#And so it covers his emotional journey in dealing with his trauma (badly) as well as his physical/temporal one :)

[soft-serve-soymilk]

Adventures in writing my English SAC, also known as 550 words of Theon being an angsty bitch,,

[etheriadearie]

Shadow Weaver’s Death, Her True Abusiveness, And Her Final, Beautiful, Gift To Catra

::The resistance fighters stand in the failsafe chamber. Catra has just called Shadow Weaver out on her manipulation. Shadow Weaver reluctantly explains the danger of the failsafe, and then implores Adora to take it: even if she fails, Shadow Weaver says, she will save her friends, and the universe. As literally every other person in that room cries out against Adora taking the risk, Adora turns and says she will do it. Catra, dismayed, runs to her telling her that Shadow Weaver is sacrificing her, and demands to know why she's letting her do that. Adora tells Catra "Because even if she is, it's better than Prime getting the Heart and destroying the universe." Catra trembles in deathly fear, her face consumed in terrible realization: if Adora does as SW wishes, she will die. Shadow Weaver is trying to kill Adora. She knows this to her very soul, because... she is Shadow Weaver... And Adora is letting it happen…

Hi there, my name is Joel, and in this segment I'll be looking at Shadow Weaver's death, her being a child abuser, her terrible manipulations of Catra and Adora and the monstrous pains the two girls have to conquer to save themselves from her.

The main premise I'll be trying to explain here is that, like Horde Prime, Shadow Weaver is a villain of utmost seriousness. And, like Horde Prime, the girls will treat her as one, surpassing and defeating her once and for all. But it won't be with violence, but instead with love, creating a beautiful story of two people transcending their trauma and hurt through coming together over their love for one another.

I feel obliged to warn readers: this post will cover child abuse, even predatation (*not sexual, ie). It may be hard to read. Also warning: tl;dr, please consider at least sitting down to read this!

Finally, I know there are Shadow Weaver fans out there; that's good. Shadow Weaver is, at times, cool af. But, definitively a terrible person within the plot of the show.

So, even if you're a fan of Shadow Weaver, I still encourage you to read along because as we reveal her truth and the damage she deals to Catra and Adora, it makes her final moment so, so much more beautiful… and it gives entirely new meaning to her final... two… words….

Disclaimer time: Taking on Shadow Weavers death is ambitious for a first post, I know. But understanding her is crucial to understanding most of the major moments in this show. Still, I should say here that while this may seem a bit ‘head’ canon-y, I assure you my conclusions come from watching the show carefully and referencing the entirety of the rest of the show back to this one moment. I'm instead positing these as theories, and let's just say I feel I have the data, and Data Never Lies! Please *do* ask questions or seek calcifications in the comments or Ask me anything (I'm new to Tumblr).

----Part 1: Catra, Micah, and the Truth----

To start this journey we will travel backwards in the series to investigate the what and why of the terrible child abuse Catra suffered growing up under Shadow Weaver's care. We will be looking chiefly at the Light Spinner episode in the 2nd season. We will cover Catra's confrontation and SW's -supposed- explanation for her abuse, then the tale of Micah and Shadow Weaver's manipulation of him, and then the terrible truth of why Catra -really- was abused.

>A terribly alone Catra asks her abusive mother why she did it. Why did she treat her so badly ?

Shadow Weaver answers: "Because you remind me of myself. You always have. Nothing was ever easy for me either. I wasn't born to power like Adora and... others. I had to earn my power, fight for it. Why should it be any different for you?"

This is a very typical reason for an abuser to feel they are acting out their abuse on others: no one in this world understands my pain, so therefore I will inflict my pain upon a child so that they will know my pain as well. For many people this is essentially the truth of their abusers. I can't see any other reason for MY abusers to do what they did, other than this. It is, however, not the truth about Catra. We will discuss this in detail later.

We then watch as Catra does a very strong and eloquent job of rejecting and condemning it. She shows great emotional pain as she does so, and we know that her trauma is severe from watching her. Catra exclaims, her face full of emotional hurt and pain at Shadow Weaver's betrayal: "I was a child when you took me in. What could I have possibly done to deserve the way you treated me? I am nothing like you. You are old, and bitter, and weak."

Everything she says is perfectly true. As a child, there is no way she could have deserved the abuse Shadow Weaver inflicted on her. There never is. And she's also right when she says she's not anything like Shadow Weaver. Where Shadow Weaver is an unfeeling monster (as we will see), Catra feels deeply. Catra is inherently good, and while she will make terrible mistakes to come, she feels intense remorse. Shadow Weaver simply does not.

So, Shadow Weaver gives Catra a believable reason for the abuse, which, again, is a lie. But... there is meaning which we need to take from her choice of words: Shadow Weaver feels others, like Adora and Micah, are given an unfair advantage over people like herself. We will come back to this important insight soon...

Before we get to the real, harsh truth of why Catra was abused, we need to understand the tale of Micah and ‘Light Spinner’-‘s manipulation of him to get power.

>The story of Micah seems to be full of whimsy and childlike innocence. A young boy is talented beyond his years, a true prodigy. SW trains him, giving him access to teachings beyond what a sorcerer of his age should have. She tells him he's special, a true talent, like her. When she tells him "the guild needs talents like OURS more than ever before" she manipulates him, making him feel apart, better than all the other students and teachers, and that only SW can understand. It's SW's greatest talent: dividing people against each other, and this is part of her lifelong manipulation of Catra and Adora. Note: Castaspella accuses SW of mind controlling Micah (s5e8) to which SW responds "My gifts were always far subtler than that” - SW controls young Micah through mind games.

>SW hints of something of great importance, but then says "you're not ready". Micah demands to know, he's a special boy after all, right? He's so incredibly naive and innocent, doing things like chewing on magic crystals and acting out in class. He is, in fact, exactly the kind of privileged child who SW so greatly hates. This is where we get real meaning out of SW's supposed explanation for abusing Catra: Micah has inborn power that SW feels he is unworthy of possessing...

She preys upon his naiveness, showing him the Horde army. He, of course, demands they be stopped, and he's playing right into her hands. When she tells him the plan and of the upcoming meeting she tells him "I only hope that Norwyn and his followers can see the threat as clearly as YOU do." Again, she is making him feel apart, as though he's better than others. After all, he's a special little prodigy, right ?

SW gives her presentation at the council, trying to prey upon their fear by saying that the Horde have a rune stone. As she speaks of the spell of obtainment, her eyes are full of lust at the idea of so much power. But it is forbidden, and for good reason. As she looks over her shoulder at Norwyn her look is severe, accusing. She has no respect for him. And he's right to say that the problem will be handled: the war, in fact, does become a stalemate and stays that way all the way up until we are first introduced to Catra and Adora. Angrily, greedily, she demands they get power so they can 'have a planet to protect'.

She fails to convince them, but of course Micah sees her leaving the meeting, angry and frustrated, so he comes to her aide. "They never listen to me. After all I've done I still haven't earned their trust". Again, SW is set apart from them. When she says "they just want to hold the rest of us back" she's including Micah, making him feel separate, better, like her. She's indoctrinating him in her plan.

>We get a scene between Catra and SW here, where Catra tries to get SW to give her a reason to save her. All SW wants to know is when she's being sent to Beast Island: she realizes she has to escape that night. She sets out to manipulate Catra into giving her the reagent she needs to escape. SW talks up how weak and powerless she is, preying on Catra's lingering pity, desire for connection. A emotionally desperate Catra unfortunately gives it to her. Catra tells her "you don't get to ask things of me anymore" but she's desperate and depressed, feeling totally alone after so recently seeing Adora and consequently nearly dying the episode before, only to be saved by Scorpia's caring about her.

>And apprehensive Micah asks SW if she's sure this is a good idea. She tells him "WE need this power, it's the only way to protect our people". It's a lie, but Micah thinks he's special because he's SW's apprentice, and so he agrees to do it.

As the spell begins to work, we see a terrifying eldritch horror type of creature summoned. It soon breaks free even as Micah helps SW try to contain it. SW acts surprised to see it, but she always knew this spell. Micah runs, and SW stays, yelling angrily at Micah for leaving. She experiences fear as it consumes her, but she knows it's part of getting her power. This is the price she pays to become powerful. She tells Micah he betrayed her by abandoning her and yet, what other possible outcome was there but for them BOTH to be destroyed or corrupted? Norwyn tries to stand up to her, telling her "bringing you into our ranks was a grave mistake". She counters calling him a fool. "You're all weak. None of you deserve my help".

I often see people say this show doesn't show death, but what happens next is undeniably so: it is murder. She annihilates two sorcerer's in one hit, consumes the head sorcerer to give her more magical power. It is pure evil. As she realizes her new power she exclaims "The spell worked. I am stronger than ALL of you." She menaces Micah.

This. Was. Always. The. Plan. The spell worked, she says so herself. Micah tries to defend himself weakly against her, he's entirely at her mercy. He expects death, but instead she caresses his cheek, touches his ear. Then she gives him a look of disdain. It's no mistake she covers half her face even at this point in her history, so we can't know her full emotions. But it's clear, she condescends to him: he was a naive little pawn, not meant to survive, or at minimum, he was supposed to become corrupted like her. But it doesn't matter. She got what she wanted. So she leaves him to live knowing what he's done. The tale of ‘Light Spinner’ has ended: her better persona was just an illusion, useful in her goal of obtaining more power. An empowered Shadow Weaver then shows up at the Fright Zone, killing the guard as a demonstration of power. She declares herself for Hordak, and at least a partial truth is apparent: she wanted the vampiric power so she could channel the Black Garnet. Changing sides bothers SW not at all.

I point out SW’s violence because it is the only time they show any graphic death in this show, and it's therefore meant to show that SW is different, and dangerous. There really was no ‘Light Spinner’, as at multiple moments during her time at Mystacor her true emotions show through (such as pic1, top) and they are both vile and malicious, to put it lightly. Furthermore, note that SW going to the Horde doesn't end up ensuring their victory over the princesses, so yes, in fact, SW was lying to Micah all along. Last, keep in mind Micah’s opinion of her later on: SW is never to be trusted.

Now it's time to get back to the real reason Catra was abused and it's important implications for Adora's abuse as well.

>The scene following Catra's confrontation with SW, we see baby Adora having just arrived in the Fright Zone. SW walks past her, not particularly interested... and yet she sees something in her. And so she takes interest. She knows, in some way, that Adora will wield powerful magic, and since it also becomes clear to us that SW knows all about the past history of She-ra and the Heart of Etheria, it's a logical jump to say she probably thinks Adora is She-ra. Either way, Adora is a powerful orphan child with inborn talent beyond any normal expectation.

Sound familiar? The tale of Micah is there to inform this moment: SW meeting baby Adora. She is in a position to wield ultimate control over a magically privileged child. And the implications are not good...

Apologies to readers here, this next part is intense. Just a quick warning. The total implication of this is that SW never loved Adora, just like she didn't care about Micah. It is all manipulation, and it should be noted that at this point SW has switched to a full mask, conveniently hiding all emotion except a sliver of her eyes (as well as hiding her corrupted features). It's now almost entirely impossible to accurately read her emotions. I don't think she wants you to, as she really has no feelings of actual compassion. She only sees Adora as a privileged child she will use and then discard for her own power.

This means she is, in fact, a child predator. In this case, she's a predator of children of privilege, but the effect is the same: she sees such children as easy targets for her to manipulate for her own gain. Worse, the strong emotional feelings which Adora naturally feels towards those around her makes her easier to control, and SW manipulates this vulnerability against her, as a child and then again as they are headed for the failsafe.

So, returning to the real truth of why SW abused Catra. Let's take a look back at Catra’s condemnation of SW's explanation for her abuse, and it's just one line we need to understand: "I was a child, what could I have possibly done to deserve the way you treated me?" As it turns out, Catra -did- do something, and you have to adore and appreciate this show because we don't get this answer until the very end. Before season 5 was available, it would simply be impossible to understand Catra's story fully. The creators want you to come full circle of so many understandings, the story is that deep.

It's that one, beautiful, follow on line when Catra confesses her love to Adora- She says "I always have"...

Adora was Shadow Weaver's tool, her next prey. So, along comes Catra, who experiences romantic love for Adora right from the start. Beautiful, total love and devotion. SW sees this, and she decides that she can't let Catra be a hindrance to her plans. And yet she knows she can't kill Catra outright or risk losing Adora's affection. So she hurts Catra, tries to make her weak, to diminish her. She is trying to crush Catra's spirit, her will to live, all while making sure to instill a sense of duty and ambition in Adora which makes her less available to Catra. The abuse works, but not on Catra. Catra stays loyal to Adora, and is so secretly strong within herself in such a way that SW fails to destroy her spirit, although Catra has such incredible trauma from it that we see her struggle with it throughout the rest of the series.

But the abuse does work on Adora and so she grows apart from Catra in such a way that Catra eventually comes to feel Adora doesn't love her. And when Adora so clearly breaks the final half of the promise she made to Catra, Catra too, grows apart from Adora.

Catra therefore represents a person in this story who would have been so entirely below SW's notice that had she not loved Adora the way she did, SW would never have taken the time to hurt her. It wouldn't have been worth her time, and Catra would have had a happy(ish) childhood if not for loving Adora. By the way, this truth of SW's abuse of Catra is indeed confirmed in the show, but we don't have time to cover it here and it deserves its own theory post, anyways.

Before we get back to s5 let's take a brief moment to address SW's abuse of Adora: Adora is the kind of person who can't help but empathetically feel the pain of others when they feel it, and it's what makes her to be so unable to balance her own needs against those of others who are hurting. And so SW making Adora have ambition, to want to win at the expense of others, is actually a frightening manipulation. SW teaches Adora to believe she has to do this in order to be the leader, and then as the leader she must protect everyone else from harm. Adora goes on to show great emotional confusion over this, as she doesn't really feel she’s qualified to be that leader. It makes her feel alone from everyone else, and makes Adora worry about every decision she makes. SW essentially saddles Adora with a lonely burden of leadership, one which she's not well suited for. Adora has a very ADHDish (I’m no expert on ADHD) response to this where she bounces around trying to satisfy everyone else’s feelings, such as within their unit, and so her relationship with Catra suffered because of this.

To sum up, the abuses SW inflicts on the two of them results in their division from each other, and it's a division which tries to tear down both girls spiritually throughout this series. They each have specific traumas relating to Shadow Weaver's abuse of them. These are different, damaging fears SW instilled in each of them to make them easier to control. Because of this, both girls contribute to their separation to the two different sides of the war, and it's only through the great emotional learning of each of them that they are able to start putting it back again in season 5. And so, we will see that when SW returns in season 5, she immediately tries to pick up where she left off… to drive them apart from each other and manipulate them, once again, for her own gain.

Side note #2 before we get back to season 5: SW has a complete and total lack of love for Catra as well. Her callous manipulation of Catra, followed by leaving the fright zone like she did, was a spiritual blow and then a death sentence for Catra. SW would know this and yet she simply did not care. Furthermore, when they meet in Moment of Truth (s3ep4), SW again tries to kill Catra, only stopping short because Glimmer can't withstand the magical drain SW is taking from her. She's just not good people... And if she has such a total lack of love or compassion for Catra, it's a logical jump that she has just as little love and feeling for Adora.

Anyways... let's work on that season 5, phew, I know this is long. We're not done yet, though...

----Part 2: The present up till SW’s Death----

Alright, so returning back to season 5 where we began...

Catra is certain that SW is killing Adora. And the reason Catra is so certain of this is because she understands this fundamental truth behind the childhood abuse of of her and Adora. She knows that SW intended to use Adora, and was grooming her in order to use her to gain more power. And, she knows the true nature of SW’s abuse of Catra herself, that it was meant to destroy her so she wouldn't get in the way of SW using Adora.

How exactly Catra knows this I won't cover here, it would take too long and it deserves its own theory post. But, it is pretty well confirmed in the show as well. No distractions! Moving on...

So… when Adora tells Catra she will take the failsafe even though SW is killing her, it's Catra’s knowledge that SW is for certain doing this to Adora which leads Catra to shake in fear, and then refuse Adora once she returns with the failsafe. This moment goes much deeper than just Catra knowing she can't live without Adora, although that is also true.

Ok so here it is, the big theme we will now delve into, that explains so much:

The all important, crucial thing that Catra isn't seeing is that in order for SW to sacrifice Adora, it is entirely dependent on abusive manipulations is SW doing to both of them, starting from the moment they first see SW in season 5, which are intended to make sure Adora doesn't survive deploying the failsafe.

I know it's a tough implication to accept, but I promise to explain. So why? Why would SW not want Adora to survive? This, atleast, should be obvious: She-ra could stop SW once she has the power, so She-ra is an enemy that SW needs to eliminate to achieve ultimate power. So, SW's goal is to get Adora to bring the failsafe to the heart, but then be too weak to survive the process... leaving SW the uncontested champion by her magical vampiric powers. And so... SW manipulates the two girls, doing her most familiar trick: driving them apart, making them feel isolated from each other.

Her manipulations begin from the very moment Catra and Adora see her in season 5, and they continue up until Adora accepts the failsafe and a bit beyond.

So let's lay this out from the beginning, shall we? Episode 10: When SW walks into the room, saying she knows where the failsafe is, Catra is at first surprised at her appearance, she's thrown off guard. Catra very much wanted to stop SW once and for all, but never got the chance. And now, the new, more feeling Catra is faced with her oldest enemy: she can't hide her hatred and anger at her. It pretty much takes everything she's got not to violently attack her right there and then. But this new Catra isn't going to sink to that low. And yet... SW will intentionally aggravate and attack Catra to reactivate her trauma.

What I find very interesting about that scene, though, is that both Glimmer and Adora immediately look to Catra, knowing she will be upset, both trying to help her. And yet, it's Glimmer who looks first.

