#catra maybe? but she got better

[catgirltoofies]

who is your problematic fav

all three of my cats, as a collective

[lucky-clover-gazette]

white out is probably one of the more notable episodes of she ra bc it's just catra at her absolute worst behavior, like objectively the portal had far greater consequences but i think the cold got to her in this one bc she's such a fucking menace. "looks like you're mine now adora" "always so perfect, look at you now. you're coming back to the horde under my command" "i wonder which of your friends i'll have you annihilate first" "I'VE GOT CONTROL OVER ADORA. I'M NOT GIVING THAT UP." like when corrupted she ra throws catra at the ground like a ragdoll she deserves it, 100%, no questions asked. there isn't even a time/space anomaly making catra act up, they just put her in outpost 31 from the thing with her ex and suddenly she's the homoerotic joker.

even scorpia's briefly like "ahahah maybe i don't want to have a crush on catra after all" bc she's acting like such a freak. but also scorpia spends the entire episode trying to ask catra out, and tells adora, "you two, even when you're trying to kill each other, you can tell there's a real bond" and she is JEALOUS of that?? actually you know what this is also a catradora at their worst behavior episode too, like the way they immediately start trash talking and then ditch everyone to scrap the second they see each other is beyond unprofessional. catra's favorite number is canonically 42069 (confirmed by nate stevenson) and adora knows this by heart. if those two idiots were in the same room for five minutes while adora's on loopy mode the show would actually just end, and this episode fucking KNOWS it and refuses to give us the satisfaction. bro. scorpia telling loopy adora that catra is misunderstood and shouldn't SHE know that better than anyone else is just like. wow. ouch. rude. scorpia is actually the mvp of this episode she straight up judges adora to her FACE for abandoning catra and swears not to do the same, even though honestly she probably should, because catra fucking SUCKS in this one. scorpia reveals that "catra once used my rock-hard exoskeleton as a nail file" why?? why would you let this happen?? stop simping she's not worth it!! but scorpia is still the mvp bc at the end of the episode she just straight-up realizes that catra is out of her goddamn mind and breaks the 'controlling she ra' disk for catra's own good bc clearly something about low temps and her ex makes catra go 25% more feral than usual and it's pretty cringe. it's like when i dispose of the dead fly my cat has been antagonizing for the past twenty minutes like babygirl i don't like the person you become when you're in these conditions!! and of course OF COURSE we get literally two seconds of sober wordless communication between catra and adora that's just like ohhhh adora's gonna remember this one, you're going to be doing the dishes for the first fifteen years of your relationship once this galactic war shit wraps up and you save the universe by kissing with tongue. oh my god, what the fuck is with this show. how does this show exist. how does this episode exist. how does catra exist. they put this gay catgirl in an environment under 32 degrees farenheit for one episode and it's enough to make her say some of the most toxic, deranged dialogue in the entire series. i think soup would fix her, and also a cocktail of psychiatric medication and cognitive behavioral therapy. she sneezes like a kitten and needs a weighted blanket in the evil uber away from cringefail summit as she's mentally drafting the 'i fucked up' email to her boss. she thanks scorpia and shares the blanket with her bc she's so exhausted by her own bullshit. she ra and the princesses of power season 2 episode 5 white out is for the cold gay heartbroken bitches and it might just be one of the series' best. looks like you're mine now adora, good fucking night.

[swearyshera]

Thank you!

This may end up being a long, rambly post because I'm a little emotional. But bear with me.

I am so incredibly thankful for all the love you've sent this week, and it humbles me to realise how much this silly little parody blog meant to people. Thank you for reading, liking, reblogging, commenting, asking, going absolutely unhinged in the tags... I read them all, and they've spurred me to keep going through 32 months, over 5000 posts, 40GB of screenshots and the wildest, most brilliant time of my life.

I'd love to thank people individually, but there's so many of you that I would inevitably miss someone out and that seems unfair! But I will say a special thank you to the She-Ra Uncut team, who I'm proud to consider some of the greatest friends I've made through this fandom, and whether we make many wonderful things, or never make anything again, I hope we can consider each other friends for life.

(Sob story time, feel free to skip!) In 2015, I had a huge breakdown. I was off work for 8 months, in hospital for a week, had therapy twice a week for a year... It was fucking awful. And though I got better, I never really felt like I had a reason to, and that I was just treading water until the darkness came back with vengeance. Then, as She-Ra ended, I made some silly posts that ended up as Etheria Nine-Nine, which led me onto what would become Sweary She-Ra. I had no idea how much this would change my life.

The response to this blog led me to write a script for a She-Ra Uncut trailer, and I loved it. I wrote more and developed a love for the craft, that I wanted to continue. It became a joy, and gave me a dream for the first time I could remember. So I kept writing, I kept learning and improving. In September 2022, I was sat in the Lowry theatre in Salford surrounded by the laughter of an audience watching a play that I wrote. That was the most incredible feeling of my life.

And I wouldn't have had that without thinking "Catra should be allowed to say fuck".

So while, it may be over (and it was pointed out to me that Sweary She-Ra ran for longer than the actual show did!), it's hopefully not the end. I'm very keen to make an audio sequel if I can, maybe several, and I'm not going to disappear into the ether. And hey, I don't know what the future will bring.

But there is a future.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you, everyone.

Alice.

(PS - Hi Crew-Ra, if you're reading this as I maybe suspect one or two of you may be. I am sorry but also not sorry, but also hire me when the strikes are over 😁. Thank you for making She-Ra, I love you!)

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

ah, yes. SPOP. the master of "tell, don't show".

"how do we let the viewers know that Catra loves Adora? maybe make her do something nice for Adora or hesitate to hurt her? nah, let's just have the big bad evil villain point it out."

they literally had to make three different characters point out that adora and catra had feelings for each other, instead of showing it, especially with catra.

double trouble got the closest to the truth because they used the word "obsessed" and not "love". yes, that's all that catra's feelings towards adora were - an unhealthy obsession. i still don't like the fact that double trouble then goes on to say that catra "didn't want this" because she clearly did, but that's a topic for another day

but the fact that the only proof of catra's feelings towards adora is random screenshots of her smirking and saying/doing something borderline sensual (with the context usually being catra just manipulating and/or abusing adora as usual) or random characters pointing out that catra loves adora is so.. lazy.

and the fact that 90% of the fandom uses this as "proof" and are like "haha adora is so dumb she doesn't realise catra loves her". she is not dumb. why would you assume that a person who constantly enjoys hurting you and trying to kill you has any positive feelings towards you at all? this isn't ✨ gay repression ✨ it's literally a reasonable assumption (which was proven right over and over again).

is it really so hard to write a character who shows genuine affection? even if catra is mad at adora, why not show that she still cares? that part in s1 where she returns adora's sword and told her to escape the horde was nice. it made me feel like she cares about adora's safety and well-being, even if she feels betrayed by her. but then they ruined that by having catra tell adora that she did that because she didn't want adora to return. how romantic.

catra doesn't even show friendly affection, even when they were on the same side. she just belittled adora and constantly prioritized her own feelings over adora's. and when they're enemies, adora shows restraint and makes sure not to hurt catra too much while catra does the most heinous shit to adora with absolutely no remorse or hesitation. if she really always loved adora, she wouldn't be so quick to hurt her or control her.

but that's what you expect from a group of adult writers who still don't understand the consequences of war and abuse, and who constantly prioritizes one character over the rest. it's just embarrassing. i've seen fanfictions written by children that are better than this.

