#scorpia- was so obsessed with someone that she let that take over her life and destroy her self esteem/said someone was going through a lot

[haemosexuality]

i have finally made a kin list

OH ALSO susie from deltarune too

[andhereisthetea]

Hordak not getting over it on Season 4

There are three scenes, three specific scenes belonging to season 4 which makes me think Hordak would have, eventually, give up his mission to conquer Etheria on a Heartbeat IF Entrapta was involved.

1) The Recordings

You know, I have read a lot of metas, very good metas and long posts about why Hordak needed Entrapta’s recordings on Season 4 to complete his weapon explaining that what he wanted was to heard her voice again, but the more I think about it, the more I belive he wanted it for more than just feed his hearbreak and longing.

He wanted clarification about why she betrayed him.

Hordak is not only a warrior, but a very good scientist, I can understand him trying to search for explanation over the most mundane things, and facing such emotional but at the same time very confusing episode in his life regarding a woman who he seen like his only and true friewnd, I am quite sure he would want to know what really happened, in fact he would want to seek *emphirical proof* behind Entrapta’s behaviours, and what would be better than to study her recordings?

Entrapta uses her recording for absolutely *everything*, it wouldn’t be weird, from the point of view of Hordak, to think that she recorded the process and steps to betray him. The thing is, as we all know, and Hordak also seen to feel (and confirm via Double Trouble), something is off about it, and the answers are in fact in front of him:

Why would Entrapta help him with such a powerful armor AND advanced weaponry IF she was gonna betray him?

The answers should be on the recordings, he would think.

Also, I would like to point out on the exact episode how Hordak, even after listening to Catra speech about “not needing anyone, not even a Princess”, he looks at the first one’s tech under the trash on his desk and realizes that is *Entrapta’s studies with this technology* what he needed all along. 

2) The Usseless Speech

Hordak has been years trying to conquer Etheria, in season 4 he is on an ongoing battle both external and internal, very personal, about which spteps to take next, but what I would like to point out in season 4 is the fact that Hordak’s fight for worthiness started to follow a very personal path regarding Entrapta, even more than proving himself to Prime. 

The scene where Catra delivers her speech to him in Princess Scorpia episode, just after he realized he would never heard Entrapta’s voice again (and never get answers about her betrayal) is very much a proof that, no matter what others would tell him about his obsession with the Princess, he just wouldn’t give up, for good or bad:

Lest take a look at the speech:

And then, just seconds after Catra’s speech:

This scene for me has always been... strange, why putting two scenes that override each othe in the same episode with seconds of difference? until I realized that the crystal Hordak had found under all the trash on his desk is exactly the same kind of crystal his Armor has, the same type as the Luvd crystal, which now powers an armor created by Entrapta, a technology that he got to understand ONLY because of her:

(thanks @cruelfeline​ for your incredible meta about Entrapta’s innovations)

This scene above is the partial answer that he was looking for regarding his weaponry (but not Entrapta’s betrayal), we even saw him stufying it on Flutterina and again thinking about her. He now knows he can complete his weapon because of Entrapta’s innovations and technology left behind, he is now gonna be capable of proving his worth... because of her. 

This dismisses Catra's speech, which actually reflects her frustration at needing to prove herself in front of Adora but her complete obsession about not needing anyone is a conflict that we don’t get to see on Hordak, and that is a big difference between them; Hordak feels no discomfort in needing Entrapta. 

This is an important fact which differentiates both characters; While Catra hates and despises Adora's intentions and beliefs about the war and hates deeply needing her, Hordak admires Entrapta's intelligence and abilities even when believing her an enemy, that admiration never disappeared, rendering Catra's attempts useless when trying to make him believe that he doesn't need her anymore to win the war.

This fact is proven exactly in the Boy's Night Out episode, when thinking that Hordak would stop mentioning Entrapta and focus on winning the War and seeking Prime's approval, he follows a path which is completely opposite to what Catra yelled about to him two episodes prior:

Ain’t missing you at all

3) The worriness

Double Trouble: I was looking forward to meeting this Entrapta character before I left Bright Moon. But, of course, as you know, she wasn't there.

Hordak: What did you say?  

Even before knowing she hasn’t betrayed him, even after speding months believing her an enemy, he still can’t help but worry about her wellbeing.

What had happened to her? why isn’t she with the Princesses? hdn’t she told him before they left her behind, that she was a failure and no one undertood her? But if she had been cast aside again by them, why didn’t she came back to him? If she hasn’t been seen on Bright Moon nor the Battlefield... where is she?!

I can truly savious the ansxiety building up on Hordak’s chets.

If he really wasn't interested in her whereabouts, if he really wanted to fight her on the battlefield instead of just checking she was fine, and if he really did not longer need her companionship and assistance, he wouldn’t have questioned DT about what did that mean. Besides, if his interest and also feelings towards her weren't so deep, he wouldn't have broken his rule of silence and coldness in front of Double Trouble, mainly because he straight up showed his main weakness; her.

I want to point out something specific about character development in Hordak; during the first two seasons, we saw Hordak being a general, a leader of a very powerful army, we see him as this mysterious but indolent, brutal, fierce figure, before his cadets and his force captains. He demands respect, responsibility and also loyalty, but nothing more.

At no point during the four seasons did we see him concerned about the welfare or whereabouts of any of his subordinates, ever.

That is in fact a basic Horde’s rule, right? nothing matters but conquering Etheria, showing weakness of any sort is forbidden.

This was the moment that made me realize Hordak’s lower point hadn’t been related to everyone else’s plotline; his lower point, the one I am sure tortured him to the point of seeking a second mindwipe at the hands of Prime in season 5, wasn’t the moment he realized he had been fooled by Catra, wasn’t even when he was destroying Salineas (is very much a neat scene for him and he actually enjoyed it), but this scene:

“Who do you think let the Princesses in?”

The very moment he chose to believe a lie instead of believing on Entrapta’s promise and also most importantly; her honesty and friendship. And the fact he just straight up believed it, after having snapped at her on a moment of frustration, adding the fact he actually didn’t seek more answers regarding Entrapta’s betrayal, and lived through it until Double Trouble told him the horrible truth.

There is a mental processing happening on Hordak’s mind when he realizes he had been manipulated that whole time: 

1) Entrapta had been on Beast Island while he had been blasting around about her betraying him, and now Entrapta is dead.

2) All was a manipulation from his most loyal Force Captain, someone he had trusted for months. He had been believing it all this time and she was laughing at his face, and now Entrapta is dead.

3) If nothing had happened, if Catra hasn’t come back from the Crinsom Waste with the Sword, maybe Entrapta’s words would have ended up being true and they would have spent all that time together, after all, what she told him, about imperfections being beautiful, about him being worthy of something, had been true. They could have been more than just friends, it would have happened, but now Entrapta was dead.

Entrapta is dead.  

And then, nothing mattered any longer.

[ceoofanticatradora]

We need more anti C//A who are Adora stans (like you seem to be) so that people can understand that C///A is bad for Adora. Heck C//A is bad for Catra too, but the shippers don't seem to realize it. If Catra had been able to let Adora go maybe she could have healed instead of her festering and the abuse may have ended instead of escalated.

Hello Dear, welcome on my Blog and a big thank you for your message! Firstly I wanna apologize that this response is reaching you more than three full days, almost four later. Just real life getting into the way of my online presence (at least I got my A-Levels admission!) but I assure you that replying to you was on my To Do List the entire time. And while I could've typed something quick, I thought you deserved a full length response just as much as the person before you received. That goes for anyone really to ask/write me anything in the future.

Adora is a character that has flaws, her own interests, things she struggles with/is insecure about etc. but she also still works on being better (up to Season 5). This makes her relatable, fleshed out and overall three dimensional. Overall for me that makes Adora very likeable. Which is funny because when I first watched the show I thought of her as too goofy and felt like she as a character was overall just flat. Her character design did not speak to me either, the ponytail with the weird hair poof and these pointy shoulders of her jacket just really were not my taste. Isn't it amazing how perceptions can change?

As you can guess from that description I did not always stan Adora and she's probably still not my favorite character but over the almost two years I've been in this fandom I've grown rather fond of her. Other important characters to me are Kyle (a very relatable comfort character of mine, he learned to stand up for himself and others and I support that, f*ck Season 5 for barely acknowledging his existence), Lonnie (apart from treating Kyle badly (which I really do NOT support or excuse) I really love her, man, some women just do me like that, I mean she really stood up to Catra like that), Entrapta (I'm autistic too! It's great to have some representation, seeing the ableism/treatment she experiences in the show is not so much though), Seahawk (I don't even know why, I have some issues with his behavior towards Mermista at times but overall I love this dork), Scorpia (she reminds me of myself so much and I really wanna give her hugs, I'm so glad she chose to no longer let Catra treat her like that even though I will be forever salty she just immediately forgave her), Peekablue (I can explain this even less than Seahawk, especially since it was not even really him in the end but his existence somehow helped me cope with Season 5, without him I probably would've left this fandom ... and also my favorite color is blue) and Double Trouble (now there's enough people already critcizing how they're not exactly great Non-binary representation but this dramatic lizard will forever be in my heart, that reality check they gave Catra, basically slapping her in the face with facts was satisfying as h*ck, also I like lizards overall).

Now there's plenty of characters I like, dislike (or even hate) or am simply indifferent about but after all this is not a tier list but me talking about Adora, Catra and Catradora. Adora started off as this girl that was so sure what she was doing is right but once she was taught differently she was willing to leave everything she knew (except Catra, because she valued her despite everything) behind. And not only that, she broke out of the abuse cycle that Catra tried so hard to keep upright. And that is exactly what makes Adora such a good role model. She teaches children (or people) that:

Your past doesn't define what/who you are or what/who you can become

-> Adora used to be a Horde soldier and did not know where she came from, but nonetheless she found herself a family and became a hero that saved thousands of people

You can always change your mind and start a new life if you feel disappointed in what you are doing/who you are as a person

-> Basically the exact same point, Adora started a new life as she saw what the Horde really was and changed her mind about who to fight for

You deserve love too, be it platonic or romantic (or se*ual???) (If you're aro and/or ace just ignore the part that does not work for you)

-> While Adora for various reasons thought her only use was to please others and meet their needs and expectations (mostly due to Shadow Weaver and Catra) she learned to accept that she too deserves love and validation (if the love aspect would not have been focused on it being romantic love so she could smooch Catra in the finale this would've been a billion times better because she got love from her friends that showed her her real value)

You can walk away from something/someone, that does not make you egoistic/selfish

-> Adora walked away from the Horde, after Catra stubbornly refused to come with her despite many offers (basically Catra broke the promise, not Adora) from her too and that did not make her a "traitor" or "selfish", h*ck, Adora in the end did this for a bigger purpose too, even if part of it was her not wanting to live with such wrong morals

Your opinions, feelings etc. about a person/something can change and that is perfectly fine and valid, being able to change is part of what makes someone human

-> Adora's views on many things changed throughout the show: The Horde and the Rebellion, the First Ones, Catra, being She-Ra, herself, her priorities and so on ... she actually makes use of her brain, which is why Catra saying "Don't you ge it?" or calling her an idiot and dumb never sat right with me, she's a realistic character for shifting with her thoughts, feelings etc. and sometimes just does not fully think things through

You don't have to let other people treat you like sh*t (just because they have some issues they never worked through does not give them any right to let it out on you)

-> This point is obviously centered mostly around Catra and her abusing Adora almost every chance she gets, which is why Adora standing up for herself and not letting Catra blame her for her own decisions and mistakes is so important, "You made your choice, now live with it" is one of the most powerful lines throughout all the five Seasons

Now I'm sure there is still more to Adora's character than what I just listed and unfortunately almost all the points basically got pushed aside, well, Adora as a character got pushed aside in Season 5. All her growth, the things that made me love her, see her as great role model for so many people robbed of their value for the sake of making everything revolve around Catra. That brings me to her and how you are absolutely right that Catradora is harmful to both characters. Of course Adora is affected most by it in the end but Catra too is obviously suffering under the fandoms obsession and just the overall idea of them being romantically involved.

Just like with Adora the stans make almost everything about Catra over her relationship with Adora. She too can barely exist outside of it and if she wasn't the fan favorite she'd most likely would too be mostly in Fanarts that include Adora and not just her (if you google "Catra Fanart" most content is still Catra and Catra only but here and there Catradora still peaks through). But for whatever reason the fandom still views her more as her own person as the other ones? Catrouble and Scorptra Shippers might actually still get less hate than Glimmadora Shippers (I'm not denying they don't get any, they most certaintly do) which is just plain hypocricy and favorism. Kinda like the: A woman needs to be loyal to her husband and her husband only but if the husband wants to be active with other women that is perfectly fine because "that is just how men are" or how i like to call it ... sexism. Now in this case they are both women so it's not sexism but yo do get my point.

But much more importantly, Catra has an unhealthy obsession with Adora. Signs of that are for example:

Constantly talking about Adora, even when said person is not around (to Shadow Weaver, Scorpia etc.)

Obsessing over having control over Adora like in that one Episode "Are you kidding? I finally got control over Adora, I'm not giving that up!"

Building her entire character and her actions around Adora "We need to take Adora down", "Adora left me", "I'd rather see the whole world end than see you win!", also shown in Season 5 where she states she does save Glimmer only for Adora and not for Glimmer or to do the right thing

Getting aggressive or very emotional over Adora like clawing the wall, having nightmares etc. (destructive behavior towards herself and others)

Having no or barely any characteristics outside of her relationship with Adora like, we don't know her interests or likes and dislikes outside of being evil, obsessed with Adora, being abused by Shadow Weaver ...

Trying to force Adora to meet her needs and expectations regardless of Adora's owns

Sacrificing her oppurtunity to be happy in the Crimson Waste for the sake of her Adora obsession and being better than her at all costs

So yes, you were very right with saying that not putting Catra in a relationship with Adora would've benefited both characters. Catra could've learned to exist on her own, develop interests and a life outside of Adora. Learn to accept herself and eventually come to terms with her childhood abuse. She could've been free and not "the abusive cat girl that ended up with the person she unhealthily obsessed over to the point of no return" she kinda is now. Even if we ignore the whole "dating your long term abuser" part from Adora's side and "being rewarded" for horrible behavior, Catra alone is not giving a good example to people watching. As much as I dislike Catra, disdain her even, an ending where she is dependent on Adora, unable to stand on her own two legs after she led armies in war is not what I would wish for her, even with a decent redemption arc (that she did not get).

