyone seems to have disavowed the whole thing after the ending. So it's just getting tossed to one side.

The internet means IP gets recycled and discarded faster and faster these days. And these are three examples of shows set to disappear from the face of the earth, to the glee of the license holders.

#dreamworks #netflix #voltron #voltron: legendary defender #voltron legendary defender #keith #shiro #lance #she ra #she ra and the princesses of power #amazon studios #prime video #trollhunters #tales of arcadia

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thestargayzingetherian · 11 months

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The She-Ra and He-Man Rights Situation

So today I figured it'd be a nice moment to explain the whole legal rights issues regarding He-Man and She-Ra because I still see a bit of confusion about that from time to time so here’s the whole thing as simply as I can put it. Sooo back in the 80s, Mattel made He-Man in partnership with Filmation and it was a big success. Two years later, they introduced She-Ra, but She-Ra was more heavily co-developed with Filmation and for this reason, a lot of the She-Ra characters and concepts were owned by them Marvel had a similar deal with Hasbro when they made transformers, but the difference was, everything Marvel made was owned by Hasbro themselves. Filmation... seemingly didn't have that with Mattel.

And that's where the trouble started. See, because of various factors (the she-ra toys being sold separately from the He-Man toys and the box office failure of the live action he-man movie) the franchise kinda died and at the same time, Filmation went out of business. There was an attempt to bring back He-Man a few years later, in the form of the 90s new adventures of he-man show, but that failed. (This is where Mara came from btw). And He-Man was basically dead for pretty much the rest of the decade.1 Now we come to the 2002 He-Man cartoon, which was a big hit. As some of you may now, the 2002 he-man was supposed to introduce its own new version of Hordak and She-Ra, but it was unfortunately cancelled after its second season (still great show, def recommend to spop fans)

However, Mattel only directly owns the rights to Horak, most of his henchgoons from the 80s cartoon and She-Ra herself, because they were developed together. It was filmation who were responsible for Catra, Glimmer, Shadow Weaver etc. The Filmation back catalogue was bounced around from company to company for many years and no one really cared about it, because the other two attempts to revive He-Man had failed and no one would really care about the other stuff.

UNTIL DREAMWORKS SOMEHOW BOUGHT THOSE RIGHTS AND DECIDED TO REBOOT SHE-RA

Yes, the spop we all know and love came of this and I think most of us know how that went. But that's where the problem stands right now. Dreamworks could use Adora and hordak no problem... but nothing He-Man related, which is why they had to be really vague about that stuff with SPOP. Mattel also might have sabotaged the Spop toys because they didn't wanna share money. All of this is a bit awkward, because the two main new versions of He-Man now were created directly because SPOP had been the first big hit this franchise had in years. Basically, if the version of Hordak who shows up in season 2 of He-Man revelations looks exactly like his SPOP self and has the same voice, that's allowed. Same goes for Adora.... but if Adora is said to have a gf named Catra, that's when the lawyers get involved.

Tl:dr this is all because someone in 1985 forgot to put the small print in.

#Catradora #Spop #She-Ra #He-Man #Adora #Catra #Hordak #analysis

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birindale · 1 year

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Concept art of Castle Grayskull’s throne room by Jean “Mœbius” Giraud, for the 1987 live-action movie. The man loved crystals; just look at the Mœbius strips referenced in the SPOP “Bible”. It also bears a strong resemblance to our Fractal Flake, albeit (presumably) not made of ice.

#motu #jean giraud #moebius #mœbius #castle grayskull #axel gimenez's cutaway map of the castle included something called the Crystal Chamber which is like.#100 of these fuckers floating in the abyss. so that's really cool #it's probably more akin to the star seed (or the later power orb) but this was discarded fairly early & mœbius is dead so we'll never know #sure looks awesome though #unsolicited commentary

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spopsalt · 2 months

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https://www.tumblr.com/moltenhair/623629680406298624/i-like-all-your-posts-on-cassandras-redemption

I was agreeing with this post until I saw the final paragraph. Assuming OP is referring to Catra, her arc was way worse than Cassandra’s. I mean yeah, it’s good that there wasn’t a reliance on a character’s sudden change in morality, but the thing is, Catra never changed her morals at all since her behavior remained the same until the very end. I don’t think her and Adora making out was a believable result since it came out of nowhere and wasn’t earned at all. Not to mention that claiming the entire season was dedicated to Catra’s arc is a stretch since she didn’t even switch sides until halfway through, and so much other stuff was going on besides that in the interim.