[sometipsygnostalgic]

i'm losing my mind how are there STILL ACTIVE CATRA HATE BLOGS it's been FOUR YEARS how are you still this mad about a female abuse victim!!!!!! how do you STILL not get it!!!!!!!!!!

I have been in enough fandoms to understand that some of the people who stick around the longest are those who act the most scarred after watching the media. It's like stockholme syndrome. Or it's like hating the thing is what gives them drive in the world.

I have also been on the other side of this. I remained a Homestuck blog for a whole four years after the ending made me depressed about Terezi Pyrope, even lasting an additional year and a half after the dogshit epilogues released, through to the demise of Hiveswap and Homestuck^2, before I realised enough was enough and let Adventure Time give me sanctuary again.

But Homestuck had its Gamzee fans who hated the comic and fandom, Adventure Time had its Lemongrab fans who hated the show and fandom, and it seems She-ra has its fair share of antis.

The She-ra antis consist of the following groups, from my observation:

Former fans who got obsessed with some other show and have to bash She-ra because it ain't cool anymore. Usually Owl House fans but can be from anywhere. Their hate is universally connected to propping something else up, and is never done in isolation.

Hordak fans who hate Catra and maybe every other character and crew member and the show. There are a lot of the reverse, Catra fans who hate Hordak, which is part of why this group is so persistent, as a "counter" to this Hordak hate. However, the Catra fans who are Hordak antis MOSTLY do not hate the show (they are just... out of touch with it and generally have bad takes). I've seen one or two extreme cases of Catra apologists accusing Adora, Scorpia, and even Entrapta of abuse, but they were completely alone in their feelings. The Hordak fans who hate Catra tend to also hate Glimmer, Mermista, Adora, Bow, and say that the show is ableist or whatever, but they do not actually harbor much love for Entrapta. Her victimisation is an excuse for their behaviour and they have no understanding of her chaotic character. Do not interact.

Glimmadora fans (the ones who purely seem to exist to make 'Spop Is Abusive' posts). Why the fuck Glimmadora fans hate the show so much, I do not understand. But these are probably the most In-Your-Face of these three groups. While the Hordak fans mentioned above have a lot of similarity to Homestuck Gamzee fans or Adventure Time Lemongrab fans in the weird way they'll hate on the show for doing their blorbo wrong, Glimmadora fans don't have that evidence because they don't really care about Glimmer or Adora. They have absolutely nothing to say about the show, other than that it is Bad. My theory on these Glimmadora fans is that they really liked the Glimmer and Adora ship on a superficial level, and then the show decided to have its Deeper Themes and give Catra and Adora a messy, complicated relationship. There was a lot happening after season 3 where people went "CATRADORA IS REALLY ABUSIVE AND CATRA IS HORRIBLE AND YOU SHOULDNT SHIP HER WITH ANYONE". This period was SO fucking harmful to the fandom that it never recovered, so much work was lost and deleted from AO3. People would say "Glimmadora is a much better ship anyway". But then when season 4 rolled around and, uhh, Glimmer was acting like a little shit all season (for good reason but she really fucked things up with Adora), and Glimmadora crumbled into ash? Well the Glimmadora truthists felt like the show was working against them and that Season 5 was a grand conspiracy to make the Abusive ship Catradora canon!!! The funniest part of this is I sympathise a lot with these feelings. I used to be a Glimmadora truther myself when I watched the show in fall 2021. I was like, "wow, look how nice this ship is. And they go with catradora in the end?? Fucking HOW???". But then seasons 4 and 5 happened and.... yeah, I was disappointed with how Glimmer and Adora's friendship ended up, but I was ENAMORED by the messiness of Catra's character and how raw her and Adora felt about each other even in spite of all the bullshit. I never made excuses about the show being abuse apologising. I analysed it purely in how believable the relationships were and what the intentions of the characters are.

Of these groups, the ones responsible for the most actual SPOP Anti blogs are undoubtedly the Glimmadoras. The only time I've seen something similar, so many antis appearing, was because of Steven Universe ship wars. You have NO IDEA how petty people feel about Lapidot, Amedot, all the dots, all the amethysts. A crew member was chased off the internet over it, or left the internet over the show's own decisions, depending on whether you believe the """screenshots""" that were taken of Zuke's ""private blog""".

[olderthannetfic]

Just like a small question based on that one ask, but... might the lack of brown/black men in popular M/M ships have to do with people trying really hard not to be racist so they just... never feature black/brown men? Because I know several F/F ships with brown/black women, but I can't remember a single M/M or even M/F with a black/brown male love interest... well, maybe Link/Gan or Zelda/Gan? But besides that one... nothing rings a notable bell.

--

There are more than that, anon, even if there aren't a lot.

If we're talking about AO3, Link/Gan has 785 works. Finnpoe has 8,636. Sam/Bucky has 10,591. Do you just not watch live action media?

--

Part of it is "I don't know. I just don't find them hot for some reason..."-style racism. That can shift with time and exposure but there's no instant fix even if someone is interested in changing their own tastes.

Part of it is being instantly screamed at and held to higher standards. (And yes, no matter how much people want to whine and say this isn't true, it is true, and anyone who goes ahead and writes despite the haters will tell you so.)

Part of it is fear of messing up above and beyond fear of reactions. Personally, I think this is toxic white guilt-flavor time-wasting and it's better to try and fail than not try, but it's a massive factor in what some people choose to write.

A lot of it is simply the composition of the mega-franchises that tend to generate the ships with bajillions of works. If we're looking at AO3 circles, the biggest f/f ships are not that big. If you look at m/m ships of the same size, there are some with some guy who is not white and not a pale-skinned Asian.

Here's the AO3 f/f tag where you can directly see what's big in the sidebar.

Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (20389)

Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan (15516)

Original Female Character(s)/Original Female Character(s) (14062)

Clarke Griffin/Lexa (12661)

Minor or Background Relationship(s) (11492)

Adora/Catra (She-Ra) (10855)

Amity Blight/Luz Noceda (9751)

Sirius Black/Remus Lupin (7913)

Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long (7205)

Korra/Asami Sato (6866)

If we exclude nonspecific tags and misplaced dudes, we add:

Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer (6127)

Robin Buckley/Nancy Wheeler (6120)

Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught (5738)

Luz Noceda and Korra have darker skin. Lana Parrilla is Latina, but is Regina Mills? This isn't exactly some paradise for the diversity you're talking about.

Here's the M/M tag:

Castiel/Dean Winchester (107699)

Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski (68231)

Sherlock Holmes/John Watson (65757)

Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter (64761)

James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers (59546)

Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) (48169)

Minor or Background Relationship(s) (47119)

Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (43665)

Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson (41631)

Sirius Black/Remus Lupin (40374)

Let's exclude some things and see what we get as we head towards the 5-20k range.

Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku (38445)

Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V (36025)

Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn (35907)

Keith/Lance (Voltron) (31634)

Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester (30488)

Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood (29568)

Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin) (28959)

Jeon Jungkook/Park Jimin (28191)

Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter (27775)

Bakugou Katsuki/Kirishima Eijirou (27193)

Well, we've got Lance. (*shudder*) He's one of the most distasteful and useless stock character types in episode one and is the reason I never bothered to touch Voltron again, but his fans are certainly loud enough about him being Latino.

Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov (26087)

Dazai Osamu/Nakahara Chuuya (Bungou Stray Dogs) (26058)

Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF) (21900)

Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson (21897)

Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV) (21296)

Original Male Character/Original Male Character (21035)

Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion (20224)

James T. Kirk/Spock (18810)

Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru (18703)

Min Yoongi | Suga/Park Jimin (18147)

Eddie Diaz is Latino.

Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel (17787)

Levi Ackerman/Eren Yeager (16950)

Dan Howell/Phil Lester (16818)

Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier (16229)

Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet (16193)

Harry Potter/Severus Snape (15551)

Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich (15539)

Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki (14990)

Keith/Shiro (Voltron) (14816)

Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio (14780)

We've got the Taika Waititi thirsters in this cohort.

Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier (14413)

Rodney McKay/John Sheppard (14209)

Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto (13135)

Tartaglia | Childe/Zhongli (Genshin Impact) (13016)

Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know (12962)

Midoriya Izuku/Todoroki Shouto (12878)

Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead/Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic (12817)

Loki/Thor (Marvel) (12767)

Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren (12391)

Frank Iero/Gerard Way (12146)

Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams (12050)

Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou (12002)

Jung Hoseok | J-Hope/Min Yoongi | Suga (11898)

Jeon Jungkook/Min Yoongi | Suga (11352)

Kim Namjoon | RM/Kim Seokjin | Jin (11101)

Levi Ackerman/Erwin Smith (11088)

Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones (11083)

Loki/Tony Stark (10699)

Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables) (10523)

Kim Taehyung | V/Park Jimin (10415)

Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield (10312)

Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard (10211)

Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi (9950)

Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne (9944)

Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee (9763)

Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington (9686)

Getou Suguru/Gojo Satoru (9625)

Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol (9471)

Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski (9367)

Clint Barton/Phil Coulson (9359)

Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist (9347)

Nico di Angelo/Will Solace (9317)

Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji (9186)

Wang Yi Bo/Xiao Zhan | Sean (8973)

Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg (8785)

Dabi | Todoroki Touya/Takami Keigo | Hawks (8710)

Alhaitham/Kaveh (Genshin Impact) (8657)

Peter Parker/Tony Stark (8607)

Bakugou Katsuki/Todoroki Shouto (8588)

James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson (8522)

Only here are we finally getting down to the range where a lot of the big f/f ships on AO3 hang out, and here's Sam/Bucky, which is frankly not a small pairing at all unless you only mean in comparison to Stucky.

I'll stop there for m/m since these numbers are getting pretty distorted by me filtering out everything higher up, but you get the idea. Even that wretched Old Guard fandom couldn't completely kill off its ship, though then we get into how you're defining your terms and how much actual skin tone matters.

Here's f/m on AO3:

Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug (32122)

Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy (26417)

Original Female Character(s)/Original Male Character(s) (23498)

Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren (23403)

Minor or Background Relationship(s) (18497)

James Potter/Lily Evans Potter (18142)

Kylo Ren/Rey (15915)

James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader (15200)

Pepper Potts/Tony Stark (14547)

Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley (13843)

Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin (13551)

Fox Mulder/Dana Scully (13145)

Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak (11318)

Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan (11031)

Castiel/Dean Winchester (10851)

Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth (9236)

Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski (9152)

Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson (9141)

Other Relationship Tags to Be Added (9108)

Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper (9046)

Bellamy Blake's actor is Filipino, isn't he? I remember race wank.

I don't see anything particularly significant until we get further down the listings, but there are definitely smaller fandoms like Leverage where everybody loves and ships the black guy.

I mean, yes, clearly, media does have a bias against darker skin, and the darker the skin, the bigger the bias. This bias may be exacerbated by fandom, but in a lot of cases, it just seems to be replicated at about the same level.

That pattern notwithstanding, it seems like you just haven't heard of a lot of ships.

[canibalistic-brownie]

Adora definitely uses the Sword to cut up food and shit when she doesn’t need to. It pisses off Glimmer and Bow at first when she tried to cook on a mission and used the sword to chop carrots, celery and onions and they all ended up WAY bigger than they needed to be, but honestly she did get better at it over time. Plus, Light Hope said her movements with the sword became 150% more precise!

She gets pretty into cooking. She’s still awful at baking, always getting distracted and forgetting things in the oven, but cooking is fast and you’re constantly doing something. It’s like a dance, and Adora starts to love it.

Regardless, this isn’t really about Adora’s cooking prowess - this is about how she uses that god damn sword for anything. Oh, need a crowbar? Sword of power. Need a hammer? Sword of power. Need a haircut? Sword of power.

She isn’t even turning the sword into something else, she just uses it as is for whatever she needs and it never breaks. The hammer one was dumb, she just turned her sword and hit the nail with the flat side of the blade, and no chips came to it. It’s stupid and it defies the laws of physics. Catra hates it.

So it came to the surprise of literally no one that when it came time to cut the cake at Catra and Adora’s wedding, out came the Sword of Power.

Adora reached the sword almost to the cake when she saw Catra’s eye roll beside her and drew back. She looked down at Catra in her pretty white suit with gold trim and her black tux shirt. Catra met her stare with confusion; why had she held back?

Adora’s sword was tilted up and she carefully brought it between them. She used her free hand to bring Catra’s hand up to hold the sword, passing it off easily with all the trust in the world. Catra’s eyes widened and she met the blonde’s eyes again. “How about you cut the cake?” She whispered to her new wife.

Catra took Adora’s hand in hers and locked their fingers around the sword. “How about we do it together?” Catra whispered back.

Their hands were shaky and there were unshed tears in both their eyes but the cut was clean and they got their piece without much issue. Catra smiled at her new wife and licked the icing off the sword. As Adora’s eyes went wide she realized that maybe she did like Adora’s sword after all.

Even if it was stupid.

[spopsalt]

why do you think Catra is still redeemable after S3? Actualy, why do you think she's redmeedable at all? It may be because she's extremly violent and annoying but i've never seen one good side of her as a person. Everything she does is for herself and her own gain or some petty drama about being better than Adora. She's awfull with everyone and everytime she got a chance to escape her old life and everytime Adora asked her to come with her to Brightmoon she said no. She knows what she's doing is wrong and she doesn't care and the only time we see her regreting something is when she has nightmares about the portal or smth. Maybe it's just bad writing but she realy seems irredeemable. (The only way she could have been redeemed after the events of the portal is if she actualy regretted pulling the switch and apologised since the world was falling apart because of her, but her ego is way too big and Angella would have died anyway🙄)

Well I think she should've been redeemed like right after the portal, or like right before it if that makes any sense? Then she would face consequences for her actions, her redemption would be away from the people she hurt, etc. etc.