[smitten-for-shera]

hordak imagine with a princess s/o who he often has sit on the arm of his throne, and he often has an arm around her waist, tapping idly on her thigh. what would they talk about, would he let her wander about, would he let her chat with entrapta or catra?

Hordaks Queen

~ First things first Hordaks lover is a queen not a princess and he won't take anything less. He is a king and therefore he needs a queen by his side. Not someone below him but someone who can stand with him and be an equal. He has no interest in coddling a lover. If they can't keep up they shouldn't be his.

~ Once his queen has earned his respect they are more than welcome to either sit on his throne when he's not in the room, sit in their own throne, or sit in his lap. He however perfers when they sit on his lap and just chat with him. Something about their close proximity and how he can easily just stroke their face or touch their hair while they talk makes his insides flutter. It's very intimate and he loves spending time with his queen. He could spend hours holding them close talking about anything and everything.

~ He is a scientist and a strategist. He needs an s/o who can keep up with his mind and his crazy ideas. He wishes to invade, to rule and too do that he must be ten steps ahead of his enemy. New weapons. New warriors. New bases. New strategies. Following him and his train of thought is essential to be his partner. But if you see a flaw in his plan or notice something he isn't thinking about in his ideas point it out immediately. He'd rather have his pride wounded than a battle lost or a plan thwarted. You are the only one able to correct him so don't be surprised when generals and force captains stare.

~ You don't have to be as smart as Hordak to be his queen. He just wants someone smart enough to understand the basic ideas he's trying to convey without him dumbing it down for them. Science, biochemistry, and Strategy are some of his favorite subjects and he wants to talk about them. He will listen and talk about whatever you want to as well as long as he feels like it's not a waste of time.

~ Alternatively if you are as smart as him or even smater than him it is a huge turn on. Most of his army and his generals are bright but they could never match his wits. A queen who could not only outsmart him but have confidence and sarcasm while doing it will get him flustered each time. He may seem angry when you correct him but really he's just proud and not good at articulating it. He's also not used to being wrong.

~ Genuine praise and admiration from his queen will shock him every time. He feels very humbled when he outright gets a compliment from you just because. He will smile softly if no one is in the room and will watch you with a dopey smile. He's always in a good mood after you give him a small peck and a compliment.

~ Hordaks not one for grand romantic gestures but he loves you full heartedly and would die for you. You are his queen and he'd lay down his life for you because you'd do the same. Once he falls truly and deeply for his queen there is no going back and he will love them forever.

~ Expect lots of physical gifts since he's not good at showing his love emotionally. He knows your feelings and emotions are important and he wishes he could express how he cares better but until he learns this is how he shows that you mean the world too him. He'll give you only the finest clothes, jewelry, perfume, flowers, and foods. Anything you could ever desire he'll give you. Say the word and it's yours.

~ Dates include lavish dinners in your private chambers, spending time in his personal library reading to each other, cuddling on his throne reminiscing about war stories, and flirting in his science lab. He may not be a romantic but he makes sure any date with you is special and that you enjoy yourself. He just wants you happy.

~ You are known as his queen through out his empire. He has no need to hide you. He is protective of you but he won't keep you trapped in your shared quarters and the sanctum. Besides Hordak knows you can take care of yourself so while he spends long hours in his lab he trusts you to take care of what's going on in the Hoarde.

~ Hordak gets excited when another base is built or an Etherian village is taken. He has a habit of bringing you small gifts from his conquests and depsite being terrible with emotions he does know how to catalogue what you do and don't like. He's an expert on your tastes and always brings you souvineers and things you'd love back from war. It's very sweet and it's the closest Hordak will get to truly romantic

~ As for the two trouble makers? Catra and Scorpia just come with your job. They give you reports and you take and catalog them. Your friendlier than most Horde memebers and no one dares be rude too out of fear and respect. Hordak is the brains. The soldiers are the muscle. And your the glue. You keep the Hoarde running when Hordaks too busy to focus on it.

~ Catra finds you amusing. Scorpia thinks your amazing. You work with them quit often and over time you've all become decent friends. Catra needs years of therapy and people who care about her while Scorpia needs to feel loved. They find these things in you.

~ Catra gets the admiration and therapy she so desperately craves from you. You tell her when she's doing a good job and how she is valued and needed just as you tell every soldier who shares their loyalty. Your not afraid to give punishment to those that deserve it but you are nothing like Hordak when it comes to morals. You tell soldiers when they do good and give them rewards when they succeed. Your punishments are aslo typically mild unless someone commits treason. Than you show why you are Hordaks queen ans number one.

~ Scorpia meanwhile gets a friend. She is very loyal and kind and honestly good company. You can't talk to her about science and mathematics like Hordak but sometimes it's nice to have a change in topic. Scorpia is a noble soldier who's full of life and gentle. You spend many nights talking of anything but the war and grow close. Hordak holds a distain for that. He gets easily jealous of your relationships and has trouble controlling his temper.

~ Occasionally Hordak gets very jealous of your relationships with others as you belong to only HIM in his mind and that can cause issues in your relationship but eventually he calms down and becomes less obsessive as the relationship continues. With you he learns how to express himself and speak what he's feeling. He doenst really need too since you understand his body language but he wants to make it easier for you.

~ All in all the relationships has ups and downs but he loves you and he does everything in his power to make you feel like a queen. You truly are his world and he loves you more than he'll ever love anyone.

[asmileyoucouldbottle]

champagne problems- catradora

word count:  2479 

tw: drinking 

takes place in season 4. someone finds a bottle of champagne while going through shadow weaver's old stuff, and catra and double trouble are talking while drinking. catra begins to realize that maybe she was the one who left adora, and not the other way around.

lots of angsty internal monologue, sweet yet haunting flashbacks, and heart-breaking realizations.

(based on champagne problems by taylor swift)

***

“Double Trouble, do you ever think about what we’re doing?” Catra looked down, regret clinging to her like shadows. She tipped her glass, staring down into the carmel liquid. Kyle, Lonnie, and Rogelio had just found a bottle of champagne while digging through Shadow Weaver's old stuff. One of the other cadets had gotten together enough glasses for all of them- a celebration of “how far they’d come.”

There was nothing to celebrate though.  Everyone was constantly so happy and proud of themselves, and of their success so far. Sure, they’d won a few battles, but what were a couple cities and an edge? Etheria still stood. Adora still stood.

Catra wouldn’t rest as long as she did.

And yet… 

“What are you referring to in this instance?” Double Trouble lifted their own glass, curiosity sketching their features. 

What was that old saying? Curiosity killed the cat.

Double Trouble wasn’t exactly the trustworthy type after all, her position was so precarious… and they knew too much. Who knew what they could do with more information to hold?

She took another sip, and the bubbling liquid burned her throat. People seemed to rave about the taste, but she noticed nothing but the slight warm sensation. Catra didn’t taste much of anything these days. 

Adora’s expression while Catra cut the vines on the simulation cliff flashed in her vision. Her shock- the widened eyes and parted lips. Lips that had moments before mused about how she’d missed Catra. Her hands desperately gripping the vine… the same hands that had extended in offering. 

“Catra, help me, please…” 

“She left me.” Catra declared out loud. The words were empty. A half-truth, a story with only one side. 

“I never wanted to leave you… you could come with me!”

A growl tore itself from her throat, slamming the glass down.

“She left me.” Catra repeated with more force. “If she never wanted to leave me, then she wouldn’t have.” 

“Who are we talking about again?” Something in Double Trouble’s expression made Catra suspect they knew the answer already as they lazily tilted their head.

She bristled at the apparent indifference, but her words were low and pained as she whispered, “Adora.” 

A long sip.

“She told me to cover for her, she’d be right back.” Catra intended the words to be sharp, just the way they felt in her heart. To be cruel. She was over Adora after all, and far better than she was with her. She’d worked so hard to be better than her. To prove she didn’t need her.

But they came out aching.

“She didn’t come back.” The last thing Catra expected was the clog of tears, which she took as a challenge. Taking a harsh swallow, she willed the liquid to clear her throat before she continued. 

“She was gone one day, and she had a new life. New friends.” It was like I didn’t even exist. Even after everything they’d done together, all their life they’d lived.

“It was like you meant nothing to her.” Double Trouble’s words were a direct hit, and Catra physically flinched. 

Adora had been everything to her. 

When the only thing that matters to you leaves, what’s left?

And if you didn’t matter to anyone, then what are you?

She’d thought she mattered to Adora. They were a team, them against the world. Until suddenly, the team had become a party of one. Adora had new friends- a new team.

Sorry, squad. 

Adora, or at least She-Ra, mattered to everyone. But without Adora, Catra mattered to no one. 

Thus, Catra had to make herself matter. Become important.

“Like I meant nothing to her.” 

Double Trouble leaned forward, resting their chin on their palm. “And that’s why you’re fighting the Rebellion? Because Adora’s there?”

“No.” Catra spat, the implications that Catra only existed for Adora making her prickle. She’d worked so hard to make her own place- without Adora’s shadow. Adora couldn’t take this from her too. “It’s complicated, okay?”

Shadow Weaver, raising the same hand that caressed Adora to strike Catra, came to her mind. Fighting a tremble, Catra steadied her hands against the glass as she took another long sip. An ache was settling in her with each bit of champagne, though she doubted it had much to do with the drink itself. She actually wished the drink was stronger, but she didn’t know if she could bear walking in Shadow Weaver’s chamber again to dig around. 

Then Scorpia, whose kindness Catra had scorned, but only now realized how much she had relied on as she continued to put her down. She left her too. 

Entrapta, who had been nothing but supportive and helpful, but had betrayed her for the princesses. A betrayal that Catra had given back in a much more painful way than it was received.

Adora again, her horror as Catra dropped off the cliff at the Princess Prom. And as she had let go and fallen into the portal, knowing that it would cause Adora pain. Every look and word that proved, despite Catra’s best efforts, Adora had still cared for her.

But then, her glare as she walked out of the portal, which still felt like a dagger stuck in Catra’s heart. Behind the anger, Catra had seen a reflection of something in her own eyes.

Hardened and hatred filled as they were, she saw it. Broken. 

Catra hadn’t realized how much she’d clung to Adora’s continued care until it was gone. 

“Come with me. You don’t have to go back there. We can fix this.”

“She asked me to come with her.” Catra blurted, staring as if trying to burn a hole in her glass. 

Double Trouble’s eyebrows peaked in interest. “Go on.”

“I didn’t think she meant it, okay? When you flake on someone like that, it seems like too little too late.” She was getting worked up, her tail bristling as familiar anger joined the helpless sadness. 

“Come with me.” 

Double Trouble’s unimpressed look humbled her and she sat back down, tail still drawing distressed motions. “But I wonder… what if it wasn’t.”

“Well, Kitten, she does seem awfully obsessed with you.”

“What did you say?” she demanded,  unsure if the increase in speed of her heart was from fear or excitement of what she might hear.

“Catra this, Catra that.” They titled their head. “A lot like you, come to think of it.”

Catra growled, claws gripping the table in warning. 

“One would almost think she misses you, but that would be ridiculous, considering all you’ve told me.” The shapeshifter’s gaze held hers, a challenge. A small sliver of hope slipped through her crack, followed by a montage of memories.

Suddenly she was a child again, holding Adora’s hand as they admired beetles in the dirt of the Fright Zone and collected ants to put under Kyle’s covers. Playing pranks on the older recruits, which more often than not would end in a scuffle. Even when Catra picked pointless fights with force captains three times her size, Adora had her back. They would get matching black eyes, boasting and bickering over who had the better blue-black hues and comparing sizes. 

When Adora had gotten her first red jacket on her thirteenth birthday, Catra had immediately grabbed her hand and demanded permission to “make it cooler.” She’d been denied, but spent weeks persuading Adora to let her rip it up. Finally, Adora had conceded to a “little personalization,” but only after Catra pointed out they’d be matching- the little rips in her pants and on the sleeves of Adora’s jacket.

Training, where Catra first learned, after gossiping with other and older cadets, what it meant to want to kiss someone. Their faces had come almost to touching in a sparring match while they were grappling for a staff, hands clasped over each other. Adora was bright with the challenge, lips pursed and brows drawn in concentration around the gray-blue eyes Catra knew better than her own. A flush from the exertion was tinged on Adora’s cheeks, and as she gave Catra a small and secret smile despite their competing, she felt her heart flutter. Her grip went weak as Catra became overcome with the intense urge to lean forward just a tiny bit, to be even closer.

Their comfortable peace sitting together on the ramparts, whether it was in silence or rambling about everything under the sun. One day, only weeks before the attack on Thaymor, Catra had found a booklet in some box while on trash duty. “The Works of Shakespeare.” They’d spent an hour going through the old stories and laughing as they reenacted the plays, dramatically fainting and faking stabbing-death-by-stick all over the place. Their searching hands had found each other as they pretended to reach, outstretched on separate balconies. 

Come with me.  The attack on Thaymore. Her hand once more in Catra’s, just like always. This time, Catra had pulled away, leaving a crack behind for the first time.

Princess Prom, Adora had tried to hold onto her again, but once more, Catra let go. 

Then the She-Ra temple and the cliff. Adora had done nothing but tried to protect her, but as they’d raced through the halls, fingers entwined, bitterness welled up in Catra anyways. Another drop of the hand, another crack left behind.

Every battle they’d had that Catra had swung true but Adora had merely deflected was a hairline, a small break that amassed over time.

Perhaps… she had been the one to really leave Adora.

The realization shocked Catra, a rupture deep in her bones.

No.

No. 

Adora had left her. The champagne was making her head foggy. She wasn’t thinking clearly. 

But… 

Catra slammed her cup down. Changing her mind, she brought it to her lips, knocking it back before standing abruptly.

“I have more important things to do than celebrate and chatter.” 

Double Trouble barely looked fazed, and Catra guessed that emotional outbursts were to be expected around her. She was a bomb always ready to go off, to be treated with caution.

The entire room quieted- she hadn’t noticed that there was a buzz around her until it was replaced with tense silence. She looked out over the other Horde members, who had frozen, some with drinks halfway to their lips. Her eyes met Lonnie’s, then Kyle’s, and Rogelio’s. Lonnie looked at her, something bordering on accusation behind the slight fear. 

They were a team, right? Teammates were evergreen. 

She saw them laughing in the halls without her, a new bond bright and strong between the three of them. Even Kyle, who had always been the odd one out, was right in the midst of them. 

