#Micah still thinks Entrapta was with the Alliance

[clash-of-moonbeams]

Anybody else ever think about how convenient it was that Micah, Scorpia, and Mermista were chipped in S5? You know, before the Best Friend Squad, Best Girl Entrapta, and Catra landed back on Etheria?

No seriously, how CONVENIENT that it was those three specifically that couldn’t interact freely one-on-one with Catra once she, the Best Friend Squad, and Best Girl Entrapta touched back down on Etheria. Catra caused Angella to be trapped between two dimensions, treated Scorpia like sh*t, and conquered Mermista’s kingdom. And yet Micah and Mermista never got to interact with her, and Scorpia just seemed to insta-forgive at the end of S5. Well, that’s not TOTALLY true, after being de-chipped Mermista looks around and sees Hordak and Catra and is like “So we’re just ok with this?”. The most reasonable question EVER.

So much was lost because Catra was not able to properly interact with these three (not to mention Glimmer only got to really interact with the father she lost at a young age RIGHT at the end). We see Catra apologizing to both Adora and Entrapta (not GOOD apologies where she acknowledges all she’s done against them and sincere remorse for her actions, but apologies nonetheless), but she never really does this with anybody else. She kind of tries with a chipped Scorpia, but the latter is chipped so that doesn’t go anywhere, and by the end she never even finished he apology before Scorpia hugged her.

No complicated feelings, no confrontations, no visible grudges being held (except for Perfuma in that one episode). But why, you ask, am I insisting upon this? Catra still apologized, or at least tried to, in Adora, Entrapta, and Scorpia’s cases. She doesn’t even really know Micah and Mermista anyway!

That’s kind of the point.

Catra only tries to apologize to those who she personally knew, she doesn’t actually acknowledge to harm she’s done to people outside of them. She never apologized for Angella, never apologized to Bow for all the things she did to him, heck she didn’t even try to apologize to Frosta for “ruining Princess Prom”. She just let Adora tell the others that she jumped sides and that she was cool now. And nobody really batted an eye (except for Perfuma in that one episode). Part of why Catra’s so-called redemption arcs sucks is because she’s barely made to really be confronted with all the bad she’s done, and try to atone for it.

Because she hurt EVERYBODY in the Princess Alliance in some way, and she doesn’t even offer a small apology? I know why Mermista and Micah especially were chipped, it’s because those two could hold a GRUDGE. We saw it with Mermista and Entrapta, and we saw it when Micah just glared at Shadow Weaver when he was saved by her. But of course, Catra’s “redemption arc” mostly revolves around ADORA, as does everything with her, especially because Catradora was shoved into S5 and they were sprinting to make that goal. You know, despite how that goal made no narrative sense, especially because before S5 Adora didn’t seem to have any romantic feelings for Catra, but that’s something for another time.

Anyway, Catra was barely made to acknowledge any wrong she had done to the supposed love of her life and the only two allies she had in the Horde. So it really doesn’t surprise me that she wasn’t made to acknowledge the wrong she did to everybody else (except Shadow Weaver, Catra didn’t have anything to apologize about there) by the writers. Catra was handled with kid gloves, and meanwhile Entrapta did NOT get that luxury.

I’m not saying Entrapta didn’t do anything wrong, but geez did the princesses hold more of a grudge for her than Catra. With some ableism splashed in there too, yikes. And yet, Entrapta actually worked on herself and did her best to atone. She risked her safety trying to get the location of Horde Prime’s ship, she tried to be more sensitive to other’s feelings. She fixed Mara’s ship so they could travel to space, she found a way to de-program the chips, she even visibly reined in her love and fascination for tech in order to get those chips off. Meanwhile, what did Catra do that showed that she was making a change to the Rebelion? To prove she was trying to atone?

The most she does is let them slip by without detection from HP’s forces, and that’s not even her doing, it’s MELOG’S!

Tl;Dr: Catra’s redemption was hastily done and poorly written. Nowhere can that be more found than the fact Micah, Scorpia, and Mermista were not able to confront her with their grievances and make her realize the affects she had on other people BESIDES those in her personal life

[that-ari-blogger]

Where Do We Go Now? (Horde Prime)

The fifth season of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power begins on a pretty dire note. I’m not going to spoil the series in this introduction, so go watch the show if you don’t know what I mean, but suffice to say that this isn’t the best of circumstances.

Except, it’s not actually the worst of circumstances either. Things are bad, don’t get me wrong, but if you are really obtuse, you can see a balance emerge here, and I am nothing if not obtuse.

Let me explain.

Spoilers Ahead: (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Star Wars Skeleton Crew)

She-Ra is a story about escaping the cycle of abuse, most clearly exemplified by the horde, but also through Light Hope and Shadow Weaver. From a certain point of view, season five opens with that being accomplished.

Catra is on the other side of the galaxy to Shadow Weaver. She has lost that power that corrupted her, and she has a nominal friend in Glimmer.

For all intents and purposes, the Horde has been defeated. Hordak is no more, and this new enemy is so aesthetically and practically different from its predecessor that it doesn’t feel like the same thing at all.

Light Hope has been set free, She Ra no longer inhibits Adora or acts to control her, and she is showing incredible combat skill without it.

Those are the stated goals of the series and the thematic endpoints of every idea that the series was building up towards.

If it wasn’t for Horde Prime, the series could have ended with the last season and been genuinely quite satisfying. The characters claw their way out of the tragedy, Glimmer was tragically lost, Catra couldn’t be saved.

Instead, the series kept on going and scaled itself up a bit. We suddenly see the full scope of everything, and despite their escape, our characters are still barreling towards tragedy. Breaking free didn’t matter, or at least wasn’t everything.

I think that every season in this show has a different thematic angle to be read through. A different question to ask.

Season one, for example, asked “how do relationships change?” As such, the season spent a lot of time developing the history of Shadow Weaver and Micah, as well as the fall of Entrapta and of course the focus on Adora and Catra. But it also showed the gaining alliance of the Rebels in the context of the previous fall.

In contrast, season four asked “what about everyone else?”

That’s why I pointedly avoided discussing Catra and Adora in detail. The season was about Glimmer and Light Hope and Perfuma and Scorpia. It was about everyone who was tangentially related to the main story but was being broken down because of it. Season four was a season concerned with collateral damage.

Which brings us to season five, and to the question: “where do we go now?”

The events I mentioned at the start of this are only positive from a certain point of view. To everyone else they are either negative or simply different. Everything is up in the air, everything has changed.

Last season, the show wrapped up, and now we are on a different story entirely. We are in a different place in the galaxy, the villain is different in every way imaginable. We have a different arrangement of characters. We have a different genre aesthetic, moving from quirky fantasy to full science fiction

My reading of this season is that it is the hardest step of removing oneself from the cycle of abuse: deprogramming.

The new Horde is aesthetically a modern or psuedo-modern cult, and the verb for breaking free from that is "deprogramming".

This is a story about what happens after someone escapes from that cycle of abuse in the physical sense, and suddenly has to resolve how they act. These are new situations that provide the characters with an opportunity to be whatever they want, and this is the story of those characters making those choices.

Put simply: “What do you want?”

Catra and Adora come into centre stage with mirrors of each other, specifically through their echoes of their previous deeds.

Both react to this new circumstance through changing next to nothing about themselves. They are on the path to redemption, sure, but neither seems to acknowledge that this is a wholly different situation.

“The Horde's the Horde, even in space. As long as I'm of value to Horde Prime, I've got a place in this world. I can work my way up here, just like I did before.”

This gets pointed out in the story as an insane thing to say. But it highlights Catra’s mindset in a concise way to remind the audience and explain her to new viewers.

Catra’s life has been ruined by her desperation for power. She wants to be safe, but instead of seeking that out, she takes the feeling of safety instead, and she does that through clinging to power. I will stress that safety and the emotions associated with it are different things, and Catra’s actions are more in line with an addict looking for one more hit of that dopamine gained from feeling secure.

If she wanted to actually be safe, she would have left the Horde way back in episode two. But if all characters always did the logical thing, then the story wouldn't exist. This isn't a plot hole, it's a character beat.

The key here, as gets stated by Glimmer, is that the feeling of safety is hollow. That ignorance is going to get Catra killed or worse.

Adora weilds a staff in this episode, which has two meanings. One, it's about as far from a sword in how it's used as possible. At least, far from a longsword like that of She-Ra, greatswords are a bit different. It's a different fighting style that has different strengths and weaknesses. But also, we've seen Adora wield a staff before. In episode one. When she was with the Horde.

Similarly, Adora is wrestling with the fallout of no-longer being She-Ra by falling further into her hero complex. She has to save everyone and will burn herself down to feel any warmth. She doesn’t sleep, and devotes herself to duty to take her mind off the situation.

The lesson she learns is that she is not alone, but there’s something else, and it’s the really small moment of the kid with the doll.

The child is obviously enamoured with Adora, and they carry the doll of She-Ra because to them, the two people are one and the same. To them, Adora hasn’t lost anything. To them, that admiration hasn’t gone anywhere.

I will remind you of what we know about She-Ra. Most recently, the First Ones claimed that they chose Etheria because it had She-Ra. But earlier on in the series, Madam Razz said this:

“She-Ra was here long before your people arrived.”

Adora never heard this, as it was spoken to Mara, but the point stands for the audience. Adora hasn’t lost She-Ra, she has shaken off the thing that controlled that part of her life. Now she needs to learn to do it a different way.

In other words, she needs to relearn how she interacts with the world. She needs to deprogram herself of everything the First Ones and the Horde taught her.

Speaking of deprogramming, this episode is named for it’s villain, and there’s something important to discuss about that.

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is a series about growing up and leaving your bubble. It is about preconceptions and imagination. It is about change.

Part of how it explores this theme is the villain, Jod Na Nawood.

Jod is introduced as a heroic mentour in the first cliff hanger of the episode. But for the rest of the series until his true motivations are revealed, he is the most obviously suspicious character in the series. To the point where the kids notice.

There is a consistent thing with blue and red lighting in this series, in that everything keeps trying to shoot Jod in blue, but he keeps changing the scene or moving towards the red. For someone who's entire thing is helplessness and forced evil, he certainly makes a lot of bad decisions. Put simply, he is telling you the world is awful while actively removing any good in it. It's the childish excuse: "It's not my fault, it was like this when I found it." No. No it was not.

Obviously, this plays into that idea of not reading a book by its cover. But this is a character who keeps coming up with names and monikers, and who wears a mask at every opportunity. There is more to this man yet.

Then we get the final episode, and we get his backstory, and remarkably, he is wrong about everything.

He claims the galaxy is cruel and uncaring and that there are “a few pinpricks of light”, and yet everyone in the show has been kind to him except the people he actively did harm to. He caused his own misfortune, and people are still kind to him. The kids break him out of jail, their parents save them even at great personal cost. Jod Na Nawood is wrong, and the series ends by flooding him with light just to get the message across.

This is not a morally grey character. This is a villain with a cohesive backstory. Nuance and moral greyness are not the same thing.

But here’s the key thing, Jod is a child who never grew up. He is forever trapped in a moment that the Galaxy isn’t anymore. He says the world is awful and then takes steps to make it worse, and that final shot of his defeat makes it abundantly clear.

Jude Law is hot, but he’s also an incredible actor. If you combine that with good cinematography, you get a moment where the camera looks directly at him as the light illuminates his expression, leaving nowhere to hide, and he looks like a scared child recovering from a tantrum. He looks about to cry. He looks like he's about to say "it's not fair".

There's something to be said for the simplicity of Jod's design in comparison to the rest of Star Wars. Jaba is a slug gangster, Darth Vader has the hat and the cape, and Jod has the helmet. But when you take that away, which the show keeps doing, he's just some guy. He wears clothes that are slightly too big for him, and he has a big ol' gap over his chest. He's vulnerable.

Jod is not good at scheming, he got defeated by children. He’s not particularly charismatic, he lost his crew repeatedly. He’s not a good leader, see my previous point. He’s a traumatised child who refused to grow beyond that.

In that sense, he is a thematic opposite to the main characters. They represent hope (a new hope, you might say), and he represents stagnation. The series asks which idea will prevail, and Jod’s does not.

In She-Ra, the villain is Horde prime, who acts as the symbol of isolation and lack of agency.

Everyone around him is a vessel for his will. He is another version of Shadow Weaver turning her victims into another version of herself. Horde Prime does that literally with the mind chips that will become more important later on in the series.

His interaction with Glimmer is all about confining her. He limits her magic, he shows her images he knows will break her. He messes with her free will.

He's also an eejit. Catra was willing to give him the weapon practically for free. But no, he took the extra effort because he wanted to feel powerful. He's petty and cruel, and he's blind. He's got so many eyes, but he can't see the easiest rout to his plan when it is handed to him on a platter.

This has been a story so far about taking your own agency and being your own person, and Horde Prime is the person who says “no actually, you shouldn’t do that.”

His throne room is a vast emptiness, his power set is about embracing oblivion.

In that way, Horde Prime is a thematic opposite to the themes of the series. The story has been teaching our characters to be free, and Horde Prime tries to get them to surrender.

We will see which idea comes out on top.

Final Thoughts

I want to talk about Shadow Weaver for a moment. This is a season that delves into redemption, and it offers that to everyone, Shadow Weaver included. We will see how that ends, but for the moment, there is an interesting dichotomy.

I think Shadow Weaver does care about Micah and Catra. She saves Micah’s life in this episode. But she doesn’t care enough to do anything about it. She doesn’t care enough to change her ways. Redemption is offered, and she doesn’t take it.

I think that sets up the concept rather well. Redemption is not just something that is offered, it is something that you have to take agency in. You have to redeem yourself. You can get help, and honey, you will need it. But, you have to do most of the work.

I think that makes Catra’s story a bit more impactful.

Next week, I will be looking at Launch, so stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[loganofthenorth]

Thinking of writing a Shera Swap AU where Catra is the one that leaves the Horde and Adora is the one that stays behind.

Glimmer and Bo are switched with Scorpia. Glimmer is Hordac’s daughter and Bo is her best friend who was one of the orphans that lived in the Horde Base

Shadow Weaver is still at the Horde because that’s important for Catra and Adora’s characters

Glimmer’s parents were both trapped on that island and Hordac attempted to use Glimmer’s mother DNA to help make a more stable and more powerful clone of himself which is what resulted in Glimmer

Also just realized Catra would be Shera and have her own Shera form

Entrapta is recruited by the Horde first but during an invasion of Bright Moon gets captured by Catra and Scorpia. Due to being overworked and disrespected in the Horde she switches sides and joins Bright Moon’s forces

The Princess Alliance is still standing strong because rather than surrender to the Horde Scorpia’s Grandfather stayed loyal to the Alliance and Micah’s sister took over Brightmoon so Angelica wasn’t there to call off the Alliance. I’m thinking that some of the characters in the alliance are switched around but only Entrapta starts out on the Horde’s side.