In addition, when was Catra called out for all the terrible stuff she did?? The other characters just used vague statements rather than properly acknowledging her actions and treated her like she was a mean high school bully instead of a homicidal abusive war criminal. Also, when did she live with the consequences of her actions? It’s true that Adora said, “you made your choice, now live with it,” but that was all the way back in season 3. Since then, Catra doubled down on her villainy until she switched sides in season 5 due to having nowhere else to go and because she was still unhealthily obsessed with Adora, not because she cared about doing the right thing. Plus, she didn’t even witness the damage she did to Etheria or the citizens she displaced. Her crimes and their consequences were completely glossed over.

Now, Cassandra’s arc was rushed, but I still think it was better than Catra’s since Cassandra at least decided to go her own way in the end, signifying growth. The same can’t be said about Catra, who fell back into her old bad habits and never improved as a person. She-Ra is a prime example of how NOT to do redemption arcs. A much better example of a redemption arc to refer to as being better than Cassandra’s is Zuko’s from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Jesus seriously? Spop does not have a good redemption arc, both Catra and Cassandra were forgiven very quickly and both literally ruined so many lives,at least Cassandra didn't just become a cute precious baby with a cute sneeze and date Rapunzel

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

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spop-romanticizes-abuse · 3 months

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glimbow vs catradora: jealousy

i'm just going to talk about jealousy in general here, not just in romantic relationships, because i don't ship either of these ships.

i saw a lot of spop fans hating on glimmer because of the way she treated bow when she was jealous. and honestly, i agree that she was being very immature and possessive there. but these are the same people who act like catra getting jealous of lonnie was adorable and romantic and “gay panic”.

let's compare:

glimmer gets a little awkward around perfuma but she never takes her anger out on perfuma. at worst, she acts a little huffy but that's about it.

catra sees adora talking to lonnie and immediately resorts to attacking lonnie violently.

glimmer blames bow for how she feels. she acts like it was his fault for not always hanging out with her. she was being unreasonable but again, her actions weren't so aggressive or pointed that it hurt bow, physically or emotionally. at worst, she just came off as annoying and clingy.

when adora tries to confront catra, again, catra's immediate impulse is to scratch adora across the face, leaving her with a huge scar. she blames adora for trying to make a new friend and reacts in a way that hurts adora both physically and emotionally.

this is the most important part. when glimmer refuses to apologize, bow was allowed to be mad at glimmer, and rightfully so. he tells glimmer straight-up that she was being unreasonable and that she shouldn't be trying to control his social life. he doesn't try to sugarcoat it, he is honest with her. and glimmer realizes her mistake and apologizes to him. she never repeats this kind of behaviour again.

not only does adora not get to call catra out on her obsessive and controlling behaviour, but she also offers to sacrifice her own needs for catra's. she is shown to forgiven catra without even an apology. she never gets closure, catra never stops being possessive, and the cycle continues well into their adolescent lives, where catra once again gets furious and violent when adora finds new friends.

so, in short, glimmer expresses jealousy in a mildly irritating way while catra expresses it in an extremely aggressive and toxic manner. glimmer is held accountable for her actions by the narrative, while catra's abusive tendencies are enabled and romanticized.

you could make the argument that catra was much younger, which is fair. she was only six at the time and didn't know how to deal with her feelings yet. however we see time and time again that catra never changes this behaviour. she continues acting as if adora should always stay with her and do what she wants.

in both these cases, glimmer and catra have sympathetic motivations. they're scared of losing the only friend they have. but while glimmer is made to understand that her friends can have other friends, and she shouldn't be possessive over them, catra just gets to blame everything on adora and adora has to be patient with her and sacrifice her social life for catra.

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

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edge-lorde · 1 year

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more spop world building notes

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

they also float in the air sometimes i guess.

example of them in the water:

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

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

real hydrofoils look like this:

the resemblance is even better with hydrofoil boards.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and yet both sides have floating boats.

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

you know what they do both have?

FLOATING ROCKS

so all of this to say...

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

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

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hymn-of-muse · 7 months

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A Haunted Mind

A spop angst for catra, placed after the series ends.

tw for implications of mind control, manipulation and overall toxic relationships.

It had been months since she-ra had finally rid Prime from Hordak's mind and their lives for good, months since the best friend quartet had promised each other things would be better from now on, months since they'd set out into space again to fight back any remains of what Prime left behind on other worlds.