[sethdomain]

how does the storyline go with this edition of Charlie and Vaggie? Mostly cosmetic changes? What’s the logic behind the Charlie design?

erm idk i havent though so far, i think the most clear one is the canon vaggie fell and charlie took her in and slowly become her gf bla bla bla-

But, its mostly because idk what will happend after s2 and im waiting for many character to be actually known what they are gon do n stuff, mainly charlie mom ahem.

but so far, for Vaggie she is a heaven-born born n bred to be a demon chewer alongside Lute. They are kind of like Adora and Catra. Then Lute fucked Vaggie over, she fell become some hell backstore trash racoon and then get adopted by Charlie before animal control got on her ass, then bla bla bla.

for Charlie im still like blank bc im still waiting for her canon family lore, but like she's doing the hotel bizz for like, because she want to prove her worth.

Idk, I don't think anything change for the better, maybe their codependency for one another might be more highlighted.

Anddd for how I came up for Charlie design, it was a very pretty long ride? Idk I just though she should be a goat monster thing and i think that would be more awesome.

[antispopausandstuff]

Romantic Homicide

.

[ synopsis - a rewrite of 'Don't Go' by Nate Stevenson // 'Taking Control' s5 ep 6 ]

.

for a moment, the hero can barely inhale.

those claws, holding onto her so tightly, that she can barely process anything else. not even her own heartbeat.

she wants to let go.

but then Catra would fall deeper.

would that be her fault, too?

after slowed time, Adora finds it in herself to push up onto her feet, adjusts her grip on the woman in her arms, and walks. it's a strange feeling, to be so sluggish and energized at once. adrenaline.

from fear.

she didn't know when they got to the empty room. an extra space.

"...Catra," she breathes, quiet and ragged. a simple command. no, a plea, to let go. the Magicat's ear twitches once, her hold loosening only slightly, but not setting her free.

Adora sets her down on the bed.

the claws stay.

"let go," she says, unable to be as harsh as she wants to be.

all this time, and she's still soft.

when the hands release her, Adora breathes further.

silence continues as clothes are found and water is given. they don't talk. what could be said at this moment that would change anything, ever, at all? what could be forgotten?

"Adora."

the exit is right there. she could leave. she wants to.

yet, she still stops when that voice calls to her. for her.

looking over her shoulder, blue and yellow eyes stare right at her, something like guilt trapped within them. one that couldn't be trusted, after all these years of pain and suffering, of blood and an unforgiving darkness. one that grew and grew until no room was left.

guarded, Adora slowly turns. "what is it?" she asks, neutral and distant. the distance that was always there protruding and showing itself out in the open without spilling.

the Magicat shifts in her spot.

"i..." a swallow. nerves. "why did you come back?"

come back.

is that how she viewed it?

"why did you come back? we both know i don't matter."

"i can't let you die here."

at the time, thoughts were messy and looking deeper could've cost more than it was going to be worth.

but now...

with bated breath, she stands straight and forward. "i didn't," she replies, states, blunt, direct, and impersonal. as it should've been.

silence hangs over once more.

and she leaves.

.

when she comes to ( from what, she doesn't know ), a hand is on her shoulder, calloused, chipped, bruised, yet gentle and inviting.

Bow.

"you were spacing out again," he explains, lowering his hand to hers as worry settles in his eyes. "is it... Catra?" he asks next, though he sounds expectant.

of course he is.

Adora breathes again. without a word, she nods, and the archer sits by her, hand at her waist as he pulls her into an embrace. she wraps an arm around him in turn, head on his shoulder.

she was exhausted.

.

it was hard, to care for someone you wanted to stay away from.

to hold back against someone who shouted at you.

to keep the words "of course i hate you" in your throat.

she didn't lie, but she wasn't able to speak the truth, either.

all the hero could do was walk away.

"i'm such an idiot."

.

talking to Glimmer was hard.

less difficult than Catra, more difficult than Bow.

but she had to do it. she had to.

"...why was she so nice to you?"

it was a selfish question. she knew that.

but the Queen's eyes showed sympathy anyway.

Glimmer had spoken of her time with Catra on Horde Prime's ship. said she wasn't so terrible, for a time, and even listened to her every now and then until she just... suddenly saved 'her'.

and Adora couldn't help but feel...

envious?

logically, she knew Catra was only out for herself at that time ( maybe all the time ), but it still hurt, somehow, to hear that she was different, if it was only for a time.

why couldn't she be different for me?

"you're such an idiot."

"i think she just wanted to feel better about herself. in a weird, self-pitying way," Glimmer answers.

that was the only answer possible.

because Catra couldn't have wanted more than the power she was given, now could she?

"don't you get it?! i am NEVER going to go with you!"

a hand. warm, almost hot, through the fabric of her jacket, seeping into the skin of her shoulder. "Adora," the Queen called out, bringing her back to the world around them.

for now, reality was kind and bittersweet.

.

Catra's claws were bared.

in the next instance, that hand was pinned to the wall, the grip over it almost vice. the claws didn't go away.

Adora could barely hear the voices around her.

with furrowed brows, her chest heavy, she slowly let go and took steps back. "we're doing this," she declares, unforgiving. "and if hiding from the people you've almost killed will make you feel better, we'll drop you off and you never have to see us again!"

silence.

taking a deep breath, she slowly turns away. "i'll never have to see you again," she mutters, walking across the unstable ground.

but, before she could escape, that damned hand grabbed her wrist.

"Adora, wait!"

looking down, the Magicat was on her knees.

the hand dragged down until it wrapped around the hero's palm, keeping her there.

"please."

a skip. nerves bundled in her gut, an urge in her throat.

let go of me.

those blue and yellow eyes showed themselves.

"stay."

...and she did.

.

it was nightfall, according to Entrapta.

regardless, everyone was exhausted and wanted to sleep.

but Catra didn't want her to go.

sitting on the mattress, Adora fiddled with her necklace. somewhere along the way, the sword transformed itself. maybe it was the anxiety of everything, of Catra being here, right behind her.

the answers were unclear.

many seem to be nowadays.

the voice cut through her thoughts, low, almost rough. she didn't fully hear what was said, but she knew well enough.

everything suddenly felt more closed in.

slowly, rigidly, Adora shifted her position, laying down on her side, only leg in contact with the floor with the other on the mattress. she was facing away.

she didn't want the covers.

the ship was silent.

and the hero didn't sleep.

just listened to the Magicat's breathing turn to snores and hope she didn't wake up to need her again.

[panhasyournan]

beast island log day 1

[something i made, hope you enjoy. i have no writing experience so forgive me for any mistakes :/]

Some time had passed, entrapta was still unconscious on the ship, catra really did a number on her. after a while, she was thrown off onto the island, along with some bits of tech and random wires and things. a few hours passed and she woke up, trying to take in her surroundings. she didn't recognise this place at all, it was completely new but the tech fascinated her.

"What.... is this place?"

She asked to herself, looking around. she took her mask in her hand, it had cracked from the journey, she supposed. she felt a bit uncomfortable without it, she'd fix it when she was back at the fright zone!

speaking of that, she had to find out where she was, and what happened. why was she on this unidentified island? it seemed much too technologically advanced than the fright zone, part of it excited her but she frowned as she tried to recall the previous incidents back there.

the last thing she remembered was catra electrocuting her, she didn't like that memory. but after that she didn't remember anything. she had to figure it out, that would be fine, she likes figuring stuff out.