Might switch Sea Hawk and Mermista’s roles and make him the ocean kingdom’s Prince and Mermista’s this angsty sailor that’s like: Fiiiine. I guess I can take you to meet the Prince that simps for me for some reason.

Perfuma’s kingdom probably takes a similar stance to the frost Kingdom where they claim neutrality. Since they don’t like the violent form of the current Princess Alliance but don’t like the Horde either they want nothing to do with the war. This makes things complicated when Scorpia starts crushing hard on Perfuma during Princess Prom, since Princess Prom is hosted here instead.

Frosta’s Kingdom is part of the Alliance but Frosta and Scorpia don’t get along because she doesn’t respect Scorpia.

Essentially Season 1 is, rather than trying to get back the alliance, Catra goes around trying to make everyone respect Scorpia.

Adora is this hard core rule follower that is angry with Catra for betraying their cause. She also believes there’s a lot of good in the Horde and she can bring it out. In this world the Princess Alliance and the Horde are both equally morally questionable, so it’s more a political war than anything. Adora is trying to make it so that the Horde is morally superior since the people she loves most (Catra, Shadow Weaver, and Glimmer) have a more negative view on the world as a whole including themselves and she wants to fix that.

Hordac is a menacing war criminal but secretly a dork and a really good Dad. Glimmer is a menace to society.

Kyle and the other two, Rogelio and Ladie I think, still are at the Horde. Bo has an awkward friendship with the three of them because he’s too nice to go away. Ladie and Glimmer constantly bud heads and Glimmer picks on Kyle so Rogelio gets angry with her a lot. Bo and Adora tend to play peacekeeper a lot.

Shadow Weaver is a very tired drunk Mom that sees Adora and Bo as her saving grace. Still a manipulative bitch though but since this is a swap AU she tends to manipulate things so they work out for the greater good rather than her own selfish purposes. She also tries to make people think she’s worse than she actually is rather than better than she actually is.

Also I think the Horde in cannon is based in Scorpia’s Kingdom, so in this one it will be based in Mustacoger because Shadow Weaver became Mustacoger’s Queen.

Glimmer doesn’t know she’s a Princess by technicality and will sense her connection with the gem during the invasion on Bright Moon.

Cannon ships still apply. Might also ship Castapella and Shadow Weaver but not sure yet.

Though now that I think about it Entrapdac might not work in this AU… Unless Hordac wasn’t aware that Entrapta was being mistreated. Then again he’s also her former friend’s dad in this AU which would be weird…

I’ll figure out where Entrapta stands later. She deserves to be loved and accepted.

Though I could just have Castapella adopt her and then she gets healthy parental love. She doesn’t necessarily need romantic love to be loved and accepted.

OH AND DOUBLE TROUBLE

Double Trouble probably gets hired by Adora to spy on Catra and the others but likes Catra better so switches sides. Then keeps switching sides to help push along Catra and Adora’s character development like in cannon.

Maybe I could have Entrapta and Double Trouble be together…

I dunno. We’ll see what happens.

I’ll probably go really in depth into all the characters because I love doing that.

Yeah the more I think about this the more I want to do it. Stay tuned cause I might post hero forges for the character designs later. (I can’t draw very well so hero forge is easier.)

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

Okay one last ask, this time a bit more coherent. I was going to write about how disappointed I was with how hordak was handled, how much potential he had to show cult trauma (which was passed over to catra via the chipping episode) which could've paralleled Adora realising she's not a weapon but a person, to help the resistance thanks to his previously established extensive experience commanding Prime's fleet (but no, gotta have catra tap into the hive mind) and show that the clones were taught to be evil and didn't start out that way (but no, let's just introduce a nameless clone who's there mostly for comic relief) but I won't do that. Even though I'm salty that his defect was completely forgotten about and the villain we've had for 4 seasons spent most of season 5 offscreen.... I won't. It's an essay for another time.

Instead, I'll just point out the moments which, in hindsight, made me realise just how little SPOP cares about the original material or the story it was supposed to be telling:

One of the first eps of season 1 shows a multitude of silhouettes of different princesses. We only see a few of them (why tease them if they'll never show up on screen?)

Adora's friendship with Swift Wind is underutilised and he's mostly shoved to the sidelines

Sea Hawk

The war isn't being taken seriously (something which you've brilliantly discussed before)

Nate doesn't bother to explain what Gray Skull even IS until a brief moment in s5 where it turns out to be the name of Mara's rebellion cell or something. It was literally a second which I almost missed.

Adora's arc about finding her family and potential hinting at Adam and the extended MOTU universe is dropped.

The princesses don't act like processes and are barely even friends with each other.

The theme of "friendship conquers all" is quickly dropped as the princesses stop seeming sympathetic (cough, mermista and perfuma) and friendly with each other. At the end of s5 they had a great opportunity to parallel the s1 finale, but nah, gotta make it all about catra.

Micah, a former KING and magician of great power, spending s5 as either an awkward dad or chipped so that catra wouldn't face any consequences for killing Angella.

Sorry, who? Angella? Yknow, the one Catra killed in s3 and whose death haunted all of s4 and which was never discussed again in s5.

Entrapta getting more shit from the alliance than catra or scorpia put together despite being responsible for less bad stuff and the show still trying to gaslight us into thinking the princesses are her friends.

Worldbuilding? What worldbuilding?

^^ (i have nothing more to add)

[emperorsfoot]

Scorpia and Sea Hawk finally arrive on Beast Island and are met on the dock by Micah. 

From far away, it looked like a pile of colossal-sized animal skeletons rising up out of the ocean. Far larger than the skeleton Scorpia saw in the Crimson Wastes. Beast Island truly looked as… beastly as the stories portrayed it.

But as the Dragon’s Daughter Five drew closer, she could see that it was not several skeletons piled on top of each other. It was cliffs and ridges curving down to the water line. Covered by low-hanging and dropping vines from the jungle that gave the illusion of ribs and spine. It was not a pile of bones climbing out of the sea. It was just normal bedrock and earth.

“The Horde’s prison is supposed to be on the other side.” Sea Hawk was saying. “We can either find a safe place to drop anchor and cross the jungle to the compound, or sail right up to the prison’s harbor. You used to be pretty high up in the Horde. What would you suggest?”

Scorpia looked back at the island. She didn’t know much about the jungles of Beast Island. Only that they were filled with man-eating beasts, and savage natives that hunted them. She did not know how to navigate the jungle and she wasn’t sure she could guide herself and Sea Hawk through it and still be in any sort of condition to actually stage a rescue. Shaking her head in resignation, she turned back to her companion.

“We’ll have to pull into the compound’s harbor.” She told him. “I don’t have my Force Captain badge anymore-“ because she cut it in half to pay Sea Hawk “-but we can do the thing that you did in the Fright Zone. We’ll say we’re inspectors. Here for an inspection. Inspector Pirate, and Inspector… uh… Lynda. I’ll be Inspector Lynda.”

He would have thought she’d pick a more dramatic name, but okay. Sea Hawk steered the ship around the island so that they would come up directly in front of the prison compound and pull into their harbor as if they belonged. “Adventure!”

…

As much as Micah just wanted to go the heck home already, he also had a responsibility to the prisoners he freed. He had to make sure they got off the island safely and were on their way to their own homelands and territories before he could leave and go to his own home and family. That was the burden of leadership. A leader had to take care of those he lead before he took care of himself.

He hadn’t seen Angella or Glimmer in ten years, he could wait another day while he sorted escapees onto the boats in the captured Horde harbor.

One prisoner shook his hand as he was about to climb onto the gangplank. “Listen, man…” Micah recognized his voice as the rude one from two cells over from his. “I’m sorry about mocking you for missing your family. I never expected to get out of there, and your irrational hope was just making things worse for me. But it looks like maybe you were right all along.”

Micah had no idea what to say to that. So he just shook the other man’s hand back and did not comment.

“I’m from the Fallen Star Mountains.” Said the prisoner. “It’s on the other side of Brightmoon. I have to pass through to get home. I’ll tell that Queen of yours that you’re not dead and you’re coming home to her.”

“Tell her I never stopped thinking about her.” Micah asked. “There’s just a few more things I have to do here. But we’ve taken over the Horde’s Beast Island base, and the native Jungle Tribe is willing to join the Alliance –assuming there even still is an Alliance anymore.”

“The Fallen Star Mountains are ruled by the Star Sisters.” The other man informed him. “I’ll see if I can’t urge them to join your Alliance too.”

Now Micah held his hand more firmly, shaking with more enthusiasm. “I would be thankful if you did! The Star Sisters would be powerful allies!”

“I’m Sirius, by the way.” He said.

“Serious by nature, and Sirius by name.” Micah smiled. He needed to get back on his pun-game if he planned on being a Dad to his daughter. Gosh! He hadn’t made a dad-joke in ten years!

“Sure. Let’s go with that.” Sirius pulled his hand out of the sorcerer’s grip and climbed the gangplank onto the ship.

Feeling irrationally optimistic –or, perhaps perfectly rational to be optimistic- Micah turned back to the rest of the freed prisoners, still waiting on the dock. There were only four ships in the harbor, but they were big ships and could carry all the prisoners. The difficult part was figuring out who needed to get on which one. Micah spent the majority of the night after the Great Beast had left pouring over a map of Etheria and trying to decide which were the four best ports to send the ships to, to get everyone home. Then trying to figure out where ‘home’ was for each prisoner and sort them onto the ships accordingly.

Other prisoners expressed similar sentiments as they bit their farewells to Micah and boarded the ships. Not promises to visit Brightmoon and speak to Queen Angella about him. But to speak to their own Princesses or Queens about joining the Alliance.

“I was captain of the guard for Queen Peekablue’s daughter.” One woman informed him. “I had the Queen’s trust and the Queen’s ear before I was captured. I’ll speak to her about the Princess Alliance. She didn’t want to join originally because she knew it would fail-“ Peekablue’s magic was the gift of foresight, when she knew something, she knew it “-perhaps she’ll See differently now.”

A man getting on the same ship as Peekablue’s former captain of the guard stopped to inform him, “I was a soldier of Sweet Bee’s hive.” He placed a fist to his chest and Micah assumed it was meant as a salute. “My Queen rarely does anything without seeking Peekablue’s council. She values the other Queen’s insight –among other reasons- but I will urge her to join the Alliance all the same.”

“Thank you.” Perhaps Micah was a little more passionate than he needed to be. But after spending ten years doing nothing but sitting in the cell, if felt amazing to finally be accomplishing things again. Within the space of a few days, he had escaped from prison, met new allies, gone back to the prison and freed the remaining prisoners, and now was being given promises of possible new allies for their Alliance and Rebellion. Micah was feeling just a little giddy. High off optimism.

He was still optimistic and –for lack of a better word- high, as he watched the four ships pull away from the docks. Waving goodbye as if parting ways after an extended vacation, and smiling like a fool.

Micah stood there until the boats were almost out of sight. Disappearing beyond the horizon.

He was about to turn and go back inside. See how Entrapta was doing inside the compound. But then something else caught his eye.

At first he was concerned that there was something wrong with one of the ships that caused them to turn around and come back. Engine trouble, or spoiled provisions, tainted water, sickness, or any other number of problems that could occur on a large vessel like the ones employed by the Horde.

But as he squinted at the tiny dot on the horizon, he realized that it wasn’t one of the commandeered and repurposed Horde ships coming towards them.

This vessel was smaller. An open deck design. Raised off the water like a hydrofoil. With white sails. Definitely, definitely not a Horde vessel. No Horde boat in all of Etheria would have white sails. Black, red, brown, violet, or gray; yes. But not white. As it came closer, the name on the side of the vessel became readable, identifying it as the Dragon’s Daughter Five, and ‘five’ was spelled out in letters, not abbreviated as V or with a numeral.

Micah was still gawking, confused, when the Dragon’s Daughter Five pulled right up to the dock he was standing on and a man wearing a jewel-tone blue jacket over a white shirt (also, not Horde colors or uniform) threw a rope over the side.

“Hey, tie that off for me, will ya?” He said.

Blinking, moving more on auto-pilot as opposed to making any conscious decision, Micah did as he was asked. Tying off the boat that was most definitely not a Horde boat to the dock. He tugged on the line a couple times just to make sure it was secure. He lived on land almost his whole life and knew very little about the appropriate knots for securing watercraft.

He must have done alright, because the sailor seemed satisfied enough to jump off the boat to the accompanying cry of, “Adventure!”

Up close, Micah could see that he was actually quite young. With a youthful face and demeanor that implied late teens, but a thick and well groomed mustache that implied early twenties. He offered a hand to someone else in the boat.

The man’s traveling companion definitely, definitely looked like she could have been Horde. Dressed all in red armor. A Horde color. But there was no insignia on the armor. No winged sigil of the Horde. No badges identifying her as a soldier of their army. She was just wearing red.

Micah stood there, staring.

Upon really taking note of him, the pair also paused. Staring at an equal loss as to what to do.

“You don’t look like a Horde soldier.” Said the woman.

“You don’t look like Horde soldiers either.” Micah shot back. Except, she kinda did look exactly like a Horde soldier, just without the trademark Horde insignia.

The man cleared his throat awkwardly, and in a voice that was noticeably deeper than when he asked if Micah could tie off the boat said, “That’s because we’re not Horde soldiers. We’re Inspectors. Yes. And we’re here for the inspection.”

“Inspection?” He echoed, not believing it for a second.

It would have to be one incredible coincidence that there was an inspection scheduled –literally- the day after a mass prison break in which the prison was taken over by the island’s natives. As a practitioner of magic, Micah knew such absurd coincidences did happen, but not very often. Besides, their vessel was not a Horde vessel, the man was not dressed like a member of the Horde at all, and the woman who was dressed like a Horde was missing all the important identifying insignia. These kids –and, yes, Micah was calling them kids now, they could not have been much older than his own daughter- these kids were not members of the Evil Horde.

“Yes.” Nodded the man. “The inspection. I am Inspector Pirate, and this here is my associate, Inspector Lynda.”

“Lynda?” Micah echoed, the name sparking some long ago and half-buried memory. He took another look at the woman that was dressed as a Horde. Tall, easily the tallest one of the three of them. And thick-built too. With snow-white hair and dark eyes. Pincer claws in place of hands, and behind her a scorpion tail swayed nervously. The red armor wasn’t Horde armor, it was an exoskeleton. The exoskeleton of a scorpion. And she said her name was ‘Lynda’…? “You can’t be. You’re too young to be Lynda D’Ream!”