And Catra was on the outside.

But as she looked between the stunned and scared faces of the three of them… she realized that she was the one who broke that too.

Fuck it.

Not waiting for any sort of signal or response, she stalked out the door.

Catra meant to walk right out and to her dormitory, but she couldn’t bear to see any other faces and what they might be thinking of her behind her back. So she paused beside the door, burying her head in her hands, trying to still her heavy breathing.

“All twisted in knots after Adora.” Someone- Lonnie?- was murmuring. Catra’s ears peaked and her head jerked in the direction of the door.

“They were always… close.” Kyle added. Rogelio made some reptilian nose of agreement.

“They still could be, but you know what I think? Catra scared her off.” Lonnie lowered her voice even more as she added. “Fucked in the head, that one is.”

Rogelio hissed, and Kyle shushed her. “What! You see how she walks around this place like a crazy woman, muttering to herself and ordering people around like she wasn’t just some cadet like the rest of us.” 

“She could hear you.” Kyle muttered, panicked.

“Oh knock it off Kyle, she’s not lurking around every corner. Don’t be paranoid.”

Forcing herself to breathe and walk away, Catra buried her hands in her hair, combing through the mass. Desperately she pulled, wondering what had happened to the girl with wild curly hair and flushed cheeks, running hand in hand with a sweet blonde in the crisp autumn air. Their laughter haunted her as she walked, and she pressed her hands against her ears until she was flat out running to her bunk.

Fucked in the head, that one is.

She crashed to a halt against the lower bunk, hands curling into the hard mattress as her pants echoed. The room was mercifully empty.

Her eyes flicked up to the drawing she’d done years ago, her and Adora’s smiling faces, scratched through in rage. A sob clawed up her at the sight of it. It had been theirs, a testament to their friendship, and she’d shred it. 

Her mind might be making muddled connections from the alcohol, but she thought of a tapestry. It was something only princesses had, and she’d certainly never seen one. But from what she had heard, they were things of beauty, made to withstand time and tell a story.

Her and Adora were supposed to be a tapestry. Or at least, this silly little drawing was.

Catra wondered if Adora had a tapestry- a real one- in her honor. She was sure there were countless of She-ra, the hero of Etheria.

If Adora was the hero, what did that make Catra?

Tracing the outline of Adora’s face in the drawing, another tear slipped past Catra. She wouldn’t be surprised if Adora’s “Best Friend Squad,” had a tapestry. One of their heroics and the love they had for each other.

She almost hoped they did.

After all, if Catra was the one who broke things, didn’t Adora deserve people who could fix them?

One day Catra would be nothing but this scratched out drawing on a wall. The Rebels were going to win. They had She-Ra. The almighty princess.

They had Adora.

Curling herself into a ball on the bunk that was once Adora’s, Catra told herself that this was all the alcohol talking. Tomorrow she knew that the anger would be back, the familiar rage she clung to in an attempt to justify her actions. Anger was easier than sadness.

No matter who’d hurt who more, Adora had started this war, and Catra was going to finish it.

She had a goal. A purpose. One that, for once, she was doing for her, not Adora.

Destiny was hers to make, and nothing- not Adora, not her foolish regrets, not the “friends” who’d left or betrayed her- was going to change that. 

But, as she buried her face in the pillow that no longer smelled of Adora, she dared to dream about what would’ve happened if only she had said “yes.”

[ruffiorocks]

Trying to understand Catra

Just re-watching season 1 episode 11 and this one really does give you an insight into why Catra is the way she is.

The first time you watch the childhood memories of Catra and Adora you just see Adora looking out for Catra (at least I did) but then this time round now that I've seen the final season I'm seeing more in this episode.

Those memories aren't just Adora looking out for Catra, yeah sure is being a best friend to her, but that's not all that's happening. The pickles Catra gets into are only ever resolved because Adora is there to help or speak up for her.

The training memory shows that Catra, despite being treated like garbage and not having much of a connection with anyone but Adora is actually really good at combat, she shines here, but she just can't outshine Adora. But she doesn't act bitter about it to Adora's face, she's supportive and then goes to let out her frustrations in the changing room.

The worst one is the scene where Catra and Adora go into the black garnet chamber and get caught by Shadow Weaver. Shadow Weaver doesn't think for a second to blame Adora or use magic on her or threaten her. It's automatically Catra's fault. Shadow Weaver threatens a little child. She actually tells Catra she will "dispose of her" herself if she hinders Adora's future in any way. She tell her that she only tolerates Catra because Adora is fond of her. That is quite horrific when you really think about it! Does Shadow Weaver hold any of the other orphans or cadets to these standards? Or is it just a personal vendetta against one child? Catra is told her place in the Horde, heck her very life is all dependent on her being in Adora's good graces. Catra can't shine now even if she truly wanted to, because of the risk it presents.

Shadow Weaver tell Adora she has to keep better control of Catra. Catra is there listening to this and it comes across as though Adora is her "keeper" . She is effectively Adora's "pet" so it's no wonder she lashes out.

When the memory ends Adora tells Catra she could come and join the rebellion and then she gets irritated that Catra doesn't just leave Shadow Weaver. But it's not the same for Catra as it was for Adora. I don't really like going into abuse themes, but if I don't someone will mention it. So here goes, we didn't see Adora being abused by Shadow Weaver, she is the golden girl, everyone likes her and even when she does something wrong it's blamed on Catra. Heck it reminds me of the old practice of having a "whipping boy" you can't punish royalty so you punish their servant in the hope they behave themselves.

Catra on the other hand is shown to be abused by Shadow Weaver, it's not as easy for someone to walk away from their abuser. It's all Catra knows and as we've seen, Catra has a bit of Stockholm syndrome where Shadow Weaver is concerned. She still wants her approval, she tells her not to worry when Hordak is mad and even when Shadow Weaver is locked up, Catra can't help but keep going to visit her. She's even heart broken when Shadow Weaver leaves, and who does she go to? Straight to Adora.

When Adora leaves the only thing Shadow Weaver cares about is getting her back and once again blaming Catra for something that Adora chose to do. Hordak on the other hand doesnt care about getting Adora back and he gives Catra something that she has never had before, he gives her chance to shine! He SEES her! Even when Adora goes to rescue Glimmer and Bow Shadow Weaver is ecstatic because she can erase Adora's mind and she tells Catra she's no longer relevant because Adora is back. It does explain why Catra let's Adora go and why she tells Adora this, Catra doesn't want and can't stand the idea of going back to being just "Adora's Pet".

Her relationship with Scorpia is a harsh one. But Scorpia isn't the cute, innocent little baby she's presented as. Scorpia willingly works for the Horde, she has no problem joining Catra in her missions to take the rebellion out. It's Scorpia that plants the heat bombs at the Princess Prom and uses her tail to sting Bow and Glimmer so they can be kidnapped. We just don't like to see her that way because she's funny, and sweet and likes to give warm hugs.

We can see moments where Catra enjoys being with Scorpia, where she's almost allowing herself to be real friends with her. But then she's pulled back and resorts to her defence mechanism of being an ass. Scorpia wants to protect her, hug her, take care of her, BUT that is exactly what Adora did. To me, even though Catra's behaviour isn't right, it's her not wanting to create that kind of a bond again because losing Adora was too much for her but at the same time it kind of freed her. She also doesn't want to become reliant on someone having to protect her all the time because thats what she's had to live with her entire life. What if Scorpia decides to leave like Adora did? It's a vicious , unhealthy cycle. She's also so obsessed with getting her job done and shining because now she can, she has Hordaks approval, she's taken her abusers place and suddenly has all this power and it goes to her head because what happens if she fails? She even gets rid of Entrapta because Entrapta won't let her proceed with the plan to open the portal, Catra is of course totally in the wrong but she's so far down the path she can't let go anymore. Sure she causes a lot of damage, but later on Glimmer causes a major issue when she trusts Shadow Weaver and messes with the Heart of Etheria because she's gone to far down a path she shouldn't have gone as well.

These memories, the one where Adora tells her nothing can just them as long as they have eachother is clearly something Catra had to rely on her whole life. Then suddenly Adora and that promise were gone. Catra had to be Adora's obedient pet the whole time they were in the Fright Zone, but that also means she had to believe the things Adora did and make sure she proved it, and that's a belief in the Horde.

People like to talk about the brain washing Hordak went through with Horde Prime. But what about the brain washing the orphans and cadets went through in the Fright Zone? Lonnie, Kyle, Regalio? They all happily fought for the Horde and took joy in taking down towns in season 4.

We always see Catra being both nice and an ass to Adora throughout the series. But to me it shows the conflict in Catra. She loves Adora, but part of her know she's Adora's pet and she rebels against this and takes it out on Adora, but the other part loves Adora and can't bear to be away from her. Adora doesn't understand it because all she sees is herself being treated very well and always saving Catra. She doesn't see what Catra really goes through, even though she knows that she's treated bad. Adora then gets a destiny, a life changing field trip and a bunch of new friends, then she just leaves and expects Catra to leave with her. But Catra doesn't have the same experience as Adora, all she sees is her best friend/The only reason she's still alive abandoning everything they were both dedicated to.

At the end of the episode Catra makes a choice, she can either wallow and want Adora back, or let go of Adora and move on. Catra tells Adora what living in her shadow is like and Adora is acting like it's the first time she has ever considered how everything affected Catra, she apologises but to Catra it's to late.

Scorpia tells Entrapta that Catra is the best friend ever, and you can see Catra stop for a second but we don't see her face. You can tell this comment has stopped her in her tracks, perhaps she does want to be a best friend again on her own merit, but she just won't allow herself to go down that road again. But this is ultimately the thing that causes her to lose everything.

Anyway, rant over, I'm glad it all ended happily 😊

[aros001]

Going in blind: Watching season 3 for the first time. Random thoughts.

Episode 1: I know in the original series She-Ra was the sister of He-Man so I'm curious how much of that will be carried over to this series. Not saying He-Man has to make an appearance, same as how Batman didn't need to show up in Teen Titans. That was Robin's story, not his, and similarly this is Adora's story, not Adam's. Regardless, it makes sense why Hordak was so annoyed with the baby Adora in Shadow Weaver's flashbacks. To SW, there was something different and special about the baby, but to Hordak, whom seems familiar with the world before Mara separated Etheria from the rest of the universe, including Eternia potentially, Adora is just another "First One" child like he's seen many times before. Special in comparison to those who only know Etheria.

Great clap-back from Catra to Hordak, and not entirely unfounded. It's debatable how much he actually cares about conquering Etheria. He has others leading his forces in his war yet all his focus is on his portal creation.

According to Entrapta, productivity of the Horde is up 400% ever since Catra became Hordak's 2nd in command. I wondering how much of that is Catra's direct doing? Is she genuinely just that good of a commander? Is it because she's properly delegating and Scorpia has been handling most of the load? Or is this just because it's in comparison to Shadow Weaver? Entrapta said Catra's focus on First Ones' tech has been greatly aiding them and SW definitely focused more on magic, which was an aid mostly to herself since everyone else in the Horde seems to fight only with weapons and technology. And most of what she saw of SW while she was Hordak's 2nd was her being obsessed with bringing back Adora rather than fighting the war.

Episode 2: Let's see... Hordak's easily an adult and Entrapta is...[checks google] late twenties, early thirties. Oh good, then let's sail this ship!

But yeah, that was a heck of a backstory for Hordak. This reminds me of a video by a Youtuber named Savage Books comparing the villain Steppenwolf in the theatrical and Snyder Cut versions of Justice League and how, while he still wasn't a great villain, just a small addition made him a much better villain, that being a failure in his past and the desire just to go home. And in this case, Hordak is the much better, or at least way more developed, version of that. One of many clones of Hordak Prime but having a defect that labelled him a failure and had him cast out to Etheria, a "backwards world" as he's called it before. If he can conquer Etheria, perhaps by building a portal that'll bring forward Prime's army, he believes that'll prove to Prime that he is not a failure and that he can return home to rejoin his forces. Just this bit of backstory adds SO MUCH to Hordak, including new insights on his past interactions, and keeps him from being a flat character like theatrical version Steppenwolf. His lack of tolerance for failure makes sense when he himself is trying to prove that he's not. It gives him compelling motivation to want to conquer Etheria beyond just power and greed. Not motivation you're meant to agree with but one you can still understand.

I like the story with Huntara too. It's a nice little tie-in to something Adora was talking about with Glimmer and Bow last episode. Adora defected from the horde, not because she was different but rather very much in spite being very much like every other soldier there. She wanted to believe Shadow Weaver may have at least some goodness in her too and now we have Huntara as a fellow defector who realized the evils of the Horde, even if she chose to stay out of the war entirely after.

Episode 3: I legit thought Catra stabbed the goat lady for a second.

After Scorpia asking her why don't they just stay in the wastes I'm seeing a bit of a parallel between Catra and Hordak. They've both found a place where they can be the top dog, where they can do and have basically anything they want; her with the wastes and him with the Horde. They can be happy. ...But there's still this pull they're feeling to somewhere else. Catra back to the Horde and Hordak back to Prime. Because they feel they have to prove something; prove that they're not failures. They could be happy but they can't let go.

And that scene between Adora and Catra at the end. That was such a great line read from Catra's actor. "She left me for you. Everything that's happened is because of you." I got chills.

Minor note: While I'm only judging off the Mara hologram, which didn't have color, I do think the She-Ra outfit looks better with pants than shorts like Adora's She-Ra form. I think it makes it look sleeker, if that makes any sense.

Episode 4: Catra's spiral has turned into a drill and its taking her down as far as she can go. Though something I had to a laugh a little at myself over was that my biggest "Catra, no!" reaction wasn't to her wanting to open the portal but rather when she lied to Hordak and said Entrapta let the princesses in. She was actually a positive influence on Hordak's life and Catra with one move just destroyed that relationship and all progress Hordak had been making.

I'm guessing there's going to be some kind of long-term effect from Shadow Weaver continuously siphoning off Glimmer's magic. The woman is basically a parasite and the magic she uses is very different from the kind Glimmer does. I can't believe it never occurred to me that since Shadow Weaver trained Glimmer's father there might be a connection there between the two of them later in the story. While we don't know about anything that might've happened after she left, SW clearly had enough affection for Micah still to not kill him. I could see her trying to take Glimmer on as a student later like she did him.

Episode 5: There is something kind of hilarious about it being Scorpia's jealousy of Catra and Adora's closeness that causes her to be the first one after Adora to pick up that something is off.