Even though Glimmer never says it out loud, Glimmer knows SW played and manipulated Glimmer herself, and that her manipulations were ultimately the reason that Glimmer made the mistake of activating the Heart, which brought Horde Prime's fleet down upon Etheria. Glimmer also watched SW torture and almost kill Catra in s3ep4, so I think Glimmer knows very well how dangerous SW is and how badly she's hurt Catra in the past. Instead, we can take the story of Glimmer and SW as another stand out example of how, once again, we saw SW manipulate someone, Glimmer in this case, with no concern for her well being.

>Adora is also thrown off by SW's reappearance, she doesn't enjoy seeing her either. But then, she also sympathetically looks to Catra, knowing this is a hurtful moment for her. All of this is to say that Catra actually has strong allies against SW, unlike in the past. And it's very important that Adora is such a staunch ally to Catra against SW, in fact it's everything. But, Adora doesn't quite do a good enough job in showing Catra how strongly aligned she, too, is against SW. Unintentional though it may be, as we will see.

>Episode 11: Continuing on, Glimmer immediately opposes SW's desire to use the heart's power. Castaspella tries to say SW is the lesser of evils, but of course, Castaspella is just a pawn. Catra jumps on Casta's words, calling SW evil... SW taunts her back mockingly and we see Catra's anger start to get out of control. But, Adora knows, one way or another, that SW is the root of all of Catra's pain, and so she comforts her, showing her that she sees her pain, and that she's got her back.

Again, it's very important that Adora is Catra's greatest ally against SW, as she has learned to treat SW as a de facto enemy because she has seen the pain and torment Catra experienced because of SW’s abuse; in addition to her own knowledge of how SW manipulated herself as a child.

>Adora confronts SW, asking why she even needs their help getting the failsafe. SW answer is a lie, but plays to her manipulation of Casta, who she needs: she says she can't get past Micah. (Note: who she actually needs is Adora.) As SW tells her plan she leans into Adora's emotional fears of letting others get hurt and reminds Adora she has to be the hero, SW even touches Adora, which we see Catra react angrily to. But, SW successfully manipulates Adora into accepting her plan, and Catra can't stand to watch it as she knows it must somehow be a dangerous manipulation. Catra quietly leaves to try to process her anger. We then see Adora slap SW's hand away, showing defiance, but as Catra has left, she probably doesn't see that. Adora looks around and sees that Catra is gone, which SW responds to by trying to manipulate her into leaving Catra behind, as she knows Adora is more vulnerable without Catra around. But Adora is wary of SW's manipulations, and goes after Catra. SW is aggravated by this.

>The two girls have a very good, emotional talk about SW. Catra is dismayed, but Adora is always brave for others, so she tells her she's got to try. Adora acknowledges Catra's pain, their pain, from SW's abuse. Ultimately Adora convinces Catra to come. Together, Adora says SW can't hurt them anymore. Catra reminds Adora how dangerous SW is, but the girls have reaffirmed their bond, their promises to each other. Which is important later, as this will come up again.

>As they infiltrate Mystacore, Catra is apprehensive and stays at the back. But as the mission progresses she drifts towards the front, trying to be the lookout so she can protect Adora. This, unfortunately, puts her in physical proximity to SW when they check the ritual chamber. Catra checks the chamber, but then a sorcerer appears out of nowhere (literally, how??) and SW grabs her in a way that's very reminiscent of s1ep2, traumatizing her.

I can't help but conclude SW is being intentionally hurtful in order to unnerve Catra. She could have just pointed, or put her hand to Catra's mouth, after all. Catra throws herself away from SW, demanding she not touch her, and makes the mistake of dropping the spell and revealing their presence. Look closely at this scene and you see Adora actually shows great anger, even violent intent towards SW for doing this to Catra, but it's so quick Catra probably doesn't see it, as she's staring down SW instead.

Under a track, Adora tries to become She-ra, but she's too emotionally conflicted since the episode before when they returned to the Fright Zone and Adora started to realize she's been letting Catra down, leaving her hanging. And SW's hurting of Catra also blocks Adora, she's trying to help Catra and yet she's accepting SW's guidance again, which she knows Catra hates and doesn't trust.

>As they pass through the door and continue down a corridor, Adora sees Catra is in emotional pain and holding herself, so she lends her emotional support. She knows SW touching her was incredibly abusive. She tells Catra that it'll be ok, and to trust her, hitting her with her dearest look of love and care for her. She knows SW is Catra's enemy, and she's got her back. Catra looks back, trying to trust her, to put her fear aside. But the moment is cut short when SW interrupts them, guilting Catra for revealing their presence. Adora walks on, saying they have to keep moving, and her face says she's doing it to stop SW from talking to Catra, but again, Catra doesn't see Adora's face. Catra feels left behind, that the moment was cut short. It's by the barest off margins Catra is missing how strongly Adora is coming down against SW for her sake.

> We get more information about SW's corruption next, that it's a way to bypass the crystal of Arxia and get at Heart of Etheria's energy, and we know this because it's discussed immediately after Castaspella tells them about the crystal of Arxia. So, if the magic is released, SW will have practically unlimited power. SW just mocks Casta when she tries to guilt SW over using the spell, she gives no apology. We see both Catra and Glimmer seemingly have a deeper realization about SW and her powers and that both of them look disturbed by it.

>Continuing on, we get the scene where Catra saves Adora from fire, which is so cute but I'll skip the romantic implications: as Catra walks through the fire, Adora stops and frets over not knowing what to do about Catra, how to give her what she wants. Adora is worried she's going to fail, that she could die. It's Adora's biggest, lifelong fear as the bearer of She-ra, and she struggles with it continuously throughout the series. To her, it therefore doesn't make sense to her to get Catra's hopes up too soon.

>Adora's thoughts naturally turn to her inability to transform... and SW pounces on the opportunity in order to exploit it.

Consider now, if Adora's problem is becoming She-ra, why does SW immediately give her a hard time about Catra, instead? Adora rejects SW's criticism, but SW flips the conversation telling Adora she can't be a weak She-ra and seemingly blaming it all on Catra. She tells Adora that her weakness means she's letting everyone else down. SW tells her she has to focus, and Catra makes her weak. This is terribly the opposite of the truth and SW knows this. What she’s really doing is a deep manipulation of Adora that leans on her early abuse of her: Adora has to be perfect for everyone else, and as she's the only one who can do it, she's totally alone in this burden. The truth is that Adora has always needed other people, that's where she draws strength from. Catra loves Adora simply for who she is: she represents the strongest, smartest and most dedicated person, ie, she's the most powerful person to help Adora with her emotional need for support.

Which SW knows, so she does her best to try to separate them, to make Adora think she's alone. SW does this by grouping Catra with everyone else: save everyone, or no one. Then she delivers a direct assault of Adora spiritually by saying "the world needs She-ra right now, not Adora". She's telling Adora that she doesn't matter, only She-ra matters, and she needs to be willing to give it all up to be that hero. We see Adora search SW's face, she's not satisfied and then she does her best to reject her, pulling her hand away in anger while saying she will stop Prime “no matter what.” Catra is eavesdropping on this, but can't see that Adora stands up to SW so strongly... as usual. Catra knows SW is up to no good with it, though. Doubt takes root in Adora, and it aggravates her fears that she's not good enough to be She-ra.

>Arriving at the failsafe chamber, SW gives away just how much she already knows about the Heart. SW explains the failsafe, and so we know she always planned on getting Adora to accept the failsafe, risking it all. Adora approaches, trying to be brave for everyone else.

One of Catra's most important moments follows: she stops Adora from accepting the failsafe, and calls SW out for her bullshit. She's not going to let Adora walk into a trap when she knows better. Catra flips it on SW, telling her to take the failsafe, making SW tell them why it's dangerous, why SW won't do it herself. She points out how SW knows too much, yet didn't pursue the power of the failsafe. Catra is totally certain that SW wants to hurt Adora, and so she's calling her out to get SW to reveal her manipulation of Adora.

SW instead tries to guilt Adora, saying she alone understands that this is the only way to stop Prime. But Catra stands firm, she protects Adora from SW's manipulation as best she can.

Confronted and trapped by Catra's having seen through her plan, we see literally every person in the room ally themselves against SW. SW is forced to admit the truth: using the failsafe will mean death even for She-ra, if she isn't strong enough.

And so Adora realizes what's coming, that She-ra is the only one who can do it. She's terrified and sad at the thought that this could, will, be her end; that she really will have to give it all up for everyone else. She's always thought she'd have to. It's a deep held belief that she's alone in her burden as She-ra.

Adora asks the obvious question: What happens if I die? SW's next words prey upon Adora's every weakness, her lack of belief in her self worth, and innate need to protect others: "Then the magic will be restored to Etheria, through your sacrifice. You will give us the power to bring us to victory. Prime will be defeated. Your friends will be free." SW is listing out every last thing that will happen if Adora doesn't do it, and each is a part of her greatest fears. Adora is unable to resolve between her distrust of SW and need to protect and be brave for everyone else's sake. SW has her trapped by her own emotions.

Catra looks on, watching the manipulation, seeing the consequences of Adora attempting this. Everything about this moment speaks to manipulations SW has used on Adora before: she preys on emotional need and weakness, she isolates Adora in her burden, she even does the dreaded ear touch. If Adora does what SW says, Catra knows it'll be the death of her.

As SW completes her manipulation, everyone in the room cries out against the unfair decision Adora must make. And yet, Adora doesn't see a choice. Catra puts it best, saying: "you don't care about Adora, Adora can't even care about herself!"

But Bow's words also have meaning: "Theres no way we're risking Adora like that." For all that Bow and Glimmer have done for Adora, she's still supposed to be the champion that's going to save them. They need things from her, not simply Adora as herself. All in all, Bow and Glimmer did their absolute and kindest best to help Adora, often emotionally supporting her through her depressions and fears of not being a good She-ra. But in the end, they still needed her to be She-ra.

But Catra is different, all she wants is Adora, and for her to be safe and loved, and ideally, to be with her. Catra's opinion in this moment is the true one, the most honest. But Adora can't overcome the thought of failing everyone, and so she pushes forward, saying she will take the failsafe.

Adora is feeling alone, trapped by fate. Catra runs to her, literally shaking her in order to try to convey how sure she is that Adora is going to die if she does this. But Adora can't let the universe die, and she's She-ra. She (Adora) doesn't matter. It's only what she can do to try to fix things for others that matters, her hero's burden. Adora pushes Catra's hands off her, in a lifetime of pain and sorrow Catra has never looked so sad. Adora really is pushing her away, not seeing how seriously Catra feels, how badly she needs Adora to understand her in this moment. A dissociated Adora looks internally, accepting her fate, alone again, isolated.

Maybe Catra could have found a way to get through to Adora, but they run out of time. A chipped Micah shows up and begins to systematically defeat them, and Adora has no more time to choose. SW is easily taken down by Micah, it shows his anger at her. He taunts her, she's got nowhere to hide. This is interesting, but not our focus..

Adora again tries to summon She-ra and fails. She simply can't resolve between her sense of failure to Catra and her need to be brave for everyone else. She looks to Catra, decides to do the brave thing as herself, not as She-ra, even if it means she will fail, and hurt Catra. After all, since she’s She-ra, she has to try, right? This is her burden.

As SW turns to Adora and says "the failsafe... we... we can't" Adora is pressed by urgency, doing what she can. Catra tries one last desperate plea: "Please. It doesn't always have to be you!" Adora can't accept this, internally she is certain she has to save everyone. Even if this includes SW herself, and so when Catra later says Adora chose SW, not her in this moment, Catra is right, except that Adora believed she had no choice. Adora is also the only one in this moment who can reach the failsafe, and so it seems like fate is against her. Adora knows she's probably choosing to die, and if she does, she knows Catra will probably die of a broken heart as well. She really does choose SW over Catra, in a way. It's a tough moment, but taking the failsafe is the right thing to do, given the circumstances.

Receiving the failsafe is intense, and as Adora tries to withstand it, Micah binds the entire party with dark magic. Interestingly, this means SW indoctrinated Micah more than we're shown, and now that he's chipped, he is uninhibited.

Adora sees everyone is in danger, if she doesn't come through now it's all over. It gives her that singular focus she needs, summoning She-ra is easy because if she doesn't, Catra, all of them, are about to die.

Failsafe achieved, Micah vanquished, Adora offers Catra her hand, she's trying to show Catra she's there for her, they are together. But Catra rejects her, she's too sure that SW has won, that Adora will die. In this moment all the old trauma Catra carries is too strong, and SW has unnerved her too greatly. As Catra runs from her, Adora realizes that Catra was trying to tell her something deeper, but somehow she's missed it.

>Catra watches Adora sleep, she's emotionally distraught at the thought of her dying. So, she tries to sneak away. Adora finds out, and manages to confront Catra before she can leave. This is one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful scenes about love in this show, but I'll just cover how SW's manipulations come into play...

>Adora tackles Catra, and demands she explain why she’s leaving. Catra throws SW's words back at Adora, that she's a distraction, that she makes Adora too weak to be She-ra. Catra knows this was a unfair manipulation by Shadow Weaver, but she couldn't see, only hear, what happened between Shadow Weaver and Adora. She doesn't know that Adora rejected Shadow Weaver so strongly, both spiritually and by violently pulling away from her. Adora tries her best to get Catra to see that she's not doing this because of Shadow Weaver's manipulation, that she's trying to rise above SW's control of her. But Catra pushes her away, instead trying to speak to a more central truth: Adora's need to serve everyone else's needs, her inability to regulate her desire to make things better for others who are hurting or will get hurt, and balance that against her own needs and safety. She's speaking to the part of Adora which Shadow Weaver is exploiting to get what she wants from her, to control her. It doesn't really matter in this moment to Catra whether Adora is doing it for Shadow Weaver or not, because either way Adora is allowing Shadow Weaver to win. Catra wants Adora to be better than a slave to her emotional need to help others no matter the cost or danger. She's asking Adora to be strong in herself in a way Adora has never been able to be. She challenges her, asking "What do you want, Adora?" The obvious answer, Catra believes, is her. But Adora is too worried she will die and let Catra down to let her romantic feelings about Catra manifest and make it real between them, and taking the failsafe has made Adora all the more doubtful of her own survival. Adora counters "I have to do this Catra, I'm the only one who can." It's all to say that Adora is alone in her burden, and she accepts it and its consequences because she's She-ra. Adora doesn't believe she has value, or deserves happiness unless she can save everyone, including Catra.

Adora believes as She-ra, she is totally alone in her burden. This is wrong of course, Catra does see her and understands her burden, and is the one person in the world who wishes to share that load with her, unlike the other princesses who need Adora to be a hero and save them. But both girls are weak from their deep traumas which Shadow Weaver has reaggravated, and they can't overcome them. Catra resigns herself to the belief that Adora is unable to rise above her most basic emotional need to serve others, telling her "Then do it. That's what you want, that's what you'll always choose." She can't stand to watch Adora kill herself so willingly to serve everyone else, all while letting SW win. She rejects Adora, and turns to leave. Adora desperately begs Catra to stay, wanting her to uphold their promise and telling her she needs her, but is unable to vocalize her desire to be with Catra romantically. Meanwhile, in Catra's mind, Adora is just going to let herself die, and if she does, then Adora never really needed her after all... all Adora cares about is being She-ra. It's harsh, but true... even if what she's doing about it is so wrong.

It's a painful moment for both of them, and it's horrible because Catra is so clearly breaking their promise, the one that Adora restored to Catra she came to rescue her from Horde Prime. And yet, her leaving will work in the end. Catra gets Adora to see how crucial it is that she not let Shadow Weaver win, to let Shadow Weaver get whatever she wants by taking that cost from Adora's own life. And it's how Adora finally becomes too strong for Shadow Weaver to ever manipulate again.

>As Adora returns to camp, still crying from Catra's abandonment, Shadow Weaver tries to swoop in and make her manipulations of Adora take their final hold. She tells Adora she "made the right choice, don't let Catra convince you otherwise, she's never understood." Dreaded ear touch and all. By saying Catra can't understand, Shadow Weaver tries to make Adora feel alone in her burden as She-ra, seeking to weaken her spirit. But we see a total shift in Adora's attitude as she rejects SW’s cruelty and manipulations entirely. Her words carry incredible weight and speak to how she's so clearly seen through SW's malicious manipulations of the two of them. "Stop. I will never forgive you. You ruin people. You ruin any chance they could ever be happy." Adora just watched Catra reject her and abandon her because she couldn't stand to lose Adora again over SW's manipulations. It's by knowing Catra's pain that Adora is able to finally deny Shadow Weaver any sliver of control over her. As always, Adora couldn't do it for herself, she couldn't resolve between her deeper need to save everyone and SW's plans to use her for her own gain. But Adora is strong for others, and so she's strong for Catra. By leaving, Catra has given Adora the ability to rise above any manipulation Shadow Weaver can do to her.

Adora stands up to Shadow Weaver once and for all in her next words: "I'm going to take the failsafe to the heart, and I'm going to save Etheria. But I am not doing it for you. I'll do everything I can to make sure you never get your hands on the magic." (pic1, fyi) Note the exact words Adora speaks here as we will return to them later, they are important. While Adora has seen past SW’s manipulations, and seen that Shadow Weaver only ever desired power, she doesn't realize how SW's childhood abuse of her and attempts to manipulate her in the present are making her too weak to survive deploying the failsafe. To get past that, Catra must help Adora.

EPISODE 12: We watch as Adora struggles to become She-ra, but eventually manages it. She's seen through SW's plan after all, and so she does her best to believe she is strong enough to win on her own, to survive the heart. But she misses Catra desperately. She rallies her people, and ends her speech by saying resolutely that she will take the failsafe to the Heart and destroy it. It's an incredible speech, Adora has become a wonderful leader, but then she looks up and sees Shadow Weaver hiding in the back. As SW meets her gaze, She-ra's form falters and we see Adora's face for a split second. She's furious at her, that she hurt Catra so badly that she ran away.