Her daughter maybe?

Micah was still a student in Mysticor when the Queendom of Scorpiones was taken over by the Horde and their Runestone given to Hordak in exchange for the life of the Queen and her daughter. Scorpiones fell under Horde control and became the Fright Zone, and Queen Lynda D’Ream became a political hostage to keep those loyal to her under control.

At least, that was what Micah heard. He was only just a child at the time and nobody ever really told him much about the terrible things that happened below their floating magical island. Nobody except Light Spinner, but that was a childhood trauma for another flashback.

Micah knew the Queen of Scorpiones had a daughter. She would have only been a year old when she lost her Queendom and was taken from her mother.

“How do you know- ?“ The scorpion woman began, then cut herself off abruptly.

Her companion looked at her, the slightest bit of concern seeping into his expression.

Then she straightened, regaining composure and clearing her throat. The scorpion woman, ‘Lynda’, fixed Micah with a critical glare. “That is not a standard issue uniform.” She informed the sorcerer. “Are you an officer? If not, we’ll have to dock points for a uniform violation.”

“I am an officer, actually.” Micah grinned at her. He had already come to a conclusion about this pair that had pulled into the harbor in a shit that was definitely not a Horde ship, dressed in clothes that were not Horde uniforms, with a flimsy story that did not hold up to scrutiny. “A pretty high ranking officer. In fact, I’m not just an officer. I’m a King, and Leader of the Rebellion.”

For half a second, the two stared at him, dumbfounded. But only for half of one second.

Then they both snorted. As if he were funny. As if he’d just made a joke. As if they didn’t believe him.

“No you’re not.” Said ‘Lynda’. “The leader of the Rebellion is Princess Glimmer of Brightmoon.”

At the mention of his daughter’s name, it felt like a current of lightning ripped through Micah. Glimmer, his Glimmer, was leader of the Rebellion? But she was so young! Sure she would have grown up a bit in the ten years he was trapped on Beast Island –in his mind, Micah was still imagining a toddler- but she still had to be in her mid-teens. Fifteen. Maybe sixteen if he was being generous. But certainly not old enough to be in charge of a massive military organization like the Princess Alliance.

“I’ve met Glimmer.” Added Inspector Pirate. “And she’s definitely not you.” A pause. “Although, you do look a little like her.”

Micah sputtered for a moment.

He stared at the pair. They met Glimmer. They knew his daughter. Where they friends? Were they also members of the Princess Alliance? If the scorpion woman really was the daughter of Lynda D’Ream then she was definitely a Princess. Had she joined the Alliance to avenge her mother and take back her Queendom? Did the Alliance send them? Was this a prison break? Were they here to rescue him? Did Glimmer send them?

“Are you with the Alliance?” He finally managed to ask.

There was another pause.

The two looked at each other, suddenly unsure.

“Of course not!” Insisted Inspector Pirate. “We’re Inspectors. We’re here for the inspection.”

“Yes.” Agreed ‘Lynda’. “Beast Island is overdue for an inspection.”

“Really?” Micah crossed his arms over his chest and giving these young people –these children- a Look. “You’re gonna stand here and try to convince me that you’re Horde. After I just told you I’m King Micah of the Rebellion.”

“Listen, guy, for all we know, you’re just some crazy dude who lives on the island.” Inspector Pirate informed him. “I’ve run into crazy island-dwelling hermits more often than you’d think.”

“Also, it’s a widely-believed fact that King Micah died ten years ago.” ‘Lynda’ added.

Okay, Micah was getting real tired of this back and forth real quick. Drawing a new sigil in the air, he cast a spell on both of them. His truth spells were some of the strongest in all of Etheria. No one could resist it. No one could lie while under it.

The pair blinked after the sigil passed through them. Unsure of what he just did. They had enough experience around magic to recognize it when they saw it, but not what kind of magic it was.

“Alright, let’s start again.” Micah announced. “What are your names?”

“I’m Scorpia.”

“Sea Hawk.”

Micah nodded. He never knew the name of Queen Lynda’s daughter, but ‘Scorpia’ seemed to fit. Sea Hawk was slightly less stupid than ‘Inspector Pirate’, but only slightly.

“And why are you here?” Was the obvious follow-up question.

“I’m just her ride.” Announced Sea Hawk. Then, without prompting, followed it up with, “I’m always just the ride. That’s all anyone ever wants from me. Nobody’ll ever love me and I’m gonna die alone.”

That was a lot to unpack right there, and Micah did not have the time for it. He turned his attention to Scorpia.

“I-“ She hesitated. Was she trying to fight the truth spell? Or was the hesitation for other reasons? “I need to rescue a friend. She- we were both betrayed by someone- by someone we both thought was our friend. I- I should have realized it sooner, but I was so smitten. You know when you look at someone through rose-colored glasses all the red flags just look like flags. I was naïve and Entrapta paid the price for it. I need to fix it.”

“Entrapta?” Echoed Micah. “You’re here to rescue Entrapta?”

“Yes.” Scorpia answered truthfully –not just because she was under a truth spell.

Micah’s expression softened. Who would have thought that Queen Ensnarea’s daughter would formed friendships that motivated them to storm Beast Island to rescue her. It was endearing. But more importantly, it was reassuring of the next generation of Princesses. “I’ll take you to her.”

Sea Hawk and Scorpia exchanged a look.

“We don’t actually know he is who he says he is.” Sea Hawk reminded her.

“And we just confessed to a bunch of stuff any member of the Horde should totally execute us for.” Scorpia agreed. “But I think if he was gonna attack us he would have done it by now.”

“Worse comes to worse we can get Entrapta’s robot to rescue us.” Sea Hawk decided. He turned back to the boat and shouted. “Hey, Emily! You up to pointing your weapons at someone other than me?”

Turning his head unnecessarily slowly, Micah looked back at the ship to see what looked like a Horde bot try and climb over the railing. Only to teeter unsteadily on one stuck leg, then move back, trying to regain its balance on the deck.

“Hang on, I’ll help you.” Scorpia went back to the boat. Pulling on the line, she scraped the side of the boat right up against the dock, then put one foot up on the railing, pressing that side down into the water. “Try and roll out.”

Tucking its legs under it, the Horde bot did as it was told. Rolling on the deck, bouncing a little bit as it passed over the boat’s railing and onto the dock. Regaining its footing, the bot gave a pleased little trill of appreciation.

Micah just blinked. “Sorry, did you say that’s Entrapta’s robot?”

“Yeah.” Scorpia smiled, as if there wasn’t anything wrong with a Princess having her own personal Horde robot as a pet. “She found her in the Fright Zone and reprogrammed her.”

Oh. Well, that was alright then. Micah relaxed. “I’ll take you to Entrapta.”

He led them inside. Sea Hawk and Scorpia falling into step behind him, still looking suspicious and unsure. The reprogrammed Horde bot, Emily, hobbling along behind them with one leg that seemed stuck and immobile. It made a loud THUNK, THUNK, THUNK sound with every step. But it seemed to reassure the other two.

Leading the pair through the uneven and twisting corridors of the compound, Micah did have to admit that Entrapta did have a point. The construction of this place really was counter intuitive and nothing at all like normal Horde construction.

There was a tense pause when they got to the lift and all of them looked at each other suspicious that the others would try and attack them in the enclosed space of the elevator cabin. But then the lift opened up again and they all stepped out onto the Command floor and both Scorpia and Sea Hawk paused for an entirely different reason.

Both of them froze, staring at the artistic depicting of the two planets flanking the door, with an infinity wrapped around them.

“That looks like-“ Gasped Sea Hawk.

“-First Ones writing.” Scorpia finished for him.

“Like from the Northern Reach.” The sea captain looked suddenly concerned. “You don’t think there are bug-like First Ones tech monsters here too, do you?”

Scorpia bit her bottom lip. “I mean… even if there are, we should be alright so long as Entrapta didn’t fix that First Ones virus disk. Right?”

“You two can read that?” Micah asked, impressed.

“No.” Both of them informed him in perfect unison.

“The only people on Etheria who can read First Ones writing are scholars who’ve spent their whole lives studying it –and they’re not even very good.” Sea Hawk explained. “And She-Ra.”

“She-Ra!” Micah almost tripped over his own feet.

He fell against the wall, landing on the door release for the Command room. The door slid open and a mass of lavender hair shifted at the sound. Twin-tails twisting, lifting out of the wait to reveal a familiar welding mask. There was the heartbeat of a pause, then one thin tendril of hair moved to lift the mask, revealing the familiar but confused face of Princess Entrapta.

“Scorpia?” She asked. “What are you doing here?”

Before she knew what she was doing, the other woman rushed into the room. Scooping Entrapta up into her arms, she wrapped Entrapta up in a crushing hug.

“I’m so glad you’re okay!” Scorpia sobbed into that mass of thick lavender locks. “I’m so sorry I just stood there and did nothing when you needed me. But I’m here now. I came to rescue you!”

Pulling away, as much as she could still held by the larger woman’s iron grip, Entrapta blinked at her. “You came to rescue me?”

No one had ever come to rescue her before. Not even the Princess Alliance, the self-proclaimed champions of ‘Good’. Not Glimmer and Bow who claimed to be her friends. Not Adora who lead the charge into the Fright Zone to rescue Glimmer. But Scorpia came to rescue her from Beast Island. Tears welled up in her eyes and for once, Entrpata did not lower her welding mask down to cover them.

“You’re my best friend!” And she hugged back. With her arms. Not her hair.

[freedfromthegalactichivemind]