11 is my favorite of the Doctor Who Doctors so naturally I'm comparing all this to the crack in Amy Pond's bedroom wall. Whatever goes in gets forgotten about and basically never existed. Though does that mean Bright Moon isn't going to remember the Horde? Basically that entire place got sucked up in the collapsing reality. There shouldn't be at war anymore because their enemy literally no longer exists.

Adora and Catra had their own little Star Trek 3 moment there.

Adora: "If we don't help each other, we'll die here!"

Catra: "Perfect! Then that's the way it shall be!"

Catra's just so far down her spiral she doesn't even care about getting her own win, just so long as Adora doesn't get one, despite just minutes ago clearly loving having Adora back in her life and on her side, to the point was trying to resist remembering the old reality. Her "perfect" world was them together again but when given the chance (another of many. I love those cuts to their past woven in there) she slapped the hand away.

I'm sure I'm wrong but I'm starting to theorize Madam Razz is actually Mara and just at some point went kind of crazy and started thinking as and Mara were two different people.

Episode 6:

"You are everything I ever wanted in a son. This... This is everything I ever wanted in a life. ...But I've got responsibilities, Van. And...I have to...go now."

-Superman, Justice League Unlimited: For the Man Who Has Everything

That was my favorite episode of JLU, where Superman is trapped in this world that isn't real but still perfect in every way, and the only way out was to give up everything he'd ever wanted, including a son he remembers watching grow up, even if it never really happened. With a similar premise, this definitely helped elevate Angela up a bit for me, whom I was kind just meh with before. I didn't dislike her but I didn't really care much for her either. This episode gave her a lot to work with though, with the heavy sacrifice she made. Not just saying behind to pull out the sword but just simply forcing herself to accept her husband is gone and not coming back. I was right that they wouldn't remember the Horde, but I definitely didn't think of the full effects of them never existing. They never exist, Bow never becomes a rebel instead of a scholar like his dads wanted. They don't exist, Micah never dies in battle against them. Glimmer gets to grow up with her father in her life. Everyone, most especially Angela, has to reject everything they would love to be real in favor of what actually is.

I'm guessing we're going to have Shadow Weaver taking advantage of this situation, trying to act like a teacher and mother-figure to Glimmer now that she's basically a orphan.

I talked before about how Catra and Hordak seem to have a parallel between them, especially regarding failure. Catra seems like she has a very hard time accepting her own failures and mistakes and thus why she more or less uses Adora as a mental scapegoat for all of it. Nothing is ever really her fault, it's Adora's, or Shadow Weaver's, or Hordak's. It makes for a great moment when Adora finally punches back, both literally and figuratively. She's not going to accept responsibility for Catra's actions anymore. She gave Catra every chance to make the right choice and she didn't, so now she has to finally live with the consequences. Heck of a glare She-Ra gave Catra at the end. Very much a "If I ever see you again..." and it certainly scared Catra, at least for a moment.

Now, someone go save Entrapta from Beast Island!

Season 3 verdict: Easily the best season thus far. I know this was technically the second half of season 2 but even in comparison to the full season 1 there was just so much that happened in this, so much that got revealed, and so, so many moments of emotion or tension. Weirdly I feel kind of disappointed that Hordak Prime is probably going to come in now and be the new big villain. I really like our Hordak's motivation and Prime seems like he might just be the generic conqueror for power that Hordak seemed like he was going to be at first. Not saying those types can't work. I love All For One from My Hero Academia and Frieza from Dragon Ball. Those guys are pure evil and selfishness, but they also have a captivating presence/charisma to them.

Naturally, since I bring her up the most out of all the characters, I'm very curious to see what happens with Catra now. She's basically nuked every positive relationship she had with anyone. Entrapta's gone, she threatened Scorpia, Hordak's not going to trust anyone including her anymore now that he thinks Entrapta's betrayed him, and Adora firmly sees her as an enemy. She has no one (those under her direct command don't count) and it's entirely her own fault.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrincessesOfPower/comments/o0trfz/going_in_blind_watching_season_3_for_the_first/

[yespleasefandomtrash]

adora contemplating that it’s okay to have wants as well as thinking about how much she loves catra, culminating in an extremely unorthodox proposal (but nonetheless one very fitting for the two of them)

~*~

Adora knew she had problems with… accepting things, as it were. On her first birthday - or what they’d decided was her birthday - as a part of the Rebellion, Glimmer and Bow had refurbished her entire wardrobe. With the help of Angella. She’d be so overwhelmed that not only was it still a struggle for her to wear most of those outfits but she’d also tried to make gifts for each one of them in return. They’d informed her, gently, that birthdays did not operate as exchanges. Their presents to her were tokens of appreciation for her existence, no strings attached and nothing required in response. 

She hadn’t believed them at the time. Or at least hadn’t understood them. How could someone appreciate her solely because she existed? In the Horde, a person had to work to prove their worth. They had to constantly show that they’d earned their positions. They had to justify that they deserved to live, because no one inherently deserved anything when there was no guarantee they’d all make it to see the next day. Then, as She-Ra, every day Adora felt like she had to prove her loyalties to the Rebellion as well as demonstrate her capabilities as a leader. She couldn’t let them down, no matter what the cost. As they learned to trust her, She-Ra’s responsibility shifted to being the savior. There was no one else in the universe who could do what She-Ra could, who held the power that She-Ra held, which meant She-Ra - Adora - had to be ready to do anything for the sake of those who could do nothing.

It was a mantra. A lifestyle drilled into Adora’s mind. Don’t ask, don’t want, and there will be nothing to lose. She should only take what she needed because anything more was unnecessary and would only be a sign of weakness. In the Horde, Shadow Weaver made sure Adora was never weak. In turn, as part of the Rebellion, Adora did the same for She-Ra. She clung to those basics, forcing herself to be content with working towards a greater purpose. Once, to be Force Captain. Then, or perhaps even now, to be She-Ra, and to do whatever it took to save all of Etheria.

You deserve love, too. Mara’s words often echoed in her mind, as if she’d only heard them yesterday and not months ago. Adora had struggled to take that advice to heart. ‘Deserve’ was too fickle of a term - maybe she did deserve love, but the rest of Etheria deserved to live and didn’t that outweigh her own selfish wants?

But she was gradually starting to understand that such concepts did not have to be mutually exclusive. She’d saved Etheria while the love of her life had saved her at the same time. She didn’t have to choose. Or maybe she had chosen, and she’d chosen both.

Adora, much like her girlfriend, had taken to meeting with Perfuma. To help her process… well, everything. She kept this fact private - not because she was embarrassed or anything of the like, but because she simply didn’t want any of her friends to worry. Glimmer was having to iron out the details of co-ruling with King Micah, Bow was helping his dads rebuild and restore their library, and Catra was working harder than anyone just to become accustomed to Bright Moon and to improve her relations with the people she’d hurt during her time at the Horde.

Perfuma’s response to these concerns had been that her problems were not lesser just because she’d convinced herself they were of smaller magnitude, because a person drowning in five feet of water and a person drowning in twenty feet of water were still both drowning, regardless of the difference in depth. They both needed to be saved, and both would need treatment afterwards to survive. In other words, it was okay if her friends worried on her behalf because her problems were as important as anyone else’s. Concern and empathy, Perfuma believed, were the core components of a strong bond between individuals.

Perfuma was undoubtedly right, but Adora kept her talks with the princess to herself all the same.

Another common topic at her sessions was her supposed ‘self-sacrificial’ tendencies. Those tendencies were connected to her difficulty in accepting her inner wants and desires, Perfuma had explained, and her obsessive need to be someone for everyone at any time. If she kept that up, she would eventually stretch herself too thin, hurting herself and perhaps even those around her.

So, with Perfuma’s help, Adora had created a new mantra to live by. She did not have to be everything for everyone. It was okay to want, to be selfish, to love and be loved. Perfuma was delighted to note her progress over the past several months, and Adora couldn’t help but feel pleased with herself, too. Which was also okay. There was no shame in pride and self-love.

In other words… Adora wouldn’t have traded the world she was in for a million new universes to explore.

“So how do you tell the difference between a star and a planet?” Catra asked, frowning up at the sky. “They all look like bright circles to me.”

Adora chuckled at her girlfriend’s blunt question. “I think stars twinkle and planets shine is how most people do it. But I can just… feel it. The difference.”

They were lying on one of the flatter rooftops of Bright Moon’s palace, resting side by side and staring up at the stars together. Catra liked being up high to get away from people, and Adora was more than happy to accompany her in being alone. They tried to climb up and stargaze every week, and while they were not always successful, it made the times they did manage to get away together even more special.

“I guess that’s She-Ra’s influence,” Catra mused. “Feeling the difference without knowing anything about stars.”

Adora laughed. “Probably so. I’ve never studied astronomy in my life, so…”

Catra snorted. “Except for the one time you fell asleep when George was trying to explain constellations to you. So yeah, definitely She-Ra.”

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” The conversation had actually been incredibly interesting - she’d just been exhausted from helping Glimmer with Bright Moon business all day.

George had recently provided them with a copy of a book about stars, as most of Etheria had been ecstatic about their reappearance in the sky. Adora and Catra had spent the past few nights spotting constellations amongst the stars, something Adora - or She-Ra, perhaps - apparently had a knack for. Catra preferred to make up her own, each story she invented for them more ridiculous than the next.

“Hey, is that a constellation?” Catra asked, pointing upwards and to her right at a cluster of stars that formed a vaguely humanoid shape. “Or is it coincidentally a weird pattern that looks like a person?”

Adora had to physically tear her gaze from her girlfriend, turning her head to look up at the sky. Not that the stars weren’t beautiful, but their light didn’t hold a candle to Catra, who in her opinion was a thousand times more stunning. Although she was probably biased on that front. “Yes,” she said after examining the stars Catra had pointed out to her. She actually remembered this particular constellation from George’s book, admittedly only because it was exactly on page 100. “It’s the Huntress constellation. The daughter of a Titan - the Titans were a race of people after the First Ones - sacrificed her life at her father’s hand to save her friends travelling with her. Her father intended to kill them all, and she was willing to do anything to stop him. She was able to trick her father into returning to his prison where he held up the sky, as the First Ones had condemned his fate to be, but in doing so he managed to strike a final blow across her body that ended up being fatal.”

“Parents hurting their children, huh?” Catra murmured. “I guess that’s not something new.”

Adora had been so excited that she’d remembered the story behind a constellation of her own accord that she’d forgotten how tragic this one happened to be. “The girl was actually one of She-Ra’s most loyal lieutenants.” Her own voice had dropped almost to a whisper. “When she died to save everyone, She-Ra immortalized her sacrifice in the stars.” She reached up, tracing the outstretched arm of the girl. “She’s drawing her bow - fighting to protect her friends even in death.”

Adora heard Catra’s claws scrape against the rooftop. “Why are so many of these stories so depressing?” she grumbled. “Someone is always dying to save other people. Why - why can’t a person do good things and just… die of old age or something? Can’t they still be remembered for their achievements without the sacrifice play?”

Adora knew she should have been listening more tentatively to her girlfriend’s words, as there was undoubtedly a lesson there she herself needed to take to heart, but Catra’s profile in the light of the moon was simply too mesmerizing. She couldn’t focus on anything else.

“Stop looking at me like that.” Even in the low silver light of the moon, the deep blush on Catra’s face was clear.

Adora had to bite back her laughter. “Like what?”

“Like… I’m everything.”

But she was everything. “You’re telling me I’m not allowed to admire my beautiful girlfriend?” Adora teased, rolling onto her side to better face Catra. “That’s not fair.”

“Shut up,” Catra muttered, but there was no acidity in her voice.

Adora leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to Catra’s forehead. “I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.”

“Yeah, you have this terrible tendency of always telling the truth. The only person worse than you at lying is Scorpia,” Catra grumbled. But she didn’t seem to mind the kiss. “And if you’re going to kiss me, don’t you dare miss my lips on purpose.”

Mm. So Catra definitely didn’t mind the kiss. And Adora was more than happy to oblige with her girlfriend’s requests, though maybe ‘demands’ was a more accurate term. She lifted herself onto her elbows for a better vantage point before leaning down to capture Catra’s lips with her own, humming in satisfaction as her girlfriend began to purr. Maybe it was a silly conclusion to come to but kissing Catra, no, being with Catra was everything Adora wanted and more. She’d give up a thousand lifetimes just for the moment she was living.

No. No. She didn’t need to give anything up. She had what she wanted, there and now. No sacrifice needed to be made because Catra was with her, and no one could take that away from them.

Least of all herself.

“Hey,” Catra said, brow furrowing in concern. She carefully moved the both of them up into sitting positions. “Are you okay? What’s wrong? Wait, are you crying?!” Her voice got more frantic with each question, and she took one of Adora’s hands in her own. “Talk to me.”

Adora reached up with her free hand to touch her face, surprised to find it streaked with tears. She didn’t remember starting to cry. “‘Talk to me’,” she found herself repeating, warmth blossoming in her chest. “You and Perfuma have been working on healthy communication strategies, haven’t you?”

Catra flushed. “I - yeah, maybe” She shook her head. “Dammit, Adora, stop deflecting! I asked about you.”

“I…” Adora hesitated, her free hand dropping to rest on the rooftop. She sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on,” Catra scoffed. “You think I’m buying that?”

“I don’t know,” Adora insisted, pushing the hair that had fallen free from her ponytail behind her ear. “I’m just” - she silently cursed as she felt herself getting choked up - “so happy, because I love you and I want you to always be with me and now - now there’s no war that can take us away from each other. I’m… I’m allowed to want you, and to want to be with you. Although that probably makes no sense.” She swallowed the lump in her throat, wiping her tears away with her sleeve. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to kill the mood.”

Catra’s pupils had gone wide, and after a long pause she responded by pressing a fiery kiss to her lips, an unexpected reaction but certainly not an unpleasant one. Adora wasn’t complaining. “Say that again,” Catra mumbled against Adora’s lips. “Say that you want me.”

Adora almost had to fight to break away from the kiss, panting slightly from the intensity. “I want you,” she whispered, pushing her girlfriend’s bangs out of her face. The sincerity in her voice would have normally been terrifying but with Catra she wanted nothing more than to be completely honest. “I want you to be with me for the rest of my life. I want to be selfish. I want to be the only one who gets to call you mine.” She pressed a kiss to Catra’s face between each wish, moving from her nose to her cheek to back to her lips.