Entrapta stood up, her shoulders still felt a bit sore from the shock, but it wasn't that bad anymore. she held her broken mask in her hand, looking around and taking in the surroundings.

There were large towering structures emitting some kind of light and a faint buzzing sound. it seemed somewhat familiar. she thought through all her research, trying to pinpoint the properties of this unidentified technology. then it dawned on her. was this... first ones tech?!

A whole area of land full of first ones tech? she'd never heard of it before. or maybe she had? her brain felt a bit fuzzy from the incident. There was also some loud growling noises coming from inside the crumbling structures. She made a mental note to watch out for that, and maybe find out what the cause of it was.

Entrapta spotted a piece of paper with the travel details on it. she ran after it, catching it in her hands. she opened the crumbled piece of paper, reading the words written out to herself.

"Destination, hazardous waste disposal area..... beast island..."

ah of course, beast island. that's what the place was called. it's where they send off people as a punishment from the horde. but she was confused, why would they send her to beast island, she hadn't done anything wrong, from what she knew only people who had done unspeakably evil things got sentence to this. perhaps it was just a mistake, hordak would come back for her, right?

Hordak. He must have known about her being sent here, wouldn't he? He is the lord of the horde, so theoretically he'd control all the people being sent here. but they were friends, were they not? the data said he was. she thought catra was her friend, but turns out she's not either, maybe the data wasn't accurate. when she gets back, she'd reevaluate it.

entrapta was just confused, as she ventured deeper into the depths of the island.

she was stupid to think hordak even cared for her, she was never good at friendship. she had ventured somewhere in the middle of the island, she couldn't understand where she was. her head hurt.

she heard a humming noise in her ear, something made her feel uncomfortable somehow, like a mental voice pulling her down, trying to take her away into the unknown. how fascinating, she didn't know that the technology was so advanced it can mess with people's thoughts. but she didn't like the feeling, it seemed to be telling her she wasn't good enough.

though it was true, wasn't it? if she'd been better at understanding her friends she would never had gotten into this situation?

suddenly entrapta heard a loud noise coming from behind her. a large creature, around 5x bigger than her, looking like some kind of big cat but also like a reptile. she'd identify the creature eventually once she'd get out of this situation. if. it jumped out from behind one of the large towering structures. she ran as fast as she could, trying to look around to find some kind of shelter. there was no where she could go.

in the corner of her eye she spotted a cave and dashed into it, the creature didn't seem to notice. the buzzing seemed to get louder. entrapta sat in the dark cave, her face buried in her arms, and tears running down her face. what was this feeling? why is she unable to hide her sadness, this was all too much for her. they weren't coming back for her. he wasnt coming back for her. they didn't care

all the tech in the world couldn't fill the empty hole in her heart.

a few days had passed since entrapta was on beast island, she'd made a new mask out of the scraps of metal she'd found around the island. she'd also found some food, and rearranged it to make it how she likes, in tiny portions.

it would bring her at least some comfort on this desolate island. she spoke into her recorder, her voice stammering a bit due to her sadness, and stress.

"Beast island log day 3... no signs of other human species, though some living beings have been spotted around... No word from the outside world..."

Entrapta turned off her recorder, she didn't want to bring up these memories. she was a fool to think anyone would care about her, let alone love her.

she was just a princess with a brilliant mind, and that was all it was. perhaps she'd make use of that, and collect data on the tech here like any good scientist would.

but she couldn't bring herself to, she didn't feel like doing anything.

entrapta sat in her shelter, alone with her thoughts. usually the sound of silence brought her peace, but she felt like she was drowning. there was no hope. it seemed like the signal was getting to her, too. perhaps she'd study it sometime.

she curled up , using her hair as a blanket trying to seek comfort from the cold and her thoughts.

[n7punk]

Can you tell us more about Adora’s failed attempts at relationships? Why are the exes messy?

it's not so much the exes as a whole. well. ADORA'S exes are fine. they're mostly other minor celebrities she tried dating for a while but couldn't get the spark going that she knows she can have with catra, so they broke up and adora ostensibly wrote a few songs about it like she was invested. she has a few songs written about her too, but she never gave them the impression she was in love (tho one song about her "Easy To Fall For" somewhat correctly labels her as easy to fall for the moment she walks in a room so one or two were invested).

catra's exes are the pile of mess. most of them aren't exactly celebrities and were just in or around her alt rock scene. she knew better than to get seriously involved with anyone famous enough to expose her lack of vulnerability & investment, so they were usually like a random bassist or literally just a girl at the bar, whatever. the majority of them catra tried dating casually. about half of them that worked and when nothing materialized they both mutually moved one. another chunk did not want to breakup which only made catra want/need to dump them more. another chunk are pissed at her for being... exactly who she always said she was. and a few early ones she had an intense and kinda toxic relationship with. she did try to move on from adora in that first year, the time when she dated An, which means An got the best/worst/most intense of her before she fully stepped back into casual relationships only.

the "messy edges" the op is referring to is actually about the overlap between their relationships. they never really hooked up while they were dating other people, but because they'd break up with someone else, fuck, date and breakup with someone else, fuck, etc, their relationship isn't as simple as "two years". the public perception is also that they like... did actually date somewhere along to the way, maybe multiple times, before they got together for real, which isn't true, but with how obsessed they are in their songs it really does sound like it

[swearyshera]

Unused ideas

My notes app had so many different ideas that didn't make it onto the blog, so I thought I'd put them here and talk about why they didn't get included. A little 'bonus content', if you will.

They're in no particular order, just how they were when I opened it.

Catra sorry but afraid to commit. Adora also afraid This was a bit too general to make it into a particular scene, but I did like the idea that they're both afraid to take that big step and ask for/accept love. I think it got touched on, but I couldn't really find a good opportunity to outright say that.

Adora has nothing real. Catra in heart: I finally know what's real, it's me and you. One of numerous rejected ideas for the Heart scene. The notion of Adora not having anything real (Angella not really being her mom, Light Hope not really being a proper guide, She-Ra not even really being the hero she expected) was a cool idea, but I covered it back at the beginning of season 5 and it just wasn't a strong enough motivation to carry through to the finale.

Mara: You're afraid of being hurt. Adora: Course I'm fucking afraid, I got hurt before This was from the 'you're worth more than what you can give to other people' scene. I loved these lines, but by the time I got to that scene, it was clear the story was about so much more than just admitting her feelings to Catra, it was about the idea of allowing herself a happy life in general.

Dryl is like IKEA If I hadn't thought this up after the episode that took place in Dryl, I would have absolutely done this. We just never went back.

Finale is Catra proposing for real - I can't live without you/A world without you is no world/Love yourself because I do/What's the point in creating a world where you can be yourself if you aren't there too? Various rejected lines and ideas for that 'don't you get it' scene. They just weren't as good as what you ended up seeing.

This is the point of you - to love and to be loved. That's all any of us ever asked This one was also for that scene, and played on Adora's repeated asking of "What's the point of me". It's a great line in isolation, but it didn't fit with the others around it

Wanna fuck?/I've gotta save the universe first We ended up with a toned-down version of this, because there's undercutting the tension and there's undercutting the tension. Yup, there are even times where I reject the cruder lines!