More than Meets the Eye

She-Ra fanfic  Comedy Rated PG (mild rude humor and “bad” words). Adora, Bow, Entrapta, Hordak (and mentions of other characters) Inspired by conversation on Sweary She-Ra.  4th wall-breaking by Entrapta, but not a Sweary-specific fic.   Summary: An alternate universe from the end of the Beast island arc.  Hordak joins the Rebellion against Horde Prime and shows everyone a hidden talent of his.   For @lemaistrechat (No, you don’t have to send me cookies. My Mom’s Christmas cookies got squished in the mail.  Yours will, too).   _____________________ More Than Meets the Eye Adora had no shortage of surprises in her life for the last several months.  First, as the war had progressed, Glimmer had become more and more ruthless.  She was taking dark turns that made Adora wonder if she was even the friend she used to know anymore.  Shadow Weaver was living in Bright Moon. Flutterina had turned out to be an enemy-spy – and a shapeshifter whose true form looked nothing like Flutterina.  To top it all off, Horde Force Captain Scorpia had defected and had come to the Princess Alliance for aid, claiming that Entrapta had been sent to Beast Island by an overwhelmed Catra.   That was how Adora, Bow and Swift Wind had found themselves traveling to Beast Island just over a month ago.  To tell the truth, this was another surprise for Adora:  There were rumors told among the cadets around the Horde that Beast Island didn’t actually exist and that it was a euphemism for summary execution.  One of the older cadets she’d known was certain that Hordak just had liars, traitors and various screw-ups shot and their bodies cremated in the skiff-cleansing ports.  Well, the fabled place of exile actually did exist, and, as per Shadow Weaver’s warning, was far worse than the usual scary stories about it.   And then they’d found a king.  While hunting for Entrapta (hopefully not dead), they’d found Micah, the once King of Bright Moon, thought long-dead!  And he was a badass sorcerer!  (And more than a bit of a goofball).   And then…there was Hordak.   They’d come across him wrapped up in the despair-inducing vines that grew throughout the island that had been trying to consume them all.  He was calling out for Entrapta, crying over his failure to save her and ranting, tearing and screaming at the vines (he still had some fight in him) and he was yelling something about “Prime’s self-lubricating asshole!” as a general curse. Bow asked Adora if She-Ra could bleach his brain.  She told him that she didn’t think the powers worked that way because they were not working for her that way. Adora, in She-Ra form, took pity on him and freed him from the vines.  Entrapta showed up when she had him at sword-point under threat not to make any funny moves.   The rescue went better than expected, although it took Entrapta wrapping the warlord up in a hair-cocoon to keep the signal and the vines from getting at him again.  Adora had never seen a man so depressed!  He kept going on and on to Entrapta about his unworthiness of her, for “believing that treacherous Force Captain!” and getting her into a deadly situation.  Entrapta handled it with her usual aplomb, claiming that Beast Island was a “PARADISE of forgotten technological horrors!”  And Adora couldn’t believe it…she saw a smile on his skull-like face!   He’d found out that Entrapta was here, apparently, when he’d caught a strange, disconcerting recording from his Imp and did a check over some surveillance-footage caught by the Fright Zone’s cameras that someone had apparently attempted to erase.  Though the white noise and screen-snow, he had been able to make out a familiar feline figure and familiar twin-tails of hair.  He had put his spy-child in charge of trusted soldiers and had taken his speediest skiff straight to the island.  He had not even bothered to deal with Catra, leaving her to her own devices. They say that war makes strange bedfellows. No less than three members of the Horde had joined with the Rebellion recently: Scorpia, Entrapta and… most surprising of all, Lord Hordak!   Entrapta read ahead in the canon’s script and let Hordak know what was in store for him should he reunite with Horde Prime. He had to face full-on that his indoctrination and memories were faulty.  He could rejoin his master god-brother or stay with his mad scientist girlfriend, not that him even being on Beast Island to rescue Entrapta hadn’t already made the story an alternate universe fanfiction, anyway, but that’s neither here nor there.   Entrapta had an ass that wouldn’t quit, so his choice was clear.   And this was how Hordak decided to join with the Etherian Rebellion against Horde Prime!  And this brings us to the present after this long ramble.   “It’s been glossed over,” Entrapta says to you, starting at your soul through the text on your screen, “but give the fanfic author a break!  It’s Christmas Week and she celebrates! Although if I’m telling the truth, she’s also pretty lazy.”   “I heard that.”   “Of course you did!  You’re typing it!”   “So, anyway,” Entrapta chimes, “Hordak was really sad and conflicted by all of this, but I kissed him better, so you don’t have to worry about him.”   “Who ARE you talking to?” Adora asks.   In the weeks that followed the Beast Island rescue, Hordak became invaluable to the cause.  He knew how Horde Prime operated.  He educated the Rebellion on the nature of Horde-clones.  He was watched carefully, but he proved himself to be fully on-cause for the freeing of Etheria.   “That’s because he didn’t want to be lobotomized!” Entrapta throws your way.  “I mean… I had to show him the script, but I got through to him!  Also, he didn’t want to see me dragged around by my hair, or be ordered to shoot me, so we totally decided to make this story an AU!”   “AU?” Bow asks, “Entrapta, are you talking about gold or something?  On the periodic table of elements?”   “Nope!  I’m talking to the readers!  AU stands for Alternate Universe! It’s what happens when something goes different in a timeline and the world is fundamentally changed, even if there are other versions of you in it!  Like Rick and Morty!” “Huh?”     “Shouldn’t we be concentrating on getting Mara’s ship worthy to go into space?”  Adora asks.  She is exhausted with bags under her eyes.  She has been trying to protect everyone from robots and clones and has been running herself ragged without her She-Ra powers. She’d only now gotten back safely inside the magic-barrier of the Bright Moon war-camp.   “Yeeeah… she still lost the She-Ra powers,” Entrapta helpfully explains to you, the reader.  “The Heart of Etheria activated, popping us straight out of Despondos! There are stars in the sky now!  It’s WONDERFUL! Well, except for all the war and invasion and constant danger of death!  But that’s what makes it so exciting!  The clone-ships arrived and it’s been a real mess!  Glimmer got taken up in a tractor-beam.  Hordak explained what it was when we saw it.  It’s been a WILD time!  And Adora broke her sword because she didn’t want to be forced to activate the weapon, which is kind of disappointing actually, because the explosions would have been EPIC!  We could have gotten so much data!” “Entrapta!”   “Okay, Bow, okay!  I think the readers understand what I’m getting at!”   “How are you coming along?” Adora asks her and Bow.  She takes a look at Hordak, seated in a chair under the tent where Entrapta and Bow are working with the blueprints to Mara’s ship and miscellaneous computer-parts. “Any luck, any of you?”   “Well, we’ve gotta patch up the outer layer of the ship super-super tight because one hull-breach and everyone’s dead! Suffocated in the vacuum of space!  There are so many FAAAASCINATING ways to die in space!”   “With the exception of myself,” Hordak rumbles. “My people can survive short jaunts into the void.”   “Yeah!” Entrapta pipes up, “With his unique cyborg-physiology, he can TOTALLY get spaced and come out alive!”   “All the same, I would rather not test it. Open space is… unpleasant.”   “He’s already tracked down Horde Prime’s main signal!” Entrapta exclaims, beaming with pride.   “What? Really?”  Adora asks, taken aback.   “I am… as I was… cut off from the hive mind,” Hordak explains, “but I can still overhear some of the mind-whispers of my brothers on a low-level when they are near.”   “We also went near to one of the spires while Bow made you take a nap yesterday!” Entrapta tells her.  “I know, I know” she says with a wave of a tail of hair made into a hand, “It was super-dangerous.  He almost got captured!  And it gave him a massive headache, but he could feel the coordinates!” Hordak retrieved something from a bag in the shadows by his chair.  He held up a slim data pad with… a smile?  Hordak had the goofiest smile on his face that Adora had ever seen.  In fact, seeing him so much as crack a simple grin filled her with a terror born of the uncanny valley.   “So, are we ready to go save Glimmer, then?” Adora asks hopefully.   “Not unless you want to get sucked into the crushing void of space!” Entrapta chimes, pointing a hair-finger in the air.  “The ship – I named her Darla, by the way – she took a lot of damage rusting away in the desert for all those years! Centuries!  Oh, and the escape from Beast Island wasn’t too kind to her, either!  We’ve been working day and night – Bow insists we get rest, I just think we need more espresso (it comes in tiny mugs)!... I estimate we’ll get Darla spaceworthy in, oh…about five years?” “And we don’t have that long,” Bow says with a worried look at the sky.   “There’s got to be a way!” Adora nearly wails. “Please!” Hordak stands up from his chair and walks out of the shadows.  “I believe I have a solution,” he says. “What? What?” Adora demands, “We modify some of the Fright Zone stuff?  If anyone would know how to make a skiff space-worthy, it would be you, I suppose… I mean, you built the Fright Zone from a crashed ship, right?”   Hordak calmly holds up a hand.  “Cease at once!” he barks.   Adora straightens, her soldier’s programming kicking in.   “I have a solution that is far more simple, albeit, unusual.  Please step back from me.”   Dumbfounded, Adora and Bow step away. Entrapta has a knowing, all-too excited grin on her face.   Hordak suddenly goes straight and stiff. He holds his head down and pins his ears back.  He balls his fists at his sides.   “Is he… trying to fight constipation?” Bow asks.   Suddenly, sparks of electricity flow over his form.  His armor shifts and it seems… like his very skin splits and turns to re-arrange itself in strange plates!  The mass starts growing, as if Hordak’s interior was larger than his exterior would have a viewer believe. In less than a minute, where Hordak was standing – there is a large rocket.   “Huh? What?!”  Adora and Bow exclaim as one. People all around the Bright Moon camp gasp and gawk.  Entrapta’s eyes sparkle as one who has just witnessed the revealing of a very special secret that she had been waiting a long time to share.  She has the biggest shit-eating grin on her face.   King Micah screams.  Shadow Weaver huffs and inspects her fingernails.  Frosta can be heard saying “Aaaaw, BADASS!”  Someone tells her that kids her age should not use the word “Ass.”   Adora stares up and up and up.   The rocket… has Hordak’s face on it.   “Ha-ha!” Entrapta laughs.  She looks up at the Hordak-rocket.  “You said you didn’t think you could do it anymore, but I knew you could!”   “It has been… a long time,” the Hordak-face says stiffly.   “His face…is moving…” Bow says with a shiver. He hugs the nearest person to him for support.  Thankfully, he latches onto Scorpia, who is a great hugger and also needs the moral support. “I swear I had no idea he could do that!” Scorpia proclaims.   “Maybe you should explain, Hordak!” Entrapta encourages.   “Very well.” He answers, his mouth and his brows moving in an organic fashion that was most disconcerting to see upon something resembling a nuclear-payload-capable intercontinental ballistic missile.   Where had his arms and legs gone?  It appeared that they had turned completely into fins.  Bow looks down at the end of the rocket pointed toward the ground with a growing wariness.  Was that his...?  Wait? Was it? He supposed it made sense that his posterior would become…that.   What did a Hordak-rocket require for fuel? Spicy food?   “I…am a cyborg,” Hordak intones.  “All of Horde Prime’s clones are, as well as Horde Prime himself.  We have organic parts and technological parts.”   “Wait,” Adora says, scratching her head, “Can they ALL do this?” “No,” Hordak answers.  “I modified myself further to compensate for my failing health and to suit the environment of Etheria better, as well as… let us say I tried some schemes in warfare in the past that failed and was left stuck with the results. I rarely use my cybernetic shape-shifting abilities as they can be quite…painful.”   Entrapta wraps her arms part-way around the cylinder that is now the bulk of Hordak’s body.  She wraps her hair around it, too.  “Aw…”   “I will…deploy an opening and…no more than three of you… can climb inside of me and we can storm the flagship to rescue your queen.”   “Inside…you?” Bow asks.   Adora makes a face.   Everyone in the camp (except for Entrapta, who is beaming) cringes.   “Ew…” Scorpia says flatly.   “Eh…can we take a raincheck on that?” Adora inquires.  “I mean, I’m sure with some extra TLC we can get the other ship working?”   “As you wish,” Hordak says.  He squints that strange rocket-decal like face until his body shifts in reversal of what it had done before.  Once he is in humanoid form again, he sways and Entrapta catches him.   “It’s the thought that counts,” she assures him, patting him on the back with her hair.   Everyone in the Bright Moon camp cannot stop staring.   “What the fuck just happened?!” someone shouts. Adora cannot help but think she dodged a bullet.   The last thing she wanted to think about was “being inside Hordak.”   THE END. 

[soranis-sunshadow]

I think people forget that context and tone are key to storytelling. Like if She-Ra did take it's war elements seriously and show Catra and Hordak burning villages, taking mass prisoners and using slave labor in the Horde, it would have been SUPER HARD to accept both characters having "Happy endings" because people would be like "What about the slave camps".

Hence why they didn't show that stuff and made the Etheria War more like a school clique war. Because you want to be believable enough for Catra and Hordak to have happy endings at the end.

That's why they gave Horde Prime most of the horrible atrocities both on and off screen since he wasn't getting redeemed and he was the ultimate evil. So they could go full blast with showing Prime geocoding worlds and what not.

Tonal context is key to any type of story i think and She-Ra's both light hearted nature mixed with scary moments is key to the success. Or any successful series really.

SPOP did take the war seriously - in season five that is.

We see refugee camps, we see people being displaced, terrorized, controlled and even harmed in Horde Prime’s effort to gain control of Etheria.

We see Horde Prime committing genocide on a planetary scale,

and we see the outcome of his conquests both in the form of destroyed worlds, extinct peoples and subjugated ones and in the relics he kept of them

Season five did not shy away from any of that. The tone was as dire as the situations the characters found themselves in.

There were no more Princess proms or organizing parties with moth people.

The strategizing that goes on is taken seriously and not treated like a D&D game.

Even characters that had a small role such as Bow’s dads - characters who during the war with the Etherian Horde in the first four seasons enjoyed the luxury of living and their lavish home away from it all - these characters are now on the run for their lives.

Whereas the first season implied that everyone has lost someone to the war we don’t really see any of it. Worse still the only confirmed casualty, King Micah - turns out to have not been a casualty at all when he is found alive on beast Island along with Entrapta.

If the series had wanted Hordak's war to be serious, it really could have done it by showing us the things it did in S5.

We are told at certain points that people have ‘lost someone to the war’ but we are never actually shown anyone grieving for their loss.

A lot of fans claim that Hordak was responsible for the death of Mermista and Frosta’s parents but that is neither mentioned in the show nor used as a reason for them to join the rebel alliance. Mermista’s dad ‘went away’ for some reason just like most of her people, people that had been leaving Salineas because she refused to do anything about the fact that the Sea Gate was failing back in season one. Adora fixes that problem for her which lead to her deciding to ally herself with Glimmer's war effort.

We do see plenty of property damage especially when season four comes around and Catra’s amplifies the war but not much beyond that.

It is implied that upon Salinas’s assault, everyone got away scot free. And yes, I acknowledge that having their homes destroyed is terrible in and of itself but the scene doesn’t have the same tone that the whole of season five did. It is not explored what happened to these people after they were turned refugees nor what the loss of their village meant for them. They are briefly forgotten by the show, their struggles are left unaddressed.

The general terror of the people in Earlandia come season five however is clear. These people are just as fearful of Horde Prime as they are of their own princesses. They live under terror and martial law with robotic drones and clones patrolling the streets.

It would’ve helped to set a darker tone if the refugees from Salineas had been even a footnote somewhere beyond the episode where the Sea Gate fell. We do not see refugee camps, we don’t deal with any of the logistics that come to mind when dealing with massive locations of people or the resource shortages. They are merely forgotten by the narrative.

Mermista copes with this loss by moping and eating ice cream in a bathtub.

She doesn’t go to rescue her own people. She is never shown trying to take care of them now that they have been displaced as would have been fitting for a ruler. That issue was never addressed.

The only person shown grieving in the first seasons is Glimmer. At first for her father, and after Catra’s activated the portable device before it was ready, for her mother. This loss is what made Glimmer do the things she thought were necessary and sadly, that is completely forgotten in season five when she doesn’t mention her mother once nor does she get a proper reunion with her father whom she had believed dead for so long.

We do see refugee camps and people on the run in season five. The urgency and bleakness of the situation is underlined over and over again. We are no longer shown people living comfortable family lives while the war was happening somewhere else.

Even Peekablue’s soirée had an air of desperation to it, that of people trying to drown their sorrows and the run from the oncoming apocalypse.

The concept of “losing someone to the war” becomes reality for a lot of the characters as their loved ones become chipped and turned against them.

It’s not that SPOP didn’t know how to set a grim tone for the war. It did, with Prime’s war.

Your assessment of the tone for the first seasons being that of a “school clique” is apt as well as the reason behind it.

The show had always intended to redeem Catra’s and forgive Hordak. Having them commit actual atrocities on screen would’ve made it unpalatable and tone deaf. (Though that doesn’t stop some fans from imagining Hordak’s supposed crimes and even headcannoning some of them like claiming that he was responsible for murdering Catra’s people - which was something that was never mentioned in the show but people love bringing it up anyway)

The first part of the war had never been meant to be taken seriously whereas Prime’s conquest was.

It’s strange that so many people insist on comparing the tone of the first seasons with that of Avatar the Last Air Bender when that show had always maintained the grim atmosphere of a world at war. People always mentioned how strange it was to see an air bender in the flesh since they were all believed dead. We see broken families on both sides of the war and we see resource shortages, rampant crime and violent battles.

Does anyone ever mentioned Scorpia’s people in the show or how odd it is to see a living Scorpioni if they had all been genocided? They don’t because the genocide was never confirmed verbally.

The only scene that would imply something had happened to them were visions shown to the Council by Light Spinner - a proficient illusionist with clear aspirations for more power.

It’s peculiarly funny to me how so many people insist on treating the first four - more lighthearted - seasons of the show as if it were serious war drama the likes of Saving Pvt. Ryan.

[smoldragonblood]

what would you have liked to have seen done differently?

Not sure if you’re talking about the entire show or just Catra/C//A’s arc, but Im going to assume the latter. Anyway;

More episodes: even though I know that they had restrictions, the show still needed more episodes to cover the things Catra has done and for her to fully heal and develop. (And to cover worldbuilding and other characters arcs) 

Boundaries: They should have set boundaries for how far Catra would go. Adora had been her best friend for their entire lives, yet Catra wouldn’t hesitate to scratch, kick, degrade and manipulate Adora in the worst ways possible. I understand where this loathing comes from, seeing as how Adora had ‘control’ over her life since the beginning (enforced by SW), how she thinks that Adora ‘left her for new friends’, that they were on the opposite sides of a war, and that the Horde influenced her way of dealing with separation and vulnerable feelings but there comes a point when you go too far to be forgiven in the amount of episodes and time they had.

Forgiveness: The Alliance should’ve not trusted and have ‘forgiven’ Catra so easily. She nearly destroyed the planet, she tried killing them multiple times, she controlled(corrupted?) Adora with First Ones tech, she manipulated Entrapta and sent her to Beast Island, she took over Mermista’s kingdom and had probably caused multiple casualties while doing so, and she abused her friend Scorpia, her soldiers, and Adora. Now I’m not saying that she shouldn’t have been depicted doing those things, because the part of being redeemed is being bad, but the way the entire cast forgave her was too quick, and no one seemed to really bring up the things she did and how she hurt them. Adora didnt really seem to talk to Catra about how she hurt her, and instead all we saw was Adora blaming herself for everything while Catra said sorry at least twice without Adora taking a step back and saying; “We can’t be in a relationship now, we both need time to heal. The things you’ve done to me hurt me.” There are other characters other then Catra: Crew-ra had created wonderful and amazing characters, with interesting backstories and arcs that had developed and grew over time. But why did they put the effort into those characters if Catra and C//A was going to be the front and center of S5? Glimbow barely had any development (romantically) other then a quick side-episode where Glimmer apologized for the shitty things she’s done and a “I love you” moment during the last battle, Spinnatossa was there just for a few moments, Micah reuniting with Glimmer was just a few seconds, Hordak barely got screen time despite having an important story arc, dont even get me started on the clones, Wrong Hordak and what could’ve been development between Shadow Weaver and Micah, the arcs a lot of characters had going for them ect. ect. ect. I get that Catra, Adora and C//A needed to develop, but they made too wonderful of characters and too amazing of arcs to just drop it all in favor of shoving them in the corner to make way for C//A and Catra.