Catra’s confidence had long since been replaced by a crimson blush, which Adora did not mind, as flustered was a look she always loved to see on her girlfriend. “You know,” she muttered, leaning in to press their foreheads together, “I didn’t mean for you to start reciting wedding vows to me.”

Adora couldn’t help but laugh. “You know what a wedding is?”

“Mostly. Spinnerella explained it to me.”

“I bet that was an entertaining conversation.”

“Ugh. Netossa seemed to think so.”

Adora absentmindedly stroked Catra’s hair. She’d be lying if she hadn’t thought about marriage. Not much, obviously, because she’d been fighting a war her entire life, but the idea had crossed her mind once or twice. In some ways, a ceremony felt superficial, but being able to share such a blissful moment with friends and the immortalization of a relationship that came with it…

“We should get married,” she decided.

Catra sat bolt upright, pupils wide in surprise and face red in shock. “We should what?”

“Get married,” she repeated. “I want to be with you, you want to be with me. It would be a nice way to make things official, wouldn’t it?”

“Adora, we’re like - we’re not even 20,” Catra sputtered, her ears going flat to her head as her blush deepened. “I mean, I love you more than anything, but aren’t we - aren’t we kind of young?”

Adora could feel her own face turning pink in response as her brain finally caught up with the words that had been leaving her lips. “I - I didn’t mean now!” she stammered, desperately trying to figure out how to rephrase her thoughts. “I just meant, like, eventually, when we’re way older and after we’ve travelled around the entire universe restoring magic and… stuff…” She trailed off, and for a moment they just stared at each other, both too embarrassed to speak.

Catra was the first to break, losing herself in a fit of giggles as she leaned forward to press their foreheads together again. “Of course I’ll marry you one day, dummy. Then no one will ever doubt how much you want me.”

Adora flushed, but she couldn’t stop a happy smile from dancing on her lips. “Sorry that was such a weird proposal.”

“Everything you do is weird. I’m used to it.”

Adora laughed, pressing a light kiss to the top of her girlfriend’s nose. “Good.” Then an idea occurred. A brilliant idea, if she said so herself. Which she did. “So, until then…” She unpinned the golden wing from her belt before carefully attaching it to the left side of Catra’s shirt. “Just so everyone knows how much I love you.”

“More like how possessive you are,” Catra scoffed, though she was smiling as her hand brushed over the pin. “But I guess I’m in no place to say anything about that.”

Adora pressed a chaste kiss to her girlfriend’s lips. “You definitely are not.” She kissed her again, this time catching only the corner of her mouth. “But I love you anyways. I want you. And I’ll make sure you never forget it.”

Catra began purring happily, the deep vibration only intensifying as Adora continued to pepper her face with kisses. “If this is your way of reminding me, I don’t see how I ever could.”

Adora started to laugh, but was soon cut off by Catra’s lips crashing against her own, her girlfriend pushing her down against the rooftop.

You deserve love, too.

Adora knew she would continue to struggle with Mara’s words. She knew she would continue to have difficulty grasping how love was freely given and required no sacrifice in return. But she also knew she was getting there. One day at a time.

And the best part?

Catra would always be at her side. Every step of the way.

~*~

[putterpen]

Catradora kinda suuuuucks….

Might as well state my obvious opinions at the top so nobody who is pro this ship can get anally twisted over my opinions by accident. First off though, I admit the “they’re sisters” angle is weak. Mostly because Catra’s thirst is obvious throughout most of this show’s run. And you really can’t say Adora had a sisterly bond with Catra because Adora didn’t care about anybody from the Horde the moment she left. (rip Kyle, Lonnie and Lizard Dude)

Lets be honest fellow antis. To call their relationship sisterly is an insult to sibling relationships.

Anyway most of my dislike for this ship is focused on Catra. Nothing I have to say is gong to be new or revolutionary but I still want to get my feelings out about it.

As far as everyone’s favorite toxic psycho bitch waifu is concerned, Catra was replaced by a clone between season 4 and 5, it’s ridiculous to say that just because an abusive person is confronted with their bad behavior (Scorpia and DT) that they change into a better one. In fact that’s the strategy that they use, to agree that they have been so bad and “Oh please won’t you take me back I have definitely changed now.”  From day 1 Catra was a bad person, knew she was a bad person and revelled in it. She is nothing like Zuko who only targeted the Avatar in the vain hope of getting approval from his father. Catra had multiple opportunities to leave the horde and join the good guys,  had no reason to fucking stay in the horde, she gleefully attacks the resistance, is pretty much the direct reason Angela died, tried straight up multiple times to end Adora’s life, was mean to everyone who even sort of liked her etc etc. Catra is a terrible person.

On the flip side we have Adora who doesn’t give a damn about Catra for 4 seasons. She’s too busy enjoying life with her real friends. Try and recall, was there ever a moment where Adora was…concerned for Catra’s safety? Ever? Even once during the first 4 seasons? Because I don’t. Honestly Catra wasn’t important to Adora until Catra showed up on screen. And then they both wanted to kill each other. Any moments of Adora thinking about Catra it was in the context of Catra being her enemy.

I’ve always despised that narrative disconnect. I notice it happens a lot in fiction. Characters try to harm each other all the time, trying to kill each other even. But when someone else does it they’re like ‘NOOOO I LOVE THEM’. That’s bullshit. In season 5, all Catra had to do was 1 act of redemption and out of nowhere, like Adora has been possessed by the ghost of Queer Rep, she suddenly can’t get Catra out of her head. How strange! Also note Catra didn’t save Glimmer because she realized her past actions were evil, it was all for Adora’s sake, the person she is toxically obsessed with.

Back to Catra, her redemption is handled with the most condescending of kid gloves. She’s just accepted by Glimmer who I guess never learned, killed her mom. Of course Entrapta forgives Catra like it’s nothing because Entrapta is a weird, misrepresentation of autism who liked being on Beast Island, and would have gladly spent the rest of her life there. Same with Scorpia who forgives Catra like its nothing.  Notice how easily Scorpia forgives her especially. Seems like its okay for Catra’s abuse to be forgiven but not Shadow Weavers? Really think about that.

TL;DR Adora was better off leaving Catra behind. Then in the last episode she read the script and realized she was gonna die if she didn’t return Catra’s feelings and just went with it.

Addendum: I’m not as upset with Glimmerbow but I don’t really like it that much either. Why is harder to pinpoint but I can say that Glimmer is also a pretty wretched character for most of the show so maybe that’s why.

[tempestwind]

There are so many themes that span the 5 seasons of this show, so I plan on introducing each one and breaking them down by the character who represents them.

One of the major themes in this series is: "Nearly all people can be redeemed. But it is not YOUR duty to redeem them. Redemption has to come from the inside, it has to be an effort, and it can be messy."

Of course, Catra is central to this theme. Between Shadoweaver's toxic influence and Catra's difficulty maintaining friendships, Adora was the one stable, positive thing in her life. When Adora left the Horde, Catra couldn't help reading that as abandonment. It felt like a betrayal, even as Adora begged her to join the rebellion.

Betrayed and abandoned, there came that resentful side to Catra: the one that wanted to prove that she could do things on her own. That she could live up to, and exceed, Adora's image.

With the toxic environment, the punishments for failures, the mind games and the manipulation, Catra became a product of her upbringing and her surroundings. She weaponized the tactics used against her, and utilized them to control, to manipulate, and to put fear into the people around her. All the while, she became more and more scared of showing a sign of weakness or vulnerability, which could risk cracking her facade.

Upon Shadoweaver's betrayal, she learned that vulnerability was something to be ashamed of, something that would get punished. She became so obsessed with her image as a person in control with no visible weaknesses that any threat to that image was treated as a threat to her life.

She began obsessing over how Adora was the perfect child, the loved child. And she decided the reason for this was because everything always happened in Adora's favor. Catra then came to the conclusion that if she were to come out on top, then she would have finally earned the good things in life that Adora always had handed to her. And if Catra failed? Well, Adora always got her way.

She "othered" Adora, projecting upon her this internal battle of self-worth. And she became so destructive that she literally tore reality apart. And she still wasn't done, because she needed to keep scapegoating Adora for all the terrible things Catra did to retaliate against her.

This, and the loss of Scorpia as a friend, led to Catra's massive breakdown. She took all the power, all the control, and reaped none of the rewards for it. She realized all her destruction was for nothing. And then she lost what she had left.

A captive of Horde Prime, Catra was alone, she was scared, and she had no one except a fellow captive, Glimmer. The time they shared, out of desperation and a need to be around other people, led to a connection. And that connection resulted in the magic words, "Do something good for once in your life."

Those are the same words Catra uses on Shadoweaver, and it works. Catra had only worked to serve herself and her goals for years. She took the action. She made the sacrifice. She had reasons for being so guarded and terrorizing the people around her, but she set aside her pride and her own well-being to save Glimmer.

Catra could not have undergone a redemption arc if not for that first action. That action let herself know that she was capable of doing something good. It let Glimmer know that Catra could be an excellent ally and trustworthy. And it let Adora know that Catra was no longer a lost cause.

Catra's redemption arc isn't pretty. It's not clean. She doesn't change right away. Every two steps she takes forward, she takes one step back. It's not until she meets Melog -- her "therapy lion" as @asterose and I call her -- that she sees her own emotions reflected back at her. That's when Catra decides to start working on her anger, which has always been based in fear.

Catra took these actions. While it was Adora and the others who freed her from Horde Prime's control, it was Catra's decisions that kept her by their side. They gave her a second chance and Catra fought her instincts to earn it. She learned how to be a friend, how to stop lashing out, and how to support the people she cares about. And she learned to love, which is a pretty big deal for someone who learned love could only end in pain.

----

As someone who had a rough childhood and became a product of that environment for many years, I related to Catra's specific type of anxiety: the lash-out, push-away, make-yourself-bigger fear that perpetuated my life and engulfed my friendships. I used to be so scared of showing even an ounce of weakness because that was punished by my peers or used against me by people I trusted. I had been manipulated so much that I got relatively good at weaponizing that too. My childhood was marked with constant battles, and most of my memories are painful.

I got therapy starting at age 10. I learned to cope with the anger that came from anxiety. I learned not to let the feelings control me. But it would be years before I began letting myself trust my friends. And in my late 20's, my closest confidant used my weaknesses against me, to manipulate and hurt me.

When that friendship ended, I decided that, rather than hiding from everyone, I would put my weaknesses out in the open. People couldn't hurt me with my secrets if they weren't secrets anymore. I learned to love myself again and I forced myself to trust my friends. The ensuing friendships came more easily than most of the friendships I'd earned in my life.

The reason I think most people are redeemable is because I had my own damn redemption arc and I fucking earned it. That doesn't mean everyone who knew me in the past can accept me as I am now. And that's fine. I didn't do it for them: I did it for myself, for my friends, and my future.

[horde-princess]

An Analysis of 4 Key Relationships in Season 2

Now that we’ve had some time to digest season 2, I wanna take an in-depth look at some of the new relationships and group dynamics that have popped up in the show. Specifically, seeing Catra interact with Bow and Glimmer was something I’ve been excited about for a really long time, and then of course there’s Scorpia, and wow do i have THOUGHTS alright here we go

Catra and Bow

i know, weird right. there’s a reason i’m writing about these two first and it’s because i have a lot of feelings lajksdfd just hear me out okay

Idk about you guys, but when I was watching Catra attack Bow in 2x02 it just felt so weird, like in a bad way. Catra’s anger towards him for stealing Adora away is obviously valid, but Bow is just so pure and righteous and good, you know? He doesn’t have a bitter bone in his body (unlike Glimmer, who can give as good as she gets). Bow doesn’t know how to respond to Catra’s anger... and I think the reason that it was so hard for me to watch is because Catra and Bow actually have the potential to be good friends.

Think about it like this. Catra and Glimmer are a lot alike--they’re fierce and intense and they each have someone who helps bring them back down to earth: their respective best friends, Adora and Bow! And we see how much Adora and Glimmer have grown to love one another, right? It’s because their different personalities complement each other so well.... So I think that, given the chance, Catra and Bow could have a similar dynamic :)

There was a sweet moment in 2x02 that offered a glimpse of this, when Bow was trying to show Catra some kindness. He’s such an earnest, straight forward character, he sees right through Catra’s bullshit and knows exactly what to say to get through to her (i mean look at her expression here, the way her ears are flattened--so different from her absurd behavior in the rest of the episode).

Lock these two in a room for an hour? Yeah, they’d come out best friends 😭💖 I hope we get more of them in future episodes!! 

Catra and Glimmer

Oh man...... Whew. YIKES. Where to even begin with this alsjdfsdjld. Catra and Glimmer’s rivalry is just. everything. 

To Glimmer, Catra is the girl who is trying to destroy her home, murder her and her loves ones... the girl who’s breaking the heart of someone she loves (Adora).

To Catra, Glimmer is the girl who stole Adora away from her. She tore her life apart. She represents what it means to be born into a position of privilege and (literal) power, which Catra resents with a burning passion.

Seeing these two go head to head, sparring physically and verbally, it’s so freaking delicious. Catra has the advantage over her in almost every way: she’s a better fighter, she lies and manipulates, she’s willing to do evil things to win battles that Glimmer, as a typical hero, refuses to do. But despite all that, Glimmer still wins every time... Because she has Adora.

It’s interesting, though. Even though Adora is on Glimmer’s team, Catra knows that she is the one who holds Adora’s attention, if not also her affections--and she knows this fact drives Glimmer crazy. I mean come on, Adora means everything to Glimmer! She loves her as a friend but more than that, She-Ra gives her hope that they can save the world. Yet Adora loves this feral half-cat demon over her?? what???? lmao. So I think part of what’s fueling Glimmer’s hatred, her desire to just beat the absolute shit out of Catra, is that she feels like she’s contending for Adora’s love.

There were four glitra moments this season that I wanna highlight.

First, when Catra tries to get in her head and make her doubt her relationship with Adora. I found this interesting because you almost see a glimpse of sincerity in Catra--as if she’s trying to warn Glimmer against repeating the mistake she herself made. Glimmer’s reaction to the words are just as telling. She gets angry, but I don’t think it’s because she believes Catra. I think she’s angry because Catra is slandering Adora’s character. Unlike Catra right now, Glimmer sees Adora for who she truly is. She knows that Adora isn’t the kind of person who abandons her friends in pursuit of power. So yeah this was a cool moment that illustrated Glimmer and Catra’s contrasting perspectives.