Entrapta has a birth mark. Hordak knows. Another one on the slightly cruder side, but I couldn't really find a place that this worked. Maybe next time...

(On Prime's ship) Glimmer accuses Catra of being like SW and that's why Catra decides to help. "You're not perfect yourself, Princess"/"Wow, you can tell Shadow Weaver raised you" In hindsight, this just looks like it's unnecessarily harsh. I get what I was aiming for, a point of reflection for Catra that she may be going down the wrong path, but now I look back, I'm glad I didn't include this.

Corridors - Glimmer: It would be nice if you apologised for being a bitch to me/Catra: That would imply I'm sorry about it This one would have fit a lot better than the above idea, but the two of them bickering whilst fighting was funnier.

And that's the unused stuff! Would you have liked to see it in the blog? Happy that it didn't happen? Let me know!

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

I'm not a catra stan-stan and definitely not an apologist but I really like her character. Her redemption arc was botched and it's a shame because she had a really interesting character, and she had perspective on abuse that I'd never seen portrayed before.

I live in a relatively abusive home with (gross generalisation here) me as a scapegoat and my brother as the golden child. I'm not proud of it but i've been abusive like catra (even if not to this extent because ??????? She did reallyfucked up things ?????????). And seeing that on screen, it was freeing in a way, like staring in a really dark mirror, and it felt good to have a character to relate too in this aspect.

And then came the redemption arc 🤡 honestly Catra's point of view is not badly written from what I remember. Like trying your best to be a better person and stop being abusive, but the other person doing something that sets you off and falling back on those patterns on instincts ? I've been there, and it's somewhat nice to have the scene with mealog to relate to for example. Having to take responsibility for your actions and your reactions, but every sorry feels awful and has to be torn out of you because you feel guilty as fuck and you know apologies aren't gonna change anything, and you know there will be other instances when your abusive tendencies will take over despite your best efforts? It was freeing to see those sorts of moments on screen.

But adora shouldn't have forgiven her. The others shouldn't have forgiven her. Maybe they could be forgiven, but not trusted. It doesn't make sense, it's rushed, it's stupid, I hate it. Also catra stops feeling guilty really fucking early for what she's done, like ma'am show a bit more remorse you tried to kill her ? Stop complaining when frosta punches you in the face, it's explainable and you deserve it. In her redemption, she lashed at Adora once or twice, got told it's okay I forgive you please don't do it anymore and suddenly she was "fixed". That's not how it works and it sucks, it hurts, that's not how it works. We never saw a broken catra post redemption, and it lacked.

So, yeah. I'm pissed about her redemption arc, and it's a shame because i really wanted to see it work.

(I didn't even mention catradora because that's not the point but the amatonormativity of it all? You're broken but your true love's kiss has fixed you so it's okay)

this is exactly how i feel too! i didn't start off hating catra because she was a really compelling villain and a scarily accurate version of an abuse victim who started adopting those abusive tendencies themselves. i didn't relate to her entirely but i could definitely relate to some aspects of her, especially her anger that sometimes got best of her.

but it feels like the creators forgot that she was supposed to be redeemed and kept making her do the most heinous things with no remorse, only to remember in s5 that she needs to be redeemed, and shoving a hasty redemption arc where she ultimately does not change at all.

i don't think even catra's perspective was that good because she only changed for adora. she didn't redeem herself because she knew what she was doing was wrong or because she regretted taking part in the war. she did it because she wanted adora back and also because she was of no use to horde prime.

and after getting saved by adora, catra honestly does not try much to actually correct her mistakes. she keeps lashing out at adora and abusing her, she's snarky with the other princesses and keeps falling back into her old habits. and no one ever calls her out for it. healing is not linear, sure, but there should have been someone who would keep catra in check and call her out when she starts acting shitty again.

but no, the only instance of her trying that we got was when she admitted that she was working on her anger issues, and then immediately proceeded to guilt trip adora by saying that adora was giving her a hard time.

catra really had a lot of potential but it's a shame the creators valued a rushed toxic romance more than actual character development and good storytelling.

[idleglowingpixels]

talk about Collector

WHYYYYYYYYYY okay now that I got that off my chest let's get serious LMAO

Before I dive in too deep, to any other ppl reading, THIS IS YOUR FAIR WARNING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ANY CRITICISM OF TOH. Something that is really apparent in this fandom particularly is that a lot of ppl refuse to allow and accept genuine criticism discussions, dumbing it down to personal biases, misinterpretations of the text (or in this case, the show), and proclaiming "It's intentional that the show did that!" every time someone breathes something negative about it. This is ESPECIALLY annoying with the "Blame Disney/the shortening" nonsense -- a key skill in television writing is to be capable of working with the allotted time that the studios give you. After they were told Season 3 got cut short, they still had 11 22-minute episodes of Season 2 and all three 40+ minute episodes of Season 3 to conclude the story in a satisfying way.

Seeking and reading criticism posts outside of the general tags, ignoring warnings on posts that give forewarnings, then getting mad and upset that someone criticized your comfort show is generally an unhealthy behavior, especially if you're not in a good mental state. If you can't take people criticizing something you enjoy, and more-so if you deem it your comfort media, and feel the need to bother them because you made yourself upset reading their posts, you've got a lot of soul searching to do. That, or maybe you should log off until you can handle it.

Also, obviously, spoilers ahead for TOH, as well as Amphibia because these shows parallel a lot more than I want them to. :')

---

I have a LOT to say about The Owl House from a critical and writing perspective, and I feel like the show is EXTREMELY overhyped for what it actually is. I feel its sister show Amphibia executed much of the same/similar themes better, and that's not even a bias thing. Just from the way both shows are written, you can tell which one feels more competently structured from a narrative standpoint (and, let's be honest, which one is actually funny).

Okay enough about general opinion, let's get to Collector. From a character design perspective, GOD I love this little guy, both the reflection/shadow form and the actual form are distinct from the rest of the cast. I'm a big Sun and Moon design/symbolism enjoyer (Sun and Moon from FNAF, Sun and Blake from RWBY, Celestia and Luna from MLP:FiM, etc.) so these types of characters are always welcome. And while their voice annoys me personally it ABSOLUTELY fits them, so no matter how annoying I find it I don't think I'd want them to have any other voice.

But that, unfortunately, is the only props I can give to Collector.

The show is FULL of redeemed antagonists that range from okay (I'd like to think Amity was decent enough and Hunter was alright but definitely should have been introduced earlier so his redemption was a slow burn but this post isn't about them so I'll end this note here) to "what the actual fuck" (Idc what anyone says, there is no excuses PERIOD, Lilith's redemption was the absolute worst redemption arc I think I've ever seen AND I'VE SEEN CATRA'S), and Collector is very much on the lower end of that scale. We hardly see them overall and their character writing is rushed beyond belief -- and again, I'd like to reiterate that that is ENTIRELY on the writing team for the show. Disney and the shortening DID NOT DECIDE TO KEEP COLLECTOR IN. The writing staff were aware of the time they had left and made the decision to shoehorn them in and expect everyone to just be okay with it.

