falafelka

[falafelka]

[falafelka]

You are unironically my favorite Spop artist and the way you draw catra and adora are my favorite ever

Thank you, I am very glad to see this review. Spop is my personal hyperfixation, and that's basically the only reason why I'm painting again after many years of art block...

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About Season 4

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My love is your disease

I won't let it set you free

Til I break you

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I drew this 3 weeks ago, looks like I won't draw a third frame, so let it lie here

I also open my question button again, feel free to ask me something about the show if you're interested in my opinion 👀. Or send me pics of your cats ...but don't write me shit about catradora's toxicity or I'll bite you

[falafelka]

I've often heard the opinion, that Catra was a terrible friend to Scorpia, and that she didn't care about her. To be honest, I don't agree with that, Catra wasn't the worst friend for Scorpia within her capabilities, and really disagree that Catra didn't care about what will happen to Scorpia. I think their relationship is a little more complex than it seems.

(I'm not claiming that their relationship is “healthy and non-toxic,” and etc, I don't want to put any moral judgment on them because I'm not interested in it)

(I'd write many posts about my thoughts on some of the details of the series, but language barrier is eating me alive. Yes, it's a longread with bad English. I hope my attempts to translate this text are successful, but if it's an unreadable mess, let me know 🥲)

Yep, Catra in s1-s4 screws up with communication. The reasons, as I see it, are pretty obvious— she didn't get proper socialization, and on top of that, she was live in constant danger from birth, which had a big impact on her perception of people and contact with them in general. She never had examples of normal relationships in front of her, but she had plenty of things that would convince her to avoid people. Society around her was built on force and violence, she received a clear message that if only she will be strong people would not be able to harm her. (But Catra had Adora, yes. But their friendship, as perceived by Catra, was clearly antagonistic towards the world. Catra wanted to conquer the world with Adora, not be part of it with her)

Plus in s1 Catra has just lived a situation where the one person who promised her safety left her and started fighting against her. This fact, overlaid with the fact that every person she has ever known in her live, be hostile at her or straight threatened her life , explains to me her inability and unwillingness to have friendships. Perhaps she just doesn't see the point of them, because she never thought she could trust anyone but Adora, and after Adora run away from her life, that option was closed in Catra's perception.

(About "every person she known" - I'm not sure how close it is to headcanon, but I suspect that the other cadets could be bullying Catra behind Adora's back. In her perfect version of reality she interacts with other cadets much more often than in real life, this also convinces me of this)

Why then do I say her relationship to Scorpia is not clearly indifferent when I just say she didn't want friendship? Because I think she did care about Scorpia, but in ways that were possible to Catra. 3 facts speak to me about this. 1 - despite her outbursts of anger, as boss Catra is actually patient with Scorpia

Their relationship until the end of Season 4 would be easier to describe as a partnership; it was like a classic villain-sidekick duo. Scorpia acted like Catra's subordinate (she even call Catra as "our leader"), despite the fact that they were of the same rank, Catra repeatedly gave orders to Scorpia

Catra is bad as a friend who doesn't want to share standard friendship signals, but as a boss she is very patient with Scorpia. The only time she snapped at her, I'll describe below. This may sound rude, but as much as I love her, Scorpia… was a terrible employee. She often fails at tasks that are delegated to her.

She's losing the outposts she's guarding, she's failing with paperwork, she's failing to protect an important artifact... Scorpia screws up almost every order.

(Just in case, I say this without any negativity towards the character, she's not bad, she just wasn't suited for her position.)

And Catra is very patient with this. None of her commanders have ever demonstrated tolerance for failures. Her superiors strangled Catra just for self-affirmation of them, tortured her with magic for her insolent phrases and wanted to execute her for failures, while Catra was rude to Scorpia at worst. Catra showed uncharacteristic restraint with her.

2 - Catra defended Scorpia

There are several episodes where this may be shown The most controversial moment is the prison scene. I'm not sure if Catra's refusal to be rescued was a desire to protect Scorpia from the consequences, rather than emotional vulnerability after being stabbed in the back

Perhaps something in between is true, it's a complex scene. After all, she had nowhere to run, and she knew it.