Second, I LOVED this line, when Catra makes fun of Glimmer and Adora’s relationship (but it just comes off as jealous lmaoo). The reason I love it is because it’s so true!!! Glimmer and Adora are perfect for each other. What this line proves is that she is absolutely threatened by Glimmer in a romantic context. She recognizes that Glimmer might actually be more compatible for Adora than she is, and that Glimmer is her foil (which I’ll explain more in a minute).

Next is the scene where Glimmer actually threatens to kill Catra in cold blood. If you’re like me and you missed that when you first watched it, yeah, that’s what happened--Catra gives Kyle the order to “take Entrapta out” and then Glimmer slams her against the tree and says “two can play at that game.” She gets this close to blasting her face off but Bow is able to talk her down from it. And the whole time, Catra is just fucking smirking at her, calling her bluff because she knows Glimmer won’t compromise her morals (parallel to catradora in 2x05 anyone??). But yeah this was crazy. Catra just wanted to see how far she could push her and it turns out... pretty damn far. 

One of my favorite lines in the whole season was Glimmer telling Catra “I’m not as naive as you think.” Catra thought she had her outsmarted, forced to deplete her magic, but in the end Catra had underestimated her as an adversary.

The more I think about it, the more I realize Glitra’s rivalry is a hundred times more intense than Catradora’s. Remember in the DnD ep when femme fatale Catra points at Glimmer and calls her her greatest enemy? That was veeery interesting... Their relationship really has a life of it’s own now, like, separate from Adora. They hate everything about what each other stand for. They’re both so strong and hot-headed, with opposite moral compasses--like two rockets on a collision course. But I also love that they have this sort of begrudging respect for one another. Look at what Glimmer says here in 2x03, the ghost episode:

How random, right, that Glimmer would be thinking about some offhand comment from Catra from the previous episode? AND! In context, it just sounded to me like Catra was saying Glimmer was terrible at taking people hostage lol. Glimmer extrapolates and applies her comment to her courage, her capability as a hero. That’s like.... whoa. It shows that Glimmer actually cares about Catra’s opinion of her.

So yeah Glitra’s dynamic is more amazing than i could’ve ever dreamed.. not to mention their weird flirtation and oh no looks like we’re out of time for this section kjdfljsdkaskjd

Adora and Scorpia

Ok seeing these two dorks together in 2x05 was so amazing 😂😂 As cute as it was though it was one of the most heartbreaking parts of the season. I can’t remember a time that Scorpia ever demonstrated such bitterness towards someone.

Not exaggerating when I say that last line brought me to tears like wtf.... 😭

I’ve mentioned this before but Scorpia genuinely loves Catra so much and she just can’t stand seeing her heart breaking over Adora when Scorpia feels like she could treat Catra better. She’d give her the whole world if she could (which is quite literally what she’s trying to achieve!)

Adora, on the other hand, she doesn’t really know who Scorpia is. To her, Scorpia is just someone who is enabling Catra’s descent into darkness, so there is a hostility there already. If I had to name one thing that I’m excited about for upcoming episodes, it would be Adora inevitably growing jealous of Catra and Scorpia’s relationship. We haven’t seen it yet but mark my words we WILL AND ITS GONNA FUCKING DESTROY US okay i could yell about adora and scorpia for hours but let’s just move on and get to my fave part of this meta laksjdfs

Catra vs. Glimmer, and Adora vs. Scorpia

So Catra and Glimmer rivalry’s is obviously really fun, same with Adora and Scorpia. But the real magic comes in when we look at the dynamic of this whole 4-person group. I didn’t take Scortra seriously in season 1 (blasphemy... i know) so it took me until season 2 to catch onto this pattern, but now that I have it makes so much sense and gives the show a new perspective for me. 

Glimmer and Scorpia’s relationship hasn’t really been explored in the show but there is one thing we know they have in common: they both love two girls who are obsessed with someone else. And they both act as foils for our two protagonists. 

Glimmer is Catra’s foil. The similarities between these two are obvious. They’re both passionate and angry and driven and traumatized. But Glimmer’s strong moral code contrasts sharply with Catra’s lack of one (and really that difference is just a result of their disparate upbringings). 

Glimmer is right in front of Adora. And she’s everything that Adora only wishes Catra could be... yet Glimmer will never be able to compete with Catra in the contest for Adora’s affection. Adora is stuck between loving someone that she can’t be with, or being with someone she can’t truly love... at least, not in the same soul-altering way that she loves Catra.

Scorpia is Adora’s foil. Scorpia and Adora are also alike in some ways, but there’s a key difference. The fandom has discussed before how, yeah, Scorpia is part of the Horde, but she doesn’t appear to have any kind of moral stake in the war that’s going on. What Scorpia really cares about, what she’ll fight to the death for is... her friendships. She’s loyal to a fault, and she would do absolutely anything for Catra. Catra is her number one priority. 

GUYS! This is the exact opposite of Adora!! Adora may love Catra, but she will always choose the greater good over her. She won’t betray her convictions for love. That’s just who she is. Thus, Scorpia is everything that Catra wishes Adora would have been for her. Someone who would have stayed by her side no matter what. Someone who wouldn’t have cared whether or not the Horde was evil, as long as she could be with Catra. But again--though I do think Scortra’s budding romance will continue to develop--in the end Scorpia simply cannot compete with Adora for Catra’s affection. She acknowledged it herself. 

I wanna mention one more thing here.. So Scorpia and Glimmer are playing similar roles for their respective love interests. From my point of view (feel free to disagree this is just the way I’m interpreting things) I don’t believe that those relationships are gonna be endgame. To me this show always has been and always will be about Catra and Adora. And while I can’t wait to see them reconcile with each other, Noelle has suddenly got me falling in love with these other characters, too, and I'm so afraid??? ESPECIALLY for Scorpia. While Glimmer at least has Bow and the Princess Alliance, Scorpia has absolutely no one. Catra is Scorpia’s whole world. What will she do when that falls apart? (god please i’m begging, just let scorpia find happiness 😭)

Catra and Scorpia

Honestly I don’t even think I can write this part without having a meltdown but its the last one so im gonna push through alksjdfls. I already talked a bit about how Scorpia is exactly the kind of person that Catra needs at this point in her life, and I think it’s best summed up in this quote from Noelle:

“We see Scorpia expressing this admiration for Catra, expressing desire to get close to Catra... Catra is just not at this point super open to Scorpia’s affection. So I think it’s kind of tragic at this point. And I think for Catra, although she’ll never admit it, what she really wants is love and acceptance. Suddenly she is getting that, no strings attached, from Scorpia, and she is not ready.”

-wiping away tears- okay so yeah, Scorpia is over here offering Catra unconditional love and Catra’s just.... she’s so traumatized and has such deep-seated abandonment issues that she just doesn’t know what to do with it. She doesn’t feel she deserves it. Also, up until 2x05, Catra didn’t respect Scorpia much at all and definitely did not see her in a romantic light. But I have a theory on why that changed. 

For much of her life, I think the Horde taught Catra to associate love with blind loyalty and submission. Now, she is starting to question this belief. She thought Adora loved her, but Adora ended up being disloyal. She thought she could earn Shadow Weaver’s love by submitting to her, but Shadow Weaver continues to prove her wrong. So what is love, exactly? What is an expression of love? Catra’s not sure anymore.

When Scorpia defies Catra’s orders in 2x05--she destroys the First Ones disc, lets Adora escape, fucks up Catra’s plan--Catra is completely thrown. In the animation alone, you can see they’re trying to convey that Catra is seeing Scorpia in a way she never has before.

It’s precisely because Scorpia defied her and chose not to blindly submit to her, that Catra is still alive. It’s the first time that Scorpia went against Catra’s wishes in a big way. And I think this moment shook Catra to her core because it made her question what love is truly about. Like maybe Scorpia understands something that she doesn’t.

We see this again in episode 2x07, where she’s stressed out about Shadow Weaver and yelling at Scorpia to just obey her orders but Scorpia isn’t having it. And in that we see a special trust developing between them. Even when Catra’s being a dick to her, denying that they’re friends, saying things like “get used to not getting what you want in life...” Scorpia stays by her side and refuses to be discouraged. and I think that really is something that’s going to leave a huge impact on Catra. Scorpia is no longer just a tool for Catra to manipulate--she has come to seriously rely on her without realizing it.

Still, Catra doesn’t seem quite capable of understanding what a beautiful friend she has in Scorpia. and I’m afraid (predicting) that she might take it too far one day, and figure out the hard way exactly how much she had to lose. But that tragedy may also turn out to be her saving grace ✨

congrats if u read this whole thing lmao id love to hear your thoughts/criticism on it!! i was gonna discuss catradora too but actually i think that should be a separate meta so..... yeet .

[abigailnussbaum]

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, S5

Overall I’d say this was the best season since the first one, and the ending it gives the story is a satisfying and moving one. I really liked how the show gestures back at some canonical She-Ra concepts - the rebels hiding out in the Whispering Woods, for example - while at the same time doing things that are completely outside the original canon’s scope - She-Ra in Space! And I thought the ensemble was well-used, main characters, side characters, and antagonists all getting their own storylines and resolutions in a way that isn’t easy with such a wide cast of characters, but was handled with elegance.

But look, if you’ve read anything I’ve written or tweeted about this show over the last four seasons, you know I have fundamental issues with how it chooses to direct its storytelling and characterization energies. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that the concluding season didn’t address most of those issues. A big part of that is that the show I wanted She-Ra to be clearly wasn’t the one Stevenson and her team were making, and that’s fine. But I find it genuinely strange that of the three series that are obvious thematic and emotional successors to Avatar: The Last Airbender - She-Ra, The Legend of Korra, and The Dragon Prince - none of them reach the same heights of plotting and characterization, and at least in She-Ra’s case I think this is rooted in an unwillingness to complicate a rather simplistic central theme. 

(Also, at least part of the problem has to be that the show’s five-season, 52-episode run spanned only seventeen months. Even if you add in the production period for the first season, that’s a truly bonkers schedule that must have told in the depth and complexity of the final product.)

Take Catra, for example. If you’d asked me where I thought her storyline was going before watching the season, I would have said pretty confidently that she was going to get at least some level of redemption story. After all, her situation at the end of S4 perfectly positions her to switch sides by stripping her of all the things she thought she wanted and placing her in a precarious position that she might not be able to talk or manipulate her way out of. The season premiere establishes those facts even further by making Horde Prime a literal monomaniacal monster. And yeah, it’s pretty clever that in a series that places so much emphasis on the importance of friendship as the path towards moral growth, the villain is narcissism personified, a person who has no use for others except as they reflect himself, and subjugate themselves entirely to his will. So it’s not surprising that, finally cut off from any realistic path towards power and made to feel her own vulnerability, Catra would finally start doing some soul-searching and realize how badly she’d treated the people who cared about her. 

(Though if you’ll allow me a snide moment, I can’t help but point out that in the Best Redemption Story Ever, Zuko actually gets all the power and approval he’d thought he wanted before realizing that it means nothing without his honor and self-respect. I think we all know that if Catra had gotten a position of power from Horde Prime, she would have felt no loyalty towards Adora and Etheria, and helped him to conquer them.)

Similarly, I think I would have given you better odds than even that the series would end with some romantic storyline between Catra and Adora. And I don’t want to downplay the importance of depicting a story like that - before the end of the season I found myself wondering why Bow and Glimmer’s romance was being depicted so chastely, before realizing that the writers wanted the first kiss on the show to be between two women. I respect that impulse and the representation the show ends up delivering - we’ve come a long way from Korra and Asami holding hands at the end of their show. But at the same time, I can’t help but feel that the way that the show arrives at this point requires a significant rewriting of Catra’s personality and character arc, not to mention the history of her relationship with Adora.

As the fifth season argues it, the root of Catra’s resentment of Adora is romantic disappointment. She complains that “Adora doesn’t want me. Not the way I want her”, and leaves the team when Adora decides to risk her life by destroying the Heart of Etheria because she takes it as a personal rejection. But this is, to say the least, a massive whitewashing of what we’ve seen of Catra and Adora’s past relationship. In flashbacks, particularly the ones from S4, it’s made clear that even when they were on the same wavelength, Catra and Adora’s friendship was toxic and dysfunctional. Catra may have always loved Adora, but it was a selfish love, one that saw Adora as an instrument for the validation of Catra’s confidence and self-image, and denied her any opportunity for pursuing her own interests and desires. 

There’s room for a story about Catra growing past that selfishness and learning to love generously and openly, of course, but we don’t get that story in S5. When Catra complains that in sacrificing herself for Etheria, Adora is refusing to want things for herself, it’s not an honest character moment. Catra has never cared what Adora wants - in fact, her refusal to acknowledge Adora’s right to make her own choices and take a path in life that left Catra behind has been the crux of their enmity since the series premiere. Having her suddenly change tunes doesn’t feel organic, but like a parachuted-in personality transplant.

To put it back in ATLA terms, Catra was never Zuko. Adora is Zuko - someone raised with bad principles who nevertheless has enough innate compassion, and a powerful moral compass, that with a little support - emotional or magical - they can break through their indoctrination and become a hero. Catra is Azula - obsessed with power, possessed of very little compassion for others, and, most importantly, seriously emotionally unbalanced. I’m not saying someone like that can’t be helped and can’t become a better person, but it takes a great deal more than what the last season of She-Ra has given us.

Meanwhile, if you look at Adora’s storyline, on one level it gives us what I’ve wanted for a while. I’ve complained a lot about how Adora has remained static throughout the middle seasons of the show while other characters - Glimmer, Catra, Scorpia - got character arcs and changed meaningfully. One effect of that has been to create a strange disconnect between the show’s central themes and its main character. In a story that is supposedly all about the importance of friendship and personal connections, the heroine is someone who achieves her heroic destiny by rejecting those connections in favor of a more global morality, and who then had to struggle with balancing her sense of global responsibility with personal attachments - to Glimmer and Bow as much as to Catra.

The fifth season finally circles back to these ideas and places Adora at its center. I thought her conversation with Mara about having the right to be more than She-Ra, and to do more with her life than sacrifice it for others, was a really powerful moment. I just feel like, once again, the foundation wasn’t laid for it. First because Adora’s growth has been mostly ignored during the intervening three seasons, and second because this is a character arc that clashes with the show’s friendship-above-all message in ways that aren’t really acknowledged.