From a writing perspective, they bloat the story exponentially and 100% should have been left in the drafts or saved for future content like what Dana said she might do if she is able to through books and such. If we only get hints of the other Collectors, this one should have STAYED hints with them.

We have essentially no significant amount of time with them outside of Hollow Mind and the season 2 finale before season 3, and what we DO have of them in season 2B is so drastically different I'd consider 2B Collector and 3 Collector as two different characters entirely. And before you tell me, "They're different because sun/moon symbolism!" "They're different because Belos and King influence them differently!" etc. etc., don't waste your time. Yes, those are good explanations as to why they feel so different between seasons, but that does not make the writing of the character inherently good. Allow me to elaborate:

In S2B, of what little we see of Collector, they are extremely sadistic in nature, and while they appear childish the writing of that lack of care for others is ABUNDANTLY CLEAR. And it seemed that way even as Belos first encountered him as Philip in the flashback episode. There, they weren't yet "influenced" by Belos and his plans; hell, he hardly had an actual plan yet.

Skip ahead to Hollow Mind, easily the best episode of Season 2 imo, and Collector is taunting Belos, mocking him and his schemes. Saying things like "Ooh, you were mad!" and "I'm starting to think you make those [grimwalkers] just to destroy them. You have fun with it, admit it!"

I cannot find any reasonable explanation as to how or why Belos would influence Collector into doing such things. Why would he want a little pain in the ass making fun of him for hundreds of years? And by his response to Collector's taunt about the grimwalkers and Hunter, "Of course I don't, Collector. It hurts every time he chooses to betray me," he took offense to their words, but kept his tone from shifting to anger as he does with everyone else because of Collector's power.

Belos doesn't want Collector thinking he doesn't like them because of their abilities, but he does want to stay on their good side for information. For knowledge of spells. And he puts up with Collector's annoyances because of that.

Essentially, that wasn't something Belos taught them or influenced them to do. All Collector knows is to adapt to their friends' behaviors, yes, but Belos is like, over 400 years old. I don't know about you, but I doubt with the way he speaks and how he's written that he would taunt his underlings in the same childish vain as Collector, and do so enough for Collector to pick up and mimic that behavior.

Now to the finale, their appearance is pretty much just them getting duped by Belos and sent into the depths of the titan skull, where King ever-so-conveniently finds them, making the pinky swear that releases them.

They maintain that mocking attitude even after Belos betrays them, calling King "boring" for calling them Mr. Collector and feeling generally disinterested by King before he promises a game to play. And even after they're released, they continue the attitude further with the whole "I remember someone throwing me off a bridge...I'm not angry, though!" bit, only to send Belos to his "death" moments after, deeming it as a game of tag. They've seen Belos kill grimwalkers first hand, fully aware that their lives mean nothing, and replicated the behavior by returning the favor to Belos (or so they thought). Their lack of care continues when they nearly try to do the same thing to the Hexsquad, people who didn't even do anything to them, before King stops them, changing the subject before they can cause further harm.

After stopping the draining spell, Collector continues the destructive maliciousness they have all the way to the end of the episode, and that's the impression of them we're left with. They were sadistic, uncaring and childish, but only learned the behavior of killing from Belos -- even though Belos didn't actually die, the intent was to kill him, and they were fully planning to continue with the Hexsquad.

And then...We get to Season 3.

Just a side-note, I think it's a safe assumption to say the first 2 seasons of The Owl House took place between roughly 2 months, as Luz was outside waiting to leave for a summer camp after the school year ended before initially arriving in the demon realm. Going off of that assumption, in Part 1 Luz returned to school as she returned to the human realm, presumably in late August/early September due to her living in Connecticut. And since Part 1 takes place in the timespan of about 3-7 days, the last day being Halloween, the timeskip only brought us about 2 more months ahead. Keep this in mind.

After Luz and co. return to the demon realm in Part 2 -- objectively the worst episode of the season -- we already see King's influence on Collector since they turned everyone into puppets instead of actively injuring or killing them when they don't comply. Still bad? Yes. But from how it looks in Part 3 with the Hexsquad, it seems more like the puppets' consciences are just comatose or an alternative to sleeping, maybe in a REM-like state. But of course, the show didn't have enough time to explain that further over all the nonsense in Part 2.

Anyway, when we see Collector in Part 2, they're still being childish, which is unfortunately the only thing that stays consistent with this character. They then say two lines that were the most god-awful writing decisions I've seen in a hot minute, and this show is STOCK FULL of really bad "this is peak humor LAUGH" moments like this.

They say that Eda has this "cool aunt vibe" and such, which sounds like one of those "character dynamics/tropes" posts on social media like Tumblr and whatnot. It comes off as really pretentious in the writing, and was shockingly unfunny to hear for a show that calls itself a comedy. Another line that frustrates me, more-so for lore reasons, is when they ask Odalia to make pizza bagels, when it was previously stated that human food is inaccessible to Luz during her time in the demon realm. So not only is it contradicting that whole thing (Eda actively struggled to find food for Luz that she could eat), how would they or King even know what one is or how to actually make one??

It seems like a small point to get heated over, but it once again feels like one of those stupid one-liners that one of the writers thought was the funniest shit they've ever thought up and kept it in because they knew die-hard fans would just laugh it off and brush it off as a joke, and that the writers forgetting about Eda's maternal struggle to feed her adopted kid is Disney's/the shortening's fault because they're at fault for everything wrong with the show...and not the ppl who wrote it.

Regardless, this whole shtick is extremely out-of-character for the way they had spoken in Season 2, and from what I can recall (I'm not gonna rewatch the entire show for the sake of a single post), King never talks like this. Luz does around him, but he himself doesn't talk like this.

I've discussed with friends before about this, including Robin (the one who asked me to talk about this), but from Part 2 onward Collector gets the same Luz-like writing every character that gets redeemed suddenly dawns out of the blue. I started calling it luz-ification, but it doesn't just happen to Collector.

It happened to Hunter, where his more cocky and ego-centric dialogues from early 2A was dropped for a more "comedic" personality and an anxiety-ridden character, though it's later eluded to that his cocky attitude was him masking his true self, so I try to keep it to that perspective.

But this happened to Lilith as well, where she suddenly started acting like "Cool Aunt Lilith" IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING HER ADMITTING TO CURSING EDA AND ALLOWING HER CAPTURE. WITH NO CONSEQUENCES TO BE FACED OTHER THAN THE CURSE SPLIT WHICH IS HARDLY UTILIZED IN THE SHOW.

(Side-tangent: Characters facing little to no consequences for their actions is something that goes on so much in this show but this is long enough already and I really don't like talking about this shit for long 'cause I could be using my time on better pieces of media, I'm sure there's plenty of posts explaining this point elsewhere by ppl who enjoyed TOH more than me)

Hell, it even happened to Amity for a hot minute. For some moments in the show she's written really off-character and saying things that just completely contradict how she's typically written, but then goes back to the more sassy and balanced character later on.

This post has gotten WAY longer than I wanted it to be, but to keep me from spending even more time on this, Part 2 shows a drastically different Collector, to the point that they do not by any means have the same character writing as they had before. They got luz-ified. Using social media lingo they couldn't even have access to in canon, and being written to quite literally just sound like a mini-me of Luz with the more obnoxious undertones of the childish thing.