They'd re-entered space much more prepared for the travel this time, leaving etheria in the hands of Glimmer's father and the rest of the princesses. Hordak and Entrapta insisted on joining for a bunch of reasons catra honestly couldn't care any less about.

Adora had assured her things would take time to feel..normal...to feel okay again. She understood it took time to heal and get passed things, but there was so much to work through..

Horde Prime may be gone but it sure as hell didn't feel like it to her. The scar from the chip on the back of her neck still hadn't fully healed over, often times she still felt like it was there..the thought of still being connected to that hive mind made her fur stand on end and sent an incredibly discomforting shiver down her spine.

Catra tried to push the thoughts away and get some sleep, curled up on her side next to a snoring adora who was currently sprawled out comfortably taking up more than just her side of the bed.

just sleep, just sleep... she'd repeat to herself, unable to focus on the sound of adora sleeping which in the old days would have helped put her to sleep in no time...

A second voice echoed in the back of her mind, no matter how small it was it was there and no matter how hard she tried to drown it out it still persisted. The inkling of possibility that Prime was still there, in her mind, waiting for his moment, waiting to use her again...

Her sharp nails kneaded her pillow, almost ripping the fabric as her stressed out habits took hold of her actions. A deep breath to steady her lively nerves and she sat up without waking adora, shuffling out of the bedroom and exploring the rest of the ship while everyone slept. Maybe her mind just needed some peace and quiet...

Catra found a windowsill to sit on, staring at the endless void of stars, a sea lacking gravity which they traversed without a sun over the surface of the horizon line to guide their direction. It was chilling but at the same time..almost soothing.

They were just going forward. That's what they wanted to do...what she needed to do. But the ship did it with much more ease than her.

She caught a glimpse of her reflection on the reinforced glass against the black nothingness outside. Her hair had started to grow out quite a bit by now...it almost frightened her to see her own reflection, she never liked looking at it..but seeing how longer hair had gotten felt like a sigh of progress, so she relaxed again.

Grey Tufts of fur, small but still visible, had started growing out. She almost forgot she cut them off after... Shadow Weaver... the image of the last time she saw her former mentor and only mother figure, the first and last time she actually got a good looka at her face, flashed in her mind as she recalled how the woman sacrificed herself.

She could never get it out of her head, could never piece it together...why Shadow Weaver suddenly had such a change of heart and did that for them...after everything she did in the past...though she did have her small moments where she really did seem to care as cruel as she had been ...maybe she really did care about them in the end.

Catra debated with herself over several things, she struggled more than anyone should to believe that people really cared, because in the end they ended up hurting or leaving her. Adora was helping her see she was wrong, helping her passed this, because adora came back for her..

Double trouble betrayed her, left her after what felt like mockery. Scorpia left, switched sides..though that was her fault, and Scorpia had since forgiven her.

She felt like the list of hurt she had done and recieved was almost endless. All those events still replaying vividly in her mind like they were so recent, fresh wounds, but it was just phantom pain.

All it was now was phantom pain, ghosts...hauntings...

The ship was quiet, she sat curled into herself watching the stars as they drifted on. Watching with a haunted mind.

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robinreflects · 9 months

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Okay, I NEED to hear your thoughts on a few issues I have with SPOP (I also mention TOH a bit towards the end but mainly trying to focus this ask on SPOP). Also, it's long as hell, so if you want to answer it in multiple parts that's totally fair.

I know the writing of the show just generally speaking isn't the best, however the one thing I thought was executed best was the villains of the show.

Shadow Weaver was a cruel maternal figure in Catra and Adora's lives, even so to Glimmer in Season 4 when she had felt isolated from her friends (her father too, in the past). With a grand sacrifice in the names of who she practically considered her daughters, she had atoned for her actions throughout the series, but regardless, she left serious impacts on the characters' mentalities. Whether she was forgiven by the characters was left vague, as if they weren't too sure how they felt themselves. I really liked that aspect, as the experience of mixed feelings when an abusive parental and/or authority figure dies can be very impactful for viewers. She was someone lustful for power and control, but I do genuinely think she had a soft spot for Adora at the very least, which is why she had tried isolating her from the others in her squadron so often. I think it was in an effort to harden her resolve so her potential wouldn't be wasted, though of course, this was not done in a positive or healthy manner.