Healing: I would’ve liked to seem more healing from Catra, and less of them pilling trauma after trauma on top of her (felt like they did this to gain sympathy from the viewers). Her healing (or at least improving) should’ve started at at least S4 or maybe even towards the end of S3 because of how many seasons they had, and this would’ve made Adora and her’s relationship healthier, because them getting together right after going through all of that…the both of them aren’t in the right conditions to be in a relationship with each other. Catra barely had any time to process what happened to her or heal from it, and Adora had a shit ton happen to her as well. I want healing not a speedrun for a relationship.

More show don’t tell: The thing about Catra’s hair should’ve been brought up. She cut off the lighter brown tuffs after Shadow Weaver left (beautiful symbolism by the way), and the show should’ve had the liberty to show us her cutting off those tuffs. Same with her getting her hair cut by Prime, that should’ve been addressed. Theres also a little bit of a problem with a game of “show don’t tell” with the watchers and “tell dont show” with the characters. Because we see everything that had happened with Catra and the things she’d gone through, while the other characters didn’t, yet we don’t really see Catra telling anyone what she went through (which should’ve been used for understanding with the characters not sympathy).

More SHOWING of healing not SAYING: She said only once that she’d, ”work on her anger issues”, and that was never brought up again. I had an ex-friend that said they’d “work on their issues“ and they still treated me and their friends like shit. And this is just my personal preference but maybe Catra should’ve been less of an asshole to everyone in S5? I get that she went through a lot of shit, but she could’ve apologized for being such a dick such as; “I’m sorry I’m acting this way but I’ve been through a lot, I hope you understand.” (And this shouldn’t be said only once or shown only once)

Holy fucking shit this was long- anyway sorry it’s late, I may have forgot this was in my drafts. If you’ve read this far without getting bored I applaud you

[cruelfeline]

@traumatisedbabygay

Here, this is easier for me! So if you an understanding of how I assess the war, and Hordak's role in it, read on! If it's not in your interests, just ignore this post!

Hordak couldn't have fought the First Ones. Mara locked Etheria away in Despondos about one thousand years prior to the events of the show: long before Hordak arrives.

How do we know when Hordak arrives? We don't know exactly, but we can get some sort of idea. In Light Spinner, the Horde is show subduing the Scorpions. This appears to be people's "first view" of the Horde: the first time they're hearing of it.

Micah, at this time, looks to be about fifteen or so. If we assume he was... let's say, thirty when he had Glimmer, and Glimmer is around fifteen/sixteen at the time of the show, then Hordak has been on Etheria for roughly thirty years. Not nearly long enough to have fought the First Ones.

Another simple but of evidence regarding Hordak not fighting them is that he has no idea what First Ones tech is until Entrapta shows him. If he had fought them, he'd be familiar with their tech.

Now, in terms of the Princesses. This is... well, it's mostly headcanon, but it's headcanon made with canon logic in mind. So bear with me!

Once upon a time, back in season three, the understanding of Hordak was that he was a high-ranking general that had been demoted and sentenced to die in battle because he was found to be disabled. A tragic story, to be sure, but still one that allowed him to be the instigator of the war. If he had significant military leadership experience, then it stood to reason that he could form and lead an army upon landing in a new place.

But then seasons four and five aired, and it turned out that this... really didn't make sense.

Hordak was never a general. The Galactic Horde doesn't have generals because Prime's clones aren't even allowed names, let alone ranks in military leadership. They are all interchangeable connected to a hivemind that eliminates the need for orders to be passed down among generals and officers. Prime can just order the hivemind himself; no leadership needed.

The clones are nameless. They are not allowed to be their own people. They are not allowed to identify as anything but a cog in Prime's machine. Furthermore, they are dependent on him and on the hivemind. See how Wrong Hordak reacts when cut off from it? He panics. He cries. It's traumatic and terrifying and absolutely not something the clones are accustomed to.

So take this canon knowledge and think of Hordak when he first came to Etheria. Not as a general, because there are no generals, but as a sick, rejected clone freshly severed from the hivemind. Separated from Prime, from his brothers. Dealing with the trauma of said separation alongside the trauma of being declared worthless due to his illness.

He wouldn't have had basic independent-living experience, let alone the experience needed to create and lead an army. He'd have been enduring immense trauma, both physical and mental, while also figuring out how to live on his own for the first time; not really a state where warmongering is readily feasible without help.

Plus: at the time of the show, we see anti-princess propaganda in the Horde, used to persuade the cadets to fight. That wouldn't have been available when Hordak landed. How, then, did he convince a whole army to fight for him? Why did they agree to? The Horde is made of Etherians, after all. Why would they fight their own countrymen for Hordak? Especially when, again, he's not some high-ranking general with high charisma, capable of tricking hundreds of people with honeyed words. He's a lost clone cult-slave living on his own for the first time. Dealing with frightening amounts of trauma.

So how does one reconcile this?

Well, it's all headcanon from here, but my preferred concept is that Hordak stumbled upon a civil war occurring in the Scorpion kingdom.

Non-magic-users rising up against the magical royalty. Upper class against lower. That sort of thing. It makes a sort of sense, if you look at what sorts of people make up the Horde versus what sorts make up the Alliance. And when you consider that Etheria seems to be ruled by monarchies based upon hereditary magic.

Anti-princess rebels meet a lost clone with really advanced tech, and the two enter a sort of symbiotic agreement. Hordak gets a loyal army. The rebels get tech that can rival the royals' magic. One thing leads to another, and suddenly the Etherian Horde is trying to overthrow Princesses.

Hordak doesn't have to start the war because it's already there. He doesn't have to convince anyone to fight because they're already doing so. All he has to do is offer his weapons, and he gets and army with which to try to win back Prime's love and his own right to live.

Anyway! That's my take on it. For what it's worth c:

[fannishcodex]

How does Shadow Weaver factor in your Spacebat Adora AU? Is she still a terrifying influence over Adora and does she control her by using her ability to hurt Adorda's childhood friends over her - to secure her compliance? Or is her influence minor, only as a shadowy scary lady in the background?

I've been brainstorming a third option. :3 @soranis-sunshadow

Thanks for asking! I have been writing up a longish post sharing more of my current brainstormed thoughts about the Spacebat!Adora AU and how it further diverges from canon, but I think I want to share part of it now, the part that concerns Shadow Weaver in the AU (though this is a big AU-specific change so I'll just bring up some other aspects that relate to it).

Shoutout to @revasnaslan for inspiration from her great take on Hordad AU. (Will link below in a comment.)

More under the cut:

Due to Mara's DNA, Adora has a sort of high magical power level that Shadow Weaver can sense. Instead of canon where Hordak (disappointed that the portal wasn't a chance to go home--I more think that deep down Hordak just wanted to go home to Prime and his other brothers [tbh I keep thinking of season 1!Lapis from Steven Universe] and earn Prime's acceptance/love/permission to live and not be sent to the frontlines to die--and with his other issues) at first intends to leave baby Adora in the infirmary and then just lets SW have her when SW essentially volunteers to take her in--instead of that, Hordak keeps Spacebat!Adora along with Imp in the AU. But SW still wants Adora in the AU, she can still sense the potential of great power from her.

So while Spacebat!Adora's still a baby, SW tries to kidnap her, and is willing to try to overthrow Hordak and take over the Etherian Horde for this. SW in the AU is also backed up by the fact that in another divergence (probably part of her plotting to kidnap Spacebat!Adora/overthrow Hordak) she actually manages to find and take the Sword of Protection from the Whispering Words in a lone excursion (on her own, she's able to get into the forest), and then manages to extract power from the Sword/the Sword's runestone like she does with the Black Garnet, increasing her power.

With power from both the Sword of Protection runestone and the Black Garnet, along with her own manipulation/intimidation of a number of Etherian Horde members, private recruiting/manipulation of other dissident Mystacor mages, etc. in her planned coup, SW is actually pretty successful--she seizes control of the Etherian Horde, but fails to kidnap baby Adora. Hordak escapes with baby Adora and Imp, prioritizing his younger clone-hybrid kin before everything else when push comes to shove. Some Etherian Horde members reject SW and escape with Hordak, chief among them Grizzlor, Octavia, and Cobalt, who escape with a very young Scorpia (I have specific thoughts on my fix-it for timeline with her, but that's another post). Huntara also joins them. (I headcanon that in canon, it's actually partly SW manipulation that drives Huntara away from the Horde. But this doesn't happen in the AU because Hordak is sent into exile before that can happen.)

So, an internal civil war splits the Horde apart when Spacebat!Adora's a baby, and it partly started because Hordak wanted to keep Adora along with Imp, SW still wanted her and the power she sensed from her, and SW decided to try kidnapping her and seize control of the Horde:

-The Shadow Horde: The larger part of the Etherian Horde SW now controls. They stayed in the Fright Zone, and possess both the Sword of Protection and the Black Garnet. They continue the major fighting against the royal kingdoms of Etheria and also attack the rival Horde faction that was forced out with Hordak. SW still wants Adora. SW and her Shadow Horde are the ones to launch a major assault on Castle Bright Moon, and sooner. SW's assault is more successful--both Micah and Angella are exiled to Beast Island, SW captures the Moonstone and takes a baby Glimmer. SW raises Glimmer as her own, and later C*tra too. In this AU, it's Glimmer largely in part of canon!Adora's situation, and C*tra fixates on Glimmer instead, especially when Glimmer eventually abandons the Shadow Horde after she gives the Sword to Spacebat!Adora.

-The Renegade Horde: The part that rejected SW and escaped the Fright Zone with Hordak, Imp, and baby Spacebat!Adora. They largely flee to the Crimson Waste (since in canon Huntara was an ex-Horde member that fled there, and it seems like a place where a lot on Etheria escape to; also again draws inspiration from @revasnaslan 's take on Hordad AU, even with SW's role). They fight more with SW's Shadow Horde than Etheria's royal kingdoms. (Tbh got the idea for using "renegade" from some old original '80s She-Ra promo material----it mentioned the "renegade Horde"----I found online somewhere, think still have the link somewhere but I'd have to find it ^^;)

Hordak does a lot of rethinking/revaluating, as does the Renegade Horde in the Crimson Waste. Hordak continues to prioritize the safety of his younger clone siblings, and starts questioning his past life under Horde Prime more and sooner (e.g. how will Prime really react to Adora and Imp?). Hordak's vulnerabilities are more exposed to Grizzlor, Octavia, and Cobalt, and rather than them rejecting him/taking advantage like he feared, they prove truly trustworthy.

Power and command between Hordak, Grizzlor, Octavia, and Cobalt becomes more balanced both in public and in private among the new Renegade Horde. And they really do become friends. (Headcanon that in canon Grizzlor, Octavia, and Cobalt had more power and sway with Hordak, but they actually thought maintaining Hordak as a more singular authority would be better in the long run, and Hordak feared exposure of his physical weakness to them and others/had his giant Prime issues.) Grizzlor, Octavia, and Cobalt advise going back to techniques pre-"things escalated" (going back and forth on my own internal view/fix-it AU of how past events went, like if Hordak was actually there for this part or not)--more effort to negotiate/more efforts at diplomacy to recruit people/get allies.

The Renegade Horde's more focused on surviving in the Crimson Waste, and eventually actually start improving the Crimson Waste overall and uniting the region more as a community. Again, the Renegade Horde end up fighting more with SW's Shadow Horde than Etheria's royal kingdoms. This does eventually lead to some reluctant partnerships with the Etherian Royal Alliance against the Shadow Horde, and it's a relationship gradually changing and in flux for a while.

Spacebat!Adora largely grows up in the Crimson Waste with her brothers Hordak and Imp. In this AU, Adora and Imp are like equivalent to Hordak meeting Entrapta sooner--his Prime-induced views are challenged sooner and he's exposed to something more positive that he ends up prioritizing more. (But Hordak and Entrapta do get to meet sooner when the Renegade Horde has a diplomatic mission in Dryl.) Protecting and caring for Adora and Imp becomes the first priority for Hordak. Adora and Imp are very close as the younger siblings in their clone family; they were playmates since they were very young and have become close companions as the years pass, even if Adora is the only one to visibly age/get taller. (But Imp is happy to point out she can't fly.) Adora and Imp both love Hordak dearly, and he reciprocates with them. Grizzlor, Octavia, and Cobalt are even more uncles and aunt to Imp and Adora. She and Imp make friends with Scorpia, who's largely raised by Grizzlor, Octavia, and Cobalt. Adora hero worships Huntara, and Huntara remains a part of the Renegade Horde. There's no SW or C*tra in her childhood and they're not there for most of her life until she's in her late teens. SW's just a distant danger Adora is warned about; Adora is unaware of C*tra's existence for a long time. Spacebat!Adora largely grows up happier and more free/less restricted.

Spacebat!Adora knows the Crimson Waste well and feels that it's beautiful and a wonderful place to explore--I keep seeing Spacebat!Adora in the changing Crimson Waste with vibes of the games Sable and Journey, even Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (and those vibes are still just felt throughout other parts of the AU still, especially Nausicaä which I need to rewatch/reread).

A devastated Castaspella is wary of anything Horde-related, but over the years becomes a more stable ally with the the Renegade Horde against the Shadow Horde, and grows very fond of Spacebat!Adora and Imp. Castaspella likes sewing toys for Imp and desert clothes for Adora. Castaspella is relieved when she finds Glimmer, and hopes she can become friends with Spacebat!Adora and Imp.

[pennamesmith]

Return of the Skeletor

A family reunion. Find more Skeletor stories here! 

*

Micah remembered the other world. 

Most people could, in fact. The whole planet was affected. They’d all lived a life they thought was perfect. They’d all imagined something intangible. The memories were faded and fragmentary, like the recollection of a dream, but everyone was certain it had really happened. 

Even if nothing that had happened was real. 