Point is, they mimic these behaviors of Luz that they wouldn't even have reasonable access to learning from, because she's in the human realm for almost all the time after their release. It only makes sense in Part 3, when Luz is actually there for them to see her behaviors in action, but even that is so contrived and rushed that it feels unrealistic and narratively unnecessary. Remember what I said before about the timeskip only being 2 months? Yeah, 2 months isn't nearly enough time for a character to fundamentally change who they are as drastically as Collector.

Now to the part where I talk about Amphibia really quick and mention how it did the whole "having an alternative threat acting as a mini-boss" thing a million times better than this shit ever could. King Andrias, paralleling Collector for this particular scenario, is shown relatively early on that he's an antagonist to the audience. It's later revealed as a plot twist not to the audience, but to the characters, who least expected it. They don't waste time trying to throw off the audience with red herrings or telling its audience "He's not a bad guy, he's totally not going to be evil later on." They just show the audience he's evil and keep the story moving.

He's given enough time to feel like this ominous, looming threat, and True Colors masterfully showed how messed up this guy is and the lengths he is willing to go to ascend to the Core and cheat death, just as the souls within the Core had. His motive to avoid death and return Amphibia to the world-conquering ideologies from centuries' past is what made him such a love-to-hate villain. And the motive to cheat death in a children's cartoon? Metal as hell. The Core also parallels Belos here, and further on in Season 3, being the one manipulating Andrias through his fear of death in order to make him do what they want him to.

In the third season, Andrias continues his work by the Core's demands, only giving up in the final battle when he's read a letter from someone he had considered a friend long ago, which admittedly didn't have much set-up but it was at least the focus of an entire episode prior to the big pre-finale.

At the end of the series, he's shown to have moved on, allowing himself to age naturally and to stop using technology to keep him in pristine condition for eternity. He accepted the natural cycle of life, and in turn accepted that he will come to pass one day. He wasn't a perfectly written character, but considering what it's being compared to? Leagues better.

Like I said before, TL;DR, Collector is the bloatware of The Owl House's plot. They were shoved in as a last minute addition because they were the writers' "precious bean silly goose little gremlin blorbo" that they couldn't just keep in the drafts with the rest of the collectors. So instead of maintaining what little integrity the show's writing had to begin with and follow through to the end with the Day of Unity plotline being the series finale (Which was VERY OBVIOUSLY WHAT THEY WERE GOING FOR), they essentially made a side quest distraction that dragged the story on for longer than it needed to, wasting the audience's time.

I'm not mad that the Collector exists, I just find that their inclusion in the series did more harm than good for the writing. The show has a serious issue with giving screentime to unnecessary characters like the miscellaneous Hexside students, giving characters too much screentime (The biggest offender for this is Amity, there's more episodes centered around her than Hunter, Willow and Gus combined) and not giving ACTUALLY necessary characters enough screentime (Looking at you, Emerald Trio).

I really want to rewrite TOH, and if I feel the need to rewrite a show, it's usually because there's too much fundamentally wrong with it for me to give it anything higher than a 6/10 overall. But I've already got a whole AU and a whole rewrite in the works for two other series I care wayyyyy more about, so that's gonna have to be left to other writers in this fandom.

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If this post is how you've stumbled upon my page, hi :') Feel free to ask me about more or to elaborate on smth I said here if you want clarification, but if you check out my intro post and see another mutual interest we have maybe ask me about that instead of TOH please and thank you

[blonde-and-cat-suc]

choose violence ask game: 3, 12 and 22?

p.s. love your blog, please keep spreading the truth!

And I love blogging <3!!! I do it for the girls and the gays.

>>>><<<<

Answers under the cut . . . This is gonna be a long one.

3) Screenshot or description of the worse take you've seen on tumblr?

Okay, so, the only problem with this one is that I've literally seen too many to count. But the one that I'd often seen and had the most visceral reaction to were definitely the longer, well articulated analysis posts from stans that did SO MUCH bending and twisting to claim Adora being equally toxic/(and or abusive) to Catra. Which, obviously, I also spent time analyzing. Trying my best to understand what was going on. And you know what? I get it. I don't agree. But I get it. Adora and Catra grew up under the same circumstances, so yeah, they wouldn't be entirely innocent of picking up bad habits from their childhood. Realistically. Fine.

But implying that Adora is worse? Worse than Catra?

...

Anyway, I've suffered from my own self-inflicted torture in the past. I wish I hadn't spent so much time reading stan analysis the way I did, but... Here we are.

And that's just on Tumblr. I don't believe that other social media/forum sites are better or worse about c//a and SPOP, but I have seen worse in The Wilds. (At least on Tumblr there's the filtering options. Everywhere else, good luck).

12) The unpopular character that you actually like, and why more people should like them?

Guys. I LOVE SWIFT WIND. I FUCKING LOVE SWIFT WIND I DON'T CARE THAT HE'S ANNOYING THEY'RE ALL FUCKING ANNOYING!!!

First of all, yes, yes, yes, Swift Wind is horrendous wasted potential (surprise, surprise), and yes, of course, I'm still pissed over it. Those scenes where he's so loyal and kind to Adora, and she, having no other point of reference for a friend, much less a resourceful friend... Like, awwhh. Plus, he makes it very clear that he has his own will and isn't just mindlessly following Adora around like a god-honest horse would. He has his own agenda. He doesn't have to go into battle with Adora, and doesn't gain too much from risking his life to help her and her friends in the short term, but Swift Wind does it anyway. He's interested and invested in Adora, personally, anyway. He wants to be there for her and support her growth as a person.

And Adora deserves all of those amazing, raw, sappy, fairytale friendships!

I DON'T CARE THAT HE'S LITERALLY A HORSE HE IS STILL FUNCTIONALLY A HUMAN BEING. THEY ARE BESTIES. THEY LITERALLY HAVE A MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC LINK GOING ON. THEY SHOULD HAVE CONSIDERED SWIFTIE TO BE APART OF THE BEST FRIENDS SQUAD, I ACTUALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY HE ISN'T.

MORE LOVE FOR SWIFT WIND!!!

22) Favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores?

In my experience, this is the type of fandom that cultivates, um, extreme niches, for lack of a better term. As in, literally what my blog is compared to a "stan's" blog. They're like. Different SPOP fans everywhere, so I don't truly believe that there's a portion of this show that is genuinely ignored... There's someone out there that liked even the tiniest, unimportant fraction of this show. Just got to go find them. (Hell, I know people that love, like, Tall Star specifically, out of all the other characters. Nothing has gone totally unnoticed, which is something I really love about the fanbase as a whole, despite everything).

Anyway, to keep it short, my favorite "underappreciated" parts are hm... Maybe the parts where Adora gets to explore the world around her? And not in a super plot related way. I know that the BFS goofing off so much isn't totally ignored. But I like to see that Adora especially was still learning new things everyday in canon, just like, randomly. Nothing to do with the Horde or the Rebellion. Just. She should be excited for the new world around her, dude. Those are pretty rare moments in the show, actually. Wish there were more.