Adora moves away from the group so they don't see her lose her She-ra form because of the turmoil she feels over Shadow Weaver and losing Catra. Bow and Glimmer check on Adora, knowing she has a tendency to try to sneak away so people won't see her risk her life. Glimmer is perceptive and asks about Catra, she knows it's Catra that Adora needs, that her being gone is tearing Adora up inside. Glimmer is a great friend to the both of them. Adora voices concern for their safety if they come with her, but Bow and Glimmer know Adora needs support. And so they will try their best, even though they know Adora is heartbroken from Catra leaving her.

>Buoyed by their support, Adora goes to the ruins to try to face her final task, to overcome it through her own strength alone. Bow and Glimmer take her hands, we see Adora does her best to set her fear aside. And yet, as they enter she wonders where Catra is, whether she will come back to honor their promise.

>Catra looks back, also experiencing pain over their separation. She has not been able to overcome her trauma, and manage her feelings. Well isn't it just nice to have a telepathic therapy pet! Melog stops, and forces her to actualize her feelings and process them. At first Catra tries to deny them, saying she won't go back, but Melog sits on her. She cries, saying out loud her deepest feelings. Let's take this one in steps. "You saw what happened, A-Adora chose Shadow Weaver, not me". In a very real sense Adora did do this, she pushed Catra away in the failsafe chamber. She ignored Catra's warnings and, in Catra's mind, committed herself to death at the hands of SW's manipulation. The next line is one of the most important in the series, but we will only cover it briefly as it's romantic implications are best discussed elsewhere: "Adora doesn't want me, not like I want her." We get to see one of the most honest truths about Catra: she is an intensely romantic person, and has always had the most incredible dreams of them being together. But a lifetime of pain has told Catra that it can't be real, or atleast, not for her. It is deep seated trauma that blocks her, trauma Shadow Weaver started and then aggravated against her, making her leave Adora just moments before. Catra is, in a word, furious that she's come this far, having dared to dream once again that the two of them could be together and in love, only to have SW come in and take that from her once again.

Let's take a moment to consider how Catra is doing as she adapts to her new emotional way of dealing with the world, as she has shifted her perspective since rejoining Adora: The old Catra might have simply struck SW down, maybe even killed her to remove the threat. But now, Catra doesn't want to do that but is expected to trust in Adora’s ability to overcome the threat through her inner strength, and the through the strength of her community. But, as far as Catra could see, Adora just accepted her death as necessary rather than fighting SW’s manipulations. And this worries her, and it's why it's so important to Catra that she not let Shadow Weaver win, so Catra leaves to make sure Adora gets the message. She's wrong to do this, and she realizes this after opening up to Melog. Adora needs Catra to have faith in her, because without her support, there's no chance Adora overcomes what Shadow Weaver is trying to do to her.

>Glimmer watches the doubt play across Adora's face. She doesn't know how to make it better, since Catra isn't with them. She asks her if she's scared, and Adora answers back as truthfully as she can: "No, I just really hope this works." She's putting on a good face while trying to believe there's a chance, but when Bow tells her it's going to be a whole new world when she's done, Adora doubts. Can she even survive? Will Catra be gone forever? The next scene is, of course, very romantic. We see that Adora has always loved Catra, just like Catra loves Adora. The magic is trying to remind Adora of her own desires, her wants. Let's not get too distracted though: as Adora moves on, vowing to not let the magic distract her, we see her She-ra form falter, she's still fighting despair and loneliness. Bow and Glimmer don't know what to do...

>Catra sees Horde Prime begin hacking the planet and knows Adora is in grave danger of not succeeding in her last, unselfish mission before Prime stops her. Catra can't let this happen, also, since Melog has helped her process her emotional pain, she's ready to support Adora in any way she can, even if it means her hopes and dreams of them being together will be unfulfilled. She tries to rush to her side.

>Adora is panicking and unable to resolve her feelings of failure to Catra, She-ra is in danger of fading again. She sees the sword as she saw it back when she first left Catra, her hand goes to the failsafe on her chest, the thing that made Catra reject her after she accepted it. She tells Bow and Glimmer she can't escape her destiny. The words "I'm losing her" speak to a deep held belief by Adora that she's not worthy of survival because she feels that she has never been able to help the one person she truly loves, making her no hero. All of the manipulations of Shadow Weaver, Horde Prime, even Light Hope are crushing down on her. She believes she has to accept her fate, to die to fulfill her duty as She-ra. It's the price she has to pay for not being good enough, for hurting Catra when she left her to become She-ra. She thanks Bow and Glimmer for their love and support. "I never could have done any of this without you." Bow and Glimmer did everything they could to prop Adora up, get her out of her depressions when she felt she wasn't good enough to be She-ra. But they still needed her to be She-ra, and therefore they can't help her get past her deepest insecurities. To do that, she needs someone who has unconditional love for her. She needs Catra. Adora leaves Bow and Glimmer behind, trying to protect them, so that only she will have to die.

>Catra finds Shadow Weaver patiently waiting to receive her power, to be able to achieve dominion over everyone else. SW tells Catra "She's gone to the heart of Etheria to free the magic and become the hero she was born to be." The dead hero, that is. As SW tries to guilt Catra, calling her selfish, she glares back. She stands up to SW, rejecting the manipulation: "Enough! This isn't about you and your messed up power trip anymore!”

In this moment, Catra shows us how clearly she understands SW's goal. She calls her out perfectly. She tells SW that Prime is infecting the planet to take the heart, which changes everything, including for SW.

>As Catra leads SW, having forced her to cooperate, they see Prime's broadcast and Catra knows they have to act. She demands SW take them to Adora, and doesn't accept her lies. She knows SW can do it with magic, and demands she comply. Her words hit home "So do something good with it for once and help me save Adora before it's too late." Notice the similarity to when Glimmer asks Catra to be better on Horde Prime’s ship. SW is trapped, she has to comply. If Adora doesn't reach the heart, no magic for SW, universe ends. Catra accepts SW's hand, though it hurts her to do so.

>Catra and SW arrive in the corridor. As Catra gets the truth from Glimmer, she's dismayed. "Of course she's gone, that's what she does, isn't it?" She knows in this moment that Adora is consumed by fear, her inadequacies. As she finishes briefing Bow and Gimmer on the situation, she tells them she will stay to help Adora, and she invokes their promises to each other. It's an important moment, as it is the two of them together, their promises to each other, that gives them the strength to surpass SW's manipulations of them. Glimmer knows Catra is in love with Adora, so she leaves Adora in Catra's care. Bow’s words are important as well, speaking to the power of the Best Friend Squad. It gives Catra a boost to her morale, a belief that maybe there's a chance she and Adora can overcome the odds they face.

>Adora looks out over Etheria, seeing its beauty. Mara joins her. Adora tries to promise Mara that she will save the world, everyone, at any cost. Mara flat out rejects this as wrong, she doesn't let Adora promise. Mara confronts Adora on her decision to die for everyone else. When Mara asks her what she wants, Adora says it doesn't matter, that she's She-ra. Again, an isolationist view, a lonely burden, just like SW wants her to believe. Mara tells Adora that she, Adora, has value as a person, not only as a hero, and that she deserves love, too. As Mara tells to not lose hope, Adora is emotionally moved but you can tell she's still struggling to accept Mara’s words because of her feelings of inadequacy and loneliness. Mara manages to pass some courage to her, but then Horde Prime cuts them short.

Prime leans into Adora’s fears, threateningly. Like SW, he knows how to exploit her. He was in Catra's head and so he knows what Catra knows. He tells her that her failure is imminent, that she is already defeated, like the other She-ra's. The guardian monster then strikes and infects Adora, and she finally loses her grip on her She-ra form. He tells her even her own people didn't want her to make it to the heart, telling her the whole world is against her, and that she's totally alone. She tries to counter this with defiance, but the virus has her. She knows she's in trouble.

----Part 3: Final Moments, and Death, of SW----

>Episode 13. Adora is in pain, trying to understand the nature of the infection. The monster towers over her, it has only to reach out to deal the killing blow, she's defenseless. Suddenly Catra shows up, engaging the monster. Adora's only concern is for Catra's safety, telling her to leave her because it's too dangerous. But Catra has decided: she will do whatever it takes to give Adora her chance to save the universe, if that's what she wants. Even if it means Adora has to die. She tells SW to get Adora to the heart, which Adora objects to. SW is looking closely at Adora and seeing her illness, evaluating. As Adora begs for Catra to not leave her, Catra tells Adora she'll catch up. After all, they are the best friend squad. Bow's words have given Catra a small amount of hope that maybe it'll be ok. Adora, now that Catra has finally shown up, is desperate to not lose her again, and knows fighting this monster is too dangerous for her alone. But she's sick, and unable to help her. SW takes Adora unwillingly towards the heart.

>Catra is doing her best, but the monster is too much, even for her. She tries to slip away, seeing the virus continuing to spread. She's trying to get to Adora, who’s alone with SW. Horde Prime stops her (no keep running!!) and she gets caught. He mocks her, telling her he expected better. But Catra has already surpassed his greatest expectations, and she'll stop him yet... as the monster catches her, she cries out in anguish. It seems the cruelty of the universe has caught up to her again, after all...

>As SW tries to bring Adora to the heart, Adora's sickness is rapidly advancing. She demands SW wait, but she's too weak to resist. The thought of losing Catra again is weakening her spirit and allowing the virus to take over. SW tells her not to lose her focus, she's still hoping Adora will deploy the failsafe before dying. But then the virus seemingly attacks Adora's heart and SW watches the failsafe nearly fade out. SW looks up, she's close enough to already siphon power from the heart. Her lust for power is apparent.

As Adora hears Catra’s scream, she forcefully pushes herself from SW, and starts to go back for Catra. SW calls for her to wait, but Adora leaves her behind.

This is it, the turning point. The great moment of truth: SW now realizes, in utter totality, that she's never going to get to have the power. It's one of the most important moments in the series, and what happens next is the culmination of all of the hard emotional growth the two girls have been doing.

>>Quick interjection: we’re about to get emotional here... (well, I do). Just a light suggestion to check your surroundings. <<

Shadow Weaver now realizes that, even if she were to drag Adora to the heart, she would be too sick and heartbroken to deploy it. It's over for SW, either she dies now, with everyone else in the end of the universe, or she dies giving everyone else, including the girls, a future.

Remember as well, Adora has told SW that she would do everything she can to make sure she never gets the power. Adora is too strong against SW's manipulations, something Adora learned from seeing the pain Shadow Weaver caused Catra through her abuse. I mentioned that the exact words Adora used when she rejected SW the night before were important, so let's return to them: Adora told SW she would deploy the failsafe, and also that she will block SW from getting the power for herself. But as she said all of this, about saving the world, the universe, she doesn't say one, very important, word.

Promise.

Adora may have dedicated herself to being She-ra, but somehow in that moment she knew not to promise to SW that she would deploy the failsafe to save the universe, instead only saying that she was going to find a way, while making sure SW doesn't get the power. We saw that Adora later tried to make this particular promise to Mara, but Mara threw that out, telling Adora to be better, to rise above her lack of self belief.

A promise was made, though. She promised Catra. Their beautiful, childhood promise, the one she so casually broke way back when, her greatest mistake. And so Adora goes back for Catra, to be there for her, to try to help. If this Catra's end, she will be there for her... even if the cost is this high. She can't just let her die alone. She is honoring their promise...

And so… Adora finally… after all this time, puts Catra above her duty as She-ra. Her love for Catra is more important than fulfilling her heroic duty, and so SW can no longer manipulate her into giving up her life so SW can get the power. The girls have, in fact, transcended her manipulations, and as Adora leaves SW standing by the heart, SW is totally alone and without anything, anyone, left. She is, in fact, defeated by the girl’s love for each other... and so as SW looks towards the heart, she finally... makes... the right... choice. She gathers enough power from the heart to fight the monster...

>Horde Prime mocks Carta as she tries in vain to resist being pulled towards her death. When he invokes Adora's name, saying she will die, Catra shows her sadness, disappointment, at having come so close to being with her. He mocks her again, asking her if it was worth it. Catra shows defiance, then sorrow. The answer is yes, of course. Catra was willing to lay it all down to give Adora her shot at saving the universe, she's honoring their promise as best she can even if this is Adora's final act before her, and their, deaths. Catra has total belief that in this moment, that she needed to sacrifice herself for Adora. It seems like the natural outcome of fate, of the cruelty that is SW's and the universe's betrayals of the two of them their entire lives...

Heroic. Fucking. Music. SW shows up, charged from the Heart to take Catra's place. She's going to do one heroic and worthy thing of remembrance before she goes, since she is defeated and knows she won't get to have the heart's power.

Carta's disbelief is total, she can't understand how SW would ever do this for her. Her manipulation of them their whole lives was so total, so unfeeling. And yet, here she is. SW tells Carta to get to Adora and run. She forces Catra back and blocks the door. Catra still can't understand... and we finally... see Shadow Weaver show some actual real remorse for how empty her life is. She begs Catra to take Adora to the heart, to set the magic free. The one thing SW is dedicated to is magic, and she knows releasing the magic will restore the planet. Catra points out the obvious, that SW will die. Part of the reason Catra is so broken up by SW doing this is because Catra had just accepted her fate of dying in order to give Adora her chance to save everyone: Catra was willing to die for Adora even if Adora never found the courage to want Catra the way Catra wants her. And now SW takes her place? It doesn't make sense to her, as SW is a greedy person.

Shadow Weaver’s next series words are some of the most important in the entire series. And this is also the one redeeming quality she has... that she is a teacher. And she’s about to tell Catra something very, very... important.

She says: "It's too late for me." All her manipulations towards getting the power at the cost of the girls lives have been torn down, they've completely moved past her, she has no place in their lives anymore. The girls have learned to love each other so loyally that SW is done, finished.

"But you... this is only the beginning for you." Catra listens to this, searching for the deeper meaning... "I'm so proud of you, Catra." I think we all agree SW being 'proud' of Catra is a devastating line, Catra doesn't need or probably even want her abusers approval. I also think it is a lie, everything about SW says she's unable to feel actual compassion. But SW is a mastermind, and I think she's telling Catra she has respect for her. Catra ended up being the greatest enemy SW ever faced, she was so smart that she saw right through every manipulation SW made, and in the end, SW couldn't touch her. But theorizing aside, we see Catra cry... somehow, someway, SW finally seems to be showing Catra some amount of good in her, and so she cries, wondering where it comes from…

As Catra brings her hand back to uselessly flail at the barrier, Adora catches it. Catra looks back at Adora, surprised at her reappearance...

… right then we see Catra suddenly look away from Adora. It's quick, but we're seeing a dissociative moment: this is Catra realizing something very deep, and very meaningful...

Catra realizes, that in this moment, SW has chosen to do something that is much more than just dying in Catra's place.

She has given Adora to her.

All of Catra's life, Shadow Weaver has stood between her and Adora, love was a thing Catra was not allowed to have. But the girls, together, have transcended all of her abuse and manipulation. They have seen through her plan and risen above every cruelty, and have blocked SW's manipulations to use them for her own gain. And so, a defeated SW chooses now, to give Catra the most beautiful of gifts...

Catra puts it all together, filled with clarity: SW is telling her that Adora doesn't have to die, she can survive this. That they can survive the Heart!!! And Catra is the key, as SW has told her: "This is only the beginning, for you."

Catra is now given this knowledge freely by SW, and thus given hope. SW stands before them, totally defeated, in awe of Catra's incredible growth and cunning and that she was able to see through her plan, and how strongly the two girls have come to love each other. So, SW is giving Catra her fullest respect, and as a last act before her death she is passing Catra newfound hope that the two of them can overcome this, that they can survive...

Shadow Weaver removes her mask, showing Catra her face. It's not a face of manipulation, as we expect, no, there's respect, even, dare I say, gratitude. SW didn't have to do this, Catra knows that. And yet, Catra managed to show SW something she never expected to see. And so, by outthinking and so totally defeating her, by making SW see that all her manipulations were discovered and therefore wouldn't work no matter which way she turned, and by getting Adora understand the urgency of not letting SW win, Catra has won this final, beautiful gift…

“You're welcome…”

As Catra watches SW make her final sacrifice... her one good deed... she looks on, stunned. Life is never quite so simple as you think it is, and since returning to Adora, Catra has seen so many acts of generosity she didn't really believe were possible... and now... this...

Catra lets Adora cry for a moment, then tells her they have to go. Catra is filled with new urgency... they will face this final challenge together. As she resolutely carries Adora towards the heart, she knows she's now in charge of their fate... and as they face this final task, Catra is searching for a way to save Adora, and to save their love once and for all...

~

All of this has huge implications for what then happens with the girls when they reach the heart chamber, but that's a topic better discussed another time…

Some final notes here. It's my belief that Shadow Weaver is the overarching villain of the story, who spans all seasons of She-ra, and is far more important to the plot than Horde Prime is. Furthermore, understanding Shadow Weaver as this kind of villain is a stepping stone to explaining many other important plot points in the series, and we can build on it to understand a lot of the most important moments in the show.

My personal belief about this story is that the writers had such a diverse room of people of LGBTQIA+ and other backgrounds, each with their own trials and pains they had to overcome, that as a team, their goal was to bring to light as many of these struggles that they could. But as for this most central story, my guess is they wanted to tell us a story about overcoming real darkness that exists in our world, as well as Etheria, because sometimes that's how it is. And so the right thing, the only thing to do is to overcome and move past such people, to not let them control your life.

All this is to say that I think the moral of Shadow Weaver in the story isn't about finding the good in her, but about rising above her and the fundamental darknesses that we all sometimes face. And our girls do this through love, at no point do they use violence. And that makes this story very, very... special.