At first Micah didn’t realize anyone else had shared in the dream. He’d lost track of time on Beast Island long ago, and when the collapsing portal closed around him he only assumed it was one of the despairing wasteland’s many tricks. He never had long to dwell on the matter, either. Soon after finding himself returned to reality (he could remember shouting to Angella, reaching for her, trying to tell her “I’m not dead!”) Micah had met the loud and unusual Princess Entrapta. And after her there came…

“She-Ra! It’s She-Ra!” a nasally voice shrieked. 

Micah was startled out of his reverie by a sudden clattering of hooves. The door to his Bright Moon office burst inwards and he was presented with the sight of a breathless Swift Wind. Sitting astride the rainbow-winged unicorn was one of Entrapta’s bots, a lanky drone she’d named ‘Skeletor.’

“The time has come!” Skeletor said. 

“It’s true!” Swift Wind confirmed. “I felt the sacred bond return just a minute ago. Adora and the others are back from Eternia! Darla is over the Whispering Woods right now!”

“What?” Micah jumped to his feet, abandoning his desk without a second thought. It was covered in a mountain of paperwork: royal records, his regent’s duties, and the calendar pages where he’d marked off every day since Glimmer and the rest of the Princess Alliance left for their dangerous mission to another universe. He rushed to the door where Swift Wind was standing. 

Skeletor reached out and helped Micah onto the horse’s back. “Join hands as we bring together our mystic powers!” the robot cried. Once Micah was settled, Swift Wind turned and leapt out the nearest window. They sailed through the skies. 

“What’s going on? Are they all right?” Micah asked, with undisguised worry. 

Swift Wind banked, soaring over the tree line. “I’m not sure! The ship is under control but — look, there it is!” 

Darla, the rebuilt First Ones ship, was descending rapidly from the sky over the treetops. Her flight was steady, but parts of the hull were damaged, and smoke trailed from one wing. Suddenly the ship lurched and plummeted into the trees, vanishing from sight. A plume of vegetation went flying as it plowed to a smouldering stop. 

Micah felt his stomach twist. “We need to get closer!” he called out in a panic. 

“I can take you there!” Skeletor declared, urging Swift Wind toward the ground. They touched down by the edge of a long path of smoking destruction that stretched deep into the woods. 

“They must have landed near here,” Skeletor deduced, observing the massive trench in the ground. He hopped off the horse’s back and ran ahead, making anxious utterances as he went. 

Micah dismounted and walked beside Swift Wind. “I hate this,” Micah confessed. “The staying behind, I mean. At least on Beast Island I was the only one I had to worry about, and I was in control of my own survival. But having to stand by while Glimmer goes into danger? I’m so proud of her, yet I’m also so scared.” 

“I know what you mean,” Swift Wind answered. “I trust Adora, but I also worry about her, like, all the time. Whenever we’re apart I get so restless. I just feel powerless!”  

“Sometimes letting them find their own way is all we can do,” Micah mused. 

They came into a clearing in the woods. Darla was there, sparking and steaming but generally intact. Skeletor hammered on the door. 

“Here, let me try to get you out!” he called. 

Something inside the ship made a noise. There was a hiss and a jet of steam, and Skeletor tumbled backwards, landing with a squawk at Micah and Swift Wind’s feet. They all stared at Darla, holding their breath expectantly.

The front hatch of the spaceship popped open. Entrapta erupted out of it, tumbling down the landing ramp in a ball of frizzled hair. She pulled her goggles up. 

“Aha! We made it!” she crowed, taking in her surroundings. “All in the right dimension and everything!” 

She reached into the recesses of her hair and emerged with a haggard Hordak. “Your piloting saved us! I knew you could do it!” she told him proudly. 

Hordak squinted through half-lidded eyes. “Is it over?” he muttered. “Are we still alive?”

“Yep!” Entrapta wobbled to her feet and gathered her partner up in her ponytails. “Now, let’s get you a checkup and some rest. You’ve had a stressful voyage!” 

She suddenly seemed to notice the gathered onlookers. “Oh! Hi Skeletor. Hi Bird Horse. Hi Micah. Guess what? You’re gonna love this!” Entrapta turned back to the ship. “Safe to disembark, crew!” she yelled, before trotting off with Hordak.

“Now we’ll see how clever you are!” Skeletor said. 

Mermista peeked around the door. “Ground!” she cried, throwing herself across the dirt in relief. “I never thought I’d miss you so much!” 

“Oh, it wasn’t that bad a flight,” Sea Hawk cajoled, helping her to her feet. “Why, I can think of a dozen — no, two dozen more harrowing trips I’ve taken in the Dragon’s Daughter XXVIII.” 

“You fishmonger,” Skeletor scoffed. 

Frosta was the next one out, followed closely by Perfuma and Scorpia. “Eternia was amazing!” the teenaged ice princess announced, brandishing a pair of frozen fists. “I got to punch so much stuff!” 

“Come on, it wasn’t all violence,” Perfuma pleaded. 

“Yeah, we learned a bunch about friendship and responsibility too,” Scorpia agreed. 

“Punch! Punch!” Frosta said. 

“You’re becoming evil, I can sense it!” Skeletor hummed approvingly. “Excellent!” 

Catra and Adora came next, and they were accompanied by a young man Micah had never seen before. He had a pink shirt, bobbed blond hair, and bore an uncanny resemblance to Adora herself. A sword hung on his back. He blinked as he emerged into the light. 

Swift Wind’s jaw dropped. “Adora! Is that…?” 

“Hey guys!” Adora grinned sheepishly. “So, funny story. You remember how when I was a baby I was taken from a hidden First Ones faction that nobody has ever been able to find since?” 

She held her hands out, presenting the newcomer. “Well, uh, we found ‘em! This is my twin brother, Adam!” 

Adam smiled and waved. “Hello everybody,” he chirped. 

“Brother?” Swift Wind sputtered. 

“He-Man!” Skeletor bellowed. 

The group fell into a chattering commotion, but Micah was hardly paying attention. Glimmer and Bow had appeared at the top of the ramp, holding each other as they looked out. Emotions that went beyond words swam in the young queen’s eyes. 

Adora saw where Micah was looking and quickly pulled her brother away. “We’ll tell you the whole story later, sir! Trust me, it’s hilarious. Now come on, I gotta show you around Etheria, bro.”

“Sure thing, sis,” Adam replied, grinning hugely. They pounded their fists together, adding their own sound effects as they did so, and marched off laughing. 

“They have been doing that the entire. Trip. Back,” Catra groaned, following close behind the pair. “Somebody save me.” 

“You furry coward,” muttered Skeletor. 

At the entrance to the ship, Glimmer and Micah hugged each other fiercely. When they finally broke, the old king could see that his daughter was smiling through her tears. 

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Glimmer sniffled. “So much happened. You wouldn’t believe how scary things got! Oh, but I totally had everything under control.” 

“I know you did,” Micah smiled back. But he could tell there was more. 

Glimmer’s face turned serious. “Dad,” she said shakily, tripping over her own words. “Listen. Entrapta’s theories about the other dimension were right. When we — I mean, didn’t know if…” 

Bow stepped in. “Your highness, I think there’s someone you should see.” He beckoned gently. Still at a loss for words, Glimmer nodded and took her father’s hand, leading him inside the ship. 

Micah’s heart was racing even before she rose from the chair and turned to face him. His breath caught when he saw the spreading wings, the shining light, the smiling face that he remembered so clearly. 

Their eyes met. It was a miracle. 

Just like on the island, a part of him couldn’t believe this was really happening. But it was. 

They both reached out. They’d mourned each other once. Their hands met. 

“Micah?” she asked, hardly believing it herself. 

“Angie?” 

*

Outside, both the princesses and their well-wishers had gathered around Adam, excitedly showing off the wonders of their planet. He gazed with delight at everything, marveling in the magical light of Etheria. His laugh brimmed with kindness. 

Skeletor elbowed his way through the crowd. “I can’t let any of you delay me! Out of my way, now!” he jabbered. “This is no time for jokes!” 

He made it to where Adora stood with her brother and glared. Adam turned in surprise, not sure what to expect. They stared at each other. 

Skeletor held his arms wide. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment!” he cried. “Take this, He-Man!” 

Then he lunged forward, and wrapped Adam in an enormous hug. 

“He-Man, I am your friend!” 

[adoras-last-braincell]

SEASON 5 EMOJI ANALYSIS

This is real heckin’ long because of all the pictures, so buckle in folks. If you haven’t seen the full tease, it’s here.

This is easy to tell with pictures from the first clips and trailer:

Endless bots, followed by Adora running into battle and getting slammed into a tree:

Glimmer and Catra on opposite sides of the forcefield:

Dinner with Horde Prime (and his ice cube flan):

Followed by someone sleeping, then the Princess Alliance: Mermista, Perfuma, Frost(?) and Scorpia(!) all regarding Entrapta suspiciously

Either that’s the princess alliance running, or Adora is running A LOT. With a dog?? 

That’s gotta be the signal tower that Adora repaired! maybe they use it to figure out where Horde Prime’s ship (and Glimmer) is?

Leaving in Mara’s ship for the rescue mission!

I could be reaching, but that could show Catra being pulled in different directions--wanting to help, but not knowing how?

Bow and Adora in space!

The landing could either be on Horde Prime’s ship, or landing back on Etheria...

That could be Entrapta or Adora and Bow breaking things on Horde Prime’s ship and then escaping (stars), or landing in Horde Prime’s ship...

I don’t know what the diamond is, but get ready for the first time Adora falls off a cliff (or other high point if they’re on the ship). XD

Okay, i guess they’re still on the ship at this point. Encounter Horde Prime (yikes), Bow destroys some HP tech, he’s annoyed. 

IS THIS THE BABY ADORA AND CATRA SIMULATION??

And maybe the hearing aid + speech is indicating someone (Catra?) is being forced to experience it?

That COULD be this:

But that would mean they’re off of HP’s ship and back on Etheria already, so I’m not too sure about that.

Spinnerella, Netossa, Micah, and Swift Wind! And a... party? Celebrating kicking Shadow Weaver off Micah’s throne?

HANDS.

But which ones?

And here’s where i start to get a little lost, so I’ll just point out the few things that I see... 

Spy/Thriller episode!

The cat?? (Shadow Weaver PLEASE go away)

uhh.... Mara’s ship shows up again (Here’s hoping they didn’t leave Catra up there aheh), Spinerella and Netossa show up again, Scorpia (and Perfuma?) zap Horde Prime? I hope XD, and the last time we saw that Temple + Ghost combo was with the First Ones hologram recording that was activated way back in season 2 (Signals).

Shadow Weaver has a black heart with no love and sets fire to what she can’t control okay maybe my bias is showing

But really, maybe she sets fire to Bright Moon or something?? Yikes

This could be this part of the trailer...

...or the crystal + lightning could represent the Heart of Etheria, and the broken heart could mean actually literally breaking the Heart?

As far as “End Soon” goes, I think that just means this tease isn’t showing the end of the season - just like how none of the reviewers have gotten to see the final three episodes. I’m sure the actual show won’t end on heartbreak! 

...oof, that was a lot. Can’t wait to see other theories!

[scarlet-cloudfall]

Yeah, war is war, and it needed to be stopped as soon as possible. I didn't mean to imply that those first hurt by the Horde didn't matter as much as those still standing years later, only that because people were still standing years later, the Horde's march wasn't nearly as swift and dangerous as SW seemed to imply.

But at that point, we don't know if the leaders of Mystacore WERE gonna do anything. We know it's not likely they would have with our hindsight, and SW might be fairly sure they won't do anything because she knows them, but she literally gave it one failed meeting before giving up on mobilizing Etheria's most powerful sorcerors via winning over the leaders of Mystacore.

But at the very least, we know that at some point, something was done: the first princess alliance was formed. We know Micah, a Sorceror, fought. This makes it quite possible that the people of Mystacore did end up fighting with the first princess alliance against the Horde.

But in any case, if SW joined the Horde for the power, then that means she didn't really care about those who were being hurt by the war; she was just using the war as justification for the acquisition of power. If she did care about those hurt by the war, she wouldn't help the people who are hurting innocents.

I do find the comparison between DT and SW quite interesting, though. I would lean towards that meaning DT is less morally good rather than SW is more morally grey, but I'll have to turn this over in my mind awhile before coming to some sort of conclusion.

As for the lack of decision-making at the failsafe, I chalk this up to the lack of time. They had very little time to process everything before they got attacked. I'd assume that if they weren't under time pressure, they would have discussed alternate possibilities. I think it's likely Adora would have taken the failsafe anyway, but it's about having that choice rather than being forced into it amidst the chaos.

As for the competency of the princesses, we don't actually know. Remember, the princesses for the original princess alliance were the parents of the princesses we see in the show, so we've never actually seen them (with the exception of Angela, but I would agree that she's not super competent at fighting a war. And maybe Entrapta, too, I guess).

But also, trying to convince the leaders of Mystacore to aid in the fight against the Horde is not the same as standing idly by.

In any case, I do think the fact that SW started helping the Horde shows that she never really cared about the people hurt by the war, and that she just wanted an excuse to try her modified spell of obtainment to get more power.

something that really frustrates me about spop is that we're supposed to believe that shadow weaver is an evil and selfish person who doesn't deserve redemption, but she's literally the only one being useful in s5. in fact, even before that, when she was still light spinner, she was the only person who actually wanted to do something about the war.

Light Spinner: The Guild needs talents like ours more than ever before. Perhaps-- [looks away in thought] No.. you're not ready.

[…]

Light Spinner: It's no illusion. This is really happening. An army has invaded our lands. They call themselves the Horde. The Princesses have proved ineffective against their strength. They've accomplished much more in a short time, more than our so-called leaders have.

[…]

Light Spinner: We can no longer stand by while the Horde conquers more and more territory. The Princesses have been unable to stop them, and now they have taken a runestone, the Black Garnet.

literally she was the only one trying to do something. all of the other leaders just stood by and decided to leave it to the princesses. the princesses, as we've seen, were irresponsible and useless.

why is shadow weaver the bad guy here? i mean, sure, she wanted power. a pretty basic motivation honestly, i don't think wanting power alone is an entirely bad thing. and she was manipulative. which was definitely bad but considering how no one took her seriously, she had to resort to something.

if they really wanted us to side with the princesses, they should have given us a reason to root for them. but no. perfuma was impatient and immature. mermista constantly complained about doing her duty. frosta seemed to be responsible at first but turns out, nah, she's just a chaotic kid. glimmer was also pretty much not suited for queen duties. netossa and spinerella were just the resident sapphic couple.

in s5 as well, everyone was mad at shadow weaver for suggesting that adora carry the failsafe. but did any of them have a better idea? did any of them even try to come up with a good solution? or offer to carry the failsafe themselves? shadow weaver was the only person taking the war seriously, apart from adora herself. the rest of them acted like it was some minor inconvenience and like shadow weaver was just ruining the fun for them.

it's absurd really. shadow weaver is a complex character but everyone, the crew included, treats her like an irredeemable monster. i'm not saying she needed to be redeemed. but she did have a point - none of the other characters were even trying to take the war seriously. you can't blame the only person who is willing to go to extremes for the greater good, if everyone else is slacking off and treating a literal war like a pillow fight.