When you think about it, the moments when Adora has been the most herself are the ones when she rejects toxic friendship and stands up for herself - in her confrontations with Catra, especially over the course of the first season, and when she defies Glimmer’s decision to use the Heart of Etheria and the end of S4 and destroys the sword. So to the already complicated issue of where to draw the line between the things you want for yourself and the things you owe others, you add the thorny matter of when to detach yourself from toxic friends who see you only as a means to an end. Except that She-Ra never really grapples with this extra wrinkle - and again, Catra’s hasty personality transplant plays into this, because we get to pretend that the only problem she and Adora ever had was romantic miscommunication.

In a season that is all about putting aside differences and personal grievances to fight for a common cause, there is a refreshing number of instances that remind us that those grievances are still relevant - the fact that nobody will ever really trust Shadow Weaver, for example, or the other princesses calling Entrapta out on her seeming indifference to the consequences of her actions (though in this case, and yet again, Entrapta’s neuroatypicality is used as a get-out-of-jail-free card from taking personal responsibility). Even Glimmer gets to spend a bit of time in the dog house, at the same time that she and Bow work together and save each other’s lives. But once again, when it comes to the main character, we can’t let pesky matters like a lifetime of toxic friendship get in the way of a happy ending in which lesbian love conquers all.

There was a good story to be told here, one that could have easily ended up in the same place as the series actually did. But it required actually delving into the complexity of a character like Adora, and dealing honestly with the problems in her relationship with Catra. She-Ra ends - as it did throughout it run - by choosing to paper over those difficulties in favor of a friendship-conquers-all message that is a great deal less convincing.

(Also, am I wrong or are there a lot of loose ends still? I don’t think we ever find out who Adora was, what Greyskull is, and what She-Ra actually is.)

[desnaa]

The Crew Ra on Catra’s development in Season 3 at Power Con

Q: “The core of Season 3 is a lot about Catra’s descent into darkness and deciding to really take her revenge against Adora, what did it take to get to that point? And also, how dare you.”

A:

“I think Catra’s like...we all love Catra. I feel like everyone gets Catra because I feel like we’ve all been Catra at some point in our lives, where we’ve felt really hurt and really abandoned, and like someone or something you really cared about was taken away. And she’s just someone that can’t let go of that hurt. She doesn’t want to be happy at this point. And again, I feel like we’ve all been there at some point. Up until Season 3 you always sort of expect that she’ll pull through or make the right decision at some point and realize that it’s not worth it to just keep holding onto this grudge and this anger. But then in Season 3 you kind of just see that for the first time she has a choice to walk away, to be happy, to not be obsessed with Adora and winning and conquering Etheria, because you know, is that going to make her happy? And even Scorpia was like, “You don’t have to do this, you can be happy, and she’s right. And Catra knows that. But she still can’t do it. And so at that point you sort of realize the hole that she’s digging...that’s entirely her at this point. She has the choice to turn around and leave, and she can’t do it. And I think it’s sort of...I love writing villains most of all because they get to express something that we’ve all felt. But to this extreme, you’re so desperately rooting for her to do the right thing, and she can’t do it. And then it’s just like...it’s so sad!”

"I think the other seasons were really great, but I don’t think they really touched on the Catra and Shadow Weaver relationship a lot, but I think this season really dug into the damage Shadow Weaver did to Catra. The worst stuff Catra did this season always came back to a moment with Shadow Weaver. It wasn’t Adora. It was knowing that Shadow Weaver went to Adora and knowing that Shadow Weaver now is with Glimmer. Those moments I think were the most heartbreaking for me to watch. But I think that’s the core of where all the damage came from.”

“I think we wanted to show that they have this relationship, that both of them (Catra and Adora) have declared that they are over it in various parts of the show, that they are free of Shadow Weaver’s influence, but it’s always more complicated than that. It isn’t always so easy to declare that something that happened to you in the past no longer matters anymore. And to show these characters in their own different ways trying to figure out how to deal with the damage of that...because I think all of us again go through our lives and the scars of our things that have happened to us, and there are so many different ways of choosing to move past them or work through them, or ask for help. Adora is asking for help and she is trying to move forward in this positive direction and Catra can’t get past that. She keeps getting thrown back. And both of those ways are ways that people respond to things like this that have happened in their lives. And so we wanted to explore both of those approaches of trying to create your own life and your own path.”

[takerfoxx]

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Season 4, Episode 1, First Impressions!

New season has FINALLY ARRIVED, which means I finally get it in front of my eyeballs! So, it’s first impressions time!

...however, since I’m watching it right after it dropped instead of being kind of late to the party like I was with the previous three, I’m gonna play it safe and seal off my thoughts under the spoiler cut. So yeah.

Anyway!

So the first part of my prediction was pretty much correct, in that it’s about Glimmer’s coronation, and she’s still really shaken up over Angella’s death (and why wouldn’t she be?) and Adora and Bow are trying to be supportive but it’s super stressful, though it did play out a bit differently. Turns out, rather than be nervous about whether or not she could fill her mother’s shoes and that everyone is looking down on her and judging her like I thought, she’s instead mega-pissed about how no one is even addressing the big THE QUEEN, WHO OH YEAH WAS MY MOM, IS SUPER DEAD! and is instead all going on and on about party arrangements and ceremonies and rituals and stupid stuff that doesn’t matter because her mom is dead and no one is even talking about it!

Bow and Adora certainly had the best of intentions, and I like how neither the show nor Glimmer made them out to be the bad guys in this despite them kind of making things worse. Glimmer’s hurting, but just not in the way they were thinking. Fortunately, in the end she got what she needed in hearing Angella’s final message to her, giving her some measure of closure and letting her accept her new position as Queen of Brightmoon and the leader of the Princess Rebellion, which is pretty much what she needed all along.

That having been said, I did kind of feel like her pain over losing her mom was resolved kind of...too neatly, I guess? I get that it’s a new season and they need to move the plot along, but even so. Still, just because she’s gotten some closure doesn’t mean that the wound is totally healed (because it never will be) and that this won’t come up again, so I’ll be keeping a close eye on her.

In other news, the other princesses were as delightful as always in their trying so hard to do things right but completely missing the point. Frosta was...kind of terrifying (poor Sea Hawk!), Mermista’s obsession with her “floral” arrangements were a hoot, and poor Perfuma really needs to get back to her hippie roots and get some meditation in while smoking some kush, because I feel that her patience for her fellow princesses is very close to running out and she’s just going to go all Poison Ivy on everyone. And jeez, someone rein Castespella in!

Though on a side note, I feel kind of bad for this, but Swift Wind continues to irk me. Yeah, I know he’s supposed to be a comic relief character, but at least the other characters were trying to do right by Glimmer in their weird, kind of egotistical ways, but he was making his thing all about him and...look, I’m sorry, but I just don’t like Swift Wind, okay?!

Also, give Netossa and Spinnerella something to do, already!

Ahem.

So, back to the bad guys’ side, that’s where things take a...fully predicted and interesting turn.

So, let’s talk about Catra.

Catra continues to be the most fascinating character in the entire show. On the one hand, she is very much an abuse victim, someone who was mistreated her entire life, who was forced to live in the shadow of her best friend, who was clearly starved for any kind of positive reinforcement but was constantly denied it, who was constantly told that she wasn’t good enough, that she was inadequate, that she was a failure, etc. It’s a terrible situation for anyone to be in, which is why her sympathetic moments play out so well.

But however, despite how she’s been treated by her so-called betters, Catra’s kind of the most competent character in the whole show. Every time she has the freedom to do things her way, she quite often comes out on top, and unless her deeply-seated issues get the better of her or some other happenstance that she couldn’t account for occurs, she tends to win. She is a master of psychological warfare and a terrific and cunning fighter, able to adapt to quickly changing situations and new environments scarily fast and get the drop on her opponents. Hell, she’s gone toe-to-toe with She-Ra and managed to hold her own just through her wits. 

And that has led her to having a rocketship strapped to her back, sending her soaring upward.

Through sort of a fluke, she was made Force Captain in Adora’s place and kicked ass. She out-thought Shadow Weaver and deposed of her, taking her power and her job. She made herself out to be the biggest threat the Rebellion has ever seen (I can’t remember the figures, but Entrapta once said that under her leadership, the Horde saw a massive leap in efficiency). When she was exiled to the Crimson Waste pretty much to die, she took it over in a day, captured Mara’s ship, took Adora’s sword, and brought it back to Hordak when he had pretty much written her off.

Point is, when she has her eye on the prize, Catra is almost unstoppable. And here we are shown what that prize is. She wants the Rebellion crushed and Etheria ready to offer up on a silver platter when Horde Prime finally arrives, as expected, though I truly doubt that has much to do with actually believing in the Horde’s right to rule and has more to do with it being because the Rebellion is where Adora and Shadow Weaver are. But regardless, it’s always been made very clear that she is in it for herself, and not out of any kind of loyalty to Hordak. I mean, after he treated her last season, why would it be? And now she has had it up to here with his constant moping despite having a distinct advantage that he’s not pressing.

So she decides to do something about it. Namely, she does to him what she did to Shadow Weaver: exploit her knowledge of his weaknesses and make him her bitch. 

Damn. I mean, we all saw it coming, but damn.

Catra’s...running the Horde now. I mean, Hordak’s probably still going to be the front, but she’s going to be the real power from now on, and that is really bad news for the good guys. And I have no doubt that that’s where Double Trouble comes in.

But anyway, as sympathetic as Catra’s story is, and as impressive as her actions have been, that doesn’t take away from the fact that she’s kind of become a really terrible person. Which is totally deliberate and the writing is great, don’t get me wrong! But she’s replaced both Shadow Weaver and Hordak, and like them, she has her own victim of her abusive behavior. 

Scorpia.

That scene honestly broke my heart, even if I saw it coming. Scorpia honestly is pretty much my favorite character. I love how she’s this big, powerful, intimidating person with a totally sweet, caring, awkward, and kind of ditzy personality. Her crush on Catra was pretty obvious from the get-go, and I loved their dynamic...for the first couple of seasons anyway. But as much as I got into the Scorptra train, it’s clear that it’s not going to work out, given how toxic Catra’s become, and Scorpia knows it, and it’s tearing her up. I am very interested in how her arc is going to turn out this season. I mean, she’s got an entire solo episode coming up, which I am very much looking forward to. But I hope that this is the catalyst that causes her to finally stand up to Catra and break away from the Horde. At the very least she doesn’t buy what Catra did to Entrapta one bit, and I love that she’s still looking after Emily. Maybe she and Hordak can team up and go to Beast Island to rescue our favorite autistic gadgeteer princess. 

But getting back to Catra, if the last season was seeing her at her lowest point, then this one will be seeing her at her highest, but on the side of evil. I predict that she’s finally going to get everything she’s convinced herself that she wants only to lose it all at the end, leading to her final arc in the final season. Now, will that be a true redemption arc like everyone is hoping for? Will Hordak redeem himself as well?

Well...probably not. 

See, I am totally on board with the two of them finally confronting the years of abuse that made them the way they were, breaking away from it, and actually becoming better people, but redemption does kind of mean making up for all the pain and damage that you’ve caused, and I’m afraid that they’re in waaaaaaaaaay too much debt to do that. 

However, they are perfectly capable of having a reformation arc. Because just because you can’t make up for what you’ve done doesn’t mean you can’t better yourself going forward.

Not Shadow Weaver though. Don’t think I didn’t notice you lurking around in that one scene. Honored guest my ass. She’s totally up to something.

[bumskulls]

F/O List Updates and Info

Since I’m participating in “To My S/I” I wanted to add some info about my S/I’s and their relationships to my F/O’s, as well as make two (2) additions to said list! Without further ado, here we go!

Romantic: Sans from Undertale (Hopeful Lovers) (Main Romance) S/I: Lexi, Human We’ve been dating for a while now, and we love each other very much. We try to help each other keep going, even when we feel like giving up. We don’t talk as much as we should when something is bothering us. At least not to each other, so I know we’re both hiding something. One day I hope we can trust each other enough to break that wall between us.

Serana from Skyrim (Till Undeath Do Us Part) S/I: Dria, Nord Dovahkin After our adventures together we settled down. We’re married and living out our days in Lake View Manor with our children Lucia and Hroar. Serana has been cured of her vampirism.

Scorpia from She-Ra and the Princess of Power (Love Stings) S/I: Flamera, Princess of Fire It’s hard to love someone on the other side of the fight. But we have managed to keep it secret so far. We hope one day we can live in peace, without the war getting between us.

Aaravos from The Dragon Prince (Twinkling in the Night) (Newly Added~) S/I: Aurora, Human Mage We first saw each other through a mirror locked away in a dungeon. Not the most romantic of first dates, but it was worth it to meet such a marvel of magical beings. He is interested in me, in an almost scientific way. We have managed to communicate through writing.

Semi-Romantic: Damara/The Handmaid from Homestuck (Time Immemorial) S/I: Lexi, Human Damara and I met each other due to the machinations of Doc Scratch. Over time we became very good friends and she asked me to be her Moirail. I accepted and we keep each other safe from Doc as best as we can.

Doc Scratch from Homestuck (Reduced Autonomy Privileges) S/I: Lexi, Human Doc is a bastard and I hate his stupid face. But there are moments that walk the line between venomous and sensual. And I hate that I like it. Damara calls it Kismesitude. I guess that’s what it is? (This is a deliberately unhealthy ship.)

Alduin from Skyrim (Destiny Binds Us) S/I: Dria, Nord Dovahkin Alduin was returned from the grave by his father Akatosh in mortal form, as a punishment for forsaking his duty. Akatosh believed that Alduin needed to walk among mortals in order to understand them. As Dovahkin, I pledged to keep an eye on him. Serana and I make him unruly and envious. He is fixated with capturing my attention. Serana thinks it’s funny. I think it’s adorable. He thinks it’s just a phase. Paarthurnax thinks Alduin has found a soul mate...

W.D. Gaster from Undertale (Existance is Futile) S/I: Lexi, Human He haunts me, obsessed with me. He’s never harmed me, but he appears in my dreams and in the darkest corners, beckoning me to free him. But I don’t know how. Or if I want to.

Platonic: Alphys from Undertale (Karaoke Kweens) S/I: Lexi, Human Alphys and I bond over trashy anime, cooking shows, making fun of Sans, and weekly karaoke nights.

