#and if he gets huffy about it and acts like I'm being unreasonable like he did last time I asked for a change

[isfjmel-phleg]

😐

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

glimbow vs catradora: jealousy

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

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

let's compare:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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