Thanks for reading. Until next time…

~EtheriaDearie

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

[asteroiideae]

okay, so I don’t make these kinds of posts often because tbh I’m a little lazy and very tired like 24/7 lmao but I’ve been seeing a lot of Pride reading lists hit my dash (and they’re excellent, and I save them all!) buuuut reading books is still a roadblock I’m struggling to mentally overcome -- and audiobooks are great, but they take 84 years (sometimes literally???) to get through. so! I thought I’d share a (very tiny) list of the queer manga I’ve read this year that you might enjoy for Pride, with some descriptions/trigger warnings/thoughts to go with them. so here we go in no particular order other than where they sit on my bookshelf:

What Did You Eat Yesterday? by Fumi Yoshinaga

okay so I know I go on about this manga at literally every presented opportunity, but I honestly just can’t help myself??? as a thirty-something queer adult, I really love the quiet maturity of this relationship between Shiro and Kenji; especially when it’s highlighted by references to shenanigans of their youth, and the ways in which they are still growing as both individuals and a couple. I’ve only read the first six volumes but I’m OBSESSED.

Status: Ongoing (17 volumes; 15 translated) Summary: Shiro and Kenji are an established adult couple with separate careers and interests, whose relationship is depicted over the meals cooked for them by Shiro. This doesn’t have an overarching plot, which might be off-putting for some readers; each chapter can be compared to a fanfic one-shot, usually containing it’s own tiny storyline or theme. It’s literally just domestic moments and meals shared between these men. Warnings: While I didn’t personally have a problem with this, younger readers might find some of the dated terms offensive. If you’ve spent any time with older queer folks (older as in 45-50+) this won’t be anything you aren’t used to, but if your experience of queer folx skews younger or online, you might get taken by surprise. There’s also some internalized homophobia; and by some I mean quite a bit. Shiro’s personal arc (at least in the first six volumes) heavily revolves around how much he closets himself and tries desperately to pass as “normal” in Japanese business culture.

Boys Run The Riot by Keito Gaku

holy shit holy shit holy SHIT. this story is so good??? so VERY good??? I was a little cautious, and a little bit uninterested in a story about teens (only because I’m in my thirties and crave more adult representation,) but I was VERY WRONG to be. Boys Run The Riot is beautifully drawn, beautifully written, and probably my favorite work on this list. the mangaka is also trans so the inherent understanding and nuance of our protagonist’s experience is really lovely. Also featuring a fantastic brotp between a trans boy and his new himbo bestie; no seriously if you want a story about a trans boy getting to have good broships with other boys his own age I CANNOT stress this enough. Volume two is releasing next month; I have it preordered. I’m laying on my floor wishing for time to hurry the fuck up. I need more of this smol angry trans boy and his big soft himbo bff. PLS. Status: Ongoing (4 volumes published; 2 translated) Summary: Ryo Watari is a second year high school student who is trans and struggling to feel comfortable with his very rigidly structured life at school, at home, and among his friends (to whom he is not out.) By chance he meets Jin Sato, a cis boy who also feels outcast (often judged for his appearance without any deeper thought.) When Ryo comes out to Jin in a state of frustration, Jin accepts who Ryo is and makes an offer -- why not start a fashion line that subverts all the expectations that have been put on them both; why not express themselves even when they’ve been told they shouldn’t. Warnings: Ryo is struggling with gender dysphoria, and it is written by someone who has probably experienced it, so it might be a little real for any trans folks who deal with that. Also, while neither the narrative nor Jin misgender Ryo (at least, not once he expresses to Jin that he is a man), Ryo is not out to anyone else and so he frequently is misgendered at school and we see how badly that impacts him and the way he views himself and processes his emotions. Ryo spends a lot of time being angry and trying to swallow it down, and that can be very raw to witness at times. There is also a depiction of unsafe binding (though the mangaka has an immediate note about binding safety, and goes further in-depth at the back of the manga.)

Our Dining Table by Mita Ori

okay, so I was a bit on the fence about whether or not I wanted to include this as a rec, but I decided that it might actually been what someone wants or needs, so here it is! while I really enjoyed this concept, and I’m always a sucker for found family stories (let me tell you I’m queer without telling you I’m queer, much?) it feels like this story is a bit rushed at times, and the romantic relationship between our protagonists is very blink and you’ll miss it. I don’t even want to call it subtle so much as it is just not remotely the focus of the story so it’s a little startling when it happens. but! if you’re looking for a story about adults processing grief and trauma together, and learning how to care for another person (and as a result, learning how to care for themselves,) this is a nice read that isn’t too heavy!  Status: Complete (one volume) Summary: Yutaka is a salaryman whose past experiences prevent him from reaching out to others, even through something so simple as sharing a meal. Despite this is REALLY loves to cook, and wishes he had a reason to do it more often. Then he meets Minoru, and his muuuuuch younger brother Tane (it’s like a 17 year age gap between the brothers?) and finds himself teaching them how to cook, and overcoming his fear of eating in front of others. Warnings: Good news, there’s no overt homophobia in this story! Bad news, the other trauma makes up for it! We have a lot of trauma surrounding parental death, childhood bullying, and adoption; in addition to an actual fear of eating in front of others.

Our Dreams at Dusk / Shimanami Tasogare by Yuhki Kamatani

this is the first manga series I collected, and I’m still very pleased about that. the art is ABSOLUTELY stunning? the use of visual imagery and surreal analogies to explain queerness is fucking on POINT. I cried so hard during a couple of these volumes I developed a migraine. I only have one piece of critique on the whole thing (addressed in the warnings,) and I intend to do another re-read when I’m ready for the catharsis of sobbing into my pillow again. Like Boys Run The Riot, Our Dreams at Dusk is drawn and written by a member of the queer community (a non-binary mangaka, this time,) and as a result it hits pretty fucking close to home in a lot of ways. while I really love this series it’s super not for the faint of heart, you WILL come out of this reading experience with some things to unpack. Status: Completed (4 volumes; 4 translated) Summary: We mostly follow Tasuku Kaname, as he is outted at school by a classmate as being homosexual, and his initial despair and subsequent journey of acceptance. In this process, Tasuku finds himself at a drop-in center, which seems to primarily function as a safe space for queer people; we meet several lesbians, an elderly gay man, a trans character, and a young character who isn’t ready for any kind of label because they are still ??? about themselves and their identity. Each of these “secondary” characters is given room to breathe and to work through difficulties of their own while Tasuku watches and learns that even though life is hard sometimes, there’s beauty to be found in one’s own strength. Warnings: hoooo boy; well there’s all kinds of homophobia and transphobia; a character is outted against their will (multiple times), there’s some really insidious transphobia covered by “concern”, there’s internalized homophobia everywhere, and a very complicated asexual character whose presentation left me (as an ace) with super mixed feelings and a lot of frustration (though I wouldn’t call it bad necessarily; just wanted to put that out there for my fellow asexual folks.) If you have read (or go on to read!) any of these, please let me know! I’d love to chat about the stories, and hear your thoughts on them -- because we’re a broad/diverse community and our own experiences shape us differently and give us different insights. <3 ANYWAY, for those of you who read this monstrous self-indulgent post, thank you! Feel free to add any queer manga you’ve been reading below - I’m always on the hunt for more recs!

[holyhellpod]

[TRANSCRIPT] 1. Pilot

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Trigger warnings: discussions of death, fridging, child abuse, child death, alcoholism

[Music]

“In one sentence, this is X-Files meets Route 66. Two brothers, cruising the dusty backroads in their trusty ‘64 mustang, battling the things that go bump in the night.”

These are the first two sentences of Eric Kripke’s pitch of Supernatural, dated August 30, 2004. Based on iconic media such as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, On The Road, The Odyssey, and The Matrix, Kripke considers Supernatural to be Star Wars in Truck Stop America. He went through over two dozen rewrites of the pilot to get to what we know today: grimy, gritty, horror-filled hero’s journey of the lives of two extremely damaged individuals who don’t really like each other personally or have anything in common, but love each other to death. They save people. They hunt monsters. That’s the family business.

The original pitch for the pilot had Dean informing Sam that supernatural creatures are real and they killed their mum. Sam spent his whole 21-year-long life believing that their father killed their mother, and now their father’s body has been found with Dean as the lead suspect in the murder. Sam has to make the choice to run back to their aunt and uncle’s house in LA where he can spend the summer interning at a law firm before he starts at Stanford, or help Dean fight monsters, and you KNOW which one he chooses.

In the pilot that aired, Sam knows about the supernatural. He and Dean grow up trained as warriors by their father John to hunt supernatural creatures, kill evil, and save people. The plot goes as thus: Sam, a 6 month old baby, is in his crib when an unknown man appears. Mary, Sam and Dean’s mother, walks in. John, their father, comes in as well to see what’s wrong, and finds Mary pinned to the ceiling with a slash across her womb. The house catches on fire, Dean as a four year old takes Sam out of the house, and John follows soon after.

Cut to 22 years later, Sam is a college student at Stanford with a beautiful girlfriend Jess whose resemblance to his mother is, ah, uncanny. He reveals that he’s got an interview on Monday with the law school at Stanford. His idyllic, apple-pie, safe life is interrupted by the appearance of Dean, who asks Sam to accompany him in finding their Dad. That’s the premise of the first season: finding Dad.

Sam makes a deal with Dean that he’ll help on this one last case before he embarks on his life as a lawyer-to-be. Dean takes the deal, but when they realise that John left the case unfinished and skipped town, it’s up to them to follow in John’s footsteps and pick up hunting again, as a fambily. However, Sam reiterates that he needs to be back at Stanford for his meeting that will determine his future, and Dean drops him back. But of course, this is not to be. When he finds Jess pinned to the roof of their bedroom, her womb slashed open, and the apartment starts to burn down, Sam is forced into repeating the history of intergenerational trauma that traps them in the hunting life. The trauma their father inflicted on them is a Promethean circle that leaves no one unscathed.  

John is a hard man. While it’s evident in the first scene that he loves his boys, his grief coupled with his military history twists him into a drill sergeant who works his kids to the bone all in the name of the fambily business. He often puts his own needs above that of his kids, especially Dean, who often acts as the go-between Sam and John. From the very beginning, Sam is positioned as John’s mirror, pulled back into the hunting life when his girlfriend dies just like his mother. Both John and Sam have their lives upended by the death of their significant other, except for Sam, he has Dean, and John had his sons. Bringing them into the life meant leaning on them when he couldn’t handle his grief and the exhaustion of the job himself, but this is a caustic dynamic: your children are not your partners. Dean should not have gone on a hunt by himself at 17 to lay to rest the ghosts of two closeted nuns, when he was closeted himself. John should not have put the burden on Dean to look after his brother while John was away on hunts, because Dean was a child. It robbed Dean of his childhood, forced him to grow up too quickly, and left him with a saviour complex and control issues that he carries well into the last season of the show.

The abuse Sam and Dean suffer at the hands of their father is something that permeates the entire show, all the while the characters apologise for him and little commentary is made on how badly he messed them up. In the pilot, We don’t see him in the present, only in 1983, and then sporadically throughout the rest of the show, notably in seasons one, two, four and five, as well as in the show’s 300th episode “Lebanon”. He is a ghost that controls the fate of these two men, as he directs them where to hunt while at the same time refusing to even show his face in times of dire need. In the episode “Faith”, Dean is dying and John doesn’t make an appearance. In the episode “Home”, Dean calls John scared and crying and begs him to come back to their childhood home of Lawrence, Kansas. Again, John doesn’t show up for them.

There are many moments throughout the show that seem to hinge on one decision, and John’s decision to become a hunter and raise his kids as hunters too is one of them. Another decision is Dean’s choice to die in the last episode. Cas’s choice to partner with Crowley and suck all of purgatory’s souls into himself in season 6. Sam’s choice to settle down with Amelia in season 8.

But it all comes back to the very first decision: Sam deciding to go with Dean to find John. We know now that the demons Azazel and Brady were just waiting for the opportunity to kill Jess when Sam was at his most oblivious and unguarded, which they took after Dean re-entered his life. the repercussions of this reverberate throughout the entire show, most obviously in Sam choosing not to settle down with a woman for the first 7 seasons. But Jessica’s death is the impetus Sam needs to start hunting again, just like Mary’s death was the impetus John had for starting to hunt in the first place.

But actually, with the last episode of the series in mind, another choice is made clear. Dean’s choice to go to Sam.

If the first season would have you believe, Sam Winchester is the protagonist of the series, and Dean is his second in command. He’s one of five main characters throughout season 1, including Dean, John, Mary and Azazel the demon. Azazel begins the narrative by invading Sam’s childhood bedroom and killing Mary, but after the ordinary world of their lives before we hit the call to adventure, Sam is shown as an ordinary guy who just wants to make something of himself. He admits to Dean in some truly spectacular exposition that he swore he was done hunting for good, and that he’s put that life behind him to live safely with his girlfriend and college friends. Of course, being Supernatural, it doesn’t turn out like that.

If you take the last few seasons as gospel, it’s clear that Dean is the emotional heart of the series and Sam exists as his narrative foil. Somewhere along the way their roles got reversed. It’s Sam’s emotional journey we follow throughout the first season. It takes us until episode 4, “Phantom Traveler”, to find something that Dean is afraid of. As the season wears on, it becomes increasingly clear that all he wants is to have his family back together — Sam and Dad, all under one car or motel roof again. Sam, in the Winchester tradition, wants to find Jess’s killer, suspecting that the thing that killed Mary is the same thing that killed Jess. This obsession drives him throughout the first two seasons.

Sam’s motivation in the pilot is laid out clearly: he has to make it back to Stanford on time for his interview for law school. While it’s normal for regular people, it's about as far from the Winchester normal as can be, and that’s what Sam likes about it. It’s normal, it’s wonderbread, it’s safe. It’s freshly baked cookies and a tab at the only bar on campus. It’s your girlfriend in a maid outfit on Halloween, which you still don’t celebrate because it reminds you of what you gave up to be there. It’s getting a 174 on the LSATs but not telling your family because you don’t talk to them anymore, and you haven’t for years. It’s fine.

And then it all comes crashing down, and Sam’s motivation changes. He’s the hero accepting his journey while grieving the loss of the most significant person in his life since he ditched his family at 18 to live in the world instead of saving it from the sidelines. He’s the one our story hinges on, and it’s his reactions we live and die by. When Mary dies, we hardly know her. We don’t know John, either, so it’s hard to gauge how broken up we should be by her death. While I wouldn’t say we know Jess necessarily, we do know Sam, so when he grieves we grieve. The framework through which we view all of these events is Sam’s perspective, even if we do see Dean without Sam. I’m pointing this out because it’s important to know who we sympathise with most, and whose story a narrative is trying to tell. What exactly the narrative is saying is completely dependent on who is saying it.

One of Dean’s defining traits is that he’s great at getting laid. In the original pitch, Dean was supposed to be covered in tattoos and smoking like a James Dean-type. Nevermind that James Dean was queer, as is Dean from On The Road, the character the eldest winchester is named after. Dean chases tail like he’s a dog chasing bumpers, and he’s attractive and charismatic so it works out well for him. He doesn’t take it hard when a woman rejects him, which is something that a lot of men need to learn.

Sera Gamble, staff writer, executive producer, and showrunner of seasons 6 and 7, said about Dean:

“Dean always has a great comeback line, so it’s always fun to write him. Dean’s introduction to us in the pilot was him hitting on his brother’s girlfriend, specifically pointing out her boobs.”

But this is not all Dean is. He’s first and foremost Sam’s protector. In Dean’s second scene of the pilot, Dean is shown to rescue his brother from their house as it burns down, carrying him out of harm’s way. Dean, as the older brother, knows it’s his job to protect his younger sibling. It’s been drilled into him since he was four years old that he is supposed to protect Sam above everything, even when Sam ditched their family. Before the pilot, Dean and Sam hadn’t spoken in two years, and Sam hadn’t seen John in four. But by the end of the episode we realise that Dean hasn’t given up the mantle of protector. He rescues Sam from the building where Jess is being burned alive. First and foremost, Dean will always protect Sam.

At 26, Dean has seen things and done things that no one should see or do. Where Sam is sullen and quiet, Dean is loud and brash, getting into trouble, jumping headfirst into situations he shouldn’t be in. The situations he shouldn’t be in include: a crime scene, a river, a motel room, a haunted shack. Places he should be include the police station, because Dean winchester is many things and one of them is a felon.

We can’t find ourselves sympathising too much with Dean as a main character just yet because we don’t have any attachment to his weaknesses. Yes, Mary died, but she is such a non-character it doesn’t register (unless of course you’ve been through a similar tragedy, then sympathise away). Yes, he loves his car and his guns and his leather jacket, but we find out later that they are handmedowns from John. Dean’s personality is a carefully curated list of acceptable likes and dislikes, inherited from the abusive, alcoholic father John is to him and the woman, wife and mother he thinks of Mary as. In the pilot, Dean is the lovable scamp, but his desperation is lying in wait beneath the mask of finding his father. He wants his fambily back, but more than that, he wants his fambily safe.

We see Sam and Dean’s strengths play out through the episode. In their first encounter with the Woman in White, she possesses the Impala and drives it towards them. They both jump off the bridge, but while Sam clings on, Dean hurls himself into the river. Thus the death-defying stunt ends up a funny gag as Dean drags himself out of the muck, and Sam is positioned as the smarter brother. I mean, he got into Stanford, right? so he’s smarter, right???

Another moment establishes the bulk of their characters in two lines. Sam says, “What I said earlier, about Mum and Dad, I’m sorry,” and Dean replies, “No chick-flick moments.” Within this simple exchange lies the heart of their differences: Sam wants Dean to be okay. Dean would rather push Sam away than offer up his feelings like a charcuterie platter for anyone to pick apart.