Asgore from Undertale (Flower Crowns) S/I: Lexi, Human Asgore is someone I can always go to for a good hug, a warm cup of tea, and friendly advice. He’s a father figure to me, and he’s trying to help me reconnect with my own dad.

Flowey from Undertale (Nip It In the Bud) S/I: Lexi, Human Flowey is a pain in the rear sometimes. He doesn’t know what to do with himself most of the time. Even if I show him something new, he tires of it quickly. I promised him something that I don’t know if I can keep. I promised that I would make sure he had a soul. He confided in me, I feel it’s the least I can do after what he’s been through.

Frisk from Undertale (Determined Humans) S/I: Lexi, Human Frisk is a tough kid. They are sometimes hard to communicate with, but they’re intelligent, brave, and kind. It’s hard to get them to open up, but I’ve been doing my best when I tutor them to help them understand that they’re allowed to talk about whatever is bothering them. It was Frisk who showed me I wasn’t alone in having a soul so red.

Grillby from Undertale (Quiet Quality) S/I: Lexi, Human Grillby is a pretty cool dude for a fire elemental. He’s a little wary of me, but I think it’s because he’s worried about Sans. Apparently the two of them used to date. But Grillby is a sweet man and he’s never spit in my food, so I call it a win. Besides we can bond over our mutual love of cuisine.

Mettaton from Undertale (Sexy Shapes) S/I: Lexi, Human This asshole cannot keep his competitive streak under control and neither can I. It helps to have a thing for glamor when dealing with him, so I may or may not have gotten into the hobby just to one-up him from time to time. I like to consider him a rival in that regard. But he’s a good friend and has always stood up for me when people are unkind about my body. He really does see the beauty in everyone.

Muffet from Undertale (Pastry Activists) S/I: Lexi, Human Muffet and I love to bake, even if I’m not the best at it. Sometimes her spiders scare me, but I would never hurt one of them. Especially since I can at least talk to them and tell them when they’re invading my space. Muffet loves that I’m nice to her babies. We’ve also attended rallies together in order to fight for monster rights. We bring snacks and hydration for events that need it.

Napstablook from Undertale (Easily Spooked) S/I: Lexi, Human Blooky shares a love of cool jams with me. We’ve worked on a lot of tracks together. Their company is soothing.

Papyrus from Undertale (Loud and Proud) S/I: Lexi, Human Papy has been the best wingman a person could ask for. He constantly tells me how proud he is of me and Sans. And he and I enjoy puzzles together. He’s a very good friend and I’m so happy to have him in my life.

Toriel from Undertale (Pie Babes) S/I: Lexi, Human Tori and I get together for lunch often. I want to be a teacher at the school she works at when I finish college. I get to be an Aide in her class and she has me tutor Frisk from time to time. She’s a wonderful mother figure to me, and she reminds me to keep fighting for my own happiness. She also really likes my mom, so I’m glad they can get along, even if my mom is a little confused by all the monsters suddenly in the world.

Undyne from Undertale (Just Desserts) S/I: Lexi, Human Undyne is hard to keep up with, to say the least but she warmed up to me after seeing how I interact with Alphys and Papyrus. She’s trying to motivate me to work out with her, but I think I’ll stick to the couch for now. At least until she agrees to take me to a normal gym and let me do my own thing. Her workout routine is a little intense for me.

Naruto Uzumaki from Naruto (Noodle Buds) S/I: Minyou, Kunoichi I work a lot of long nights helping Naruto on his path to become Hokage. He’s practically hand-picked for the job when Kakashi retires, but he’s still slacking off. You’d think saving the world would change that attitude of his, but at least he tries to listen to me when important topics come up. He came to me to learn what he needs to know to run the village, but often our study sessions turn into noodle night at Ichiraku. Not that I’m complaining there. He’s really something else.

Monkey D. Luffy from One Piece (Gum Song) S/I: Siren, Captain of the Shanty Pirates It wasn’t very long ago when I met the Strawhat crew. They’re a unique bunch. I’d never been interested in the kind of goals they’re after, least of all King of the Pirates. But Luffy changed my mind. After his stand against the Marines, I was emboldened to chart a course toward the One Piece. Maybe we’ll find it, maybe we won’t. But won’t it be a fun adventure along the way? Besides. I’d like to see him again, and thank him for reminding me why I became a pirate in the first place.

Trunks from Dragonball (Partners in Time) S/I: Rugala, Saiyan I was summoned for one reason, to assist Trunks in saving the universe from collapse. I never thought I’d make friends with someone like him, but I’ll stand by his side until the end of time. Which for the two of us, may not ever come, but I digress.

Mallek Adalov from Hiveswap: Friendsim (Semicolons Are for Smart People) S/I: Lexi, Human I miss Mallek a lot. We are able to text each other sometimes, but I have to be careful when it comes to doing so. Doc could take him away from me. Mallek is one of the truest friends a person could ask for.

Steven Universe from Steven Universe (Shooting Stars) S/I: Lexi, Human Steven is a great kid! He’s helped me do a lot of things I didn’t think were possible. He helped me build confidence in myself and taught me how to play the ukulele. I’m going to chase my dream, and I owe it to him for encouraging me.

Flash Sentry from My Little Pony (Flashy Flare) S/I: Doodle Flare, Unicorn Flash was charged with protecting me on my journey across Equestria. He stands up for me when I am unable to do so myself. He’s thrown himself into freezing water to save me. He’s made me feel like my mission is important, even when everypony else thinks it isn’t. I owe him a lot, and I should be sure to thank Prince Shining armor for assigning him to guard me.

Phew, that should be everyone. If any get added to this list, I will update it accordingly.

[aros001]

Going in blind: Watching season 2 for the first time. Random thoughts.

Huh. Only 7 episodes. Not complaining necessarily. For series with an ongoing plot I've definitely become more in favor with their seasons only having as many episodes as they need rather than them having to stretch themselves out to full up a certain number of episodes, which can lead to padding and just bad character moments.

Episode 1: Jeez. Catra visiting Shadow Weaver's cell just to rub her success in her face and verbally abuse her back for once. It's like a twisted version of Zuko and Ozai from ATLA. Catra's upbringing under her was abusive but this is far from a healthy way for her to deal with it. She's basically deliberately swimming in her resentment.

Episode 2: It's not that I'm rooting for her but by-golly was it fun to watch Catra act like just the absolute worst she could while she was Glimmer and Bow's captive.

I touched on this in season 1 but part of the drama of the heroes feeling guilt over leaving Entrapta behind is kind of lost on me a bit simply because it was her own fault it happened. She deliberately went back into the purge room because of her machine obsession, which then closed on her and erupted in flames. It was more than reasonable to assume she was dead and no one but her was to blame, so I'm not really able to be invested in their guilt over it.

That said, weirdly enough I do like that her "abandonment" doesn't seem to be even a blip on the radar for Entrapta herself. She hasn't joined the horde because she resents the heroes or felt left behind, she simply is so obsessed with machines and experimentation that she'll be on the side of whoever lets her do the most of that. Like, it's selfish and irresponsible but it's very in-character and I'd far rather have a traitor motivation be based in that over something stupid like a misunderstanding.

Episode 3: I love the mental image of Shadow Weaver thinking up princess-themed ghost stories to tell Adora as a child.

So, if the previous She-Ra Mara separated Eternia from the other realms/planets/whatever she did and that's what cut off the She-Ra line for 1000 years, I'm guessing Hordak may be from the time before that happened, thus his drive to create portals and calling Eternia a backwards world. Either he's naturally long-lived or his technology is extending his life.

Episode 4: You know, you could maybe argue it was vague enough that it could be taken other ways but I'm definitely getting some vibes here that Scorpia is crushing on Catra. She literally refers to the two of them as soulmates at one point. I know she says she's trying to be friends but this feels a level beyond that.

Fun little reference to the original She-Ra cartoon thrown in there (and maybe Cowboy Bebop...? James Bond...? What was Glimmer's art style supposed to be?). I like how it is more like just playful ribbing than anything outright dumping on the original. Again, I've never seen original She-Ra but whenever remakes/adaptations go out of their way to trash to the original I always kind of wonder why they bothered doing an adaptation if the original is just that bad? Also, I was having trouble sleeping so it was about 2am when I watched this episode and the very Eartha Kitt Catwoman Catra made it very difficult for me not to lose my **** and stay quiet. With how much of a contrast that version is from the one in this series, that was hilarious. Bonus note, it's a nice touch that Frosta's version of Catra is a pretty crasher in that sweet suit, since that's the only impression of Catra she's ever had.

Adora being a chosen one is definitely elevated up simply by how much the pressure of what she's supposed to be is getting to her. I'm likely going to keep making Avatar The Last Airbender comparisons throughout the series but that's partly because I went into this series figuring it'd be at least structured similar to ATLA (season 1 being more episodic and a little more kid-friendly as it builds up the world before getting more serious later). Adora and Aang are interesting to compare here. Aang's worries early on were less apparent because he was more in-denial/choosing not to think about his problems that much, which fit with his character as a free-spirited Air Nomad. While Adora is much more military-minded. She can't keep herself from thinking about her problems and trying to prepare for the worst-case scenario. And jeez, that idea of who/how Catra is in her mind. Not only beating her but making her watch as she takes everything she cares about away. Not Shadow Weaver, not Lord Hordak, but Catra. That whole Lion King Mufasa/Scar moment between them in episode 11 and their fight in the S1 finale really did a number on her mental image of her old friend. Not reasonably so.

Minor note: I'm sure I'm the only one who got this impression but by the look of it, the way the robot's eye moved, and the music, after getting the soda spilled on it that little spybot gained sentience for half a second and then immediately died. It was so darkly comedic I had to laugh.

Episode 5: So that red disc is basically She-Ra's Red Kryptonite, having an effect on the mind rather than the body. The drunk Adora joke doesn't really do it for me but it did get some nice interactions going between Scorpia and Sea Hawk, two characters I certainly wasn't expecting to bond. I did really like Catra's panic when berserker She-Ra nearly beheads her. The implication is that is Adora really wanted to kill her Catra would already probably be dead. It's a thing I like about powerhouse characters like Superman or Aang, who could just demolish everything around them and don't simply because they're a good person...which in turn makes them the scariest person on the planet when they're well and truly ticked off. I'm not going to lie, I do kind of want to see a She-Ra version of Aang when Appa was stolen or when Superman fought The Elite.

Also, Catra's line of "I have control over Adora. I'm not giving that up for anything.". There's a lot to read into there.

Episode 6: I guess my prediction was sort of right. Shadow Weaver became basically a magic parasite and while it did increase the power she's capable of the implication seems to be that she needs a constant fix of magic to keep herself going, thus her attachment to the Black Garnet.

Have we seen Micah before? Given how long ago the flashback seems set, the fact that Shadow Weaver didn't kill him and thus he probably becomes someone important later in life, I'm guessing he's Glimmer's dad and the queen's late husband, since I think he's the only important male character whose face we haven't seen yet. Also, he's voice by Ezra from Star Wars Rebels and that cracks me up for some reason. It's the exact same voice and a relatively similar character.

I compared Catra and Shadow Weaver with a kind of twisted version of Zuko and Ozai and that definitely still fits here. Both Catra and Zuko confront their parent and call them out for the inexcusable abuse they put them through but while that moment was the start of Zuko's upwards journey this and SW's betrayal seems like it's going to cause Catra to spiral even further. Makes sense why Adora leaving affected her so much. She's probably the only one Catra's ever had that she could consistently trust and rely on, even if she did somewhat resent her.

Not surprised Hordak is getting along with Entrapta. She's not socially aware enough to be scared or intimidated by him, so she'll speak frankly, and since all she wants to talk about is the machines, experiments, and how they could get them to work Hordak probably doesn't take much issue with that. She's producing results, which is what he cares about, thus also why Shadow Weaver and Catra started losing favor with him. I wonder if Catra is going through imposter syndrome? Shadow Weaver had that line that Entrapta earned her place next to Hordak and, if you think about it, Catra hasn't really "earned" anything. We saw that she didn't really take her training or studies that seriously, showing up late to combat practice and even getting partial credit for what Adora beat. She wasn't promoted to Force Captain because of her own abilities but because Adora had defected when she was supposed to get that title. She's come close to a few victories but never really had any except for Glimmer and Bow's kidnapping...whom she then basically let escape when she returned Adora's sword to her. She doesn't have the slightest clue how the horde's bureaucracy works when trying to get things done, like simply getting troops armor. Given how much better than her Adora always was and how little she herself has to her name, I wonder is subconsciously Catra believes she doesn't deserve her current position and thus why she's fretting so much over trying to prove herself.

Episode 7: Am I mistaken or did Bow's parents say that he's the youngest of TWELVE siblings? I was going to ask whether Bow was adopted or if his dad's used a surrogate or if maybe there's even just simply magic in She-Ra's world that allows two people of the same sex to have a child together but now I'm just focused on the 12 kids thing. I get nervous just imagining myself having more than one. You should see me when I'm with two cats. I have to pet both of them because I'd feel like I'd be making one feel left out and like the other is the favorite. I'm a mess with kids.

The dad with dreadlocks (Lance?), his design looked familiar to me and I finally realized it reminded me a of a fanart design for a human Grim from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Very different voices between those two characters though.

I wonder if there's any significance to the robot protecting the crystal having the same design as those in the artic in episode 5? Obviously both have the connection to the First Ones but the robot in the forest who was also protecting First Ones' tech had a more insect-like design over these more worm/Graboid ones.

I'm kind of curious what Hordak would have done if Catra had told the truth. Given his interactions with her and Shadow Weaver he doesn't seem like the time to tolerate failure but I suppose the implication here is that he at least would respect those who own up to their failures. Or I suppose more simply he was just testing to see if she would lie to him and since she did there's little merit in keeping her in a position of authority anymore where she could lie about important things again.

Season 2 verdict: Still enjoying it. Another person on this reddit recommended I view seasons 2 and 3 as one since they are basically just one season split in two. I was going to do that but this ended up longer than I thought I would, so I'll just do 2 and 3 separate to keep them semi-organized and easier to read.

I think overall Catra is my favorite character since she has the most interesting backstory, interactions, and just general path through the story out of everyone. She's like Pearl from Steven Universe or, well, Zuko. There's just so much baggage there that she's trying and kind of failing to deal with. I'm always invested in whatever's happening when she's onscreen. Hordak so far is a good big boss villain for Adora to face but Catra is a good archenemy for her.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrincessesOfPower/comments/o027y3/going_in_blind_watching_season_2_for_the_first/