Hordak attempted to conquer Etheria in an effort to be recognized by Horde Prime. But then he meets Entrapta, who helped him with repairing his disability aid (that being the First Ones tech to keep his body stable, the very thing Hordak was shunned and abandoned for by Prime) and receiving validation for the "imperfection" he referred to his disability as ("Imperfection is beautiful! At least, to me."). That was the inciting moment where his motivation and goals shifted, but due to Catra's actions — her attacking Entrapta, then fabricating a lie that he had once again been abandoned, and later on being unapologetically ableist and apathetic by removing his aid, the aforementioned tech, and having him literally crawl on the floor in pain before her to address her power over him — he returned to prior goals until Double Trouble spilled the tea and sent him on a rampage after Catra. (And yes, I haven't forgotten the scene where he cuts off her oxygen, but she's not shown to be an asthmatic or having any respiratory issues, so that's shitty yes, but not ableist. And that was in either S1 or early S2, before he had really encountered Entrapta, so that's another thing to keep in mind.) Skip through the Horde Prime mess, and he ends the series being sent to Beast Island to clean up according to Stevenson, whereas characters like Catra (who quite literally fucked more shit up than him somehow with the portal, nearly destroying the world) get off scot-free because...She got the heaping dose of writer's favoritism, I guess. Also his atonement for his actions was stated as Word Of God by Stevenson on Twitter, not explicitly in the show, so it's completely fair to take it with a grain of salt and/or have it be up to viewers' interpretation.

I'll also put Entrapta and Scorpia here real quick, but I'll keep it brief cause this is already so long. I think Entrapta is by definition chaotic neutral, where she will go to lengths and extremes in the name of science and personal interest, but doesn't care about the war or which side she appears to be on. Yes, she absolutely appears to be on the side of the horde by the end of S1, but exclusively because they offer the most tech for her to work with (that and the other princesses never appeared to be fond of her…); she never seems to pay the war any mind. I thought Scorpia was a decent enough character, I could tell from the get-go she would be eventually redeemed and while I don't think she's perfect, her redemption was leagues better than the other arc I'm thinking of…

I decided to put Catra as her own bullet point cause WHEW there's a lot. Catra as a character was objectively best when she was a villain. And considering how she crossed the threshold of "in too deep," beyond the lengths even HORDAK was willing to go (again, literally almost ending the world out of nothing but pure spite and hatred for Adora """abandoning""" her), all because she couldn't abuse Adora and blame her for everything bad that happened to her anymore, it was strong antagonist characterization. One that the writers poorly chose to just throw out the window at the last second for some Starco-esque endgame for fanservice/the creator's favoritism that DID NOT feel deserved. Yeah, Starco. I said it.

While having a relationship between two lesbians (if memory serves me right, feel free to correct me if one of them's sapphic) is very important for representation in media, Catradora had to have been one of the worst examples of good lesbian/WLW representation I've seen to date. It's toxic, it's abusive, and Adora's got some serious Stockholm syndrome with Catra being her abuser. It is genuinely unsettling how many people act like it's healthy and normal or will excuse it because "Catra has [Insert disorder/disability here] so the abusive behavior is justified" when explanations for behaviors =/= valid excuses. Adora for sure had PTSD but she never acted as irrational and cruel despite her upbringing.

And also, that is extremely ableist shit to say, too. Just because someone has a mental disorder or disability of some kind doesn't excuse them to just be a disgustingly horrible person to the people they claim they care about. If Catra REALLY loved and cared for Adora, we would've seen an effort on her end to change the shitty fucking behaviors she exhibited. But when Adora goes through hell and back to save her sorry ass, she goes right back to the abusive, manipulative, bitchy person she's always been. Hell, her "adorable confession scene" IS JUST HER MANIPULATING ADORA BY SAYING ADORA HAD CONSTANTLY ABANDONED HER WHEN SHE NEVER DID THAT. ONCE. Hearing the "just this once, stay" part at the end sounds like it came from an abusive ex begging Adora to get back together, not a heartfelt romantic gesture from a soon-to-be lover.