But next scene is much more indicative. Their relationship changed after Catra's emotional outburst in s4. It was rude and unpleasant, but immediately after that moment Catra takes blame for failure on herself.

She didn't say that important data was lost because of Scorpia (as Catra thought it that moment).

Catra knew that Hordak could kill her for failing, which had almost happened in the past, and Catra was clearly scared in that moment. If Scorpia wasn't important to Catra at all, there wouldn't be any point in protecting her. In fact, there is no rational reason, other than affection, to risk her own life for it.

(In addition, Catra was a victim many times, and standing up to the aggressor from your childhood is an action that requires enormous willpower (trust me I know lol))

3 - Catra was worried about Scorpia when she didn't answer on her call

(It doesn’t look that obvious in the screenshots, but her voice at that moments is very expressive) I think no comments are needed here. Scorpia's departure affected Catra so much that she started looking for her through the security camera. Their breakup was one of the reasons that led to Catra's meltdown.

I could probably take more points, but I think my point of view is already clear.

As I said, their relationship does not seem to me univocal. Their relationships are complex and greatly influenced by the context of their life. This is why I love this series.

Perhaps, if they had more time, then even within the Horde their relationship could have come to balance. In any case, it's pretty bittersweet stuff.

[falafelka]

👁️👁️💅

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My blog has been restored and my tags are visible again, I'm glad about it!

Military catradora, I liked the colorless version!

And just Catra

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My thoughts on catradora and sexuality

I’ll start catra because she’s my favourite and also the easiest. I understand where people who call catra a femme fatale are coming from but she’s really not, yes she may be flirtatious and seductive and playful in most of her fights and confrontations, where she uses that behaviour to assert he dominance, but she never follows through. She’s like a femme fatale-wannabe, she doesn’t actually weaponise her sexuality. I mean the only person she’s shown any romantic/sexual interest in is Adora, who she knew for years/grew up with/have a very close relationship/is best friends with, it’s very obvious how Catra isn’t someone that’s comfortable with casual sex/hook-ups. Plus, Catra is someone who very very deeply values vulnerability and intimacy and is not comfortable or trustful of strangers. She feels too much, as evidenced by literally the entire show. She’s a hopeless romantic at heart. If that’s just her personality or a byproduct of her conditioning, that’s another question.

Now Adora. I really don’t know where the characterisation of Adora as this flustered virginal inexperienced ingénue came from. We literally see her have an a sexual/romantc-ish interest on a stranger on-screen (Huntara) and Adora acted the opposite. She was confident and the one to initiate and pursued her relentlessly to the point of annoyance. As opposed to Catra we see her canonically show interest in multiple women. I mean one of Adora’s very important personal traits is how much she loves women, in all forms, she always looks to women and sees them as her role models, she’s so chivalrous and She-Ra is such a textbook ‘protectors of women’ hero. And of course she’s not gonna be a douche about it, even if she had a a girl as a one night stand she’ll still be so gentlewomanly and treat her with all the care and the love she deserves, she’s Adora! Literally the only time I can see her be prude-ish is if she never got out of her conditioning and trauma of thinking she’s just a tool to help other people and that she doesn’t deserve to want or be happy, or if she had the wrong and young lesbian ‘desiring women means objectifying them’ mentality. Thankfully, she grew up and away from both those pitfalls.

I mean even if excluding how Catra and Adora understand each other the best in the world, just this shows how they’re perfect for each other. They balance each other out perfectly.

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Quarantine means finishing comics you started forever ago apparently

PS that’s supposed to be the horde-spy-camera-screen-thing I’m just too lazy for references

PPS click for clearer pictures

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I can't comment, my tags are invisible, it's sad and I still don't know how to fix it, because the new account was also blocked

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Military catradora, I liked the colorless version!

And just Catra

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I'm thinking of creating a new account because tags don't work on this account and I don't know how to fix it

[falafelka]

Catra season 4 in a nutshell

The meme was taken from here