From what we know of John, he is a man obsessed. Sam reveals that their whole lives have been based around trying to find the thing that killed Mary. John trained his sons to be hunters from an indeterminately young age, after finding out about the supernatural from various side characters and piecing the rest together himself. From how the other hunters talk about John, he is a master in skill and execution, and Dean and Sam take after him. Sam is smart and coordinated enough to be good at everything, and Dean is naturally gifted in intellect, tactical skill, and weapons. Together they make a formidable team. By the time the show really gets going, John, Sam and Dean are legends in the hunting community. Dean comments in a later episode that he’s famous, and other characters point out the same thing. Characters introduced later know who they are before the boys know who the other characters are and what their connection to John is.

The implications of John raising his sons are hunters are multitudinal. Because Sam and Dean have been raised this way, they have saved a lot of people that otherwise would have died. But it’s at their own expense. They can never live normal lives, and even when they settle down in season 8 at the Men of Letters bunker, the echoes of their loneliness and isolation are still present. That’s why it’s not enough to focus only on Sam and Dean, or introduce more characters just to kill them off, because the brothers are fundamentally lonely and isolated. And the point of any story is to have your characters progress (although in the case of a short story, it’s to reveal something about a character), so when they start out a certain way they need to have outgrown that stasis that they were trapped in by the end of the series. Sam deserved to build a life for himself in the hunting world, with another hunter and/or the queen of hell, making connections and a home for other hunters to stay in and, as one tumblr user says, a monster rehabilitation centre. Dean deserved to outgrow his trauma and simply grow as a character instead of being stuck as an depressed alcoholic with anger issues.

On the surface of the show, Dean is supposed to be Han Solo and Sam Luke Skywalker. But the first thing we learn about Sam to do with his family is that he left them as soon as he finished high school and had a chance to escape. Dean, however, stayed loyal to John and continued hunting. This dynamic of Sam rebelling against the the God figure of their father and Dean’s dependency on their father’s approval continues into the fifth season and parallels the storyline of the angel Lucifer rebelling and his brother Michael staying loyal to God. It certainly is an interesting dynamic, which I  just realising as I type this paragraph was repeated in my own family. Me, the youngest rebelling against my abusive father around the time I started watching this show while my older brother continued to live with him, in squalor and destitution. There were no Gardens of Eden in our family, only a hell of our father’s making. My dad loves muscle cars and heavy metal, too, and I haven’t spoken to him in three years.

The motel room they find John occupying before he takes off is something you’d see in a serial killer’s lair. There are articles printed out and stuck to the wall, a line of salt encircling the room, various talismans and charms, and information on the woman in white. From what we see, John lives up to his legendary status, putting together a pattern of strange deaths and disappearances over the course of 20 years for his sons to eventually solve. But we already know by now that he puts hunting above his own children, and it becomes clear as the episode goes on that he is sending them out on hunts that he himself either can’t or won’t finish. He disappears and leads them on a proverbial and literal ghost hunt as they chase him across the country.

The universe of Supernatural started with monsters but encompasses a lot more than that. Kripke’s vision, which personally I think he executed really well, was small town Americana meets monster of the week. It’s ghosts on highways, cannibals in forests, and spirits in lakes. It’s a possessed car on a bridge aiming straight for our protagonists. It’s gas station junk food and driving 16 hours across multiple states on a hunch. It’s sleeping in your car and brushing your teeth at the side of the road because you couldn’t afford a hotel for the night. It’s grit meets slime. It’s real and fantastical at the same time. When I say this show activates the part of my mind that lives for road trips across a barren country through miles and miles of desert, I’m not lying. I used to love road trips as a kid, just staring out the window with my gameboy in my hand and Alanis Morisette’s Jagged Little Pill album in my discman. I long for those days.

The lore is one of the most interesting things about the show. in most episodes, the characters are seen to flick through physical books to gather information about what they’re fighting, which seems to take hours if not days. At one point I’m pretty sure that their father figure Bobby digitises his library, but then that’s never brought up again, so maybe I imagined it. There are hundreds of different creatures throughout the seasons, including some the show made up (Jefferson Starships in season 6), others they’ve taken from folklore and legends and put their own spin on. The interesting ways they present creatures, some pure evil, others sympathetic, is one of the reasons I loved this show from the beginning. All I ever wanted to write was urban fantasy, and this show presented it in an accessible way. I grew up in small towns with populations of less than a thousand people, so watching the characters go through small towns, back roads, truck stops and service stations in the middle of nowhere just hit me right where it hurts.

The lore of the woman in white is thus: a husband cheats on his wife, and the wife, in a moment of insanity, murders her children. When she comes back as a vengeful spirit, she finds men who have been unfaithful and murders them. The character of Constance hitch hikes along the road waiting for men to pick her up, and even if they haven’t been unfaithful she seduces them before she kills them. Spirits are shown to have special powers: they can move objects, wield weapons, and kill with their hands or minds. They can also appear and disappear at will, making them hard to fight.

As with all episodes of tv shows, the problem they face is something out of the ordinary. The Woman in White is a ghost, something they’ve hunted before with ease. Sidenote: this show can be summed up as Pru from Ride or Die podcast says, “the Winchester school of boys who fight ghosts real good.” While a normal ghost would be taken out by salting and burning their bones, laying Constant Welch to rest isn’t that easy. Before they can find her bones to burn, she appears in the Impala while Sam is driving. But Sam figures out a plan: drive the Impala through the house she can’t go home to where her children are lying in wait to drag her into the underworld. And the monsters only get more interesting from there.

Now that the show has finished, it's interesting to examine what it could have been. We know what it is: a 15 year long experiment in family dysfunction and queerbaiting. We know it’s about choices and free will. But what could it have been? It could have been more than family dysfunction. Throughout the entire show, the premise has always been about two brothers, and that’s to its detriment, as there’s only so many times they can rehash the premise of brothers betraying each other. The showrunners were so bent on keeping the show about Sam and Dean that they neglected the other storylines that could have proved more interesting and killed off all the characters that were a threat to their dynamic. It could have been about characters becoming their own creators in stepping outside the narrative, usurping their writers and choosing love instead of violence. It could have stayed about found families, instead of focusing solely on Sam and Dean in the last episode, which undid all of the groundwork they’d laid out in the last 7 or so seasons.

But what we have is what we get, and while the show falls down in some respects, especially with regards to its treatment of people of colour and the queer community, it is still a show that I’ve loved since the Howard administration, and something that has changed and improved my life in numerous ways. If I hadn’t started writing Supernatural fanfiction, I wouldn’t have majored in writing, and I wouldn’t have the experience to write four books and some novel length fanfiction. Supernatural has inspired me so much over the years, and I will always considered it kismet that it entered my life. I know others feel the same, and you only have to step into the fandom for a day to realise the impact that Supernatural has on people all over the world. Few shows have had both the gall and opportunity to shape television in the way that Supernatural has and do the things that it has done. Falling in love with it again at a time when I was outgrowing a previous hyperfixation, feeling lost and adrift, and burnt out from writing 150,000 words in the middle of a pandemic, has been extremely serendipitous, and I can’t wait to dissect every single thing about this show.

You can find the show at holyhellpod on Instagram and tumblr, and patreon dot com slash holyhellpod. I’ll talk to you soon.

[Outro music]

[medievalfangirl]

A Letter From a (very enthusiastic) Fan.

It’s me again! Haha

First of all I’d like to apologize for possible typos since English isn’t my first language but I hope you can understand the general ideia.

When I found your fic, I was a little hesitant to start reading it because usually time travelling stories to the middle ages never seem to completely portray the danger and violence it was known for. I cannot tell you how many stories I read in which the female lead spends all her time at the alehouse spending the money that we have no idea where it came from, being completely accepted for society even though she’s not like them, magically learning how to use a sword the first time she holds it and being her sassy arrogant herself with no punishment whatsoever for her disrespectful behavior. Oh yeah and everybody seems to love and admire her even though she’s just a pain in the ass.

Now that I got that out of my system, I just wanted to say what a pleasant and beautiful surprise it was to run into AGFTF. Girl, that’s MASTER WRITING! I fell for the story instantly because it’s so incredibly realistic (given the circumstances)! Adeline was held captive for months before she was rescued, she was mistreated and suffered for her loose tongue, she realized through the most despicable way that woman’s rights back then were none at all, she even got her period at the worst possible time ever for fuck’s sake! Adeline had to work to pay for her ale she didn’t create gold out of straw like some Rumpelstilkin lead, she faced the prejudice for being a woman and she took a normal amount of time to learn how to use weapons. You absolutely nailed all the descriptions and realism, thank you so much for that.

About Adeline. So hard for me too love a lead usually I just like them but I didn’t stand a chance against Adeline. SHE’S SO FUCKING FUNNY! Every time she has an inappropriate thought or just a sassy one I shit myself so hard I’m laughing. She’s so relatable and yet so unique. Her clumsiness is not Bella Swan/Anastasia Steel kind of thing, it’s something ridiculously funny and more important: the characters think that too. They’re not charmed by the way she fell of a hill and lost her unicorn panties, they’re amused by it as any real person would be. Every time I feel something’s about to go wrong for her or Adeline just makes a dumbass decision I cover my eyes like “oh, no, Adeline, not again”, but I do it laughing and with lots of loves for her. Taking a darker turn, the way she faces what happened at Dunholm is a shitty unhealthy way but it’s how most of us deal with a trauma and I can only hope she’ll learn how to deal with it in time. I love how she’s not obviously a brave warrior but totally determined to prove herself to everyone including herself and this will prove to be a hard journey mainly when she lives by the Murphy’s Law. Although it’s already very clear to me how much she’s matured and developed in that three years passage of time. I’d like to give you my top five moments of Adeline:

Adeline almost flashing Alfred, the Great. (WHAT WAS THAT HAHAHAHA I LAUGHED MY GUTS OUT);

Adeline having her hair braided by Sihtric at the alehouse (I loved this part so much it was like receiving a warm hug during the hardest winter and their friendship is EVERYTHING);

Adeline and Finan talking by the fire at the camp back from Balbury (they’ll have a topic specially for their relationship just you wait);

Adeline learning how to use a bow;

Adeline braiding Dorito’s mane alongside Finan.

Shall we talk about the marvelous job you did with the characters? We shall. It’s like I’m watching a spin-off from TLK because their personalities are FLAWLESS. I can see them talking to me. Hild being that perfect herself, too good a woman for God alone; Sihtric always so silent but also friendly and compassionate; and Finan. Oh dear God, Finan. There’s no other way to describe him other than quoting Adeline:

“I liked the duality of his nature: he laughed so easily but he wasn’t a man to be messed with – he’d fight his corner, and fight twice as hard for his friends”. Girl, you made me cry. In a good way. That is everything I love about Finan and that’s why I was so happy to see that it’s also what Adeline likes about him.

Now last but definitely NOT least.

Finan and Adeline. Sweet Lord that lies in heaven what a perfect ship. Slow-Burn? It’s more like Slow-Motion-Burn, girl. I’m a person with zero patience and you made me CRAVE for a little romance between these two from the beginning. I just kept praying and hoping they’d have some involvement soon but you made me wait and boy was it worth it. You know, it wasn’t tiresome to wait for those too to start flirting because I just adored Adeline’s relationship with everybody else (Sihtric, Hild, Clapa… even Uhtred and Gisela).

I started to feel the reciprocity when Finan chased her outside the hall and Adeline challenged him for a fight. I actually giggled in every scene they had together after the small ruse for the loaf of bread because that’s what took me to sail my shipp. The small bickering, the smirks and smiles they exchanged, flirty Finan implying “he didn’t know he’d have to EAT anything” (I had mad goosebumps I had). You built their relationship with patience and through crumbs I happily fed on only to realize that they were satisfying me and making me beg for more. It was so beautiful to see their friendship turning into something else and now all I want to see is their wedding. Just kidding but not so much.

I get a little excited when a story has everything I was looking for so I’m sorry I actually wrote you a letter hahaha if you managed to read it all, I just wanted to thank you one more time for taking the time and talent to telling us Adeline’s story. I’ll probably write another letter when I’m finished with the 25 chapters and then I’ll just leave a comment on the chapters like a normal person hahaha

Thank you again and congratulations!

XOXO

A response from a very grateful author who cried at least three times reading your letter

Saying a simple thank you feels a little redundant considering the magnitude of emotion your letter brought me, but that’s where I’ll start. THANK YOU! 🥰🥰 You’ve filled my heart with such happiness it’s difficult to put into words. So, again, thank you! 💕

My goal from the beginning with this story was to try and tell a realistic (or at least, as realistic as time travel can be) story, with a character who struggled, and learnt the hard way that this experience wouldn’t be all sunshine and rainbows. I didn’t want to write a ‘main character’ in the way that she is automatically liked and respected and admired, just because she’s The Main Character. I wanted to write about a real person, with flaws, who handles things poorly, and who some people dislike. Because real life is messy like that.  

So to have you tell me not only did you find the story realistic as I dearly wished, but it exceeded your expectations? I’m delighted, and blow away a little to be honest. You’ve broken down the story and how you felt about it in such detail, really taking your time, and I feel totally and utterly honoured. 

I can’t tell you how happy I am that you like Adeline so much!  “oh, no, Adeline, not again” truly is her catchphrase, because while she tries, she is nothing short of a disaster at times. I’m so, so happy you feel you can relate to her and enjoy her journey. I agree with you - I think most of us aren’t good with serious trauma. We get there, but it takes time, and a fair few mistakes first. Again, I’m pleased as punch that you like that she handled things badly, that she’s scared but determined, and trying to grow. You’ve picked up on every single theme I’ve been trying to portray with her as if you’ve been in my head for a sneaky look, and it’s incredible. You’re so insightful and thoughtful 🥰🥰

Taking the time to rank your favourite Adeline moments? Well, you’ve reduced me to happy tears once again. Seriously, I’m just a mushy mess at this point. THANK YOU💕

Ahhh, Finan. Straight away I’ll apologise because you’re so right - Slow-Motion-Burn sums this up perfectly😂 I did wonder if readers would find the wait until the romance a drag, so I’m relieved and happy (you’ve made me happy rather a lot, so i apologise for being repetitive) you enjoyed the build up, and friendships with the rest of the Coccham family. I wanted to push Finan and Adeline towards each other in a way that felt natural, and have this gradual realisation from them both that, oh shit, this person means a lot to me. And the flirting? So much fun to write, so I can assure you that will continue forever, to the wedding and beyond (oh i promise, you’ll have that wedding). 

One final thing - please don’t apologise for being a beautiful, kind soul who took the time to share their thoughts and bring a huge, huge amount of happiness to my day. As you can see, I write essays too, so we’re in this together!

Thank you so, so, so much 🥰💕💕

[lizzybeth1986]

What are your overall thoughts on Madeleine as a character including what transpired between her and Hana? I've felt iffy about her, but I'm not sure how to phrase that. I think you can better articulate and explain than I could 😅

Not to boast…but you’ve come to the right person (besides @callmetippytumbles who has made excellent points time and again about how the writing centers Madeleine in ways that they should have been centering Hana). I have written A LOT about that issue especially. Here are some of my meta on that if you’re interested:

Brushed Under the Carpet: Madeleine as an Alternate LI (this was written after TRR Book 3 Chapter 9, where they were subtly hinting at making them a ship).

QT on Book 3 Chapter 16 (Tbh thankfully the bit I was predicting here - Madeleine getting the coming out story that should have been Hana’s - wound up not happening, though part of it could have been from them having to scrap the entire idea after the backlash).

How Do You Fix Hana’s Characterization in TRR? (this essay listed a whole set of changes both to help strengthen Hana’s storyline and to give her the attention and validation she deserved but didn’t get in the actual story)

This replay to an ask posted after 3 of the 4 writers on the team claimed Hana was the kind of person they would marry.

A lot of this illustrates my problems with Madeleine on a level of characterization (and Tippy covers the aspects that deal not with Hana, but with Madeleine's half-baked redemption arc and how the narrative tries really hard to convince us that she does her job well, even when she isn’t doing it properly).

With regards to Madeleine herself, I feel like they started out fully intending that the reader hate her and view her as a rival, before turning the tables and establishing her as “innocent” of the conspiracy (though still extremely unlikeable). In narrative structure, the bachelorette chapter had a lot of striking similarities to the Lythikos chapter where you found out about Olivia’s painful childhood before she mocked Drake about his missing sister. I feel like the aim was to make us see Madeleine in a different light, while still remembering why we dislike her.

Somewhere along the line (with Hana’s chocolate scene) they went too far, and Madeleine went from unlikeable to completely repulsive. After that, the team attempted to completely backtrack, by cramming in a sympathy arc for her and after the “hazing process” excuse, what she did to Hana especially was never addressed again. Suddenly she was the patriot who would sacrifice her life and happiness for Cordonia, a figure to be admired and pitied. A woman who was immensely talented and did her job well [even when she actually didn’t]). Most of her characterization, really, consists of retconning.

But I have no interest in Madeleine, or her characterization. I just don’t. No, what I’m going to touch upon today is narrative treatment.

–

Rival figures are important in a story. They’re a foil to the main character: sometimes they exist simply to make the MC look better (ew), sometimes they’re there to show the MC what the larger society in their world is like, and what challenges they may face, and sometimes they’re an unexpected ally after the MC figures out the problem goes way deeper than the rivalry with them. So if you have a rival who behaves badly, treats the people around her badly? That in itself is not really a bad thing.

It makes me hurt for the characters at the receiving end, but as long as long as the narrative validates their experience on its own initiative, and allows them space, I will be fine. If I’m shown bullying and abuse in a narrative towards a character, I’m going to want to see the person hurting from this:

1. have support. Immense support

2. have a friend circle that will protect them and put them first

3. have opportunities to talk about what this is doing to them

4. have opportunities to push back against the bully

Personally the bully’s journey or whatever is of no importance to me. I simply don’t care. As much as possible I would not care about what grand monumental realizations they get behind the scenes, or what their rotten-egg-smelling guilt looks like. What matters to me is the person bullied. I need to see them win. I need to see them thrive. I need to see them receive support and validation.