[sapphicanarchist]

Actual review of She-Ra Season 5 (with major spoilers)

As you probably know from my timeline, the new season made me incredibly happy, and I loved every second.

However, there are some things I want to pick at (both at the things that I loved, and things that could have been done better)

Firstly, can I just say how much I loved Catra in this season?

I absolutely adored her. I loved her and Glimmer's relationship, I loved her apologizing to Entrapta, I loved every second of it.

However, I don't think she and Bow had an exactly realistic relationship. I don't mind because it gave us such absolute gems like him cooing over her sneeze, and pointing out how adorable her astronaut helmet was. And I loved the Best Friend Squad hugs, because I felt like Catra needed to be showered in love and attention more often.

But it would have been more realistic if she and Bow had a slight talk first. Nothing huge, just a 'I'm sorry for trying to kill you and everyone you love.' And Bow would be like, 'Nah, I trust Adora and Glimmer and they trust you.' Then it could have led into 'Besides, it's so hard staying mad at you with such a cute sneeze/helmet or whatever.' Then she would have bristled, Glimmer and Adora would have laughed. And it would have felt organic.

And the introduction of Melog! Pretty cool. It also made sense for Horde Prime to be defeated by wild magic, as Horde Prime's whole shtick was organized clinical science.

Spinnetossa got more screen time!!!!! They shone this season. They were sorta hinted at previously, and more of a background ship but this season was their absolute best.

I think it was especially heartbreaking how Netossa had to fight her wife on their anniversary. And how she had been looking for her? How her voice broke when she said 'So the only person I can fight... is my own wife.' My heart.

I cried.

I did wish we got to see more of other former background characters. Like: Lonnie, Kyle and Rogelio. I missed them this season but hey, we got confirmation that Kyle liked Rogelio (which I totally called, just saying.)

I had some... negative feelings towards Mermista at first because of how she treated Entrapta but that too was incredibly realistic. That's the thing about She-Ra, they allow their characters to be angry. Especially as so much of them had so many reasons to be angry.

And my gay heart could not handle Scorpia and Mermista in Lipstick. I about died and went to heaven.

Shadow Weaver... oh what shall I say about Shadow Weaver. To be fair, I hated her for most of the series, because she is the major reason why Catra was so... damaged. But I think it was nice to see how she treated both characters together, even when they were on the same side. How she told Adora Catra was a distraction, and was trying to manipulate her into getting the code despite the effects. I liked that, because it gave us more insight into her character.

She was a Machiavellian character. She honestly believed she was helping Adora. She believed in what she was saying, and was using Adora (much like she previously used Micah) to get to the goal which she believed was right.

It made so much more sense now, looking at their reactions. Catra always had to protect Adora, not just from Shadow Weaver's abuse but from her ambition. And Adora, pure, sweet Adora was also damaged from this interactions. Shadow Weaver put so much on her, is it such an out-of-character development why she feels everything is her fault and launches at the nearest problem alone and without any regard for her life?

But all that aside, I am not ashamed to admit that I cried when Shadow Weaver died. She had fought for so long, on both sides. I knew her redemption arc had to end there if Catra had any shot at happiness, but at the same time... it was so sad. She sacrificed herself, just after finally given Catra as much closure she had left to give.

She dropped the mask, and we finally saw her face.

Wrong Hordak. I would have happily died for Wrong Hordak. Wrong Hordak was an absolute gem. His innocemce, his willingness to help, his naivety, his existential crisis. Wrong Hordak was my baby and I would totally die for him.

But it was also kind of bittersweet in a way. Because looking at Wrong Hordak, I realised that Hordak was also Wrong Hordak at a point. He had once been cut off completely from the Hive mind, had been as crushed and broken as Wrong Hordak ('I am alone'), and had immediately done, again like Wrong Hordak, what he believed Prime would want.

Let's talk about the ships.

From what I've heard, most people did not see Glimbow coming. Because they had strayed so far into the 'friendzone' it was hard to imagine them coming back from that. And I completely understand, but I also felt they were the best fit for each other.

They understood each other so fully, so completely. I cannot even conceive of anyone who could have come between them. They were It for the other. And the 'I love you's to me were a long time coming.

I think they were a bit overshadowed by the sheer rollercoaster that was Catradora, as they were more soft and sweet but I still loved it. And it was adorable.

Glimtra. Glimtra deserves a special mention because it was amazing this season. It was absolutely amazing.

Seamista. This ship has sailed so many times in my head that I kept forgetting it wasn't actually canon. Only Sea Hawk's annoyingness could break through Prime's control. And the blush at the end? And Mermista admitting she had set a boat on fire? And Sea Hawk's heart eyes after? Gosh, that 'I love you' had to come when it did or else my heart would have exploded already with all the heart eyes they were giving me.

I am kind of sad that Sea Bow wasn't so present in this season, as that was also a ship of mine. But I am very invested and gloriously happy with the endgame ships.

Catradora.

Oh my god Catradora.

Ahem, that kiss? That kiss people?? That kiss destroyed every remaining heterosexuality in my being. That kiss brought me closer to paradise. I screamed at my laptop. My heart did a jig in my chest. I was gloriously happy. I cannot emphasize how happy I was. I don't even have the words... Catra leaving? She will never want me how much I want her? It's not because I like you, while Melog (who we know is attuned to Catra's emotions) jumps all over Adora?? Melog, again, trying to drag her back?

Yes. Such Yes. I loved.

Scorfuma.

Look, I shipped Scorfuma the second she joined the princess alliance and Perfuma blushed. I did not expect how blessed I would be this season. I did not expect the dance, the desperation at which Perfuma tried to pull her back, the trust, the flower left behind, the 'you look... you look great.'

I did not expect how blessed I would be. Because Perfuma really brings out the best in Scorpia. And Scorpia deserves that. Scorpia deserves someone who seeks to raise her up because of her bucketload of insecurity issues.

Spinnetossa.

I have probably talked about Spinetossa before, but they were so domestic and sweet in this season. I can't believe they had to fight each other. I don't think I can go too deeply about it without crying. Because there were/are tears. Their dynamic... how Spinny was Netossa's weakness. The drawings. How Netossa sought out Spinnerella because 'you know I'm not so good with social situations'

That kiss at the end. I just. I sobbed.

And finally...

Entrapdak.

The absolute vindication and validation this season. I want to say suck it, antis but I also don't because I'm trying to be nice. We learn Entrapta went back to the fright zone for the LUVD crystal. We have her bypass all the beautiful tech she is surrounded with to go to the only dormant clone to check if it was Hordak. And the way she offers it up, how her eyes and voice goes soft as she asks if he remembers her. How she just goes straight back after he attacks her, and then we learn that she is keeping a list. She is actively searching for Hordak.

And on Hordak's part... he keeps the crystal. Even after he was wiped, then purified, he remembers Entrapta. He takes multiple chances under Prime's control. He even tries to access his memory while he believes Prime distracted, no matter how dangerous that was. Throughout the season, we keep seeing Hordak react to certain situations, we see his eyes widen when Prime announces their return to Etheria. We see him mirroring Entrapta's emotions when she is captured.

And back to Entrapta. There have been multiple metas about how Entrapta seems to have an aversion to touch, more often using her hair as stand-ins. Well... not around Hordak. She touches him. Whenever she is able to. They meet very few times but each time she is the one to initiate the touch. And the 'your imperfections are beautiful?' I just.

I do wish they had gotten more screen time though, and Horde Prime repossessing him right after Hordak had finally regained control was a bit anticlimatic.

Anyways.

There are also other things in the season that I adored. Like the religous analogies. How very... cult-like the Horde was. The purification rituals, the baptism, how everyone wore white.

Noelle did not hold anything back.

And this season showed it. A masterpiece.

[tippenfunkaport]

Tippen's Fics Megapost

Here’s a list of every fic I’ve posted so far. On AO3 * FanFiction.net.

Tips are super appreciated! ko-fi.com/tippenfunkaport   

I will update this post whenever I post new fics so you can find the complete list all in one place.

Series

I’ve collected my one-shots in the order they happen in two main collections for easier reading.

SPOP Missing Scenes - Collection of missing scene fics (mostly Glimbow)

SPOP Canon Compliant Post-War Fics - Collection of all my fics that happen Post-Season 5

Key for main ships in each fic

😻 = Catra / Adora (Catradora)

💖 = Bow / Glimmer (Glimbow, Glow or *sigh* Blimmer)

🧜🏽‍♀️🔥 = Mermista / Sea Hawk (SeaMista or Merhawk)

🦂💐 = Perfuma / Scorpia (Scorfuma)

🥼 = Entrapta / Hordak (Entrapdak)

Key for fic status

📕 = Multi-chapter completed

📄 = One Shot

📖 = Multi-chapter work in progress

Ongoing

📖 Glowing Up: The Princess and The Pirate (Friendship / Fluff / Adventure) - 💖 The origin story for how Bow and Glimmer met!

📖 Prince Bow and Archer Glimmer (Romance / Adventure) - 💖 AU where Glimmer and Bow swap roles!

📖 Going There (Romance / Adventure) - 💖 Series of missing scene fics from Glimmer and Bow’s perspective of Season 5.

Ensemble or Platonic Fics

Fics that either feature multiple pairings (aka the whole gang together) or just friendships and family relationships.

📄 An Outside Perspective (Comedy/Fluff) - 😻 💖 🧜🏽‍♀️🔥 🦂💐 An average Etherian and his mentor travel to Bright Moon to attend Queen Glimmer’s ceremony honoring the regular people who acted heroically during the Horde War but why does the Queen’s boyfriend look so familiar? (Almost everyone is in this one!)

📕 The B-Team (A Catra and Bow Buddy Adventure) (action/adventure) - 😻 💖 Catra and Bow try to save their stubborn magic girlfriends from themselves and accidentally become friends along the way. (50/50 Glimbow and Catradora)

📄 Bow White and the Seven Princesses (A Bedtime Story, as told by Sea Hawk) (Comedy/Fluff) - 💖 😻 🧜🏽‍♀️🔥 Sea Hawk and Mermista are babysitting the children of Bright Moon and Sea Hawk tells them a special personalized version of the classic fairy tale featuring their parents in the starring roles.

📄 Pride and Princesses (Another Bedtime Story, as told by Sea Hawk) (comedy/fluff) - 😻 💖 🧜🏽‍♀️🔥 Uncle Sea Hawk is back! This time he’s reading the children of the Super Pal Trio a tale of epic ROMANCE and ADVENTURE, the classic love story between Adorabeth Boomnets and Fitzmeowmoew Catsy. (Yes, it’s a ridiculous SPOP version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.)

📕 SPOP Palentines - A collection of 15 one-shots (mostly funny but a couple of serious ones) celebrating friendship, family and other more complicated dynamics! (Table of Contents here)

📄 Web of Lies (Family/Fluff/Romance) - 💖 Bow tires to tell his dads about what happened at Princess Prom without spilling all his secrets.

📄 Of Its Kind (Fluff/Family) -  😻 Baby Melog kittens!!

📄 OK With This (fluff) - 🥼🧜🏽‍♀️🔥A Mermista and Hordak friendship? More likely than you might think!

📄 Fraternize, Co-Captain or Assassinate(Fluff / Angst) - 😻💖 The Best Friend Squad plays sleepover games.

📄 Glimmer’s Crazy Day (fluff) - 💖 Glimmer writes in her journal about a really crazy day she had, the kind of wacky day you can only have by totally random chance… right?

📄 Kyle, Lonnie and Rogelio Plot to Steal a Freaky Demon Baby (Fluff/Friendship/Family) - The Horde Trio hanging out in the Crimson Waste and deciding to go back and get Imp.

📄 Good Trouble (Fluff) - 🧜🏽‍♀️🔥 Sea Hawk drops Double Trouble off after the events of Perils of Peekablue.

📄 Moonlight Ghost - 💖 Something nameless is haunting Bright Moon castle and interrupts the royal family at dinner.

📄 The Fire Prince (Action/Adventure/AU) - 🧜🏽‍♀️🔥 Beginning of my Beasts AU, Sea Hawk as arsonist Robin Hood

📄 Captain Mermista (fluff/comedy) - 💖 🧜🏽‍♀️🔥 Swap AU! Adora, Prince Bow and Archer Glimmer come to Seaworthy to hire a ship to take them the see Prince Sea Hawk in Salineas... but they're not sure what to make of Captain Mermista.

Romance / Shippy Fics

📕  Cans of Tuna and Redemption Arcs (Romance / Fluff) - 💖 😻 Pure fluff modern AU in which Catra is Glimmer’s literal pet cat and Adora is Bow’s golden retriever and they all meet cutely. (Technically complete though I sometimes add new chapters randomly)

📕 Save the Archer (Angst / Action / Romance) - 💖 😻 Save the Cat goes wrong. Glimmer gets left behind. Bow gets chipped.

📄 Getting Warmer (Romance/Angst with Happy Ending) - 💖 It’s only a few hours before they’ll be going to rescue Catra and a traumatized Glimmer is having nightmares of having to face Horde Prime again. When she wakes up screaming, the only person she wants to comfort her is still mad at her, their relationship damaged beyond repair. Or is it?

📄 Another World (Angst/Romance) - 💖 Post Princess Prom Horde Glimmer AU

📕  First Kisses We Didn’t Have(fluff/romance) - 💖 A collection of one shots where Bow and Glimmer might have gotten together if things in canon had happened just a little bit differently.

📕 A Merry SPOP Shipsmas! (Fluff / Romance) - 😻 🥼 💖 🧜🏽‍♀️🔥 🦂💐 Collection of one-shots inspired by famous holiday songs, one for each major canon ship!

📄 Just Like Always (Romance / Fluff) - 💖 😻 Adora and Catra think they’re helping Bow and Glimmer with an elaborate marriage proposal but their friends have pulled a bait and switch.

📄 “Yes, your majesty.”(Comedy/Fluff) - 💖 Bow accidentally refers to Glimmer as “your majesty” during a Princess Alliance meeting.  But, it’s fine, she should be able to make it through this meeting without getting completely distracted by sexy thoughts, right?

📄 Babysitting Arrows (Comedy/Fluff) - 💖 😻 Comic antics ensue when Catra thinks Glimmer might be pregnant and Adora’s Aunt instincts go into overdrive. 