Not to mention the odd implications of Shadow Weaver being akin to a mother figure to BOTH of them (didn't she call them her children???) throughout their lives, as well as Kyle believing they, Lonnie and Rogelio to be his siblings, family, before Lonnie yells at him…Like, the fact even ONE of the squadron members saw the others as siblings ALONGSIDE S.W.'s maternal shtick, it's a huge weird ass red flag. I'm not gonna claim it's incest because I don't believe that was the intention by the writers, but they also heavily imply such with the aforementioned information the show provides...They should've just had Catra and Adora be friends from separate squadrons if they didn't wanna make it feel so icky (as if the abusive shit doesn't make the relationship gross enough). Lonnie yelling at Kyle saying "we were never a family" or whatever feels like the writers speaking through the character to justify Catradora being canon, especially with how the characters act around each other in S1 and in flashbacks. I have siblings, that's shit siblings do. Don't even get me started with Kyle and Rogelio dating in the end, either...Idc what ANYONE says, he literally stated explicitly that he viewed Rogelio as a brother for most of their lives, that makes me ill. I have gripes with both Steven Universe and The Owl House as well, don't get me wrong, but I feel Garnet/Rupphire and Lumity were both objectively better written lesbian/sapphic pairings (my personal favorite of the two being Garnet), as well as the positive and healthy representation lesbians and sapphics heavily deserve. The SPOP writers completely dropped the ball with the enemies-to-lovers bit, like, horribly. Catra post-S4 is just a horribly written """redeemed""" character who should've stayed bad to the bitter end ala S.W.

I feel like both SPOP and TOH's writing integrity is severely diminished when it comes to the Tumblr-humor thing you had mentioned in a previous post. I think if not for Eda, I genuinely wouldn't have continued TOH past the first couple of episodes because of it, and it only got worse over time, especially in the last couple of S3 episodes. Which one was worse, or if both were the same as far as the humor goes, I wanna know your thoughts. I haven't seen SPOP all the way through since about a year ago, but I feel like it wasn't as bad as TOH — at the very least, to my memory of the show, SPOP knew not to crack dumbass one liners in the midst of a genuinely serious moment.

I'll put this here as well, but if you can think of anything else to discuss PLEASE do so, I want to hear all the tea.

Oh my god Hi! So sorry for the late response!

I'll separate this into bullet points so it's easier to navigate

She-Ra's writing

Shadow Weaver

Hordak (+ Entrapta and Scorpia)

Catra(dora)

She-Ra and Representation (Double Trouble)

Ok so let’s get this out of the way first: I am not a fan of She-Ra, even on my first watch I heavily disliked it. I was one of the people that watched it in its original run, I tuned in right after season 2 was released, circa a week or so later. And even THEN, in 2019, as a wee little 15-year-old, who has JUST realized that I wanted to pursue writing as a career, I noticed just how inconsistent the writing is.

So, She-Ra’s writing, just overall writing, is something I’ve always had an issue with. A lot of the characters felt inconsistent. Frosta is the first example that comes to mind. She is a child, however, in season 1 she is presented as a mature, strict, amazing leader of an entire kingdom, however, later on, she’s just dumbed down to a “haha annoying child” for attempts at some incorrect-quote-esque dynamic and dialogue. You've mentioned it too with The Owl House and She-ra has the exact same problem, however, I'd say on a much more jarring and apparent level. With the Owl House, as annoying and out of pocket as these incorrect-quote-esque jokes are, they're still kids, they're children and I'd say The Owl House has a much more slice of life/comedy approach to its writing than what She-Ra intended to have. As I've said, with She-Ra it's more jarring, since it's more of a fantasy/adventure/action/drama type of show, at least that's what it was going for, the jokes stand out a lot more, and feel as though they're just haphazardly thrown in there for the sake of fan service. Which, in turn, makes the characters feel as though they lack dimension. Adora is my prime example of this, there have been so many instances where, for the sake of fan service, she has been dumbed down to the very popular "stupid strong golden retriever" type of character in a sapphic dynamic.

A character that stood out to me as one of the better-written ones is Shadow Weaver. Her dark and brooding nature was always interesting to me, not to mention Lorraine Toussaint did a fantastic job. Something I admire about her character writing is that they never made her abuse over the top, they never made her too loud or too abusive to the point you can point a finger and say "Well that's just a stereotypical abuser in media!", which, again, I really appreciate about the show. I won't say they made her realistic, but out of all the characters, I'd say she came closest to being such.