One example I can give in terms of that being done well, is Penelope. Penelope is treated like a servant by Madeleine, called names, forever reminded she is good-for-nothing and useless and can’t do anything right. The bullying is constant and puts an already anxiety-ridden Penelope under additional pressure, to the point that when we meet her at Portavira in Book 3 she is VERY reluctant to return to court, and panics when certain things remind her of Madeleine’s behaviour. You have to coddle and cajole her with promises that Madeleine would never be able to do anything to her, and that she can bring her Emotional Support Animals with her to court. If we choose not to address her concerns, our friends will do it on our behalf. Drake Trauma-Minimizing Walker himself, is shown reassuring her the moment they meet in Portavira:

So it is very possible, even if the rival/bitchy character is expected to not feel remorse, and still retains a huge portion of her bitchiness, that we can still get a satisfying arc where the person in pain has support and care, and can thrive.

In Penelope’s case, perhaps the only downside may be that, while the narrative is clear about Madeleine’s bullying and its impact on Penelope, it still keeps Madeleine comfortably away from this narrative so she doesn’t even have to engage with it. She herself doesn’t exactly face consequences. The truth doesn’t even touch her.

But we don’t feel the pinch of this, so much with Penelope… precisely because PENELOPE is validated, given support and is given the space to completely refuse to even go with them if the MC doesn’t make great efforts to support and be nice to her (this, even though she has herself harmed us). She is allowed to get upset if we even question her on not following the dress code of our bachelorette, because it reminds her of Madeleine’s. She is even “rewarded” with a guy, no matter which playthrough.

And not every character is going to be a Penelope who will require that level of coddling from other people. So it’s not always about the MC and others needing to constantly protect and reassure such people. Sometimes it’s just simply about whether said character is allowed to push back against the bully. Hana gets a small measure of this when she’s allowed (but only on one occasion, that too a 30 diamond scene that wasn’t even coded properly later) to tell Olivia exactly what she thinks of her (and Olivia is allowed to say shit about her even after that, without Hana ever being allowed the same space again).

Now the thing with Hana (with regards to Madeleine) is…that they could have easily given her space to push back. Easily given the MC opportunities to protect her. Easily ensured that Hana didn’t have to engage with Madeleine if she didn’t want to. Have her whack friends fucking remember what she was put through at least!!!

Let’s go through how that could have been done one by one:

Pushing Back: One of the most bizarre choices the TRR team made was the give the scene about Liam telling Hana he would get her back to court (ergo, that Hana returned through Liam’s help, not Madeleine as the latter kept claiming) to Drake! He gets to narrate this story to the MC, but Hana herself is never allowed to acknowledge the fact or even talk about it. If she were, she would have at least (at the very least!!!) been given chances to hint at Madeleine twisting the truth, implied as much to Madeleine or to the MC, pushed back in her own unique way. The narrative not only pushes the truth of her return in DRAKE’S scene…it also never gives HER the opportunity to do anything actively against Madeleine’s very obvious twisting of the truth. Just so that Madeleine would continue to have way more power over Hana throughout. The bullying occurs much before the incident in Italy, but Hana herself is expected to stay silent.

Support: Now it’s not as if Penelope gets to push back on her own to Madeleine during this time either (except for a few comments here and there). But Penelope does get plenty of support and eventually protection. Does this apply to Hana as well?

Technically, you could view the fondue party scene that took place after the “chocolate allergy” incident as “support” - but at best it’s very weak “support”, and at its worst it really just a scene revolves around all the other characters (especially around gaining Olivia’s friendship), with a hurt, frightened Hana hovering in the background of the scene.

The MC has the option (option!!) to “call Madeleine out” on the events of the previous night when they’re in Paris, but it mostly results in Madeleine pretending it was a test of some sort (which the MC never bothers to contradict even though she knows better). The best case scenario is, well, that…and the worst case scenario is that Hana never really finds out even that, up until the end.

Speaking Out and Validation: Not only does the narrative not address the bullying after it has happened (until the very end of the series), it uses Hana - the woman who was harmed - to minimize its impact as well. On the one occasion you actually do get to talk to her about the night of Madeleine’s bachelorette party, they make Hana say (if you state that you don’t remember anything from that night), that "the tequila brought out Kiara's mean side, and Madeleine's fun side". Madeleine’s “fun side”, presumably, involves her laughing over targeting, torturing and breaking the vulnerable women in her court I suppose. (also, way to do Kiara dirty while forgetting what Madeleine did, PB!)

Further ahead, the MC and her friends promptly forget about this - Hana is expected to help the MC extract important information from her without even bothering to find out if she is comfortable or not, for instance. The forgetfulness gets to the point where, in the epilogue, (when Madeleine repeats to Hana what she’d told the MC back then) the MC acts like it is the first time she is hearing about Madeleine’s intentions to break Hana.

So forget about getting validation, for a large chunk of the narrative Hana wasn’t even allowed to view her own experience with bullying as painful. And if anything, her friend circle didn’t mind putting her needs and comfort last when it suited them.

The biggest problem about the storyline that involves Hana and Madeleine is the question of who should be getting more space and development, and who actually does. The time and energy spent on Hana navigating a court like this which such threats over her head…is spent instead on literally everything else. The time that could have been spent working on Hana’s background and childhood history…was spent to build Madeleine’s redemption arc instead (ironically, Adelaide starts feeding us with that sympathy arc in Shanghai, Hana’s home).

Effort was spent on extolling Madeleine efficiency and great work, even though there was very little of it to be seen. Effort was spent on making Madeleine look patriotic and not power-hungry, in making it clear to us that her father’s rejections left an impact on her. Even the story involving her attraction to Hana revolved more around HER, not around the woman she hurt. Was the same effort put into exploring Hana’s own struggle in court? In how she feels when people hurt her? In whether she is comfortable doing certain things? I think we all know the answer to that.

The key to why I hate Madeleine’s story so much isn’t that she’s a horrible person. You can be a horrible person and still have a compelling story. You can be a horrible person, and unapologetic about it, but still have the narrative validate what the people you had harmed went through.

It’s that the narrative and team knows and acknowledges her toxic behaviour, but only for a character that they like. They conveniently decided to cherry pick who would be comforted and given reassurance, and who would be forced to praise her bully for her ‘patriotism’. I should have been spending way less time on Madeleine’s redemption and coddling Penelope, and more time on making Hana feel safe in a largely alien place where she has no one but us - and where she is staying only for our protection. My problem is that they didn’t consider Hana’s pain important enough to even address, much less validate.

[eerythingisshaka]

The Coffee Prince Pt. 9

(T’Challa x Reader)

*Part 1* *Part 2* *Part 3*  *Part 4* *Part 5*  *Part 6* *Part 7*  *Part 8*

Word Count 4.6k

Okoye looks at you with heightened concern.  Looking from your belly to your strained expression she continues to walk you away.  “(Y/N), please, sit down and calm yourself.  We cannot risk you miscarrying at this moment.  Breathe!”

You stop in your tracks, staring at her with a deadly expression.  “Then take me to him now.  I won’t interfere and I’m not glass, I’ll be fine. I just need to see his face.”

Okoye locks her jaw looking around a moment to think, switching her spear from one hand to the next.  “You are brave to talk to me like this.”

You swallow hard but remain steadfast.  “I don’t meant to, I just want to know he is alright...ugh…”  You bend over clutching one side of your stomach.

Okoye tuts at you, helping you to  standing position.  “Ok, ok.  You get five minutes; less if things are...out of hand.”  Okoye holds you up slightly as you both walk towards Shuri’s lab facility.

Voices are raised as the elevator opens to the floor T’Challa is on.  They’re distant  so you and Okoye follow them as they become louder.  Passing one examination area, you see Erik lying peacefully on bed with an oxygen mask on his face.  He didn’t even look like he was hurt, just taking a nap from the looks of things.  Two Dora Milaje stand outside his area on guard.  Okoye whispers something that didn’t sound nice in tone in her native language as she rolled her eyes at him and carried you on.

The journey to where T’Challa laid is a strenuous one as your stomach contracts relentlessly.

“We are almost there…”  Okoye whispers, nodding at you in encouragement.  You were starting to regret your stubbornness to see T’Challa immediately during this unknown fit of pain until you finally see him.  

Shuri and a couple of others were working overseeing him, laying bandages across parts of his body, checking his vitals around his bed.  The woman in green is beside her too, questioning the numbers on the board.  Shuri instructs one of her assistants when you catch her peripheral vision.  She clenches her jaw as she says a few more words to the others before coming out.  

“Okoye, what is she doing here?”  Shuri says strongly.

“I can speak for...myself Shuri.  How...is he?”  You gasp between the twists happening in your guts.

Shuri looks you over, laying a hand on your shoulder.  “You do not look well.  What is happening?  Are you in pain?”

You try to wave off her concern, pushing past her.  “I don’t care about that right now, I want to see him!”

Shuri blocks the way to T’Challa.  “I need to get you in a room and examine your pregnancy.  You are obviously experiencing trauma to the point of a possible miscarriage.”

Okoye steps between you two.  “Princess, I suggest allowing her to speak her peace with the King at once.  Delaying her request only makes the situation worse, she is so very determined to do this.  Forcing her otherwise could make things worse, in fact.”

Then, the woman in green appears from behind Shuri.  “Hello, I know we have not met but I am Nakia, a friend of T’Challa’s.  I am so sorry you have had to go through this today, but I assure you everything is fine now.  Shuri, are you letting her see him?”

Shuri puts her hands on her hips defiantly.  “You only get-”

“Five minutes, yeah yeah.  I’d have seen him by now at this rate.”  You say sarcastically.  Nakia smiles at you before walking down the hall.  Her walk is elegant, voice like butter on bread, just smooth and flavorful.  You hold it in your mind to ask about her when things calm down.

As you approach T’Challa the assistants notice your presences, stepping back to give you access to him.  You feel yourself calm as you lean on the bed, looking over him.  One eye is swollen,  lip cracked from a hit.  A bandage covers one area of his chest; the cause of the wound you’d rather not know.  

As he lies down with his eyes closed, you don’t even notice the subsiding of your pain, getting caught up in the image of your love lying there helplessly.

“He should be fine, I assure you.  Luckily with the Heart Shaped Herb, he has a fast, regenerative healing ability.  We are just helping the process along.”  Shuri says from a distance.

You nod mindlessly, only wanting to watch him rest, wanting so badly for him to awaken.  

“Ohh, T’Challa.  What have you gotten yourself into?”  You whisper to him.  Your hand travels to his face, lightly caressing his widow’s peak as you love to do.  Your throat starts to feel tight as your eyes burn with tears.  This is why he didn’t want to tell you.  If this was the kind of life he was living, you would be feeling this way for who knows how often.  You rest your head on the pillow space not occupied by him as tears ran across the bridge of your nose.  

“Ahh, umhle…”  he croaks.

Your head pops up at the exact moment he speaks.  “T’Challa?  You’re awake?”  

His face looks strained as he stirs a little.  “Maybe a little too soon…”

Shuri rushes in to look over his vitals.  “Good to have you with us, brother.  You’ve given us quite a shock with your condition.  Worse than usual.”

T’Challa groans.  “I must be ok if you have time for jokes.”  T’Challa peers over at you, stretching his bruised hand out.  “(Y/N), what happened to you?  You have a mark on your head.”

You reach up, forgetting about the remnants of the crash you still display.  “Oh, right.  Don’t worry about it, I just got a little banged up during the whole thing at the club.”

T’Challa tries to sit up.  

“Lay yourself back down!  You are not properly healed yet, and I really need you to talk less.  (Y/N), two more minutes.”  Shuri reminds you.

“Enough!  You get so bossy when I’m away.”  T’Challa tells her.  “I’m so sorry you got in the midst of all of this, my love.  It shouldn’t be this way.”

You shake your head, holding his hand tightly, playing with his ring.  “You couldn’t help what that asshole was planning.  You did all you were supposed to, and with Shuri and Ayo’s help, I am alive.  This scar is nothing for what could’ve been.”

T’Challa nods, blinking slowly.  “That is good to here.  But what about…”  His voice trails off as his eyes linger on your midsection.  You look down, taking his hand to spread it across your stomach.  All you could do is nod for the amount of emotion stirring underneath the surface of your calm demeanor.  T’Challa’s head falls back on his pillow as he closes his eyes.  

“Thank Bast.  I prayed I wouldn’t awake to a loss.”  

You swallow, keeping your voice as level as possible as you spoke.  “I was not sure about this before, ChaCha, I really wasn’t.  With all that has happened, I felt even less like I wanted to bring a child into this world if it meant its father was doing this stuff.  But, seeing you just now and thinking over all the good I have experienced with you and your family supporting me…”  Your voice cracks as your vision blurs.  T’Challa caresses your face, running his thumb over your edges comforting you.

You lean over to kiss him softly.  While chapped and cracked, it was still electrifying for you as ever.  

When you part, T’Challa says, “You continue to lift my spirits whenever I am with you, a feat I will never ignore.”  Suddenly he goes into a coughing fit.

Shuri lays a hand on your shoulder.  “Guys, let’s go ahead and take a break so we don’t get worked up again.  (Y/N), I’ll let you know when T’Challa is ready for another visit, but it’s time for him to rest now.”

T’Challa takes your hand, kissing it.  It takes everything within you to walk away from him, but you took solace in the fact that he is getting well.  

Heading back to the elevators with Okoye, a man with scars on his face in a blue patterned blanket stands outside the area Erik is laying.

Okoye slows her pace calling out to him.  She and the man talk back and forth rapidly, voices sharp and strained at certain parts of the conversation, but no way could you decipher.

Okoye looks back at you.  “Apologies this is my significant other W’Kabi, emphasis on the ‘other’ at the moment.”

W’Kabi side eyes Okoye.  “Do not make my first impression an ill one, love.  I hear you are the apple of our King’s eye at the moment, eh?”

Okoye answers for you.  “She is not a moment, do not be rude.  And don’t even think about hounding T’Challa about Klaue, he is not our concern anymore.”

W’Kabi perks up.  “T’Challa killed him?”

Okoye sighs.  “He died during the fight.”

W’Kabi squints at Okoye.  “T’Challa didn’t kill him?  Why?  Who did?  How?”

You were over W’Kabi’s attitude and decide to take control of the situation.  “Ughh, ohh, I don’t feel well…” You clutch your stomach, heaving.

Okoye holds you, walking around W’Kabi to the elevator.  “I have other obligations W’Kabi, let us be for now.  Keep watch over your men at the border.”

Finally you and Okoye make it into the elevator to travel to the intended destination.

“Thank you for breaking that up.  I know you weren’t actually unwell.  I appreciate that.”  Okoye says, maintaining her gaze straight ahead.

You nod, relaxing.  “Sooo...what is his deal?” You ask.

Okoye’s shoulders drop as her eyes look around for an answer.  “His history with the man that worked with the outsider that is here is extensive.  Klaue was the cause of many deaths here in one day, including his parents.  He has wanted revenge for as long as I can remember and T’Challa promised that.”

“Sounds like something he would do.  Are they friends?”

Okoye nods, smiling slightly.  “Since they were boys, pranking each other and messing around with the rhinos.  W’Kabi holds him to high esteem.”

You tuck your lips, feeling silly as you ask your next question.  “And what about you guys?  How long have you been together and shiiiit?”  

Okoye turns to you wide eyed.  “Excuse me?  Your language needs to be clean around me, understand?”

You shrink within yourself.  “Sorry.”

Okoye shakes her head straightening up again.  “But to answer, we have known each other since I started training to be a Dora, so 15 years?  A couple for six.”

“Woooow, that’s good.  The best one start as friends, I always hear.  And I like you seem to wear the pants and all.”

Okoye’s mouth opens and closes a couple times before continuing.  “We balance each other out, (Y/N).  So, even though I could kill a man an infinite amount of ways before he could blink, W’Kabi has as much say as I do in what matters to one another personally.  He is not weak, and I am not expected to remain strong at all times...which can be nice…”

The elevators open to a floor with low lighting.  It appeared more lowkey compared to the bright and bustling vibe of Shuri’s lab.  Okoye goes up to a door typing in a code to unlock them.  As they roll open, you are lead into a living space.

“This is where you will be staying.”  Okoye announces as you continue to look around.

You were impressed by the space; tall ceilings, large windows covered by heavy curtains.  You could see parallels between the style of T’Challa’s condo and this room.

“Thank you, Okoye.  I really do love it!”  You walk over to sit on the couch, lounging back on it.

“Well, like it or not, this is it.  I will come by in the morning with word on T’Challa’s condition.  You focus on resting yourself, it’s been a long day, eh?”

“You can say that again.”  You say as Okoye dismisses herself from the residence.  You basked in the comforts of a soft surface to lay on, looking at the sunset through the cracks in the curtain parts.  The exhaustion from the last two days catches up to you as you lay there, feeling pressure on your eyes as you fight to keep them open.  Your hand rests on your stomach, followed by a fluttery feeling.

“Ohhh, you caused me a lot of trouble today, so don’t even right now.”  You scold your belly as you lift your shirt a little to see.  Your stomach still looked like it’s usual self, but you felt better staring at it knowing a little you and T’Challa rested inside.

“So I have decided to keep you, little one.  Wow, saying it out loud is a revelation.  But it’s true so flutter if you’re happy.”  You wait a moment before being greeted by a tickle.  “There you are….yeah I just don’t think I can give you up after all of this.  Your dad is pretty damn cool, lemme tell you.  But you already know, you’re super cool already, growing all fast.  Don’t grow too fast though, huh?  You’re my first, I wanna savor this, and tell people about it before you get here.”  