📄 Time and Space (Romance/Smut) - 💖 When Bow and Glimmer have their first big fight as a married couple, Glimmer just wants to skip ahead to the part when she’s forgiven. But when an apology isn’t enough and Bow’s still mad at her, she uses magic to recreate a moment from their past with a sexy twist.

 📕 Glimbow Shorts (Romance / Fluff) - 💖 Various short fics I wrote for Glimbow Week. This is made up of…

Prompt: Memory: Bow tries to get Glimmer to remember the ridiculous names of all his siblings. (Post Canon)

Prompt: Injury: Bow patches Glimmer up after she gets injured on a mission. (Missing Scene)

Prompt: Touch: The Best Friend Squad is having a sleepover the night after their visit to Plumeria and Bow wakes up to discover he’s been unwittingly cuddling Glimmer in his sleep. (Missing Scene)

Prompt: Princess Prom / Jealousy: Glimmer wakes from a nightmare with a question for Bow. (Post Canon)

Prompt: Family: Glimmer talks to Micah while he enjoys a snack in the Bright Moon garden. (Post Canon)

Prompt: Swap: 🧜🏽‍♀️🔥 Glimbow and Seamista swap places for a scene from Princess Prom (AU)

Prompt: Wedding / Proposal:  Shortly after Angella’s disappearance, Bow and Adora discover that new Queen Glimmer’s been getting marriage proposals from would be suitors (Missing Scene)

📄 The Gift of a Lifetime - (Romance) 💖 It’s Bow’s Birthday, and the whole gang is getting together for a big party. Everyone keeps saying he doesn’t look a day over 30! Problem is… he’s turning 50.

📄 Shells (Angst/Friendship) - 💖 Bow trying not to have a breakdown about losing Glimmer to Horde Prime while cooking for Adora.

📄 Scars - (Angst / Romance) 💖 Bow is all healed from the Pulse bot but there are still a lot of open wounds between him and Glimmer.  

📄 Kowl Jr. (Fluff with a wee bit of Angst/Romance) - 💖 Bow and Glimmer are called to investigate reports of poachers in the Whispering Woods and find a creature long thought extinct.

📕 The Wrong Princess Prom (Romance / Drama) - 💖 Key moments from Princess Prom through Battle of Bright Moon from Bow’s perspective

📄 Parenting is an ADVENTURE! (Fluff, Romance)- 🧜🏽‍♀️🔥 Sea Hawk and Mermista being domestic with their kids!

📄 Booty Call(comedy / romance) -  💖 Glimmer indulges Bow’s pirate fantasy. Sexy but not explicit.

📄 Did Someone Say Seabowmista? (comedy) - 💖 🧜🏽‍♀️🔥 Joke fic I wrote for April Fool's Day where all may not be what it seems when Bow agrees to a threesome with Mermista and Sea Hawk.

Find my fics on AO3 * FanFiction.net. Only AO3 is linked from the titles to simplify my life.

[gin-and-total-annihilation]

more spop not!fic that actually turns into fic bc i am trash

I will preface this entirely-too-long post by saying I’ve read very, very little spop fanfic, and the few I’ve read since s5 dropped are all Catradora oneshots that are, um, a little hyperfocused. (Read: Y’all really have some Ideas about how a sword lesbian and a cat lesbian have The Sex, don’tcha.) So it’s entirely probably that the scenario I’m imagining here has been done before, possibly a lot, and likely better than how I’ve imagined it. This is me, 15 minutes late with Starbucks.

But can you imagine how hard it would be for Catra to integrate into the Princess Alliance? I mean, the show depicts the BFS adopting her pretty much immediately with, like, zero hesitations over their past history with her (a few sarcastic one-liners tossed here and there don’t count as processing, imho). But the kingdom at large? Not to mention the other kingdoms? Catra was the face of the invasion for such a long time. She had a specific angle to take out She-Ra, the ubiquitously-loved and lauded hero of Etheria. Yes, she helped save the planet/universe from Horde Prime, but once the banners and balloons come down, there’s still a reckoning to be had.

Mermista alternately pokes fun at Catra for being afraid of water, and takes any opportunity to “accidentally” splash her

Netossa brings a squirt bottle to any meeting where Catra is invited, and offers at some point to make Adora a magic leash for her

Frosta doesn’t particularly say or do anything, but she makes extra sure to exude icy menace in Catra’s direction. Okay, one time she maybe accidentally zings Catra during iceball, but everyone else thought it was funny!

Out of respect for Scorpia’s friendship with Catra, Perfuma doesn’t stoop to playing pranks, but she does pointedly remark on how muddled Catra’s chi is, a lot. Sometimes in the middle of a meeting, if Catra is arguing with someone, Perfuma will airily announce to the whole room that negative energy is starting to interfere with their goals again, and it looks like she’ll have to sage the meeting room again. After which Catra usually just gives up and sulks in silence

Micah is fairly neutral on the subject of Catra, considering she’s part of his daughter’s “best friend squad” and is also dating She-Ra, Princess of Power, demigod of the wind and sea, vanquisher of Horde Prime, hero of Etheria. But he does get moody sometimes looking at the mural of Angella, and a couple of times he’ll go Dad Mode and tell Glimmer she reminds him of her mother, but then he’ll glance at Catra and change the subject.

And like, Catra gets it, okay? She fucked up. She was the bad guy. And these people are princesses. If there’s anything Catra knows is true, it’s that princesses are champions at Not Letting It Go. So she mostly just lets it roll off her shoulders. (Okay, yes, sometimes she goads them, and yes, she should keep her mouth shut more instead of trading barbs, but what do you want from her? Being catty is her thing.) After all, she got her happily ever after. She got Adora. And that’s really all that she cares about. So a couple of whiny, poofy, pastel-wearing bimbos wanna take cheap shots at her? Ha. Catra wrote the book on petty. She grew up in the Horde. Let ‘em do their worst. 

Except Adora gets Big Mad about it.

I imagine Adora not only notices how the other princesses act around Catra, she sees Catra doing her best to ignore it. Melog is a pretty good indicator of Catra’s temper, and so it’s clear that the hazing irritates the shit out of Catra, but true to her word, she’s been working on her anger, so aside from sarcasm the worst anyone gets out of a her is a scowl, a flicking tail and ears, and Melog’s brief display of red-tinged spines and growling. 

So Adora is proud, seriously! Catra has come a long way from where she was in the Horde. But Adora, the OG “Punch Your Feelings Out Guy”, wants to remind the other princesses that Catra’s not the only one who changed sides.

Naturally, she does this by losing her temper and shouting them down during another all-princess meeting where everyone is subtly picking on Catra.

“What is your problem? Catra’s on our side now! Why are you all still acting like this?”

Mermista, never one to back down from a verbal slap-fest, gamely engages. “Um, not everyone thinks that just because Catra made, like, one good choice, she gets a free pass on all her other ones.”

“Forgiveness is a process, Adora,” says Perfuma primly, ignoring the glare Adora sends her way. “You can’t expect everyone to accept Catra immediately. We need time to work through our negative associations with Catra so that we can begin the healing process.”

Catra rolls her eyes, but Adora throws her hands in the air. “Immediately? It’s been months! And you’re not working through anything! You’re bullying her!”

At this point, Catra is almost offended at all this implies. “Uh, excuse me, no one bullies me, okay. I can take anything they throw at me.”

“Ha, that’s funny,” says Netossa sweetly. “Because that’s not what you say anytime I have this in my hand!” She brandishes the squirt bottle, and Catra’s ears flatten but she keeps herself from flinching.

Adora slaps the table. “See! Bullying!”

“Adora, calm down,” says Glimmer, sighing with a hand over her eyes. At her side, Bow splays both hands in a gesture that simultaneously tries to placate everyone.

“Okay, look, everyone,” he says. “A couple of jokes are one thing, but Adora’s got a point. It’s going a little too far.”

“Oh? Was it also going a little too far when Catra wrecked my castle and destroyed Princess Prom?” says Frosta, crossing her arms.

“Or when she decimated the Whispering Woods?” adds Perfuma.

“Or when she attacked my kingdom?” Mermista, chin on fist, rolls her eyes. “And, you know, stole it for a while.”

“Or when she sent Entrapta to Beast Island?” Perfuma turns to put a hand on Entrapta’s shoulder, but Entrapta’s eyes have gone starry.

“Oooh, I liked Beast Island! The tech there was superb! Maybe I can go back with all the resources at my disposal, now that I’m not an exiled prisoner anymore, and see if I can finally succeed in reversing the polarity of the--”

“See,” says Perfuma hastily, “she was exiled and a prisoner! With no, um, resources!”

“Look, Adora, it’s great that you and Catra are happy together,” says Frosta, with the deadpan expression of a fourteen-year-old who does not mean a single thing she says. “But I still don’t like her.”

“My heart breaks,” mutters Catra, but Adora leans over the table, eyes closing in a bid for patience.

“I’m not asking anyone to like her. I’m just saying, stop bullying her.”

“Uh, again, I’m not--”

Adora spears Catra with a single look, and Catra subsides, a little stunned at the turbulence in her girlfriend’s eyes.

“It’s mean,” Adora goes on, “and it’s pointless, since Catra is on our side now. I know there’s history there, but we are in the process of rebuilding Etheria and creating an example to show the other worlds we’re trying to reach. So just--chill, okay?”

A moment of silence greets this declaration. Then Frosta looks away with a snort.

“I’ll show her some chill,” she mutters.

Catra desperately wants to roll her eyes. “Give it a rest, kid.”

Frosta shoots to her feet, a layer of ice sheeting the table under her hands. “Don’t talk down to me, Horde scum!”

Melog leaps onto the table, its mane blazing so deep a red it’s nearly black. Chaos erupts as various shouts of “Melog, no!” and “Watch out!” tangle in the air. Catra rises from her seat, alarmed that Frosta is about to ice-punch her alien cat, when thunder cracks and a deep, throaty voice shouts, “Enough!”

She-Ra stands in battle stance, glowering at the room’s occupants, light pouring off her. The sword is held in a neutral rest position in her hand, though every inch of her (and there’s a lot of them) seems to be vibrating with energy.

Catra clears her throat as Melog instantly goes liquid-blue and pounces to She-Ra’s side, curling around and around her legs with undisguised adoration.

Melog, it seems, has no concept of chill.

The princesses all resume their seats, staring at the beast they’d been seconds from attacking as it practically rolls on the ground at She-Ra’s feet. Their eyes go from She-Ra to Melog to Catra, who expertly pretends to be unaffected and unblushing.

“Catra is not a threat,” says She-Ra in that voice, and Melog agrees blissfully, rubbing its head against her hip. Catra opens her mouth to protest, but sighs and shuts up. No point in protesting that you’re a badass when your psychic mood-ring therapy cat goes belly-up anytime your hot warrior girlfriend looks at you.

“Catra deserves another chance. She’s already proven herself by helping us defeat Prime.” She-Ra lays a single hand on Melog’s head. Catra wants to bury her face in her hands at the sound the alien cat makes.

“But how can we trust her when she used to fight for the Horde!” protests Frosta.

“So did I,” says She-Ra quietly, and it’s like all the air gets sucked out the room.

“So did Entrapta and Scorpia--” Perfuma’s eyes drop to the table at this. “--and you, Mermista--” Mermista sighs, but doesn’t argue. “and Spinnerella--” Even though She-Ra’s voice is gentle, Spinnerella’s eyes still well with tears, and Netossa tries to glare while she comforts her wife, but even she looks guilty. “--and King Micah, and Shadow Weaver--” Even though Glimmer wasn’t one of the princesses giving Catra shit, she still winces and leans closer to Bow. “And we gave every single one of them a second chance before the war was even ended. What makes Catra different from them?”

“She wasn’t mind-controlled!” argues Frosta.

“Yes, she was!” shoots back She-Ra, and Catra can’t help the flinch, the instinct to reach back and rub her neck. Her hair is just starting to be long enough to cover the faint scar of the implant.

“Okay, for like, a second, but even before Horde Prime, Catra was--”

“Catra and I were both abused and manipulated by Shadow Weaver.” There’s a thread of pain in She-Ra’s voice now. “From the time we were infants. We never stood a chance against her.”

“But you escaped,” says Perfuma, almost as a question. “You changed your mind about the Horde, and you left.”

Catra stares at the table. She can feel She-Ra’s eyes glance toward her. Melog gives a solemn mrow of comfort, pulsing aqua-blue. Without warning, light flares again and Adora is standing at Catra’s side, hands empty.

“If I hadn’t found the sword in the Whispering Woods, it would have been me marching on your kingdoms,” says Adora, and everyone shuffles uncomfortably. “I was chosen to be Force Captain just a couple hours before. It was dumb luck that I fell off that skiff and landed where I did.”

“It was destiny,” argues Perfuma. “You were chosen to be She-Ra! You would have found the sword at some point!”

“By that point, would it have mattered?” Adora’s hand strokes Melog’s ears. Catra swears she can feel the ghost of those fingers on her own head. “I wouldn’t have had Bow and Glimmer to show me what the Horde was really doing. I would have had Shadow Weaver and Hordak reinforcing my training.”

“You would have found a way to become She-Ra,” says Perfuma earnestly. “The universe would have aligned somehow--”

“And whose kingdom would have already fallen to the Horde by the time that happened?” Adora lifts her hands helplessly. “Don’t you get it? If I hadn’t discovered I was She-Ra, I would have become Catra.”

They stare at her, apparently never having put the dots together before. Catra, who has always been smarter than these princesses, leans back in her chair.

“Maybe,” she says, smirking up at her girlfriend. “But I wore it better.”

aslfja;lskdjfl;a this is already too long and it half-morphed into fic, so I’ll just summarize by saying everyone is a little sorry that they’ve been bullying Catra, and Catra refuses to admit she’s been bullied because of course she does, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t hugely touched and grateful that for once Adora fought to protect her from her princess friends. The Alliance goes forward with the intent of trying to behave better towards Catra. It helps that they saw Melog turn into a jello-mold as soon as She-Ra appeared, so they have proof positive that Catra is indeed not a threat and is in fact secretly a jello mold herself. The bullying turns into heckling whenever Catra and Adora goo-goo-eye each other. Which is a lot. Frosta makes an ice sculpture of Catra swooning into Adora’s arms (her art skills mysteriously improve enough to clearly depict Catra with heart eyes and Adora with bulging biceps). Perfuma decorates it with flowers. Netossa puts a forcefield net around it so Catra can’t destroy it. Catra sulks and Adora flexes her muscles to make her feel better. the end???

bonus line I couldn’t figure out how to incorporate: “Uh, Entrapta has two Hordaks and I don’t see anyone giving her crap about them!”