Hordak I didn't and still don't have much opinion on, his overall villain characterization and motivation are pretty standard, especially for, what's marketing itself as, a kid's cartoon. What did stand out to me, however, was his covert disability. Now what do I mean by covert? It's pretty clear he's disabled. Covert in terms of symbolism, I have not been able to find what actual disability his disability is supposed to represent, I've seen people interpret it as diabetes, I've seen people interpret it as an autoimmune disease, while I myself have interpreted it as a heart transplant/ heart disease and his disability aid as a pacemaker. As my grandfather was one of the first and longest-living people with a heart transplant + pacemaker in Croatia, I've seen many side effects of it and it aligns quite well with Hordak's disability. Though it didn't feel like blatant sympathy points (unlike some other character that I will talk about later), it gave him more characterization outside of being "a big bad villain guy". His and Entrapta's story is one that I found quite endearing and it felt like it flowed naturally, no pushing them together, no forcing it, it felt genuine and nicely paced. Scorpia is also a very sweet character, nothing much to say about her except I really enjoyed it whenever she was on screen. Her character design is one of my favorite's in the show and don't even get me started on Lauren Ash because she did a FANTASTIC job!

Catra though is an entirely different story. I never liked her. On any level. Her as a villain also didn't sit right with me, she never felt like a true villain and in the end never felt like a true "hero" or good guy, hell I can't even label her as an anti-hero. I can just label her as... Catra; a weak attempt to write a morally gray antagonist. Or rather, a lot of cliche dialogues and plot points jumbled into one of the antagonists. I think her weak characterization ties in with the fanfiction-esque style of writing I talked about earlier. I also can't sympathize with her character at all, not for a lack of trying or my prejudice, but because the writer's favoritism and the writer's sympathy are ALWAYS pushed onto Catra so much. The consequences of her actions are practically non-existent and when they are, they are framed as though it's the other character's fault (ie. Catra being alone after Adora left.).

What I mean by that is, most of the bad things that happen to Catra, do not happen to her because of something she did, but rather her circumstances, she just keeps doing bad things and gets away with it. There are no consequences for anything that she does. This might be a stupid analogy, but let's say I slap one of my friends and they do not react, however, when I get home my mother slaps me. These are two separate occurrences that, while they do evoke empathy for me (or rather the lyrical I in this hypothetical) since I am being abused, have nothing to do with each other in terms of consequence for what I have done to my friend. Now, if I slap my friend and they either slap me back or perhaps yell at me for doing so, that is a consequence of the action I have done. We rarely see the latter with Catra, in most of the abuse scenes, most of her breakdowns, and most of the scenes that are framed in a way that we as the viewer as supposed to feel bad for Catra in, are just sympathy points. They are FRAMED (writing, voice acting, editing, pacing of the scene) so we feel bad for her and almost as to excuse everything she has done as some kind of defense mechanism almost. This is getting a bit long and I still have 2 points I want to talk about, so I will stop the Catra portion here. Feel free to ask for other specifics or a better explanation if you want!

And now we go onto, Catradora. From my previous section, you might have guessed I am not a fan of the relationship. As much as I'd love to go into detail about how abusive Catra is throughout all of the seasons, their relationship was written as a friends-to-enemies-to-lovers romance, so I'll disregard the portion of the time they were enemies in. Nevertheless, even if you do cut out that portion of their relationship, they are still quite a toxic and abusive couple. When they were growing up, Catra didn't let Adora hang out with the other kids, going as far as scratching her across the face when Adora suggested Catra, Adora, and Lonnie all be friends. Throwing her, jumping on her stomach with the intent of hurting her. Not to mention the manipulative nature of the love confession. And this is something I haven't seen people talk about, but... Adora does not and cannot make Catra feel safe and loved. And that, I believe, is one of the core problems of their relationship we see this, especially in the last season. No matter what Adora does or says, Catra simply does not believe her. I am sorry to cut this short here, with such a strong and in many ways controversial statement, but, as I said, always shoot me an ask for a more in-depth explanation!

The last portion I want to talk about is Double Trouble...and the fact that they're the only non-binary character within the show. I won't talk about their role in the story, an LGBTQ character can be evil or neutral, they don't always have to be good, as long as their villainous behavior is not a damaging stereotype for the community (such as a lesbian character praying on another woman) or their behavior isn't romanticized (ie. Catra). Double Trouble is I believe one of the more damaging representations of the show. They are a non-binary, shape-shifting lizard who imitates anyone they want to gain and manipulate and sees it as performance... Which is one of the MOST COMMON THINGS I've seen non-binary people being labelled as. As well as the only non-binary character within the show not being human, when most, if not all, other characters are human or human-adjacent. When I say Double Trouble is not only a bad but harmful representation of the non-binary community, I really mean it.

Thank you so much for the ask, I hope I was able to articulate my points well! And sorry for this post being incredibly long!

#robin reflects asks #robin reflects on shera #spop critical #spop criticism #anti catra #anti catradora #hordak #shadow weaver #doube trouble critical

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