Your eyes can’t keep up with the conversation as they drift.  “I might be crazy for this, but I want you to see all of this for yourself.  I need someone else to see this so I know I’m not dreaming.  ChaCha makes everything feel like that though, you get used to it…”  You meant to make it to the bedroom to rest properly but that’s just how good the couch is.  You probably said a few more things but they became lost in the dreamscape of your mind as you fell asleep.

Your mind is busy while you’re sleeping, replaying all of the days events over and over again with varying outcomes.  One dream consisted of you running through the holding area Tavia’s in, being chased by something you couldn’t see.  The voices were loud and clear though, cursing you and demanding you to stop as gunshots rang out.  You called for T’Challa in vain as the voices came closer, shots ringing right by your ear until suddenly a hand wraps around your waist.  

You sit up quickly, hyperventilating and sweating in the calm of the living room.

“(Y/N)?”

Your heart stops as your body jolts away from the voice looking in its direction.

T’Challa looks at you empathetically, laying a hand on your knee.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, umhle.”

Your chest heaves with breath, trying to calm down as you stare at him feeling your forehead for fever.  “You’re warm, do I need to call Shuri to examine you?”

“DO I NEED TO CALL SHURI TO EXAMINE YOU??  You were just laid out in that hospital bed on your last leg, and you’re wondering what’s wrong with me?!”  You exclaim in confusion.  Looking him over, turning his head back and forth, amazed by no sign of a black eye or swollen lip.  Pulling at his shirt roughly to look down and find no bandages.

T’Challa just smirks, unphased by your outburst as he sits next to you on the couch with one arm wrapped around you.  “I missed you too, my sweet.”

As his arms came around you, you felt the flutter in your stomach again, as if to remind you to be kind and calm to its father.  Laying a hand there, you snuggle to T’Challa, closing your eyes and sighing deeply.

“I have missed you T’Challa.  I’m just so confused and in shock, I couldn’t bear doing all of that alone.”  

T’Challa’s head rests on top of yours.  “I’m so sorry I lost you.  Erik kept me pretty busy and I just couldn’t keep up anymore, but you have my word that won’t happen again, you are too important to me.”

“You don’t have to promise me that.  I know your intentions are good and things will happen, but you aren’t to blame.”

T’Challa sighs, holding you tighter.  “I have been kicking myself for not letting you in since I met you.  Maybe if I was more forthcoming, you would’ve been more prepared for something like this-”

You look up at him, laying a hand on his chest.  His eyes moistened but resisted any tears from falling.  “Stop beating yourself up!  You got enough of that already today.  ”

T’Challa smiles weakly as you lay your hand to the side of his face.  “I understand why this would’ve been difficult to tell me about now.  I probably would’ve laughed in your face, especially describing your suit, cuz that leaves little to the imagination, ok?  But whatever could’ve changed from telling me, it doesn’t matter now, because I am safe, lying here with you ok?”

T’Challa shakes his head, eyes twinkling in admiration.  “That’s why I am crazy about you.  You know just how to reset me when I short circuit.”

You giggle before stop short.  “Wait, that is a joke, right?  You’re not part robot, or something?”

T’Challa chides you as his hands find your sides tickling you into submission.  “Fine, FINE!  You’re not a robot, staaaahp!”

You share a hearty laugh together, the first good one in what felt like ages.  “But what did Erik do to you to make you so bruised and shit?  You did not look good at all ChaCha.”

“He got his too, trust me.  And he gets up a lot slower, might I add.  But it’s a blur really, at some point he tricked me playing dead and when I retracted from my suit, he got ahold of my necklace, so that’s when the bruising really occurred since I had no armor.”

“Wow, were you trying to kill him?”  You asked cautiously.

T’Challa shrugs.  “Not necessarily, but if it had to happen so he would stop, I was willing.  Especially after he shot me.

“YOU GOT SHOT!?”  You exclaim, ready to tear into him for details.

Suddenly your kimoyo beads light up, interrupting the good time you were having.  It was Shuri.

“Hey!  How are-”

“Where is T’Challa?!”  Shuri asks rather rudely.

Before you could speak, T’Challa sticks his head around.  “Hello sister!  I hope I haven’t worried you!”

Shuri rolls her eyes aggressively.  “Your monitors made it look like your heart had stopped, and then I check on you to see you’re gone, OF COURSE I AM WORRIED!”

T’Challa sighs.  “I am well, just catching up with (Y/N).  Erik is still knocked out?”

Shuri nods.  “Yes, contained and under sedation until we go to question him.  Well, let me not keep you two.  (Y/N), since he is feeling so well, remind him to make you a proper meal in the morning for you and the baby, ok?”

T’Challa responds, “Oh, if you could put in an order for me with the kitchen staff?  We would like-”

“....umntu ovila (lazy person).  Boy bye!”  Shuri says followed by a swift hang up.  

“T’Challa, stop giving your sister such a hard time.  The girl has done a lot since you were gone, and patching you up too!  I still cannot believe...”  

T’Challa crosses his arms.  “Ohh, she has a high tolerance, built up by years of experience.  But I’m glad you are so chumy with her.  Did you make your acquaintance with anyone else?”  T’challa asks, changing the subject.

You roll your eyes but continue.  “Yes!  Actually, I did.  I met  couple Dora Menage’s, Ayo and Okoye.  They all are so damn cool, with the bald heads and spears and strength, it’s dope!”

T’Challa chuckles.  “Dora Milaje, my love.  And yes, they are Wakanda’s most trusted protectors for centuries, so they are indeed awesome.”

“They are hundred of years old?? Oh my God, do they get a serum too for immortality?”  You ask excitedly.

“No!  What are you- I meant that their position has been around for years, not them specifically.  We aren't immortal, that’s crazy.”

You side eye T’Challa.  “Oh ok, of everything I’ve seen THAT is the craziest, cool.”

T’Challa rubs your back tutting at you.  “It’s ok, you get used to it quickly.  Now what else happened while I was under.”

“Umm, I met your mother, Queen Mother to be specific.  She is soooo beautiful T’Challa, and a personality to match.  We had a great talk about things going on, and the baby, she really spoke to me like we knew each other forever.”

T’Challa’s face smiles warmly.  “Yes, she is great.  I’m happy to hear that.”

“Other than that, just a bunch of people here and there, but those were the main ones.”  You pause before continuing.  “T’Challa, what’s going to happen with Erik and Tavia?  I can’t imagine they will be treated lightly for what has happened.”

T’Challa looks away from you as his face drops.  “Well, we don’t have to talk about that tonight.  I have kept you up long enough.”

You shake your head vigorously.  “No, I’m up now, we can talk some more.”

T’Challa gets up, taking you by the hand.  “Can we just go to bed?”  T’Challa raises his eyebrows suggestively.  You scoff at him, crossing your arms, not moving.

T’Challa looks up to the sky before sitting down by your legs.  “Bast and the ancestors.  Listen (Y/N),  I have plans to see them tomorrow to question them and their motives and from their, I honestly have no plans yet for them after that, ok?”

You marinate on his words.  Tavia told you of some of the plans they had, but you weren’t sure if you should tell him or wait for them.  “I spoke to Tavia the other day, before you and Erik came back together.”

T’Challa’s expression turns serious as you spoke.  “What did you all discuss.”

“The obvious: how could she do this to me as a friend and to you as my boyfriend.  How could a guy make her so crazy to even be down for this.”

“And?  What did she say?”  

You hesitate.  “T’Challa, if I tell you, you won’t have any reason to question them tomorrow.”

T’Challa holds up his hand in surrender.  “I plan to give them a fair trial either way, please, tell me.  This is important.”

You think he sounds calm and collected enough, so you did.  You told them about Erik planning to take the throne from T’Challa and even that they were possibly related.  

T’Challa shakes his head.  “That is not possible, my uncle had no children and has long been presumed dead.”

You shrug.  “That is what she told me.  Shuri could just run a blood test for that, right?  And then you both could-”

T’Challa shakes his head, holding his hands together in frustration.  “That’s not going to happen.  It’s impossible, so why waste the time.”

You peer at T’Challa.  “ChaCha, this isn’t something you should brush under the rug.  At least consider it.”

T’Challa looks at you with an unreadable expression.  He may not have even been looking at you exactly, just your direction while his mind was elsewhere.  You sit up, scooting towards him laying your hands on his shoulder.  “Don’t go into this with a heart overrun with unchecked emotions.  You hold the cards now, so look at this objectively.  I wanted to keep this from you for these reasons, I tell you, it’s tough keeping secrets.”

“Tell me about it.”  T’Challa says flatly.

You reach for his widow’s peak, stroking it gently as your belly flutters.  “We are counting on you to be a great man, which you already are.  Don’t overcompensate where it’s unnecessary.”

T’Challa takes your wrist, bringing your fingers down to his lips, kissing their tips.  “You have my word, and my heart...and my undivided attention.”

T’Challa reaches for your hips, snaking his hands down your thighs to bring you across his lap facing him as you straddle.  

“Shuri said I am 6 weeks at least.”  You whisper in his ear.

T’Challa beams with pride, grabbing your waist and rolling small circles over your stomach.  “My Bast, our little bean must be excited to see the world.”

“Little Bean, that’s cute ChaCha.”  You feel at home in his lap, those big beautiful eyes looking up at you is the best view you can imagine.  There had to be a reason for falling for him so fast, one that was not in vain.  Maybe your future child is one but your inner confidence being fortified by T’Challa’s cosigning and being exposed to a new world, much better than any you have known so far, seemed to help to assure you were on the right path as well.

You rest your forehead to T’Challa’s feeling a need build inside of you that he must have felt himself as his hands dipped between your legs to feel you through your bottoms.  Kissing him deeply, it felt good to express your love without worry, as the night concluded with passion uninhibited.

---

The next morning, you look over to T’Challa laid across the bed, out like a light.  So much for breakfast, as you check the time reading 11 am.  Getting up to get dressed, you take your time, feeling more and more at home with the Wakanda lifestyle.  The closet was filled with choices, all in your size of the latest Wakandan fashion.  You smile to yourself feeling the sturdy yet soft fabrics of all sorts of colors, thanking whomever (most likely Shuri) for being so accommodating.  You stay conservative, in a maroon colorblocked top with a tail in the back and some black leggings and sandals.  

Looking around the living area, you find a clear glass door with food behind it that appears to be the fridge.  You have an apple with a chocolate spread that is even better than Nutella, and if the label was right, carried enough nutrients for a balanced breakfast.  

You rubbed your belly or ‘Little Bean’ as your body digested and began to grow restless.  You decide that you want to see what Shuri is up to, just to get out and do something until T’Challa wakes.  

Getting on the elevator, you make you way to her lab floor, still buy but way more normal than yesterday.  As you walk down you pass the area in which Erik is located.  You would’ve missed it since no Dora were guarding at that point.  He looks as rested as T’Challa is, still sedated as he lays.  No one was in the hall to stop you as you walk towards his bed.  Looking him over, you can see his attractiveness.  T’Challa wasn’t wrong though about getting his licks in; one eye blackened, the other has a decent gash above his eyebrow.  There was bruising around his nose, and a similar cut on his lip like T’Challa had.  The locs give him an irresistible edge to his symmetrical features nonetheless.  A sheet covers most of his body, but you notice some keloids along his shoulder that put you off.  

Moving the sheet carefully, you notice they travel a long ways down his torso.  Did T’Challa do this?  No, couldn’t be, these are healed scars, right?  How did he get them in such abundance?  As you move the sheet back, you notice a necklace laid across his chest with a ring on the end.  Deja vu hits you as you reach for it, picking up the ring to study it.  Your mind flashes back to the ring that T’Challa has, the one that is on his hand as he caressed your belly while wounded.  Why would they have the same ring?

Quicker than you could react, Erik’s hand snaps out from the sheet to grab your wrist hard making you yelp.

His face is maniacal as he sits up pulling you towards him.  “Hey princess.  Bout time you brought your ass back around here.” 

Part X

Masterlist

My Ragtag

@sweetpeachjones@scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade@universalbri @therevolution-willbelive@you-like-this-chain @sarcastic-sunshines@airis-paris14@afraiddreamingandloving@kreolemami@lalapalooza718 @syreanne@thiccdaddy-mbaku@she-is-golden @wakanda-inspired@90sinspiredgirl@bidibidibombaclaat@sithlordslut@brujademente@chaneajoyyy@slimmiyagi @lewatigress @shesakillerkween @queentearra @fiercedeception @yaachtynoboat711 @yofavcocoa @katasstrophey @zxddy-panther @babygirlofwakanda @destinio1  @heyauntieeee @ambthegamer

[ladyloveandjustice]

Winter 2018 Anime Overview: Devilman Crybaby and The Ancient Magus Bride

(the weird symbols in place of punctuation will go away if you click on read more. sorry I cannot fix them).

It’s that time of the season! Time to look back on the anime I watched over the Winter 2018 season and give my thoughts on them. We’ve got at least five anime to get through here. l start out with the two that gave me the most conflicted feelings.

Devilman Crybaby

Devilman Crybaby is a 10-episode anime adaptation of Go Nagai’s 70s manga Devilman, revamped for a modern audience. It was released all at once on Netflix. The story follows a young man named Akira Fudo, a Nice Young Man (tm). His childhood friend Ryo gets him involved in hunting demons and he ends up merging with one! He becomes Devilman, a demon who retains his good human heart. With Ryo at his side, he vows to use his powers for justice and fight the bad demons.

I...watched this for some reason, and I pretty much already did a review  (beware spoilers) and covered my thoughts on it in my liveblog. I didn’t come out exactly a fan of the show overall, but it was an interesting experience at least. I had a fun time looking into the weird history of the franchise and with all the memes. Devilman Crybaby is based on a old, influential manga and there’s a good breakdown of some of the smart adaptation choices the series made here. Probably the thing that a lot of people in my circle talking about it the most is it’s EXTREMELY queer, and while the representation is a mixed bag to say the least, it makes an effort.

Overvall, there’s some cool concepts and arcs in this series, such as the the depictions of Satan and God.There’s also some neat animation and aesthetics, but plotwise it’s uneven with the first half being very weak in the pacing department and the characters were not explored as much as I’d like.

There’s also a lot of badly handled and salaciously framed sexual assault junk as well as gross, exploitative framing of women’s bodies while mens’ bodies are largely left alone. The tired way it deals with sexuality is really boring and standard when you get down to it, rather than “shocking” like it tries to be.

What i really got out of it was I will keep the doomed queer lady couple and carry them in my heart along with the other gay stuff and I will laugh at how Extra Ryo is forever, but in the long run, not much else is memorable and will stick with me.

The Ancient Magus Bride (Episodes 14-22)

Read my review of the first half of the Ancient Magus Bride here!

Hoo boy. There is a lot to unpack with this one. I am going to get pretty detailed with my analysis here, so major spoilers. The TLDR version is: good stuff with Chise’s mom, bad ending episode, read the manga.

Let’s start with the good. We see Chise grow a lot as a character during this second half of the series and there’s a really nice focus on her forming friendships with girls closer to her age. The series shows her building a life outside Elias for herself and she becomes more self-possessed. She and Elias have a lot to teach each other, and they have some refreshingly honest conversations.

The series also doesn’t shy away from depicting Chise’s trauma and shows her grappling with it a lot.. She still places a very low value on herself and feels guilty for relying on others, and Elias calls her out on that. She’s taking steps forward, slowly. Episode 22, probably the strongest episode of the series, deals with the issues she has with her mother and her backstory and there are a ton of cool things there

Chise’s mother attracted monsters in a way similar to Chise does, and when her husband abandoned her, she struggled to both support and protect herself and Chise. It was near impossible task considering all the things trying to kill them and her desperation eventually led to a complete breakdown, where she tried to strangle Chise and lessen her burden. When she snapped out of it, she was so horrified at what she’d done, she committed suicide.

Chise takes a deep dive into her memories and comes to the realization the “mother” that has haunted her all this time was a version of her mother she herself constructed in her head based on her mother’s worst moment, a mother who wants her dead. But her mother didn’t actually want that in the end, otherwise she wouldn’t have let go of Chise or hated herself for what she did. Her mother, like any human, was not just one emotion or one moment, she was a fragile and flawed person who really did care for Chise before she broke down. Chise recognizes that now.

But, and this is the key, and what really made this episode work for me: Chise explicitly does not forgive her mother. Her mother is complex and more than just that one act, but that doesn’t mean that one act can be overlooked, or is any less scarring for Chise. She crossed a line that cannot be uncrossed, and Chise doesn’t have to forgive that to move on. Her mother abandoned her and now she has a new life. She chooses not to let her mothers actions define her.

I really enjoyed that. It’s true the images we construct in our heads are different from the real people we interact with, who are more complex, and the way this episode explores that is cool. One important moment can define the version of that person we keep in our hearts. And this episodes message that you can recognize someone who abused you as a complex and even pitiful person and still not forgive them. The most important thing is to move forward. A lot of stories wouldn’t have handled this sequence that deftly. The narrative sympathizes with Chise’s mother, but it doesn’t excuse her and neither does Chise herself.

But hey, speaking of abuse and narratives glossing over it! Let’s talk about Elias.

So you know all those female friendships Chise’s having and how she’s like, getting a life outside Elias? Elias is not okay with that. In fact, he’s SO possessiv he threatens Chise’s life at one point- she has to threaten to hurt herself to get him to stop squeezing her. It’s pointed out that Elias is like a child, which is true enough- he’s very new to feelings and interacting with people. But the excuse “oh it’s because he’s like a child” is eerily reminiscent of how abusers are excused in real life- “he can’t control himself, he’s just throwing tantrums”. Abusers are often babied in this way.

The idea Chise is obligated to “mother” him and teach him basic morality and self control even at risk to herself is a dangerous one. Nobody should be expected to do that, much less a traumatized teen. Yet Chise instantly forgives Elias for nearly killing her, when she clearly needs to get out of this relationship before she is harmed more, because this behavior can only worsen.

And I actually don’t have a problem with this for most of the narrative- because it’s not romanticized  It is clearly a mistake that Chise indulges Elias’s behavior because, realistically, it escalates.

Chise’s days are numbered thanks to a curse and he promises Chise he’ll work with her to solve the problem. But he goes back on his word and tries to sacrifice another human to save Chise. He even goes so far as to make Chise faint to keep her from interfering, utterly denying her agency. And the kicker is he chooses to kill the a little girl Chise has befriended for this, explicitly because he’s jealous that Chise “looks at her” differently that she does him. He is literally so possessive he’s willing to kill children Chise dares pay any attention to.

it’s unbelievably fucked up, and the narrative treats it as such. It also make it clear this is the natural result of how toxic this relationship has gotten. Chise arrives in time to stop Elias and her sheer horror and rage is very powerfully done. For the first time, she sees him for how selfish and dangerous he is, how much he doesn’t respect her wishes and their relationship is broken. In a powerful (and satisfying) moment, she slugs him in the face.

Then she leaves him, stating “I can’t be with you as you are now.” Her rage and pain is the central focus here. And I have no problem with the narrative- it depicts an abusive relationship without endorsing it. It shows how these things can escalate, and it shows that Chise has very much outgrown Elias.

There’s a good scene shortly after where the fey tell Elias to take Chise back by force, as is their fairy way, and he says no, he needs to try to understand how humans work and change how he does things. That’s some really interesting stuff- the supernatural beings have their own entirely different way of approaching "love”, and Elias was entrenched in that. But now he has to learn how to love in a more honest, less possessive way, like a human is supposed to. That would be a really interesting journey to see- I love contrasting morality systems between various magical beings.

So,    It’s no longer a good idea for Chise and Elias to be near each other. Chise needs her space from him and Elias needs to seriously change and make amends.

I fully expected this to be how the anime ends. With Elias and Chise seperating and the promise that they will both be able to grow and change and learn to be without each other. And probably a hint that they’d reunite eventually, when Elias has truly changed (not just SAID he will). It seemed to be the natural arc of the narrative and honestly what these two characters NEEDED to really progress.

But the anime said “fuck character development, fuck healthy relationships, fuck pacing, fuck everything” and threw the arc it had been carefully building out the window.

In an extremely rushed and jarring final epsiode, Chise does a dangerous thing and asks for Elias’s help and he complies and...thus she instantly forgives him. Despite the whole thing being treated as a huge deal, suddenly this very real issue of their toxic relationship is forgotten, she goes back to him and their disagreement is treated as nothing more than a cute spat (with Elias claiming Chise is equally at fault because she acted on her own without waiting for him once, proving he has learned NOTHING  and does not understand the severity of what he did and how it is in no way equivalent to Chise simply being reckless), they even turn chibi.

THIS IS AN ARGUMENT OVER HOW ELIAS TRIED TO MURDER A CHILD CHISE LIKED OUT OF PETTY JEALOUSY. IT’S A BIG DEAL. DON’T TRY TO MAKE IT SOME CUTE AND SILLY THING WHEN YOU TREATED IT SERIOUSLY THREE EPISODES AGO.

Oh, but it gets worse. Elias and Chise resolve their argument offscreen and apparently it’s all solved by Elias saying he won’t do it again. Yep. That’s it. No demonstration he’s changed or even understands why his actions are wrong. It’s just “I won’t do things you don’t like”. Problem solved!

And the Chise does what any girl would do after a guy broke her heart and tried to murder her ten year old friend: get a wedding dress and make her vows to him!

No. i’m not joking. As much as I wish it was.

And this scene is not framed as creepy or dangerous. It is framed as sweet and romantic.

Let’s put aside the fact Chise is 16. Let’s put aside the huge power imbalance in their relationship and the fact Chise is in his care. Even putting those things, this makes no sense from a narrative and characterization perspective

Elias has done nothing to warrant Chise wanting the make this step! He literally just betrayed her! There was absolutely no buildup to this, no natural relationship progression! Elias and Chise are both in no way ready to be in a romantic relationship! Elias proved he isn’t emotionally equipped to function as FRIEND and reasonable being right now, much less a husband! Does he even know what a bride is? Last time we checked, he didn’t even understand the concept fully! He has no idea what he’s supposed to do as a husband. Why would Chise choose NOW of all times to make her move when he’s done nothing to show her he won’t pull shit like, i dunno, trying to murder her friends because he’s jealous, again?

This is so tonally jarring with the rest of the series and it comes out of nowhere. It seemed fundamentally opposed to how the relationship between Chise and her mom was handled, where moving away from abuse and letting go of your abuser was emphasized. Where not excusing horrible actions and taking time to fully deal with your hurt and pain was emphasized. Apparently none of that applies to Elias! No time apart, no time to process and heal and have him take responsibility for his actions!

It’s also just terrible from a narrative perspective- it’s ridiculously rushed, it’s a complete tone shift that treats what was presented as a big dramatic conflict that seemed like it would shake these characters at their foundation as a an easily resolved cute little spat, it fails to be satisfying as a conclusion. Compared to the rest of the show, it feels like it was written by an entirely different person.

And it was. I immediately went to check if this whole conclusion was anime original and yep. This is where it overtook the manga. This ep was the shitty, rushed conclusion they tacked on to a story line that really, really needed more time to breathe. I have no idea why they’d want to do this, why they couldn’t just wait for the manga to finish this arc and end the anime there, but here we are.

I hope the manga will have a more satisfying conclusion to this storyline, that it will give the resolution the room it needs. Ideally, I’d like Chise to live apart from Elias for at least a while. She’s grown a lot, and she needs space to grow further and learn how to function without him. They’ve gotten dangerously codependent and it’s stifling her. Meanwhile, Elias especially needs to learn how to not treat Chise so possessively and taking time apart from her and respecting her wishes to be left alone would help him learn to do that. He needs to work on himself so he isn’t a danger to her. If they stay together right now, things will only get worse.

The manga is about their relationship, so I have no doubt they’ll eventually reunite, but I want to see it happen only after Elias proves he’s changed significantly and after Chise is allowed to become more confident and independent. I hope the manga delivers on that and tells a satisfying story where the characters actually grow, that treats the issue of abuse and toxic relationships seriously, that gels with the stuff that came before.

Of course, there was other stuff going on in the midst of Chise and Elias’ emotional journeys. We learned the Cartaphilus backstory and it was actually pretty interesting stuff. it fully explored exactly how horrific it would be to wander the earth and never die- Cartaphilus was being punished for a crime that was so long ago he couldn’t even remember what it was. When he finds out it was “threw a rock at the Son of God” he’s like “wtf just for that? other people did way worse shit!” and you have to agree with him. It also offers the ishiness of using Cartaphilus as an antagonist a bit by making it clear he only started killing after fusing with a boy named Joseph. In fact, the Cartaphilus part of Joseph seems mostly benign as he was the one who tried to talk to Chise.

So it’s a compelling take on an old story. Lots of parallels are made between him and Chise, he’s a great antagonist thematically. The conclusion...well like everything in the last episode, it was rushed, weird, and I couldn’t really tell what was going on. Hopefully the manga's version will be better.

I enjoyed a lot of this anime- the rich fantasy world, the exploration of trauma, the complex characters- but the last episode was just so infuriatingly BAD that it damaged the narrative as whole. It undid and contradicted most of the positive things about the story. It just left me feeling skeeved out.

So in the end, I don’t recommend this anime. Because you’re better off reading the manga. I went through it, and it was better paced than the anime overall, has many details that strengthen the story and the emotional beats hit much harder. Watching the anime can be a confusing experience at times, but the manga is much easier to follow. I feel pretty confident based off this that however the manga wraps up the current arc, it will at the very least be slightly better paced and executed. So be kind to yourself, and go with the better version of the story if you’re interested in this. And cross your fingers for a good ending.

[geekoplanetstore]

My Journey From Self-Hate To Self-Love

A little while ago, I was thinking about how I felt about myself at the beginning of my journey and how I feel about myself now. What this made me think about are the different stages that I have gone through. Earlier on, I didn't have much love for myself and, as the years passed, this gradually changed. This is not to say that I have gone from completely hating myself to completely loving myself, but I have certainly come a long way. The Meaning When it comes to self-love, I'm talking about simply feeling comfortable in my own skin and accepting myself. What I'm not talking about is having an inflated sense of myself and seeing myself as better than others. With that said, I can see that there are certain stages that I have gone through over the years. Also, I believe that these are stages that other people are likely through if they are on a journey from self-hate to self-love. The First Part In the beginning, before I was on 'the path', I had no idea that I hated myself. This is not to say that I didn't experience the consequences of hating myself; it was just that how I experienced life was normal. I would tolerate being traded badly and I didn't believe that I deserved to receive anything. I had a strong critical voice in my head, and I would often feel down and even suicidal.

Poor posture can be really bad to your health! If you are a gamer or office staff, chances are you suffer from slouching often and have poor posture. Use our Posture Correction Belt and correct your posture now! Another Part I would often go along to get along, doing what I could to please others. Focusing on other people's needs was something that just happened; unconsciously, I saw this as the only way I would be accepted by others. Of course, I wasn't being accepted for who I was; I was being accepted for the role that I played. As I believed that there was something inherently wrong with me, I hid myself to avoid being rejected and abandoned - ostracised. The Second Part About a year after I left school, I took my first step on 'the path', and this is when I started to change. Experiencing shame was a problem, but I didn't know that I was experiencing shame at the time; I just knew that my face would often get really hot and I would feel bad and want to hide when it did. The reason I was able to change wasn't that I started to actually feel better about myself, it was because I started to develop a new self that allowed me to disconnect from how I felt. Instead of feeling inferior to others, what I was learning caused me to feel superior to others at times. The Third Part This lasted for a number of years and then the false-self that I had created came tumbling down. While I was on a course, the teacher basically said that no one was better than anyone else. Hearing this meant that I ended up coming into contact with the feelings that I had been trying to avoid. At this stage, I believed that I only had two options; I was better than others or I was worse than others - there was no middle ground. The Fourth Part Before my false-self came crashing down, I had been working on my beliefs and dealing with 'past life' trauma. This didn't do much though, and after this, I tried to change how I felt by saying positive things to myself. One of the ways that this took place was by having hypnotherapy. This allowed me to feel a bit better about myself, but it wasn't long until this false-self came falling down and I came face-to-face with what was deep inside my being. The Fifth Part What triggered a lot of deep pain was when a relationship I was in came to an end in 2013. It was like my foundations were made of jelly and this means that I ended up losing the small amount of stability that I had built up over the years. A lot of shame came to the surface at this point and I would often feel suicidal. I was already working with a therapist at this point to deal with my emotions, so I did have help available at this time. The Reason I was aware of why so much pain had come up and I had been looking into the effects of early abuse and neglect for a number of years. I could see that how I had been treated throughout my early years had had a massive impact on me. Ultimately, what took place was in the past but my being was still carrying the effects of what took place; I was in a deeply traumatised state. All the material that came up had been trapped in my unconscious mind/body for all this time. The Sixth Part For a number of years, I worked through the emotions that had come up and this did have an effect on how I saw and felt about myself. Furthermore, I started to become a more integrated human being. The critical inner voice inside me started to settle down as well. However, what was still an issue was accepting that I deserved to be treated well and that I deserved to receive good things. The Seventh Part As I went deeper inside myself, I came to see was that I had personalised what took place during my early years. At this stage of my life, it wasn't possible for me to see that I wasn't treated badly because I was bad; I was treated badly because my parents had serious issues of their own. Patience and Persistence It took me almost seventeen years to get to the point where I could not only acknowledge how I felt but until a big part of me could accept that it was not the truth. If it wasn't for all the research and healing work that I had done, this wouldn't have happened. I probably would have ended my life a long time ago or had a very miserable existence. Throughout this time, I worked with numerous therapists and healers and tried many different methods, and this is why I don't believe there is a one-approach-fits-all. How Can I Serve You? As I said above, I don't always feel good about myself but if I look back on where I started, I can see that I have come a long way. If you can relate to what I have written and need additional support, one of the ways that I can provide this is through the personalised consultations that I offer via Skype or Zoom. To find out more, please go to http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk/consultations. If you are committed to your own healing, it would be an honour to assist you on your journey. Author, transformational writer, teacher and consultant, Oliver JR Cooper, hails from England. His insightful commentary and analysis covers all aspects of human transformation, including love, partnership, self-love, and inner awareness. With over two thousand, four hundred in-depth articles highlighting human psychology and behaviour, Oliver offers hope along with his sound advice. To find out more go to - http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk/ Feel free to join the Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/OliverJRCooper   Read the full article

[lucindarobinsonvevo]

A good au: That One Enterprise Episode Where Vulcans Come to the Sixties But Dr Blake, based around the comment someone made to me once that Charlie is like an alien learning human emotion for the first time sometimes.

Charlie (not his actual name, his actual name has no human pronunciation) is an officer on a large ship from a (currently undecided) planet with a similar makeup to humans, but unlike humans he has weird hands and different customs (bcs of course) ad they are on a journey to do some study about the worlds current space program as well as asses the planet for resources that could be of use to his race, which is mostly about advancement for their dying planet.

However, while in orbit of the planet, the ships system fails, and the ship, along with its 10 crew plummet to Earth, specifically Australia, specifically rural Victoria. After landing, it is shown that the crew are dead or escaped with the exception of Charlie Davis. Charlie stumbles from the crash site badly injured, but has the foresight to remove his high tech jumpsuit and wander away from the site dressed in his underclothes (which consist of a white shirt and thin fabric pants).

Stuck in the bush, in the middle of the night, it takes an injured Charlie days of walking to escape to a roadside, where he is found by (you’ll never guess) Lucien in the Blake Mobile. He obviously sees a man on the roadside looking for help so he pulls over. He’s on his way home from a crime, (not Charlie’s ship, but from a smaller town who has no doctor but there was a murder. He has to get home to his wifey / housekeeper Jean) He takes Charlie to Ballarat General to see what is wrong with him.

When Charlie wakes up, he initially doesn’t understand Blake, but thanks to his background in language (all students on his planet study it) he quickly picks up the basics. Charlie, who was never trained for this kind of situation, feigns amnesia and pretends his confusion and misunderstandings of his situation are thanks to his head trauma rather than because hes you know. An alien. Jean is quite taken with him, and decides he needs a name. She gives him the name Charles, because it’s a strong name and she thinks he will need to be strong to keep going ( ~foreshadowing~) then shortens it to Charlie as is the custom. Charlie finds this odd, because no one does this on his planet, but accepts it. He knows he cannot remain here however and hopes someone was able to find their help call in space.

Charlie finds it fairly easy to settle into Ballarat life, and makes friends with Mattie O’Brian and Matthew rather quickly, and endears himself to the town as awkward and a little strange but mostly kind and willing to help however he can. He occasionally comes across as aloof but usually apologies when made aware. Mostly he spends time with Jean, and is able to put his skills from space, which is to say, maths, to good use and ‘earns his board + food’ by doing the doctors books. Most of his clothes were donated by Matthew and Bill, left by Danny and his coat was a gift from Lucien. Charlie is well adjusted and given up on ever returning to space.  

Charlie also begins to persue a romantic relationship with Mattie, having gotten very close to her.  They share a kiss in his bedroom, after going on a couple of dates. Jean comes in and accuses Mattie of taking advantage of him, to which Charlie replies that he initiated it and that he was fully capable of making his own choices. They argue briefly about it, and Mattie storms out.

Lucien finds it very strange Charlie has never recovered any of his memory and while he does like Charlie and doesn’t think he’s any danger to anyone and believes he’s covering something up. He heads back to where they suspect Charlie’s car accident happened (they never found his car) and goes deeper into the bush.  He finds not only Charlie’s ship, but his dead crewmen, and Charlie’s ‘’’rescue party’’’ except its not a rescue party. They believe Lucien is responsible for the slaughter and take him hostage.

Back at Ballarat, Charlie is revealed to have gotten his hands on one of his communicators. It goes off with Jean in the room and no longer able to hide it, he’s forced to reveal his true identity to her. She is well shocked. Even more so when Lucien is shown to be kidnapped and Charlie is sent for.

Knowing he has to save Lucien, Charlie, Mattie, Matthew and Jean all go to the crash scene and Charlie equips them with weapons. They go up to the ship and shit goes down. Charlie talks them into releasing Lucien by using his medicine as proof he helped, not hindered. Lucien is rather gobsmacked by the whole thing and understandedly. (also Jean looks kinda hot with a gun pointed at someone). After a great deal of debate, Charlie convinces his people that the Blake Crew can be trusted and that he would like to be positioned here full time.

They discuss it, and decide that it wont be possible and Earth must be terminated. Charlie, in a fit of rage, shoots the console that controls the weapons system, triggering an all out firefight. Charlie takes control of the engine panel (that he previously operated) and tells them that he’d take them all out by destroying the engines. They beg that he doesn’t do that and ask for her terms. Charlie basically says that they will put him, and the Blake Crew back on Earth and they will take the ship and corpses, and then never come back. Charlie also takes the captain as insurance. After his terms are met the other alien is released leaving the Blake Crew on Earth, a little scorched but otherwise uninjured and very shocked.

Charlie asks if they want tea and promises to explain everything.

 Skip forwards five years.

Mattie and Charlie (who have just returned from the UK, where they went for Mattie’s job, Charlie balances books for a living) are getting married! All their mates are there and they kiss, it’s all super happy, and Charlie demonstrates his super strength by carrying Mattie as well as Jean, out of the chapel.

ive been watching a lot of enterprise lately......always likes this concept.